Please note: This is the outdated modding guild thread. To view the the most recent version, click here.
Welcome to the AOKH Modders Guild. This thread is to be used as a learning tool for anybody just starting out in Modding Age of Empires 2. The nature of modding AOK is always changing; there are always new methods depending on what new software we have available to us. So check the guild out regularly, as I'll post updated links and new tutorials etc on a continual basis. You can also ask questions here, use it as a discussion board or simply use it as a reference. Or how about, when you're ready, announce you're own modding project? When you have installed Mod Pack Studio you can download and run your modpacks. MAKE SURE YOU UNZIP THE MODPACK FIRST into a folder. Then double click on your chosen modpack and it will bring up a box which you can either choose Age of Kings or Age of Conquerors. Most likely you will want the modpack to run on Age of Conquerors so click that and it will automatically load AoC with the modpack installed. It will uninstall the modpack automatically when you exit the game. I sometimes find permanently installing modpacks helps the game run more smoothly and allows multiple modpacks to be run at the same time. If you are going to do this I recommend backing up your graphics.drs and your terrains.drs from your AoK/Data folder first. After you have loaded your modpack and you are in the game simply press ctrl+alt+delete. This will take you back to your desktop (failing that click the windows button and then press ctrl+alt+delete). This will bring up the task manager. Simply find Mod Pack Studio and click end task. You can go back to your game now and the modpack will be permanently installed. Then you will need to install them yourself using Mod Pack Studio. Read ahead on how to do this. To create a modpack the only necessary program you need is Mod Pack Studio. This will allow you to create akx files which can be ran by other people. You can find Mod Pack Studio In short, you can import bmp files and slps into Mod Pack Studio very easily. You can then create an install script (akx file) which allows you to play them in game. Once you have installed Mod Pack Studio, open Modpack Studio, click New Project and name it to MyMod.axp. This will load your drs files. You can then scroll through the slps in the game (By type> Once you have done this click File, Make Install script for My mod. Choose a name for it (My Mod.akx) then press save. Click ok on all the boxes. This will create a new akx file. Then once this is done go to File, Install and run modpack, in the search menu click the file MyMod.akx and click open. This will now run AOK with your mod installed. * You may have to set the anchors for that building or unit. I won’t go into detail here but click on set anchors button and you can fiddle with the numbers there. Generally the x anchor should be half the size of the image width, and the y anchor coordinate should be a third of the way down. Try looking at other anchors for more info. If you wish to edit a modpack in the blacksmith it is always nice and polite to ask permission first. Sometimes they are password locked, so simply open the modpack into notepad and the password will be located at the top (thanks Jatayu). Well first of all we need to understand the different file types of AOK and how we can edit them accordingly. Everything you will be editing is stored in the DATA folder of your Age of Conquerors directory. Second of all you should download the modders guild zip file In your AOK data folder (e.g. c:\ageofempires2\data)you will find the main file types you can edit for the game: Terrain.drs Interfac.drs Graphics.drs Sounds.drs Empires2_x1.dat Empires2_x1_p1.dat What does that mean? Well the drs files contain all the graphics associated with the game. For example the graphics.drs contains all the graphics for units and buildings and gaia objects. Terrains.drs contains all the graphics for the terrains. Inside each drs file are files called slp’s. There are many of them and each slp contains the graphics for a particular unit or terrain or menu. The empires2_x1.dat file is what stores all of the stats data in the game, i.e. it tells your archer how many hitpoints he has, it tells your building it can collect food, and tells your town centre it can research castle age at a certain point. If you have the Conquerors C patch installed the main data file is empires2_x1_p1. You can edit the data in this file using a genie editor (see data editing below). Inside the Now we understand what slps are we can move onto how it coincides with the data. Keep your drs_aok open and now install/open AGE. When you open AGE you need to select your AOK directory on the menu. So on AOK folder, click browse, then set your AOK folder (might look like this C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Age of Empires II\). Then click save. Now in the top left there is a menu. Click AGE OF CONQUERERS. This will load. Now click the menu where it says options and