Having to Re-Learn stupid newb modding, Questions

This is what happens when your brain gets swiss cheesed

from Elemental Forums


Ok, so I sat down this morning with the goal of getting back into re-skinning. Remembering that I need to make new PNG's and all that, but already I ran into a question. I thought maybe some of the file structure might have changed between E:WoM and FE:LH I opened the XML of the Sov I'm using in my current game to re-familiarize myself with how to get the ball rolling. I see in the XML for my character that he's using the K_Male_Evil_Texture_01.png as a skin. When I look in the files I can't find the PNG for that, instead I can only see the K_Male_Evil_Texture_01.DDS. So, where is it storing the PNG it's using for my character? I looked in My Docs but maybe I'm missing it?

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

9,971 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I think it's storing the .png in the dds file itself (that is my best guess). Also, I think that they have some hidden *.png files somewhere, as I can't find all the file references. But this question might be better answered by Heavenfall.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting parrottmath, reply 1

I think it's storing the .png in the dds file itself (that is my best guess). Also, I think that they have some hidden *.png files somewhere, as I can't find all the file references. But this question might be better answered by Heavenfall.

Looking over what the team and I did on our past work and how I made my skins work before I just had to place the PNG in the right directory and then make sure it was being called in the XML. I seem to remember it being easier to find the base PNGs for the individual races to work with though.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top


I did find a online converter that will change DDS files into PNGs for me to work with but I don't recall it being necessary before. I feel like a dumbazz for not being able to remember how to do this. I had editing skins down to a science before where it was really easy for me to edit the base skins. First I just need to get back to that point. As I said in another thread, I'm a skinner, and definitely not a coder. Before I had the old team helping me out I had to straight to the devs to get the help I needed to make my skins show up before.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't fully understand it... but basically where it references filename.png, if it finds a file named filename.png it will use that... if not it will look for a file called filename.dds and use that instead.

So basically, you can (and should) save your skin as mynewskin.dds, but you can put mynewskin.png in the xml and it will work fine.

That should work fine.

In your example in your first post, it will be using K_Male_Evil_Texture_01.DDS.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

You can save it as a png and it will work I believe.

But I think (and I am by no means an expert in this stuff) that a dds is better, more memory efficient or something.  Generate it with mipmaps.  I use GIMP.

HF will correct me if i'm wrong i'm sure.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top


HAHA!!! Success!!! Turns out my system can automatically convert the DDS's to a PNG for me to work with without me needing to use a online app. So, one tiny step done. I still need to figure out how they're being stored and if I can make skins show up in game the same way I did before though.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Your absolutely right. The correct folder is the Gfx folder in the main directory, or in the Mods folder. The program will not look for these PNGs except in those places. There are a lot of these little quirks.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting abob101, reply 4

I don't fully understand it... but basically where it references filename.png, if it finds a file named filename.png it will use that... if not it will look for a file called filename.dds and use that instead.

So basically, you can (and should) save your skin as mynewskin.dds, but you can put mynewskin.png in the xml and it will work fine.

That should work fine.

In your example in your first post, it will be using K_Male_Evil_Texture_01.DDS.

Much appreciated. For some reason PS (CS4) won't open the DDS's directly though for me to make edits and work on so I'll probably have to resort to making them all PNG's for base textures in my modding. Unless HF or someone can explain to me what steps I'm missing.

Thanks abob and parrot :)