Icons with Team Colour

[puggsoy]

Well, I wanted to know if it's possible to make certain colours in an icon change depending on the Team Colour. Like in Warcraft 2, the face of Troll Axethrowers would be red for the red team, blue for the blue team, and so on.

I want to know if this is possible in Warcraft 3. Since model textures can do this I'm hoping that icons can too, but still...

 

[NhazUl]

I've tried to. The model of the icon (the WE says it's CommandButton.mdx, but it cannot be found with any MPQ browsers) must be replaced with one that allows team color background and transparent rendering of the icon. By default the icons are rendered in Transparent mode on black background, so it will be like black team color.

So as of now it's impossible.

 

[puggsoy]

So lemme get this straight. To make this work, I would have to replace CommandButton.mdx, which (currently) cannot be found. And even if it could be found, it would have to be replaced for every person who plays my map, i.e. everyone who wants to be able to see "Team Coloured icons".

Is that correct?

 

[Skycraft]

As far as I know, it's not possible.

 

[The_Silent]

"CommandButton.mdx"? I don't think that exists?

 

[Deolrin]

It's not possible as far as I know, but you can certainly make transparent\alpha'd out icons.

 

[puggsoy]

What would that do? Would it just make the "alpha'd out" area black?

I mean, that is what would happen if I used the icon as a command button in the bottom right, correct? But if I were to use it as a hero icon, would it actually be noticeably transparent when it's in the top left corner? Like, for example, could I blur the edges of the icon?

It wouldn't really help my situation, but it would be cool to know if it's possible.

 

[Deolrin]

I don't know; Mr.Goblin used custom "icon borders" in some of his maps. The icons were 'black ink' drawn on a torn, old leather parchment, which had holes. That made the hero icons, the items and the command card icons look 'transparent'.

 

[Dentothor]

as far as i know, you cant properly alpha an icon. the way passive icons work, is the black faded into it. but its not possible for hero icons to fade out into alpha like you are asking.

 

[puggsoy]

Ah, OK. Well, I wasn't really asking, but just checking if that's what Deolrin meant.

 

[Deleted member 157129]

If you could replace this alledged model of which the icons are wrapped onto, you could add a team-colour layer beneath the icon layer and thus allow team-colour in the icons. This would automatically apply to all icons for all players. I'm not sure such a model, separately, exists, though. Obviously, the UI has to be a model, but I'm thinking the icons may just as well be wrapped onto the UI and not onto a separate model.

 

[puggsoy]

Yeah... if the model exists, and I can find it (or at least get it from somewhere else) that would be cool. By the way, for this to actually be noticeable I would also need to make models with an alpha area... does that just work like any other image with alpha? Can I just do it to a TGA in Photoshop/GIMP and then convert it to BLP? Or does the "alpha-ing" need to be done with a specific tool?

I also had an idea... would it be possible to make a CommandButton.mdx from scratch? And then just import it with the proper path (which I don't know yet, but could probably figure out)? Would that work, d'you think?

 

[The_Silent]

If there is such thing prior, and you manage to hit the right path, so yea.

 

[Deleted member 157129]

If there is a model for it, there's a path for it. If there's no model already, you won't be able to do that without altering how the game renders the UI.

As for alpha- in GIMP, it's just about erasing. Transparency in a .PNG file is the same as alpha in a .TGA and .BLP file. It's slightly more complicated in Photoshop, because you have to alter a specific channel that is called Alpha. There's a tutorial for it somewhere in the tutorial section.

So yeah, to summarize, if there is such a model and you can replace it, you'll need the model to use two material layers. On top, the icon image, and as second layer, you'll need to use Replaceable ID 1.

It's bound to be slightly more complicated than it sounds, though, because this model is, if it exists, used for all the icons in the game, at the same time, and as such doesn't use a specific path for the icon (which is also why importing icons is so easy).

 

[puggsoy]

Thanks for that. Yeah I've worked with Alpha in GIMP before, the biggest problem is trying to make something like a PNG with transparency from an image that's originally in something like JPG and getting white instead of checkers because I forgot to add an alpha channel

However, I really was wondering about making/editing CommandButton.mdx, specifically what I should use for the player colour (which I now know is Replaceable ID 1). So how would I go about making that model? I haven't done much model editing, let alone 2-dimension models with multiple layers.

By the way, NhazUl says that the WE has some reference to this mysterious model:

The model of the icon (the WE says it's CommandButton.mdx, but it cannot be found with any MPQ browsers) must be replaced with...

Could he, or someone else, say where it refers to CommandButton.mdx? I'm real curious.

 

[NhazUl]

Yes, in Advanced > Game interface on the field "Model - Icon button" or something the value is "UI\Buttons\CommandButton.mdl". It cannot be found in any MPQ though.

 

[puggsoy]

Thanks heaps for that, I found it and the exact path is "UI\Buttons\BTNCommand\BTNCommand.mdl", so obviously looking for "CommandButton.mdl" doesn't work.
But yes, as you said it's not locatable in any of the MPQs, I tried it with this path and I can't find it.

However, now I have the alleged path of this mysterious model. So, if I can manage to make a model, and import it with this path, maybe this'll actually work...

Would someone mind telling me how to make such a model?

 

[Weep]

Would someone mind telling me how to make such a model?

Nobody knows what the model should be like, since it has never been found. None of the known Replaceable Texture IDs are for an icon, yet obviously the model would not have a specific defined texture path.

To the goal of having teamcolored icons, it strikes me that it would be easier to edit the UI models to have a teamcolored rectangle beneath the icon area (and edit the UI skins to be fully transparent behind the icons). I'm not sure how to do this, though, since Magos doesn't have tools to create new geometry...but for someone with the right tools, it ought to be possible...I think.

 

[puggsoy]

Hmm... well, I guess I'll give it up for now. I wanted to use Warcraft 2 icons in my map, but since I can't edit them to the Team Colour I guess I'll just have to do it the Warcraft 3 way: red for Orc icons, blue for Human icons.

Well, thanks for all your help anyway guys.