scroll down to main dat file. Now underneath that use the drop down box to click units. Right. Now you have a list of every single unit in the game. I have brought you here to let you know how slps work. If you type in the search box (the blank box on the left) ‘archer’ it will bring up a list of units. Click on 4-archer. On the right you will see lots of numbers and fields. All we are interested in here is the STANDING GRAPHIC. You will see that the archer standing graphic is 633. AGE has separate graphic ID’s for all of its units. A graphic ID is basically a link to the slps to tell you what slp to use, how many frames it uses and so on. Now, in the top menu where it says units, scroll to graphics. In the search bar type 633. It will come up with a name called ARCHR_FN. Click on that and look on the right hand side. You will notice many fields and so on but all you should be interested in at the moment is the field SLP. This particular SLP is number 8. Go back to drs_aok, scroll down to number 8 and there you have it, the archer standing graphic. Righto, you should now understand how to install, run and create modpacks. You should also understand what slp’s are, and know where to find them if necessary. Now we will go into more detail on modding in other areas. Data editing is a lot more complicated than adding graphics as there are many new angles involved. Basically you can edit anything from a trees standing graphic to make it look like a house, to making a champion have a 100 attack and move three times as fast. I won’t go into data editing here but there are many tutorials and websites which will explain a lot more about data editing. To edit data the only file you really need these days is AGE. This is the most up to date data editing software and has fewer bugs than previous versions. You can use AGE to edit research, techage, units stats, buildings, gaia objects, add graphics, create new units, give abilities to other units/building (for example making a house garrison able) and so much more it is unbelievable. You can find many files which showcases you some of the things than can be created by editing data. Go to If you wish to edit the data of terrains I will shortly be writing up an indepth tutorial on how to do this. I will also cover some extra slp information and show you how to make animated units, and edit frame numbers effectively. (To be ready soon). There are different genie editors you can use to edit the stats in game. If you wish to do simple edits such as unit stats then you can use Genie2, as this is a lot less complicated. However, I still recommend using the newer version AGE - short for Advance Genie Editor. With this you can edit research and techage and generally do a lot more with your units. You can find AGE and its tutorial in the Here is a step by step tutorial to adding a unit to your game using AGE, written by qaz123tfg. You can also go Aswell as AGE there are obviously its fantastic predecessors. They are still important to use today, which I went into slightly above. These were the newest and most exciting areas of AoK modding at one point. The great Ykkrosh brought it to AoK with his GeniEd2. It can be downloaded below. Listed below there is a guide to GeniEd written by qaz123tfg. A version of GeniEd1 for TC created by MasterJoab and scenario_t_c. A powerful and easy-to-use stats editing tool. The second version of GeniEd with several bug fixes and new features. Comprehensive guide to the use of GeniEd2. The newest version of GeniEd. This is the way of changing the labels in AoK, such as the name of a unit or building, the main menu text and even the text of many of the scenarios. In order to change them, you need to edit the language.dll files. To do this, you need an editor. There is an excellent language editing tutorial over at the SWGB forum This file is used for editing any .dll and works slightly better than reshacker as you can view what the strings say before scrolling through them all (unlike reshacker) and it contains a search function. The only problem is you can't add new strings. An easy and straightforward program for editing .dll files. With this you can add new strings. A powerful hex editor. Graphics editing is my favorite part of modding. It opens up a whole new world of creativity. Anything you can imagine, you can make. Best of all, now you can put it into AOK and play it. Well first of all we need the right software to make the graphics. Good for us that it doesn't have to be that complicated (due to being in 256 colors) and can be done to a good enough standard without using really expensive software. There are two ways of modifying graphics for AOK. Here are two rendering presets for AOK style camera angles and lighting. I will try to add more of these for different software over time. Poser (link being added to blacksmith) Over the course of modding I have come across many different pieces of software but to be honest a lot of them are useless or outdated so here is my version of what you should use. If you work in a graphics