Tutorial by: qaz123tfg

Date: Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Step By Step Mod Pack Studio Tutorial

Part I

Moding A Static Object

A static object is any game object that doesn't move. Some examples: barracks, castles, the statue etc. Even if you want to mod units, you should still start here. I will use the following abbreviations:

mps means Mod Pack Studio 2.0
aoktc means Age of Kings The Conquers

You might wonder,"Why another modding guide?" There are other guides, but I wanted to make a step by step guide that included screenshots. It is needed and will be a great help to new modders. This tutorial uses mps 2.0.

Click on the links to get the screenshots. I did it this way so that the html wouldn't take as long to load.

NOTE: This tutorial is entirely viewable offline. You don't need to be connected to the internet to use it. Or to see the screenshots.

However, you must be connected to the internet to view every webpage - that's linked to - below the "Additional Information" section.

Part II will be about moding a unit. That will build on the lessons learned in this tutorial.


Requirements:

- Ages of Kings and Age Of Kings The Conquers must be installed
(Sure, you can mod with only Age of Kings installed. But just about everyone has The Conquers, so it makes sense to make a mod that the majority of people can use.)

- Mod Pack Studio 2.0 must be installed
Mod Pack Studio 2.0

- A copy of the AOK & TC DRS List
AOK & TC DRS List

- a copy of cool.bmp


0. cool.bmp is in this folder. Remember that, as you are going to need it later.

1. open Mps

Go to Start
- Programs
- AOK Mod Pack Studio
- click the helmet icon

screen shot1


2. Click on
- File
- New Project

A dialog box will pop up. Select the folder My Documents. Enter the word

test

After that, click Open. Be patient. It might take a while to load. Don't click anything, don't do anything. In the top right hand corner, you will notice a load bar. Once its entirely loaded, you will see the following screen.

screenshot2


3.Click on By Type.
double click Slp Graphics

screenshot3


4. Open the AOK & TC DRS List

It should open in Word or another similar text editor.

Click
- Edit
- Find

Type in the word

statue

and press Enter.

That should bring you to

GRA05107 Statue


5. Use the scroll bar (in mps) to scroll down to slp number

5107

screenshot4

But wait, what is this 5107 number? Where did the GRA0 part go? On vacation, surfing in Hawaii. :) In all seriousness, they are placeholders. When using the drs list, only pay attention to the numbers that are to the right of the 0.


6. Double click on

Resource #5107

screen shot5

Ok, but it looks a bit small. Lets fix that. Click on the box that the red arrow is pointing to. That will help. We are going to replace the gaia statue. The knowledge you will gain doing this will help in all aspects of aoktc modding.

7. Click on Export BMP

screen shot6

Select the folder

My Documents

Then click Save.


8. Minimize mps. Click what the red arrow is point to, to minimize.

screenshot7

Open G0510701.bmp (The one you exported in step 7.)

Open cool.bmp. (From step 0). Move the mspaint window so that they are right beside each other.

screenshot8


9. In the G0510701window click on
- Image
- Attributes

screenshot9

Set both width and height to 4 then click ok.


10. In the cool menu click on the rectangle.

screenshot10

Put the mouse pointer in the top left hand corner of the cool.bmp image. (the curser will look like a big plus sign)Click - and hold - the left mouse button; drag it to the bottom right hand corner. Now let go of the mouse button.


11. Click on - Edit
- Cut

screenshot11

In the G0510701window click on

- Edit
- Paste

screenshot12

"The image in the clipboard is larger than the bitmap. Would you like the bitmap enlarged?"

Click Yes.

That trick makes it so that the image being received is always the same dimensions as when it was copied. (Unless you are copying an image that is less than 4 pixels by 4 pixels. But that is highly unlikely.) For example, if you copied cool.bmp into a ms paint window that was 800 by 600 there would be a lot of extra space around the unit. You don't want that. You want just a few extra pixels around the unit. Haveing a lot of extra space around the unit leads to unit selection bugs. That is something you don't want to deal with.


12. In the G0510701window click on
- File
- Save

In the cool window, click on - File
- Exit

"Save changes to cool?"

Click No.


13. Notice parts of her clothes - and the background - turned inso a green color.

screenshot13

Even though cool.bmp was a 256 color bmp, the aok pallette changed the image colors a bit. I don't know a way of fixing that. But the image still looks good so lets move on.

Click on - View
- Zoom
- Custom

screenshot14

Click where the red arrow points to. (inside the white circle thats beside the 800.)

screenshot15

Click the square in the top right hand corner of the cool window.

screenshot16

Now its much easier to see. Zoomed in this close the image looks bad. Don't worry about that. The final image will look just as good as it did in step 12.
We needed to zoom in close so we can do some editing. All of the grey color that surround her needs to be white.


