Dungeon Siege - Create a generic node texture set ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tools needed: -------------------- Dungeon Siege Tool Kit PsdToRaw.exe RawToPsd.exe + RawToPsdGUI.exe (comes together) TankCreator.exe (gui) + RTC.exe (comes together) Adobo Photoshop (prefered) or similar It's best to have already de-tanked the entire set of dsres files except voices.dsres before attempting this. Essentially you need the full bits\art\bitmaps tree, the full bits\art\terrain tree and the bits\world\global tree. If you haven't already done this, open SE, files, convert dsmap to files, browse to the dungeon siege resources directory, switch the file type to dsres, select a file to de-tank and push ok. Do this for all except voices.dsres which you usually do not need. Warning: this requires a LOT of disk space. Step 1: Setting up naming key --------------------------------------------- Under bits\art create a file yourname.nnk . Add these lines: TREE = B_T_NNN , Name , "Name" TREE = B_T_NNN_WAL , Wall , "Wall" TREE = B_T_NNN_FLR , Floor , "Floor" TREE = B_T_NNN_PTH , Path , "Path" TREE = B_T_NNN_RMP , Ramp , "Ramp" TREE = B_T_NNN_RVR , River , "River" TREE = B_T_NNN_H2O , Water , "Water" TREE = B_T_NNN_RUIN , Ruins , "Ruins" TREE = B_T_NNN_SCAFF , Scaffolding , "Scaffolding" Replace NNN with your initials + a unique set of initials naming the set. Example: TREE = B_T_JMCCS01 , Jmccs01 , "Castle01 'Jmccs01' will become the directory name as in bits\art\bitmaps\terrain\Jmccs01 . "Castle01" will show up as the set's name in SE. The other trees will show up under that as wall floor etc directories. Step 2: Setting up SE to recognize your node set ------------------------------------------------ Browse to My Documents\Dungeon Siege\Bits\world\global\siege_nodes\generic . Edit the file generic_node_naming_key.gas Add a line like this: NNNFoo = "Foobar Forrest"; Replace NNN with your initials and Foo with your node set initials as in step 1. Mine looks like this: jmccs01 = "Castle01" This tells SE to look in directory bits\art\bitmaps\terrain\jmccs01 and that it will be named "Castle01" in the Node set list. Be sure to backup this file as some tanks overwrite it!! Your node set will NOT show up in SE without a listing in this file. Step 3: Copy an existing node texture set ------------------------------------------------------------- Browse to My Documents\Dungeon Siege\Bits\art\bitmaps\terrain and copy the Swamp directory. Change the name from 'copy of Swamp' to 'NodeSetName' as in: NNNFoo so that you will now have: My Documents\Dungeon Siege\Bits\art\bitmaps\terrain\NNNFoo Mine looks like this: My Documents\Dungeon Siege\Bits\art\bitmaps\terrain\jmccs01 Now, here is the fun part. Take a loot at the filenames of all the bitmaps. They will look like this: b_t_swp_abc-portal-flr-a.raw b_t_swp_abc-portal-tx-wall-04x04-a.raw b_t_swp_abc-portal-tx-wall-04x04-b.raw b_t_swp_abc-portal-flr-a.gas b_t_swp_abc-portal-tx-wall-04x04-a.gas b_t_swp_abc-portal-tx-wall-04x04-b.gas Change ALL of the file names replacing swp with NNNFoo (mine would be jmccs01) so all your files are now named: b_t_NNNFoo_abc-portal-flr-a.gas b_t_NNNFoo_abc-portal-tx-wall-04x04-a.gas b_t_NNNfoo_abc-portal-tx-wall-04x04-b.gas Note that for each .raw bitmap file there is a .gas file. Be sure to get all those as well. Enter each subdirectory and rename all of those as well. The REALLY REALLY fun part! Edit EVERY gas file and replace swp with NNNFoo . Example This is the file b_t_swp_abc-portal-flr-a.gas : [t:tsd,n:b_t_swp_abc-portal-flr-a] { layer1texture1 = b_t_swp_abc-portal-flr-a; i texturedetail = 2; } Change it to this: [t:tsd,n:b_t_NNNFoo_abc-portal-flr-a] { layer1texture1 = b_t_NNNFoo_abc-portal-flr-a; i texturedetail = 2; } Note that there are at least 2 places in each file where you must replace swp with NNNFoo . The animated textures like the water and lava textures have several several places where you need to change the name since they have swappable textures to animate with. Use search and replace. You would now be able to use NNNFoo node set in SE, however it will look exactly like the swamp set. So lets change a bitmap to test our set. Step 4: Edit or replace all the bitmaps --------------------------------------- In order to edit the .raw files you will need to convert them to .psd format This is most easily done using RawToPsdGUI.exe which is the gui front end to RawToPsd.exe . Create a temporary directory to store the converted files. Example: c:\NNNFoo Open RawToPsdGUI and browse to your copied NNNFoo dirrectory in bits\art\bitmaps\terrain\NNNFoo . Select c:\NNNFoo as the destination. Push Start Conversions . When complete, go to the c:\NNNFoo\Floor directory and edit this file: b_t_NNNFoo_flr_04x04-a.psd Either completely change it or edit in such a way that you can recognize that it is different from the normal swamp grass texture. Draw your initials on it for instance in bright orange. Very important! If you create a new file you must create an alpha layer. In Adobe photoshop it would be done this way: On the select menu, choose select all, on the channels panel at the bottom, the second icon is the 'create channel from selection' button. Push that button. A new alpha channel will appear that is all white. Save the image. Browse to the image you just edited in Explorer and drag it into PsdToRaw.exe . It will automaticly create b_t_NNNFoo_flr_04x04-a.raw in the same directory. PsdToRaw will fail if you havent created an alpha layer. Copy this new raw file to bits\art\terrain\NNNFoo\floor\b_t_NNNFoo_flr_04x04-a.raw Step 5: Test the new node set ------------------------------ Open SE, create a new map and region. On the node menu, select current node set. Select your new set NNNFoo . On the object list on the left, pick terrain then generic then floor then t_xxx_flr_08x08-v0 . Lay down several of those. You should see your new bitmap on those nodes. Step 6: Edit all the bitmaps ----------------------------- Edit or replace all the .psd files you wish changed to new textures. Convert them to .raw . Copy all of these raws into bits\art\terrain\NNNFoo making sure flr's go into the floor dir, wal's go into the wall dir, etc. Your node set is now complete enough for DSMod testing. Step 7: Tank it ---------------- Be sure to test as much as you can by building a test map. You may have missed a few. Test in DSMod. When satisfied, tank your nnk and your bitmaps. You should then be able to run the new node set properly in Dungeon Siege. The easiest way I've found to tank is to use WinRar. Select any of your files you want to tank, right click, add to archive, pick a name, go to the files tab, change relative paths to full paths, push ok. Repeat for all the files you want tanked. Inside the new rar file, browse to the Bits dir, drag this onto the desktop. Rename it NNNFooBits . Use this as the source for TankCreator. Browse to the Dungeon Siege resources dir, pick a name NNNFoo.dsres , push create. Happy modding! -Mike Carpenter mcarp@mcarp.org www.mcarp.org/dsnodes.html