The Newbie Guide to HW2 Modding

[Alex Drake]

This thread is getting a bit of a facelift to better help those new to modding HW2. Enjoy. Scroll down to the bottom for an excellent link of lists, copied here for your convenience from the Guidelines to Tanis Shipyards thread.

First of all here are some really good links you should check out before you start your modding career here with us at Tanis
Shipyards.

Making Keepers Playable-This is an excellent modding tutorial by Moe for newbies on how to turn the keepers into a race that can be played.
Ship Editing Guide- Excellent tutorial made by Moe.
List of modding tools-This is an essential resource and contains many tools desinged to make the life of the Homeworld 2 modder much easier.
Modding FAQ-answers many basic important questions related to modding HW2.
Guide to Tanis Ettiquite-Read and follow it and your stay with us should be a pleasant and productive one.

Secondly, rather than having each new guy post questions in his own thread the staff here would recommend that you contact one of these people via PM for help. Saves on clutter in the main forum so it can be reserved for discussion of new topics and you will probably receive better quality help too!

Modeling: evillejedi, Mr. Pete, Unicron, Vengeance, Apoc7K, jodonnell, Bigfish, Zatch
Scripting (LUA - General) : evillejedi, Mikail
Scripting (Ships/Weapons) : evillejedi, Tel'Quessir, Zatch
Texturing: evillejedi, El Mambo, Drthvdr12
General Modding: evillejedi, Zatch, Duelron1001
Concept Art: Ceade, Kleiner Traum
Concept Management: Alex Drake, Tefeari
Programming: Delphy, skunk, Spooky, Zatch
(If anyone wants their name either on or off this list just shoot me a PM)

Important attitudes for a modder:

- Will to tinker : Go in and just start tweaking values like theres no tomorrow, its an easy way of figuring out what functions and values do.

- Observation : Ok, you changed crap, what did it do? Watch your test-runs of the game keenly and observe the results with an eye for subtlety, often times a change you make won't be apparent without scrutiny.

- Experimentation : Different then tinkering, run alot of test trials on your changes, test them in situations, try to document things that happen. Basically a combo of tinkering and observing, but repeated often.

- Study : Read the forums, then download people's mods and compare their files against the originals and see what they changed. An addendum, read through all the docked threads, they were put there for a reason.

- Articulation : Get used to articulating yourself and your questions clearly, often the only thing standing between you and the information you want is a poorly worded sentence/paragraph/question.

- Be Reasonable + Search : We're fast reaching the point where alot of people's questions have been asked before, so search for keywords related to your question.

- PM is your best friend : Found someone who really knows what they're doing (like Thought or Delphy) and you have a simple question? Often an eloquent PM will get you the answers faster and clearer then throwing an oft repeated topic on the forums (also avoids flaming).

- Etiquette : This one should be obvious, if you don't get an answer or one that is not satisfactory, refrain from making yourself look bad by whining or acting petulant, no one likes a tantrum and children tend to get ignored. We like to assume everyone here is an adult, act like one and you'll be treated as such. Likewise, when responding to someone's post (atleast around here), conduct yourself in a mature and thoughtful manner, and for goodness sake don't forget to articulate!

Follow those guidelines and existing in the modding community and getting the answers you need will be easy as cake.

-::KEY DOWNLOADS::-

Lefthandback's Data.zip

LINK LIST: (Copied from Tanis Guidelines)

- Helpful modding threads - General -

- "List" threads -

List of tools

- Successful / Exemplary Mods -

PDS Mod

Star Wars: Warlords Mod (In Progress)

Angels Fall First TC also here (In Progress)

HW2 EX Mod

Pirate Race Mod

- Helpful modding threads - Making new ships -

- Modelling and importing into HW2 -

General ReadMeFirst HOD in/out thread

Maya modelling walkthrough by Alex Drake

Problems with Maya texturing

Maya 3 step-by-step tutorial by starfleet (Read this!)

Maya 5 step-by-step tutorial by evillejedi (Read this!)

OBJ -> HOD Importer (old and un-supported)

UVW Mapping Tutorial for 3dsMax, Maya, and Lightwave (image heavy)

- Scripting -

Relic Archive Tool by Spooky

LuaDecompiler by Age2un (aka LuaDC)

Batch LuaDC by Zatch (modified LuaDC for batch conversions)

HW2 ShipScript by Zatch (scripting tool)

- Helpful modding threads - Music import/export -

Sound Import tutorial by Slamoid

HW2 Music Converter by Zatch (batch-convert mp3/wav files for use ingame)

- Helpful modding threads - Mapping -

MissionboySE by Delphy (best map-making program available for HW2)

[Thought]

This should be docked

On a side note:
If anyone actually does PM me, I might miss it, the forum themes here have broken the 'pop up a dialog when you get a new PM' feature, and I rarely check the PMs

Better bet to make a comment on my personal wiki page to get my attention.

