I've been moding for a while now and got a lot of stuff added and changed around, the thing thats becoming an issue is the mapped images for my buttons. I've looked around on a few websites and really didn't find anything about it, I've been barrowing mapped image ini files from other mods but I kind of want to make my own images, where would I find this ImagePacker.exe?

I just downloaded some DDS utilitlies and an atlas tool from NVIDIA yesterday, I havn't gotten to it yet and I don't know if that would do anything for me with that but it looks useful according to the discrption of it anyway.





next, the Geomatry on objects. what exactly do I acomplish by editing that? is it one of those things that have to do with a boundry of an object so other objects dont pass through it?

I have a model I downloaded from a website that someone was sharing of the original Mammoth tank and its currantly using the Overlord tanks geomatry, it seems to be working out I guess. I changed the values before but I didn't notice a difference.

Well, once you get the images right, you might find MS pain useful... with it's coordinates @ the bottom... I never used any 'packers' before
and y, geometry part of the code partly describes its collision, so it's good to know your unit's size when editing that 1.

I copied the code from known working mapped images from the other mod files and pasted in the ini in the .big under hand created and fianly got it to work, When I did that before it wouldn't work, I don't know what I was doing wrong because I did that exact same thing. I probably didn't have it under the right folder path or something stupid like that. oh well, I did find some software thats somewhat useful along the way of my searching so all the time I wasted is still a victory




the geomatry makes sense to me now, I came accross a unit that had a scale entry that never really noticed before witch cleared things up a bit. Im guessing that the major radius has to do with how close a model can be to other objects and the minor radius and hight has to do with what projectiles hit


thanks

If you're still modding, it's easier to keep stuff outside the .big files, easier to access. just make folders like they are in the .big file (e.g for INI.big Data/INI/MappedImages, Object) and put the files u've edite in there, you can make your own files just as well, and as long as you keep the code in the same folder, I think you can arrange the code the way you want(e.g. I store all my new units in NewUnits.ini instead of adding them to all the different factions' files). You'd have to test it outside the Object folder though, or wait for some1 to confirm this, never tested mixing there.

I use the .big file as a safety net, I have a bad habit of overwriting things. The only downside that i've found with using the .big file is that sometimes i'll forget that I have another FinalBIG window open when I open a new one and accedently save on both of them and cause all the ini files overlap eachother, but I have a game back up for that. I use notepad files to store new unit data until im ready to use it and i have ini files floating around in another folder. in that folder is another folder that I resort to for refrances that I leave in the same order it unpacked in, that way when I go to add a new ini file i copy a file in the same folder and rename it so all i have to do when i add the file when i drag and drop is delete anything in the folder path prior to Data or Art or whatever. the problem with the mapped images though is that I never added a new file for that. I dont know what happened, I just know it didn't work for me before until I went to verify it again after reading your reply. I think I need to take a few days off.

"Newunits.ini"

Kinda a nifty idea when game actually reads it...
Though I'm not totally sure. But I think it works somewhat.

I organize my mod via different .big files.

I could make them as one .big file, but I really don't like to scroll all the way down just to find an .ini, .tga, .w3d, and etc.

Like:
CZDMxxxyyy - Main Mod file. Contains Objects, GUI, and Weapons.
*x indicate major version, y indicates minor version.

CZDM_IniB - Miscellaneous files, such as ParticleSystems, FXList, MappedImages, Sounds, Music, etc...

CZDM_W3D - Custom W3D Models.

CZDM_MusicPatch - Custom Music.

etc...

---

I don't ever plan on spliting up my ini files with another .big file, I have a hard enough time keeping track of the one, but you do give me an idea to make one to seperate my medels and textures from the original stuff. with the ini files, I do have a "NewUnits.ini" type file but I only use it when I have something that works great and not sure what I want to do with it. for the most part I just use easy to remember text labels to type in the ctrl+F search box for notepad.

Tons of old mods are in folders... the game is structured to read the data from folders.
Big files are like RARs. they are unpacked upon game launch to the RAM, and overwritten by any Data in actual folders, or non-standard .bigs.
ATM, I have maybe 15 files in total, 3 in object folder. list view mode ftw
EDIT
Game reads the code, not the filenames ... lol

I'm pretty sure everyone already knows that. FYI for newbies I guess



moding this game is one of the most simple things I've ever dealt with really, its time consuming but simple. its always the minor things I get hung up on like the mapped images, I added a couple manuely and they didn't work so I thought I actually had to find imagepacker.exe like what is saya in the note on the top of the mapped image ini page when really it was just something I didn't do right. Its not my problem if people don't like the way I do things unless I'm getting paid for it. With that being said, I'll leave you guys to talk amongst your selves for now, I've got things to do.