This mod tells the story of the Invasion of Normandy. And the Invasion of Poland. Includes new weapon sounds, new maps, and a lot more.

Post tutorial Report RSS Men of War: Where should I start?

This tutorial is about the basic of the Men of War modding. Its not full yet, but I had written a big part of my knowledge.

Posted by on - Basic Starting a mod

My little story:

Well, to start moding is always a very easy decision, but to continue it the most hardest. I remember to my first mod, which wasn't a really mod. I loved the Hidden & Dangerous first episode. I played with it a lot. I had a press version of it, where the makers are censured the textures, no swastikas, no medals on the Germans, etc. Because I seen a lot of film, read a lot of books about the German army, that was a huge disappointment to me. But one day I found the uncensored textures, and I can solve everything, and the game become more funny. Then I changed the textures with paint. I make camouflages, new nice tank textures. That's why I love moding.

After few years, I once gone to the local supermarket. I saw a game, called Faces of war. "Oh God, another Sudden strike copy, I don't need it, the pictures are nice, but they must be cut-scenes" I thought . Well, after I red a review on the internet, I was amazed and I decided to buy it if I see it again. After a month, I found the last one on the self in the shop. After a 10 minutes of I playing, I was amazed, that's the game what I dreaming about. Then the Men of War came.
After a month, I started to make mods for it, just simple skins, new soldiers, officers. After a year I started to make my first models, the first one was an P90 submachine gun. I made it with blender, then I exported it with the 3ds max, well, I tried to do this about a month.
I worked without any tutorial, I just used the sample files in the 3ds max exporting plug-in. The first success was great. After this, I started to work on my Stargate mod, but after a half year I started to publicate images from it. Now the mod is advancing nicely, it now has there version.
That's my story.

So you can see that, for moding you need grim determination, and practicing, practicing, and much more practicing.

What you need to be like


Who want to be a Good modder, he have to

  • Patient
  • Good learner
  • Creative
  • Good communicative skills are advantage
  • Hard work
  • Have a lot of free time
  • Maximality is important to make the best quality mods, the best sreenshots
  • You have to open to the innovations, new programs, new techniques
  • You have to well know all parts of modding, if you are Skinner, you have to know the basics of the modeling, animation, coding and map building too
  • You have to well know yourself, only start that things what you can done
  • You have to know how to lose, you shouldn't be angry because your mod didn't won the MOTY
  • Organize your work, use texture libraries, model libraries, sound libraries and so on
  • Language knowledge is important
  • Hear the destructive critics too, but defend yourself smartly
  • Make a nice profile if you can, with images, profile headers, accolades to look like a serious developer
  • Check your competition
  • Ask on forums if you can't know something, but don't be rude or bossy
  • Use spelling dictionary, to write right, always start you phrases with upper case letters
    I use this for Firefox
  • Have fun

The Men of War modding

Well, now talk about to Men of war mods.
The Men of war mods are located in the Men of War\mod folder.

The mod.info
Basically for an activate-able mod need a specific file, called mod.info
This is a text file, something like this:

{mod
{name "Stargate3"}
{desc "Stargate Mod by Attila1945, V3 Rc"}
}

  • name
    This is the name of the mod, it's the name of the folder where the mod located,
    it's must to the name of the folder where the mod located
  • desc
    This is
    the description of the mod, what you can read in the game in the option menu

The Resource folder
This is the folder where is the backbone of your, the models, textures in their proper places

  • Entity: (the most important)
    - Construction: here are the buildings
    - Fx: effects
    - Humanskin: the skin of the peoples in the mod
    - Inventory: the thing what the characters can use, weapons, helmets, ammo models
    - Landscape: where are the rocks, streets can be found
    - Flora: vegetations place
    - Fauna: animals
    - Service: few animated thing, particles
    - Particle : particles
  • Interface: you can add your unit portraits here, you can change the game menus here, here are the unit profiles too
  • Map: here are the maps
  • Music: here are the soundtracks
  • Properties: here are a lot of code files of the game, and the animation of the human models too, here you can change the game-play, I don't know them very well
  • Sound: well, here are the sounds, shooting, shouting, well know sound effects
  • Texture: the common texture folder, walls example