[theBlind]

I second the docking notion.

EDIT: gone out of HW2 modding - maybe sometime in the future

-theBlind

[CommodoreOtto]

Is it possible to insert comments in the HW2 script files? It would be a big help to future workers if they could see "this is the part I added" or "this lets the Destroyer build modules" in the file.

[Alex Drake]

I think the # character might do it, I simply provide documentation to support stuff.

[Thought]

No, it's a double --

-- This is a comment
function code()
..
end

[Alex Drake]

Thought, good to know!

Also, can't let them forget about this one, *bump*

[Mikali]

How does this actually qualify as a guide? What exactly is it guiding people to do?

So, I compile that etiquette into LUA in order to get my custom animations into the game?

-Mikail

[Alex Drake]

To avoid unnecessary sarcasm, I'd direct you to re-read the qualifier offered at the beginning of the document.

This does not outline any HW2 modding concepts, but rather thinking points to assist your stay with us.

It merely offers a way to format your thinking so that you can easilly get the information (to compile your lua) in a useful, efficient, and friendly manner. If you don't find it helpful I fail to see why you needed to make such a barbed comment. But then again, in doing so you also proved that you might need to read it a bit more thoroughly.

[Marodeur]

I am a newbie.

So my first question of all will be:

Where in this forum are the basics of modding HW2? Where is the text about what i have to do if i want to mod?
I miss this basic information...

The last modification i made was to edit the missionfiles of TIE Fighter with a hex-editor, because HARD was not hard enough after weeks and months of playing...

[theBlind]

Originally posted by Marodeur

Where in this forum are the basics of modding HW2? Where is the text about what i have to do if i want to mod?

Right now, thats like walking in the woods, asking where the trees are. There is no comprehensive guide anywere as of now. Sad but true, those who can aswer questions have all the knowledge in their heads, mostly. That means you just have to readreadread, and of course ask. But read first

The most comprehensive is the HW2 scripting wiki

[kevin2u]

this it good thank you every one ummm dock it mean sticky?

[Thought]

Yes, 'Docked' is the equivilent of 'Stickied'.

[Katabrok]

This is for you who are searching how to alter the ships files.

1 - Download LeftHandBlacks' almighty Data.zip .
2 - Unzip it into your directory Data - $Program Files$\Sierra\Homeworld2\Data.
3 - Alter the homeworld 2 shortcut: where you read
"C:\Program Files\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe"
changes to
"C:\Program Files\Sierra\Homeworld2\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe" -overrideBigfile
4 - Make your alterations (notepad is a great editor).
5 - Run the game and enjoy!!!

Cheers, Leo

[slimpinto]

Guys...I must be a n00bi3 t4rd cuz I can't get it to work...

see post: http://forums.relicnews.com/showthre...&pagenumber=12

What am I doing wrong?

[Bakuras]

UPDATED!! 9:24pm Pacific Cost Time! 10/15/2003! Re-read the post for even more fool-proof instructions!
Don't say I never did anything for anyone:

(I apologize about the amount of images, but I think the situation calls for it! The more people who know the basics, the better!)
Okay, lets do this from the top! We'll do things step by step so there is as little confusion as possible

First, let's clean out your Homeworld 2 directory of any data files that might be there; this is important in case any of the data files become corrupted(through excessive tinkering or what-not)

Step 1) Start from your desktop



You'll notice that I'm using Windows XP, but these steps should be the same with any incarnation of windows after 3.1(and if you're running 3.1 I somewhat doubt your ability to run Homeworld 2 )

Step 2) Anyways, click on "My Computer"



Step 3) From here, double-click on the drive that Homeworld 2 is located on. For me, it's Drive C:



Step 4) From here, scroll down to the directory that Homeworld 2 is installed on. For me, it was "Program Files\Sierra\Homeworld2".
I'm going to go ahead and assume that you had a normal installation for the sake of instruction
Let's take it step by step for completeness. Double Click on the "Program Files"



Step 5) Next Double-Click on "Sierra"



Step 6) Next, Double-Click on "Homeworld2"



Step 7) We're in the combat zone! Suit-up for hostilities by Double-Clicking on "Data"



Step 8) Trouble! Charlies in the Trees! Keeping these files here is a bad idea! They might become corrupted through excessive and unchecked editing! It's best to keep them in a seperate, easily accessible directory so that you always have a 'clean' set of data files to work from. For now though, let's frag those SOB's!

