New Modding Guide for Distant Worlds: Shadows

[Erik Rutins]

Please download it here:

Distant Worlds Shadows Modding Guide

[joeyeti]

Not yet there...

[dostillevi]

Thank you!

[rankalee]

Just in time for the weekend... thanks so much!

[Anthropoid]

Note that most customizable items are optional – i.e. you only need to supply the items that you want customized, all other items will be loaded from the default resources. Thus it is possible to customize a single image, while loading the remaining images from the default Distant Worlds images.

Ah! So useful!

Thanks for this Erik

[Igard]

Thankyou! This looks great!

[DrApostle]

this link doesn't work for me

[DrApostle]

Nevermind - it was Antivirus

[swizzlewizzle]

Can't seem to DL this guide.. it just hangs at starting..

[Tcby]

Here is a working link

ftp://ftp.ca.matrixgames.com/pub/Distan ... 0Guide.pdf

[Antarian]

It's missing (so far, 30 secs in)

Any new alien race MUST also have:

- a line in the biases file.

The race file must have:
- an entry pointing to an existing shipset, or you can create a new shipset for them
- an entry pointing to an existing race picture, or you can create a new race picture
- same for troops
- same for flags
- same if using defined characters (this is the MOST amount of work and potential for errors)

[Antarian]

I'd also add they break their 'rules' on the shipsize files right away, only the biggest ships should have a 300 x 300 image, despite the game scaling the ships, they seem to use variable sized files for ship images, so an escort is around 150-180, a dd 220, ect ect, I typically go a bit above 300 x 300 for super ships, they don't fully display in drop down but display fine in game (haven't tested the max size on this) you can test it with the resupply ships, which are typically your biggest ship.

[Antarian]

I'd add that using transparent backgrounds for characters is a HUGE waste of time, they often look MUCH better with backgrounds, like this TOS Romulan character I use, complete with cool old style romulan bridge.

[Antarian]

There's also no mention of the pesky .wmf file for flagshapes, does that mean it is not required any more? It's not using my png file, I checked this by having two different symbols, it's using the .wmf file.

[Lecivius]

This site can’t be reached The webpage at ftp://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/DistantWo ... 0Guide.pdf might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.
ERR_INVALID_RESPONSE

[Hattori Hanzo]

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

This site can’t be reached The webpage at ftp://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/DistantWo ... 0Guide.pdf might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.
ERR_INVALID_RESPONSE

you're right Levicius, the link does not work.
we should ask Erik Rutins to fix it