The localization folder
Here are the dialogues of the maps

Adding entities

Modelling
I don't want to write much about this, because other great guys done this before me, so I give you links instead

  • The Bible of men of war modding and the game: Digital Mind Soft
  • Our best friend in max, the plug-in
  • Our best friend are live here, and where the geniuses are gathering: Dms forums
  • The best max teacher is the Youtobe, I hope you can find he easily :)
  • The basics are here

The humans
Well, this is the most hardest part of modelling.

  • First, you need the model of the guy
  • Then you need the skeleton, the skeleton is in the gem plug-in samples folder, in the Gb_com.max
  • Then you have to fit your guy or chick, drag the verticles, rotate, and what need, this is enough hard
  • Then rig it, (oh men easy to say this, because its the most horrible part, need about a lot practice first, but after that will be more easier in time,) I don't want read about this too, please check the Youtobe, and other tutorial sites.
  • You have to link it to the basis, and check the options
  • The others are similar to the prop making

Adding weapons
If you exported it, and its looks cool, you have to place it to Men of war\mod\yourmod\resource\inventory\-weapon\ folder with its own folder. But its don works in-game. Why?
First, its .def file is not good. Its consist the name, the .mdl files name, maybe volumes, but its need more. Here is the example of the good file:

{actor
(include "/properties/stuff_small.ext")
{Extension "ak74su.mdl"}
{extender "stuff"
{item "ak74su"}
}
{nogroupmesh 1}
}

Its need the proper .mdl name, and it needs the (include "/properties/stuff_small.ext") too. In the extender the "stuff" is remains, but the {item "ak74su"} changes to your weapon name, example
{item "m16a4"} if you made an m16a4.

But you need a set file too. Its located in Men of war\mod\yourmod\resource\set\stuff\rifle.
The easiest to copy one. And rename it to your weapon name,
IMPORTANT: its name have to same in the item paragraph in the .def file, here is an example,

m16a4

{from "pattern rifle"
{tag "weapon rifle bullet to_hand"}
{Automatic}
{recoveryTime 0.11} ; s
{rechargeTime 1.5} ; s
{desc "Ak101"}
{filling "ammo ak47" 30}
{preloaded}
{inventory
{size 4 2}
}
{mass 5}
{aimRange 70} ; m
{maxRange 75} ;
{entity "ak101"}
{fireSound "rifle/ak47"}
{reloadSound "mp44"}
{spreading
{SpreadRadius 0.8}
{SpreadXYRatio 2.5}
{SpreadPower 3}
}
{healthDamage 50.6}
{HealthDamageClip 0.7}
{ProjectileDamageClip 0.3}
{burst
{short 2.5 1.5}
{long 7.5 1.5}
}
}

We can change the weapon parameters here, the ammo,the damage and so on. But now we change the desc to our weapon,
{desc "Ak101"} to {desc "M16A4"} , and save it.

After these, we have to get a useful weapon in-game.


Now that is all now. Please help to make this tutorial better. It's my first tutorial. I hope I helped you.
I will update the tutorial in the future.

Post comment Comments
fastLegs
fastLegs

AHHhhhh dunno what to say about that!

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junjunf
junjunf

hahaha

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Lacedaemonius
Lacedaemonius

most hardest? once gone? successes was?

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Mukridzsin
Mukridzsin

Very nice description.:D

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DoctorJones
DoctorJones

It seems many players knows Sudden Strike which leads me to the war games world

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RoyalHants
RoyalHants

unfortunatly i get this error when trying to fire the weapon

Img15.imageshack.us

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JinBitsu
JinBitsu

This is quite helpful bud!

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junjunf
junjunf

why bug jin bitsu have you try this? because i want to try this....

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
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