Need help for making a mod (adding a race)

http://soase.weebly.com/modding.html

This is a much more helpful (and up to date) modding tutorial.

It's not that outdated

If your using the races mod then look for Races_Player_Portrait_[size].tga

This tutorial I wrote works great for player pictures too.

You'll want to make your own image file for the load screen character. Then edit PlayerRace1.entity (etc) and change loadScreenCharacterBrush to a new unique name. Add an entry in Races.brushes with your new name and referencing the new image file (any brush file will work, but this is in the races mod).

brush
    name "LoadScreenCharacterRace1"
    content "Simple"
    fileName "Race1_LoadScreenCharacter"
    pixelBox [ 0 , 0 , 441 , 749 ]

pixelBox [ x, y, width, height ]

Again, if your using the races mod then look for the Race1_Buttons_Research_CursorOver.tga, Race1_Buttons_Research_Disabled.tga, Race1_Buttons_Research_Normal.tga, Race1_Buttons_Research_Pressed.tga.

Follow the tutorial for adding research buttons. Then open the Race1_Research.brushes locate the entry for the row and column you put the image and change the name if you want.

Use this name wherever you want to use your new button.

Copy the ability and referenced buffs and rename them all. Then rename all of the references in the new ability and buffs to reflect those changes as well. Once you have you new ability file you can change the string references and icons without impacting any other race.

Be careful to check for research pre-requisites. You may need to remove them or recreate them in your new race.

Study the weebly. It has all the content necessary to import models into the game. New particles are outside of my knowledge. Sounds are pretty simple. Just look for the *.sounddata files to add new entries.

So fun to see my mod mentioned The best way to merge mods in my opinion is to create a bridge mod. Look at my entrenchment sinsplus addon for example. There are lots of fun issues when it comes to merging mods, noteably dealing with shared resources like sounddata, English.str, GalaxyScenarioDef, etc, but it is possible.

lol I'm sorry ZombieRus5, I didn't check the link. Usually when this issue pops up it is due to the fact that someone has pulled some old thread out and attempted to follow it.

@OP - NVM its a good link.

hehe... Figured thats what you were thinking. I had to click on the link to see if it was mine or not considering how outdated the stickies are.

Thanks guys! i've deleted the playerrace1.entity and playerrace2.entity (since i lonly want one race, i kept the race3)

So now there is only 4races with is what i wanted. But i go player setup, it's a little bit messed up:

i managed to replace my custom pics with the race3 ones in the "Races_Player_Portrait_Large_0002.dds"

but i don't know what file i should edit to fix this.

Not really sure how ZombiesRus set up the mod or what you did to get that screen like it is. If you want to fix that your getting into advanced modding.

http://soase.weebly.com/add-race-pics.html

So, that was originally setup for six races. I didn't modify the existing race picture files which is why they are shifted weird like that. Your options are to remove the 6 race selector or do some reworking of the textures to support 4 races.

Thanks for the link, i managed to fix the problem but now there is that half window peeking in down there:

i can live with it but it's still a little disturbing seeing things that are not supposed to be there

Hey nice job at figuring out that tutorial so far. I would have went 2 x 2. Using only 2 of the race textures with 2 races on each. Also that brush you moved to above the back button may as well be removed. If you use Gimp its on the same sheet as those widow reflectors, just surround the 3 images with the rectangle tool and press delete.

I was learning how to edit the window files when I found how to do this, one of my 1st tutorials, so it might not be as accurate as it could be. Try looking for the main window size and reducing it to the size of the frame then reposition. Look for area [x, y, width , height ] example. the 1st 2 numbers are the position on the screen and the next 2 are how big that section should be to fit the image. the height I made to large when inserting my new frame but it looked good on 768 x 1024 resolution and never checked the larger resolutions.

When editing .window files always change the screen resolutions to check your work. You should be editing in 1024 x 768 and checking in larger sizes. This way it will look correct for everyones screen size picked.

