MM7 - new ground textures + few other thingies

The role-playing games (I-X) that started it all and the various spin-offs (including Dark Messiah).
User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

MM7 - new ground textures + few other thingies

Unread postby Echo » 02 Aug 2012, 13:49

EDIT: QUESTION SOLVED!

I have run out of time to work on my mini retexture project, but I have done some things that I think enhance and liven up the game a little. So from the last post:

Okay, I finally got my lazy ass up and packed the files together. Two links:

1.http://www.mediafire.com/?gpyb3f54f4yh0lp
this one contains icons.lod and bitmaps.lod. Like I said, they are made on BDJ's mod.

ICONS.LOD contains:

- 2 fully-redone PCs. My work these are. If anyone ever wants to redo this or that, I don't mind at all.

- 2 almost-fully-redone PCs. Also my works, feel free to finish them if you want :P

- Many NPC faces replaced with wonderful art borrowed from the interwebs. Credit goes to the respectful owners. The pictures are so small and cropped I don't think anyone should mind :) It is all for free.

BITMAPS.LOD contains:

- all ground outside textures redone (aside of some water part, I ran out of time!). They are all my work, but feel free to modify them as you want or use for another Might and Magic things. Just let me know so I can see if you do? :9

- few other things redone - random door, house, closet.

- Celeste walls and Skies redone to be more... majestic and less... puke like in case of the walls. It can get SHINY if you turn on the Torch Light spell! *-*

2. http://www.mediafire.com/?gpyb3f54f4yh0lp
Folders. They include the textures and PC characters mentioned above. Lets you browse through the assets and pick what you like and whatnot. No NPCs included.


And screenshots of the few finished ground textures:

Bracada: Image

Harmondale: Image

Nighon:Image








~~~~~~~~~~~~original post

Hi,

So, I ran MM7 with mm7rev4mod now, and something struck me that I haven't seen before - the grass texture is SO BLAND :P It annoys me. Since I've already replaced some portraits for PCs and NPCs and shuffled bottles and ingredients, I thought - hey, why not recolor the grass.

Well sadly, it doesn't work. I've been using MM7 view for this and then I tried MM8 level editor, but still no luck. I have no idea how to do that :<

Could someone please guide me through the process like they would a blind baby?

Thanks! :3



Also... why the heck was the spam-prevention question for new account so convoluted? I thought it was a joke at first :C
Last edited by Anonymous on 22 Aug 2012, 17:03, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
Kalah
Retired Admin
Retired Admin
Posts: 20078
Joined: 24 Nov 2005

Re: Replacing textures in MM7-MM6

Unread postby Kalah » 02 Aug 2012, 14:37

Echo wrote:Also... why the heck was the spam-prevention question for new account so convoluted? I thought it was a joke at first :C
Writing coherent texts like this is the best way to fool computers, because they don't understand the contents of such sentences. I will have a look at the questions to see if they can be made simpler, but the method is here to stay. :)
In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Goodwill.

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Unread postby Echo » 02 Aug 2012, 14:45

It involved too much math, I tell you that :P The numbers were weird enough to make me think it's fishy. Usually those questions go like "type 8" or "if you substract two from four what do you get?" etc. You get my point.

User avatar
GreatEmerald
CH Staff
CH Staff
Posts: 3330
Joined: 24 Jul 2009
Location: Netherlands

Unread postby GreatEmerald » 02 Aug 2012, 16:31

Captcha for the win.

User avatar
vladimir-maestro
Genie
Genie
Posts: 1033
Joined: 19 Jun 2008

Unread postby vladimir-maestro » 02 Aug 2012, 19:30

use mmarchive - it works perfectly!

4 example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0q-u4gn1Ig&feature=plcp
You can contact me here:
maestro_mod@yahoo.com
vladud @ yandex.ru - preferred one
---
Site about MODs: http://www.mmgames.ru
---
if you wish to upload some materials for this site - let me know.

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Unread postby Echo » 03 Aug 2012, 08:01

Thanks Vladimir, I've downloaded the software and indeed it allowed me to import my own greener grass texture in.

But the magic is, it doesn't show in the game :D I checked it with mm7view and it's replaced in it as well, but the game still whips out the old bland grass (I've changed both Grass and Grastyl pictures).

Also, could someone please explain to me something more about the palettes? Is there a way I can add a palette or assign one to my bitmap? It's the first time I see something like that, and I remember when I was trying to import mm8 faces into mm6 I had some issues with colors (but I think I resolved them in some n00b way, not sure. Long time ago).

Do I need to do something with palettes if I want to change them textures?


EDIT: small clarification - it doesn't work with hardware graphics enabled (the blurry one). Any way to make it work there too?




I've also tried adding a palette, but as I said, I have no idea what I'm doing so I failed. My greener grass demanded a palette, but after I made that picture .act (just manually changed the name from bmp) it said the file was too big (it needed to be 700 something bits?). I've resized it to a super small picture with but a few pixels and that still didn't do it. I've no idea how to use this option :(

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Unread postby Echo » 07 Aug 2012, 07:54

Nobody knows? :<

I'm trying to make a small recolor/renovation for my friend :hoo:

User avatar
vladimir-maestro
Genie
Genie
Posts: 1033
Joined: 19 Jun 2008

Unread postby vladimir-maestro » 07 Aug 2012, 08:52

it is hard to explain.
to make such changes you need alot of modder's programs that we use and need alot of time of explanation of "how to do that, how does it works".

you need:
mmextension
autolod
grayface's patches
---
to change sprites.lod you need to add a palettes first into bitmaps.lod. only with that consequence game will read your bitmaps and sprites correctly. if you mistaken - game will crash.

if you get all tolls together and make them work - game will ask you to create missing palettes and you do not have to "dance with drums" to make it work.

editing monsters are much more painfull
---
btw:
can you show us your new grass?
You can contact me here:
maestro_mod@yahoo.com
vladud @ yandex.ru - preferred one
---
Site about MODs: http://www.mmgames.ru
---
if you wish to upload some materials for this site - let me know.

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Unread postby Echo » 07 Aug 2012, 08:58

Aw damn, that sounds like a ton of trouble for a simple recolor ;o

It's a very simple grass recolor, I was just tired of the blandness of landscape in MM7 and I thought it would make it mych more lively :)

If you want actual custom made textures for something, I've made a few some time ago. They're all offset too, so tiling shouldn't be a problem. I can send them to you in any case once I'm home. I admire your guys' work so if I have any resources you might want, they're yours.

Either way, here's my vivid grass (I went a little overboard on it, but the naturally-green one was such a tiny difference in game. THis one didn't run at all :P) : http://oi48.tinypic.com/okd2si.jpg

User avatar
vladimir-maestro
Genie
Genie
Posts: 1033
Joined: 19 Jun 2008

Unread postby vladimir-maestro » 07 Aug 2012, 14:03

do not remember for sure but in mm8, grayface created a patch that denied HWL fules to work and uses LOD instead.

maybe in your mm you replaced texture but uses acceleration? if it is so - you won't see any changes at all cause game uses HWL files, not LOD!!!

HWL cannot be edited, i recomend to install grayface's patch to NOT TO use HWL at all. in that case you could see your changes or game will crush cause you made something wrong :devil:
You can contact me here:
maestro_mod@yahoo.com
vladud @ yandex.ru - preferred one
---
Site about MODs: http://www.mmgames.ru
---
if you wish to upload some materials for this site - let me know.

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Unread postby Echo » 07 Aug 2012, 14:20

Well than explains one thing - why they didn't work when blurry. But as far as my grass in concerned, it did work in another lightly recolored version and then it didn't in this very vivid one :<

So if I want to recolor anything, even slightly, I cannot use the acceleration to remove the huge pixels everywhere? It's always been a dilemma, colored monsters or blur and blood spatters. I wish I could have these both things at once. Is there no way to? :<

