“How come a big white box is around my unit when I put it in SWGB?”
-You must apply the transparency to it first. What you do is, open it in MS paint and invert it’s colors. Color all pink areas, which you want as transparencies, black, then invert. And, if you have PSP7, go ahead and import it into PSP, and then save it, no doctoring is needed.
8. “How do I actually view these slp files?”
- You can either download SLP Viewer or Modpack Studio. Both are located in the Age of King Heaven’s blacksmith.
aok.heavengames.com/blacksmith /
9. “How do I edit SLP files?”
-Unfortunately, you must have Age Of Kings and Modpack Studio installed to actually view and edit them.
10. “How come whenever I view my mod in SWGB, they always seem to be out of place?!”
-You must apply anchors to them first. Use the anchor option in MPS to get a good fix on the unit’s position. The X and Y line represents where it’s “selection circle” is going to be.
11. “How do I mod for SWGB?”(by TVS)
-Using the DRS program made by Ykkrosh, you want to decompile the graphics DRS. Then go into MPS and pick any AoK unit slp. Then "Import SLP" and browse for the SWGB SLPs which should be in your C:/Program Files/Lucas Arts/Star Wars Gallactic Battlegrounds/Game/Data/Graphics folder. Most of the unit SLPs will crash because of a translucent shadow mask that was not supported with AoK. You need to find the Decaying animation of what you want to replace first. Once you import the slp, remember its number. Not the number of the slp you're using to look at it with, but the one you selected from the Graphics folder. SLPs go in order from Attacking, Dying, Standing, Decaying, and then Walking. Remember that so you know what number to name the SLPs that come before and after the Decaying SLP. You can build an SLP by using the "Import BMP" feature and importing all the frames that you made into one of the unit slps from AoK. I would suggest making the Attack SLP with 40 frames, the Dying with 60 frames, the Standing with 40 frames, Decaying with the same number of frames as the Decaying SLP has that you imported, and then 40 Walking frames. That is probably the average number of frames for your ground units, other than some mechs. You will also need to set your anchors. To learn more about anchors, please see a MPS tutorial. Anyway, you save the SLP that you have made as the number you need it to be and place the SLP in that Graphics folder, then use the DRS program to compile it. This is where you can actually view the unit in the game, but you will need to examine the frames to see if you had the correct number of frames. If you stand the unit in one direction and he starts to face in a different direction, you probably do not have the correct number of frames and you will need to edit the SLP again and either add or remove some frames using MPS and continue the process until you get it right. If you're new to modding, I suggest you do not attempt this until you're quite familiar with MPS and you have some experience with some simple Building Mods.
12: Changing sounds is also possible (and a lot easier than changing graphics), although there's not much point in doing so unless you're changing a unit's appearance into something completely different. And there could be a link to a resource editor for changing language.dll (like Resource Hacker).
13: Even with C++ knowledge, you'd need the source code to change anything other than individual numbers (and it would still be nearly impossible to add a new civilisation), and the probability of getting it is not extremely high. But you could always try asking LucasArts very nicely
14: There's a link in Q6 for Blender, and it could be mentioned in this question -- it's free, like Paintbrush, but an awful lot better for 3d modelling . More expensive programs like 3ds Max (which Ensemble used for AOK (I'm not sure about LucasArts, but I imagine they used the same)) would create a higher quality image, but that's fairly irrelevant when it's twenty pixels wide.
There are loads of Star Wars 3d models available on the Internet, which makes things a lot easier -- the main ones seem to be Blender Wars (specifically for Blender), Sci-Fi 3d (very high quality, mainly for 3ds Max), and SWMA (currently unavailable -- use the mirror)