NOTE: If you're not showing any of those directories, you're clean! No bugs! War has been averted! Skip to step 10. I REPEAT: SKIP TO STEP 10!



Step 9) Remove the infestation by deleting these files:



Step 10) Success! The enemy has been eliminated! Only these files should remain:



Step 11) The war may be over, but now we need to rebuild... download the data.zip and be sure to thank Delphy for creating the .BIG extractor, Thought for modifying luaC to dump lua scripts, and Lefthandblack for translating so many of them into readable code!

Step 12) Anyways, with the data.zip on yourdesktop...



Step 13) Do NOT unzip it into your Homeworld 2 directory! The inhabitants of the zip will become hostile and scream for your blood.... that horrible war we just fought will all be for nothing! I don't like war, and neither should you, so refrain from doing this!



Step 14) Whew! That was close! Disaster has been hopefully averted thanks to your quick thinking and cool head under fire! Instead, unzip the files on to an easily accessible directory, like your desktop



Step 15) Now that the data files have been unzipped to your desktop, go ahead and double click on them!



Step 16) Now you're greeted with this beautifull screen:



Ah! The joys of peace and prosperity! From here, copy the directories that you intend to mod over to the homeworld data directory This way, you don't have to re-extract everything in order to get the original file



Just copy and paste and edit away with the wonderfull notepad!


I originally did this out of frustration and for laughs, but it looks like people are still bombarding the forums with questions that we've answered a hundred times already. Now I don't claim to be any sort of 'elite' modder, or modder at all for that matter(not yet at least), but even I have limits for my paitience. Thus, I present you the 100% idiot proof UPDATED guide to Homeworld 2 modding. Now that I've taken the time to do this, I refuse to say anything more than the link to this thread when someone says: "i lik home wardl too but i don kno how to mke the ships differnte!! can some1 pls mod home werld 2 so that I can have invincible bomberz?"

Don't know the first thing about editing with notepad? Well worry no more! We at the Tanis Shipyards will not leave our fellow human beings behind no matter how annoyed we get at their constant "dewd, plz hlp me! I w@nt to mod homwerld!" in the advanced discussion topics and our pm box! We now have an update courtesy of our sponsor, whoever that is.
UPDATE!

Okay, so you now have the data.zip that you downloaded all extracted and ready to go, what next?

First, before you do anything else, please thank:
Delphy, who made extracting the Hod's possible in the first place. Don't worry if you don't know what that means
Thought, for hacking LuaC to dump it's code so that we can make sense of it(once again, don't worry, just thank)
LeftHandBlack, for translating the LuaC dumps into code readable by Homeworld(the data.zip which you're looking at is all his work!)

Now that you have properly shown your manners by expressing gratitude for their hardwork, let's enable Homeworld 2 to run mods; go back to your desktop, like so:



From here, re-do steps 2 through 6. You should be at this screen:



Double-Click on "Bin" like so:



Double-Click on "Release"



Scroll down to "Homeworld2" and Right-Click on it



In the Right-Click menu, click on "Create Shortcut"



Now, Right-Click on your newly created short-cut. Be carefull, it's a newborn



Click on "Properties"



Add the following line -overrideBigfile into the target box; make sure that you add them after the quotation marks. Hit "OK"



Click-Drag your new shortcut to someplace easily accessible to you, like your desktop. Now, any files that you edit and insert into Homeworld 2's data directory will take effect instead of being ignored




If anyone feels like I should add anything, let me know

This has been a public service announcement from your friendly neighborhood Bakuras

[Alex Drake]

HAH! Overkill indeed, but now no one can ever claim ignorance after reading that. Even a braindead monkey can follow those instructions (has a vision of this thread as a picture book). But in all seriousness, pay attention people, thats important info!

[theBlind]

I really love your photo love story... oh wait, you´re doing something with it, don´t you? :P
Also, I think my love for it is definatly coupled with the fact that I´ve got DSL...

Oh, whats that anime? Looks interesting...

[slimpinto]

LMFAO....

I now see my mistake...THANKS A BUNCH!

[Thought]

Hahahahahahahahahaha... @ Bakuras.

(Neat wallpaper btw).

[Bakuras]

Thanks
I thought it would help to lighten everyone up! The annoyance that the veteran modders have towards the total newbies can scare a lot of people away from modding.(and believe me, with some of these people not even knowing how to get into their homeworld directory I can totally understand the frustration and am not immune to it myself at all!) As a community, we of course don't want that!