related field (whether it 2d or 3d) or are serious about modding then its definately worth the investment to purchase some software. - -POV RAY – Another Renderer that can be used with sketchup. If you really are on a tight budget but want to create quality units and buildings then these programs will help you greatly. I have just found a fantastic link with a huge list of FREE modelling software. Be sure to check it out There are loads of different picture editing software you can use. I was using MGI Photosuite at one stage for AOK, Lightroom, Lightwave, anything. Pretty much anything by A tool for creating 3D characters. Great for unit design. Again, you can use whatever you want to model. There are loads of programs you can use like Maya, Zbrush, Lightwave, Vue (great for terrain creation and mountains and the like). There are also loads of fantastic plugins, tutorials and pre made objects out there online you can download and use (ensuring they are free for non commercial use). Use a search engine to find what you want and if requested I have a list I can give to anyone who asks. I have come across some other cool pieces of software over my modding time that can aid you in other aspects you may never have looked at before. This is mainly for things like textures, terrains, plants and many other things. I will add random software over time. I have much more to add to this list which can really get people inspired. The main reason I can’t do this at the moment because my two 1000 GB hard drives are ALL over the place and I need to organize everything I have installed to make a good list. For a good source of free textures I highly recommend When making anything for use in AOK you will need to convert it to a 2d image and also render it to an isometric view with correct lighting (lighting in AOK comes from the East). You will then need to change the palette of the image to the AOK palette. Don't use the normal AOK palette as you will get whats called white boxes of doom, and makes editing images a frustration. Instead, inside my If your editing vast amounts of objects I recommend setting up a script to do so as it saves a lot of time. Personally I use Photoshop and have set up a script that automatically converts my opened files to the new palette, saves them as bmps, closes them, and then moves onto the next. The only downside on this is getting the colors right, sometimes doing it manually is better as each object might respond better to different diffusion rates and so on. Its all about getting the right balance. To use with GIMP. Load your image. Go to the menu bar, windows, dockable dialogues, palettes. Now in that box click on the back arrow looking thing and then go to Palettes menu, import palette. Then in the import palette box, go to palette file, search for where you unzipped the .act file and click import. This will add this palette to the palette box. Now, go to the menu bar, Image, Mode, Indexed Color, select custom palette. Click on the colored box, then the AOK Palette should be there, click on it, and it will load. Then click convert and your image will now have the AOK palette. You can mess around with the dithering etc to make it look its best. To use with Photoshop go to the Menu bar, image, Indexed Color. This will open up a box, on the palette part scroll down the menu to custom, click load, and then search for the act file. This will load and then click ok and ok again. You might want to set the dithering to 100% (for most things) although this can be changed to noise or pattern or whatever looks best. I've temporarily put this link I will add a very short section to this to be updated with in depth data editing on the matter very shortly. Basically for now adding terrains works the same way as adding graphics. You can add NEW terrains to your terrain.drs file (for replacing none editor terrains) aswell as replacing the normal ones you see in game. Righto. Just a quick update. All sounds can be edited in the game whether it is a unit sound or a building sound, or even the in game sound like main menu music or win screen music. To edit sounds you'll need mod pack studio. Go into modpack studio, you will find the sounds.drs in the location tabs. In here every single sound for every unit and every nation is there. You will find the sounds list in the mod pack guild zip. You can import sounds using the import button and click save. There are also sounds in the interface.drs. These will be your sounds for things like the 'your being attacked' sounds or the menu button hover sounds and so on. --------------------------- --------------------------- Palettes in AOK basically tell the game what colors to use in what and where. You can view the Palettes in Mod Pack Studio and edit them from there. The main game uses palette 50500. I will go into this later on as there are a lot more things you can do to create better palettes, changing player colors, editing the interface and some other stuff that involves data editing. (coming soon) Ok, So you have finished all your