13. The way to make everything around her white will seem odd at first. But it is nessessary, so follow along. Press Ctrl and i at the same time. The screen should look like this:

screenshot17

Everything that is this color

screenshot18

needs to be black.


14. Click on the paint bucket icon.

screenshot19

Put the mouse curser in the top left hand corner of the image. Left click once. the image should look like:

screenshot20

Click - File
- Save

Press Cntrl plus i. What we did is make everything that was grey into white.

screenshot21

Its important to note that sometimes you need to use the pencil tool. Whenever you mod, in this step, make sure that every pixel around the unit is black.


15. Click on - File
- Save

Now click on -View
- Zoom
- Normal Size

There she is surrounded by white. :)

In the cool window, click on - File
- Exit


16. From the taskbar, click on AOK Mod Pack Studio.

screenshot22

Our old friend is back. :) Like an illegal canadian toliet trafficer, we are ready to do some importing. Click on Import BMP.

screenshot23

A dialog box will pop up. Click the downward arrow icon:

screenshot24

And select

My Documents.

screenshot25

Click on G0510701 and click Open. Now shes in mps.

screenshot26


17. Click on Player Color/Transparent Mask

screenshot27

Now it will look like the following image.

screenshot28

See all the black around her? That's the Transparent Mask. So, when she is in the game everything that is black in this image will be invisible, the game can replace it with the color of whatever is around the statue. For example, if the statue is placed in green grass, then the green color will occupy the Transparent Mask.


18. Click Normal Colors. Ok, now time to set the anchors. If anchors aren't set right, she would not hold her place right on the screen.

Click on Show Anchor

screenshot29

Right click on the picture of her and select Zoom In.

screenshot30

I've circled - in red - the X-Anchor line. The anchor line should bisect the image. Going from the middle of the top of her head, down to her feet, it should seperate her body so that both sides are equal. It should be about where the blue line is.

screenshot31


19. Click on Set Anchor.

screenshot32

We need to change the X-Anchor Coordinate. X-Anchor is the one that runs up-down through the image. Setting the number higher, moves the X anchor farther to the right. Setting the number lower, moves the X anchor farther to the left.

Click inside the white box to the right of X-Anchor Coordinate:

You may wonder, how much should I change it by? Change it in small increments. Lets try setting the X-Anchor Coordinate to 33. Click Ok.
Now move the curser a little below her head. It seems to be splitting her in half equally, so the X-Anchor is set how it should be.

screenshot33


20. Now we need to set the Y-Anchor. Its the anchor that runs left-right. Its so far down, its not even in the image! Generally, the X and Y anchors should cross on a units feet. (Buildings are different, but we aren't dealing with buildings.) She isn't a unit, but the anchors should still cross near the bottom of her feet.

Setting the Y-Anchor lower makes it move upward. Setting the Y-Anchor higher makes it move downward. We want the anchor to move up. This anchor is way too far down, so lets change it in a large increment. Try setting it to 50.

Click on Set Anchor.

Set Y-Anchor Coordinate to 50. Click Ok.

screenshot34

21. The anchors are crossing way too high. They cross a little bit below her knees. What looks like a big sideways x, is the Y anchor. Set the anchor again. We need to increase the number, so the Y-Anchor goes farther down. Try 60.

Click on Set Anchor.

Set Y-Anchor Coordinate to 60. Click Ok

That looks better, but its still too high.

Try setting the Y-Anchor Coordinate to 64. Click Ok.

screenshot35

That looks right to me. Don't obsess over anchors. If they look good in mps they are probably right. If not, you will find out when you test the mod. If they look bad in the game, the image floats - or something like that - then open your mps project again, set the anchors differently, Save and test the mod again.

In the case of the image floating, that means the anchors are too low.
If you want to know where any anchor should be, go to any unit, building, object etc. in mps and click "Show Anchor." Take a note of where the X and Y anchors cross. Use that as an example for your own mods. For example, the fact that most units have their anchors cross at their feet tells me, "When I mod a unit, I should make its anchor cross at its feet."

22. Click on - File
- Save test

screenshot36

Ok, our mod is saved. We are almost done. Give yourself a pat on the back, you've made it. Wait, you didn't actually pat yourself on the back I hope. People will wonder if you are crazy. :)

Click - File
- Make Install Script for test

screenshot37

(NOTE: Remember test is the file name we gave our mod. If we named our mod sword it would say Make Install Script for Sword. It isn't using the word "test" just because we are testing a mod.)

Select the folder

My Documents

Name the file

Whoa

And click Save.