User avatar
vladimir-maestro
Genie
Genie
Posts: 1033
Joined: 19 Jun 2008

Unread postby vladimir-maestro » 07 Aug 2012, 17:57

Echo wrote:Well than explains one thing - why they didn't work when blurry. But as far as my grass in concerned, it did work in another lightly recolored version and then it didn't in this very vivid one :<

So if I want to recolor anything, even slightly, I cannot use the acceleration to remove the huge pixels everywhere? It's always been a dilemma, colored monsters or blur and blood spatters. I wish I could have these both things at once. Is there no way to? :<
i told you - update your game! it will be accelerated but will use detailed LOD files, not low-res HWL.

and you need new palette to make your grass changed or it will use the old one.

try to replace a sand tile onto snow tile = you will get snow colored as a sand - cause colors in palette uses sandy ones!
You can contact me here:
maestro_mod@yahoo.com
vladud @ yandex.ru - preferred one
---
Site about MODs: http://www.mmgames.ru
---
if you wish to upload some materials for this site - let me know.

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Unread postby Echo » 07 Aug 2012, 18:37

I think I'm not deep enough in all the patches etc to understand your advice, I do have a mok and grayface patches, but nothing of a sort happens ;o

I know how to import a picture that will always not-crash the game but have bad colors - it's enough to simply copy-paste one indexed bmp onto another and it acquires the bases' palette. Still, my attempts at actually creating a palette to add it to mm8 level editor didn't yield any result, even though I followed the readme file, the .bmp, even cropped to a 10 pixels (just to check) was still too big.

User avatar
vladimir-maestro
Genie
Genie
Posts: 1033
Joined: 19 Jun 2008

Unread postby vladimir-maestro » 07 Aug 2012, 20:26

instal mmextension, autolod from grayface's page
unlod all lod files with autolod
put every new changed files into unloded folders
start a game - game will ask you to create a palette for your new tile - say yes.
---
yes, maybe there need a tutorial
You can contact me here:
maestro_mod@yahoo.com
vladud @ yandex.ru - preferred one
---
Site about MODs: http://www.mmgames.ru
---
if you wish to upload some materials for this site - let me know.

User avatar
GreatEmerald
CH Staff
CH Staff
Posts: 3330
Joined: 24 Jul 2009
Location: Netherlands

Unread postby GreatEmerald » 07 Aug 2012, 21:31

Do you have the latest Grayface's patch? Because you can have both nice effects and correctly coloured monsters in hardware accelerated mode there.

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Unread postby Echo » 08 Aug 2012, 08:13

Thanks you Vladimir and thanks Emerald, I'll look into it. Maybe I do have some old version or someting installed wrong. I hope it won't mess up my mm7rev4mod when I reinstall :)

And yeah, noob-friendly tutorials are always a great thing :hoo:

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Unread postby Echo » 08 Aug 2012, 12:34

I have used autolod file.

And then I proceeded to bang my head on the wall remembering how I was changing the faces and manually extracting every damn frame from the icons file to have stuff to work on :(


EDIT: Those programs are UHMAZING! All works. Thanks a ton <3


One more question: how do you make it so that the game accepts bigger textures than 128x128? Is that complicated or default for this software?

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Unread postby Echo » 09 Aug 2012, 14:51

I have some stuff to show off with! ^-^

It's all for personal use and such so I replaced some NPCs with pictures from the internet too :3 It was so hard to find a pretty, not-rotting banker...


Living grass, shabby house and revamped road in Erathia: http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg820/sc ... es=landing

Desert, dirt and a little enhanced water in Bracada: http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg716/sc ... es=landing

Gates to the Pit. I wanted to make walls black/red but I'm not sure where else they are used yet: http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg401/sc ... es=landing

Walls and doors in Harmondale: http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg207/sc ... es=landing

Celeste's walls and skies: http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg521/sc ... es=landing

I've also got basic textures for Deyja ground, Tatalia's swamps and snow done as well as some cabinets and book cases, but 5 show-off screenshots are enough ;P

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Unread postby Echo » 13 Aug 2012, 12:25

I have run out of time to work on my mini retexture project, but I have finished changing all of the outside ground textures so that they mesh correctly with dirt, that includes roads ^^

I have also imported 2 custom-made characters and recolored another 2 (http://oi50.tinypic.com/51dcle.jpg) that only miss a few rarely-shown frames (but have paperdolls adjusted slightly, but accordingly). As well as replaced majority of the NPC portraits so that finding pretty followers was easier (but not guaranteed ;>).

If anyone else is bugged by the bland landscapes of MM7 or interested in any other of these additions, I can send them the icons.lod or bitmaps.lod files, I think? But they are made based on BigDaddyJim's modification so they won't likely work well without it. And I'm not 100% sure he'd be okay with this being reproduced.

It's nothing professional, lore-loving or anything, I made it for my own enjoyment, but I wouldn't mind someone else enjoying it as well :)

User avatar
vladimir-maestro
Genie
Genie
Posts: 1033
Joined: 19 Jun 2008

Unread postby vladimir-maestro » 13 Aug 2012, 18:36

thats better
Image

you can use better way of modification uploading like:
grayface's lod-merge and lod-compare utilite

you need 2 copies of 1 lod file (pure 1 from bdj's and yours new one with changes)

this programm read differences between 2 files and create new LOD ONLY with your cahnged files.

using MMARCHIVE will allow you to edit LOD files...just make a copy of your LOD and delete nOT USED DATA - leave only your new chages like faces and dolls.
---
using LOD-Merge will require you to create simple BAT file that will inh=ject your tiny LOD file into ours via 1 clic.

some patches and addons for maestro mod was made with that way - small files that make some fixes but not fully big files!
You can contact me here:
maestro_mod@yahoo.com
vladud @ yandex.ru - preferred one
---
Site about MODs: http://www.mmgames.ru
---
if you wish to upload some materials for this site - let me know.


Return to “Might and Magic”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 47 guests