graphics, you have completed your new .dat file. Editing your language files or whatever, now what? Here you have many options. If your only editing a few objects you could import it all into Mod Pack Studio and create an install script quickly and give people the new file for your mod. Relativly simple. You can put it in a zip with the .dat files and any language files necessary. Another good piece of software to use is Mod Workshop. It's slightly more complicated than Mod Pack Studio but you get a lot more freedom over what you produce. You can create new SLPs from SCRATCH and many other things. I like to use this as the ‘final’ piece. I use Mod Pack Studio to view my SLPs nicely and so on and create the easy SLPs (they appear in the your Mod Pack Studio project folder). I then use Mod Workshop for the more complicated things. It isn’t as user friendly as Mod Pack Studio but is very good. Download it There is one last thing I need to go into. When creating SLP’s with a different number of frames to its original (or creating completely new SLP's) you need to add the graphics in AGE and edit its frame number and so on. You can do this easily by going to the graphics tab in AGE, find the graphic, and then edit its frame number, or add the graphic with the new SLP you created. You can add SLPs with different frame numbers into Mod Pack Studio, by importing an SLP, clicking yes or ok to change the number of frames. You can also build your SLPs from scratch in Mod Workshop, either way you still have to either add the graphic in AGE or edit it with the correct number of frames. (I will include a very short tutorial on this shortly). This is also very important for when adding completely new SLP’s to a drs file (i.e. not replacing anything but adding things). The general process is; add new SLP to drs, go into AGE, add the graphics in the graphics list using your new SLP numbers, then add your unit in the units tab. (Or you can create data first and add graphics after but I find it easier doing it all at once after the graphics are done, you can still do it as you go along). (I will update more info on this later on with in depth numbers and field’s info; I will also go into how you can add new terrains to the drs and modify terrains using data editing). Read this tutorial All files for this section are included in the Modders Guild Zip. You can also download them here; Remember: Graphics in graphics drs. Sounds in sounds.drs. Terrains in Terrains.drs. Everything else (like palettes etc) goes in the interfac.drs. Another way of giving people your mod is by using a custom installer. You must first use an install script that allows the mod to be uploaded in an .exe format. You can read a good tutorial with some examples of a basic installer There are many sites which host files and so on but I recommend The short answer is a Mac can’t run any of the AOK 3rd party software needed to make or install mods as they are written for PC’s. The long answer is you can run boot camp. Go Mixon Dixon put this perfectly. MPS uses a 16-bit installer, which 64-bit no longer supports. Your only hope would be to install a 32-bit version of Windows (2000 or up) on a virtual machine (my recommendation: To use MPS with a virtual machine (starting when your 32-bit OS is installed on it): 1) Set the virtual machine to use the real disk drive. 2) Install AoK, TC, and any patches you may need. 3) Download and install MPS on your virtual OS. 4) Now you have an option. Either play AoK on the virtual OS and use MPS with it (slightly buggy, but easy), OR 5) Using the permanent install trick, copy the modded DRS files on the virtual machine to your real AoK data folder. (If you need help doing that, just I know the last step isn't fun, so I may make a utility to make it easier. "UNEXPECTED ERROR - #52, Bad file name or number, on line 192" – I ran into this one a while ago and couldn’t find the solution anywhere. Turns out it is a registry error. I think it sometimes happens if you uninstall mod pack studio or install it before AOK, I can’t remember. If it happens randomly, uninstall mod pack studio. You then need to run a registry edit and delete all of the registry items for Mod Pack Studio before re-installing. “UNEXPECTED ERROR - #35602, Key is not unique in collection, on line 2449” – I used to get this error a lot when constantly ‘testing’ new mods. It occurs after installing a mod pack from inside Mod Pack Studio and then trying to reload an AXP file after you quit AOK. It is quicker just to quit Mod Pack Studio after installing a mod from it and exiting the game, reloading MPS and then opening your AKP file again. You don’t need to uninstall Mod Pack Studio. No. The 35mb zip file contains: Tiles Template SLP List Graphics.drs/Interfac.drs List Sounds.drs List AOK Fixed Palette for GIMP and Photoshop Anchor Guide Mod Pack Studio 2 AGE Mod Workshop DRS_aok DRS_build DRS_explorer Jorgitos Graphic Pack (To help you practice importing bmps) (coming soon) |
[This message has been edited by Tatsuo (edited 06-21-2014 @ 11:31 AM).]