Whats this? An interesting dialog box just poped up.

screenshot38

Click on Cancel. We don't need a password.


23. This dialog box is interesting too, but we don't have any "non-modpack files" to add. Click Ok.

Now wait as it builds the mod. When its done you will see

screenshot39

Click Ok.


24. Click on - File
- Exit

Now the mod is done! You are on your way to becoming a leet aoktc modder!

(NOTE: The file

whoa

in the folder My Documents is the mod install script.

screenshot40

The file

test

in the folder My Documents is the mod project.

screenshot41

So, if you double click on

test

it will open mps, and you can edit your mod project. Maybe you want to add another building or unit, save then make another mod install script. That's what you would use the file "test" for.)


Testing The Mod

1. Insert the aoktc into the cd drive.

2. When the screen comes up, click the small X in the top right hand corner.

3. Open My Documents and double click on "whoa."

"Please wait while mod pack studio installs this modpack."

Be good, follow instructions. lol

After a little bit you will see:

"This modpack can be used in multiple versions of AOK. Please select the version to run now."

4. Click The Conquerers

The game will start, with your mod installed.

5. Open the Scenario Editor. Click

Create New

6. Click Units

7. Select Gaia from the drop down menu in the bottom left of the screen.

Click on the Other button

8. Click the first thing on the list and press

s

That will skip down the list to the S section. (The list is in alphabetical order.) Click on

Statue.

Click on the map, then let go of the mouse button.

9. Click on the Units button

Select Player 1 from the drop down menu.

10. Click Arbalest and place it beside the statue.

Click Menu then the Test Button.


Additional Information:

I have really cool image files, but they aren't 256 color bmps! Help!

Then they must be converted by some program so that they are 256 color bmps. Image Converter Basic will do that and it only costs $22.00.

Image Converter Basic

It can probably also be done by The Gimp. The Gimp is free. There is an edited version of the Gimp called "Gimp Shop." It makes the interface much like Photoshop. This makes the gimp much easier to use.

Gimp Shop

Although, it seems to have some stability issues.


Ok, so now you know how to mod. But what if you are like me with little artistic skill? :) I have some solutions. Find images through Google

http://www.google.com

searches. For example, a search for

zelda sprites

produced a page that linked to

Zelda Sprites.

Lets say I want to mod the witches house into aoktc. I click on it and get this page

A screenshot from The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past

What do I do now?

1. I click on the picture to make it full size.

2. I press the button

Print
Screen
--------
SysRq

Its on the keyboard.

3. I open mspaint.

To open mspaint:

Click
- Start
Programs
- Accessories

4. Once the program is open I select

- Edit
Paste

5. Select
- File
- Save

6. Edit out everything except the house. Do this by making everything around the house white.

7. Use the cut tool and draw a rectange around the house. Cut it.

8. Open ms paint.

9. Set the image attribute to width 2 and height 2

10. select
- edit
- paste

It will say there isnt enough room and ask if you want to make it bigger. You do. Click ok. Now save.

Before you can import this image into mps you must convert it into a 256 color bmp. We talked about that earlyer in the article.

(NOTE: You must also use the cntrl plus i trick as described earlyer in this guide)

You can use that method to get any image from any screenshot. That is how I made my zelda eyecandy mod. You can make unit mods in this way also. But you must get multiple images of the unit. Remember, units need attacking frames, dying frames, walking frames etc.

The Legend of zelda eye candy:
Zelda Eye Candy

Link unit mod:
Link Unit


A lot of people have install errors when trying to install Mod Pack Studio 2.0 on a new machine. (i.e. Windows XP) My suggest is go out an buy an older computer that's running Windows 98. If it has 128 mb of ram (or more) and at least 6 gig free on the hard drive, you're fine. A cd burner wouldn't hurt, so you can back up your mod.

Another tip:
Always make backup's of your work! A back up is simply saving a file/folder to a location other than your hard drive. For example, burning it to a cd. That way if something happens to your hard drive, your computer crashes, you get a virus, etc you will still have the most recent back up of your work.

The 'Install Multiple Modpacks' feature in mps doesn't work.


Mod Pack Studio install errors? Want to edit the dat file? Interested in something I didn't cover? Check out the following link:
The Modding Sticky

The Modding Forums on Age Of Kings Heaven:
Age Of Kings Heaven: Modpack Forums.

My GeniEdit 2.1 Guide:
Geniedit2.1 & Geniedit2.1 Enhanced guide.


Special thanks to leighn and shadowflare. Without their help, I would have never learned how to mod.

The author hereby gives any reader express permission to share this with as many people as they want. In fact, I encourage you to do so! Simply give me credit, keep the original article as is, and never sell this information. Thanks and good luck modding! :)