Yeah i removed that thing you mentioned

i fixed it. I just had to change the resolution of the backdropfrontend and put it to 1024 without scaling the image itself putting it on the top left and doing the same for the alpha channel.so i didn't have to change the coordinates

now i need to take care of the med and small pictures but there doesn't seem to be a tutorial about this on weebly.

Awesome  , you learn fast.

There was not enough requests for me to continue so I moved on. Modding can take up a lot of time then times that by 4 or 5 to make the tutorial and so many tutorials to work on. So ya there are a lot of works in progress.

Anything specific just ask away, haven't looked in a while but there might be room on the existing small and medium sheets for a 4th race and just tell the NewRace.playerPictures the locations.

If they will not fit just make a new tga and put the images on there and point the  NewRace.playerPictures to the new texture sheet or make the existing sheet larger.

When editing texture sheets always try to keep the empty space to a minimum. This does use up memory.

Awesome job!

Really the how to add a research button works for all the player pictures. For example, here's what I do.

1. Open the Medium portrait texture.
2. Disable the alpha channel.
3. Copy the entire row of portraits from the large Portrait texture file.
4. Line up the upper left hand portion.
5. Select the resize tool [shift-T] and select the little link to the right of the height and width fields to keep them uniform with each other.
6. Then slowly resize the images until they fit into the box area visible through the Alpha for the existing portraits.

The Portraits are in scale with one another just slightly smaller as you get down to button, so this process works pretty easily for me without having to do each portrait individually.

http://soase.weebly.com/research-button.html

I'll be checking that later since i got another problem. The player setup window is perfect but when i'm in a new game, the portraits are completly off. i tried everything but didn't fixed. I think i now know why some mods with new races didn't bother making the player setup window. I think i'll put it back to 3races selection and just make a new "player_portrait_large", a copy of the original one and just add another row and see how it looks. i think i'll just leave the player setup window, i'm done with this little b¤st¤rd.

Edit: now the ingame portraits are fixed. I used the exact same way that the star wars sins of a galactic empire mod did.

Is it possible to maybe change the player setup window so that the fourth player can be visible again? if there are a few number or coordinates to change, i could give a try one last time

Everything now works well with the portraits. Well the player portrait selection window is still the same (the 3 races) but i'll leave it like that.

What i don't understand now is about importing custom models in the game. I don't understand the whole thing about XSI , non tris and non quads etc... i already have the models textured in 3ds max.

Know that you can use ANY modeling program to create your mesh. Be it  3DSMax,  Lightwave,  Maya,  Blender, etc. etc. However to make it ready for import into sins you must finish it in XSI. This is mainly because of the tangents, and the way XSI assigns materials to the mesh. Which means your modeling program must be able to export into a format XSI can import. .OBJ is a good choice. If that fails then Direct X format will work as well. I have had bad luck importing .3ds into XSI. The mesh becomes corrupt, and I don't know why. Major Stress

 Need to be a little more specific 

[Tutorial WIP] Import Sins Models to XSI

Well i just want to import my models from 3ds max into the game itself. It is already textured. what are the steps to do that?

Get yourself the 

 + 

 Better hurry, this only works today, Friday 13th. 

I'll ask harry potter to lend me his wand

Well on the way and I will add a lot more but this might get you going. Templates are in the works.

http://soase.weebly.com/race-pics-basics.html

I took care of that it is working well. It's the same system as the large portraits except that they are smaller.

Hi i've managed to import a custom model ingame with the textures without any errors. But the shadows seems to be odd:

 Does this have to do with the tangent map? it's something i skipped in softimage because i don't know what a tangent map is.

Can someone tell me what is a tangent map? and how can i fix the shadows?

So can someone tell me what's the problem with the model?

EDIT:

Yep it was the tagent map. I added one like the tutorials said and it works pretty well. But now y model is a little too dark The light from the star doesn't seem to light up the thing. How can i edit the tangent map so that there can be more light on it?