Alpha Centauri 2

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri & Alien Crossfire => Modding => Topic started by: Xen on October 05, 2013, 09:52:50 PM

Title: Faction Editor
Post by: Xen on October 05, 2013, 09:52:50 PM

I made my own faction for the first time and found 2 problems......

(1)  The music is different and I prefer the original. Can I change it back?
(2)  How do I change the Faction Leader's pic?

Thanks in advance.

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Buster's Uncle on October 05, 2013, 09:56:26 PM

Pretty much everything about graphics editing can be found in Articles  http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=articles;cat=6;sort=;sorto=;start=15 (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=articles;cat=6;sort=;sorto=;start=15)

This thread should really go in Modding - mind if I move it?

Welcome to AC2, Xen.  Tell us about yourself...

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Xen on October 05, 2013, 10:10:05 PM

No of course I don't mind. Can't find anything in the Modding section on these problems however, though I'll keep looking.

It seems I'm a drone, so presumably I'll riot if there's insufficient talent around. Interesting prospect........

 :o

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: JarlWolf on October 05, 2013, 11:27:47 PM

Use the Recreation Commons and the other facilities (AAR threads in particular) to quell your drone status.

Also, I wasn't even a faction could have custom music, yet I've made a fair number..

as for faction leader pictures and other things, refer to modding, graphics thread.

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: ariete on October 06, 2013, 05:09:12 PM

Quote from: Xen on October 05, 2013, 10:10:05 PM

It seems I'm a drone, so presumably I'll riot if there's insufficient talent around. Interesting prospect........

 ;lol

what you wanted mean?? what music?? you've already edit pcxs?? show something ...

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Xen on October 07, 2013, 10:54:38 PM

Until recently I always played the Peacekeepers and I became used to 3 basic melodies. One that plays at the beginning, accompanied by the sound of breathing apparatus - a bit like Darth Vader. Another, more menacing tune when war begins. And a third, more pleasant, when things are going well or when a seabase is created. But since I created another faction - using the Peacekeepers as the template and making only cosmetic changes - they've gone and been replaced by only 2 (?) others that I'd never heard before. It's quite odd.

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Kilkakon on October 11, 2013, 02:07:04 AM

Custom factions all use the aliens soundtrack. :) Not much we can do about it unless you want to manually edit the peacekeepers or replace the alien soundtrack with the peacekeeper one.

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Xen on October 11, 2013, 10:40:14 AM

So that's what it is. Thank you.

I've been looking for sound files but seem unable to find any. How does one change them/it?

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Kilkakon on October 14, 2013, 02:08:12 AM

I forget actually which files are which, but in the music directory there's a huge amount of wavs and 8 or so other files. Those eight are the soundtracks for the different factions.

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Xen on October 14, 2013, 11:16:08 PM

Ok, thanks for the help.

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Yitzi on October 16, 2013, 03:45:26 AM

Quote from: Kilkakon on October 11, 2013, 02:07:04 AM

Custom factions all use the aliens soundtrack. :) Not much we can do about it unless you want to manually edit the peacekeepers or replace the alien soundtrack with the peacekeeper one.

How are the soundtracks stored?  (i.e. are they all in one file, different files with the same name as the faction, or something else?)

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Kilkakon on October 31, 2013, 12:11:42 PM

There's hundreds of loose wavs, and then 8ish files that contain the sequences.

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Yitzi on October 31, 2013, 02:02:43 PM

Quote from: Kilkakon on October 31, 2013, 12:11:42 PM

There's hundreds of loose wavs, and then 8ish files that contain the sequences.

Are those eight named the same as the factions they correspond to (e.g. PEACE.wav for the peacekeepers' soundtrack, etc.)?

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Kilkakon on October 31, 2013, 02:06:56 PM

Mostly. They are:

aset1.amb - Any non-SMAC faction
bset1.amb
gset1.amb
mset1.amb
pset1.amb
sset1.amb
uset2.amb
ustart.amb

I'm guessing that most of them line up with the initial in the first character of the filenames. Not sure where Hive's one would come in though.

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Yitzi on October 31, 2013, 02:21:48 PM

So all the SMAX factions have the same soundtrack?

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Kilkakon on October 31, 2013, 02:33:52 PM

Yes that's right. :) And all custom factions get the alien one as well.

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Yitzi on October 31, 2013, 02:47:30 PM

Quote from: Kilkakon on October 31, 2013, 02:33:52 PM

Yes that's right. :) And all custom factions get the alien one as well.

Which isn't really the alien one, but rather the "not a SMAC faction" one...

So to change it, I'd need to set it so that instead of a pre-set list with a default, it uses the .amb with the same name as the faction file.  Which should be doable, though it's not a particularly high priority.  (My current project is to set it so the game doesn't quit when you kill off a human-played faction...I think we can overall agree that's more important than custom faction soundtracks.)

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Kilkakon on October 31, 2013, 02:51:36 PM

Sure yeah, crashes are very high priority. :)

Speaking of, I have had LE crash on me a few times with your patch, although I am not sure if that is the most recent one. I can't remember what was causing it though, sorry.

Title: Re: Faction Editor
Post by: Yitzi on October 31, 2013, 04:06:01 PM

Quote from: Kilkakon on October 31, 2013, 02:51:36 PM

Sure yeah, crashes are very high priority. :)

It's not quite a crash (if it were it'd probably be easier to track down; ollydbg is very good for tracking down crashes), it looks more like what's happening is that it's producing the game-over screen...

Quote

Speaking of, I have had LE crash on me a few times with your patch, although I am not sure if that is the most recent one. I can't remember what was causing it though, sorry.

LE has a lot of alphax modding, so did you make sure to copy over all the changes to your alphax and helpx?  (All the new lines, and in the latest patch also the "cost" for Stockpile Energy.)  Using the old text files with the new exe will cause divide-by-zero crashes.