And yes, it was done in part out of frustration with the multi-tude of posts crowding out the more valuable information in the forums ^_^;; I definately can relate to people who are younger and don't remember the heady days of DOS qbasic on a 386 at school when the teachers thought you were using "Mickey Mouse learns his ABC's"

Thanks for the compliments on the wall paper
I'm glad you asked what it was from! ^_^
I am of course a huge fan of Japanese Animation largely thanks to the fact that I'm minoring in japanese, but, unfortunately perhaps, this particular wall paper isn't from an anime at all! The art style is very manga-ish, but it is in fact from one of the most under-rated videogames of all time, Gunvalkyrie!

Seriously, if you own an Xbox, you owe it to yourself to give this game a chance. You'll hate it at first, maybe even think it's the worst game ever! Give this game long enough and I garauntee that you'll nominate it for greatest launch title ever.(well, <I> think so...)
This page is already saturated with images, why not one more?


*big grin*

[Katabrok]

Guy!!!

You rocked the world!!!

Congratulations.

It was a damn good step by step guide!!!

[slimpinto]

AND...I was able to use successfully MOD and PLAY HW2...WOO HOO!

Kudos to all of you!

[chami]

wow. I think we should give bakuras some money so he can make a photo story book... it's damn cute :P

best one out of all of them

[Ranger]

Bakuras, if possible, maybe you can post your tutorial on the Karos Graveyard, as I think that would be a great addition to the fledgling tutorial section.

[Bakuras]

This entire topic should be posted to the graveyards
How can we go about doing that?

[Ranger]

I suppose we should ask Thought for the best method.

As one possible solution, we could make a URL link from the Karos Graveyard to here in the tutorial section. That, of course, relies on this thread to exist for as long as the Graveyard is around.

[Bakuras]

A stopgap solution is better than none right?

[Ranger]

True enough. As a result, I added a link from the tutorials section of the Karos Graveyard to this thread.

[Kushan_Pilot]

Hmm...

I add the override line and it screams it's invalid. Obviously, it worked for others.

Update: It doesn't whine when I put this in: "...Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe" overrideBigFile. But despite modifying files, like faster Hiigaran BC, or MS, none take effect, even in skirmish. Very odd...I made the changes in notepad, saved them, they are in the proper directory...it should work.

Update2: Success. I was unaware, or maybe I missed it, that a space was needed: "...\Bin\Release\Homeworld2.exe" -overrideBigfile.

I suppose that knowledge will help others.

[mephisto_xl]

hello i took the rich illustrated "how to" from Bakuras and put it into some more potable format. this is might helpful for other.

here is the file:

http://www.cyberstorms.net/file/Baku...Basics_HW2.rar

thanx to bakuras

cheers
meph

[Koki]

Damn, this really IS foolproof! Great work.

Sooo... where can I get this wallpaper? ;]

[pencil]

cool!good job,Bakuras !!congratunations!!

[Vemarkis]

my winzip says that data.zip is not valid archive..

[shadow51689]

I was trying out my first mod, and I got really frusturated that it wouldnt work (no changes) even though I did the override command.. :rage:

Then I foundout I mispelt ships as 'shops'...

Long story short; It helps if you spell folder names correctly

[GUTB]

God this is annoying. Instead of running around telling people how to copy files from a zip to a directory on the hard drive, how about some real documentation on data editing and scripting?

[BlueTech]

LOL!!

at first i was like "wtf is he doing telling us how to make a shortcut?"

It sort of does help... a TINY bit.... but the best part was the pictures

GUTB, there is lots of information on scripting on Karos Graveyards.

[Alex Drake]

Originally posted by GUTB
God this is annoying. Instead of running around telling people how to copy files from a zip to a directory on the hard drive, how about some real documentation on data editing and scripting?

Howabout taking a look at relic's official RDN tools before you go blabbering about what was't included with this thread. If you note; never once has any contributor to this thread claimed to use this thread a place to answer scripting questions. Those things are found in Advanced Modding Section of the boards. Alse, scripting isn't something that can easlly be completely taught in a simple step-by-step document because HW2's scripting is so voluminous, you pretty much have to start lookign at code, attempt simple modifications on one end or antoher, and build your proficiency from scratch. When you do all of this follow the guidelines listed in the beginning. Afterwards you should come here with specific questions (rather than general complaints).

[Omnibot]

I know this sounds stupid but i'll ask anyway....

....I've been moding this game for a while now ( very basic stuff using good old lefthandblack's data.zip ) and I thought hey I wanna make a new missile so i do a lil research and try my luck but oh no! I haven't got any hod files for anything ( erk! ) . so basicly I just wanna know how to get hold of the damn things?!?

Thanks in advance
( this is a last resort of a desperate man )

[pipakin]

Get the Big extractor (Stickyed post in the Advanced forum) and extract them from Homeworld2.big

-Philip "Pip" Kin

[starfleet]

or read the relic documentation which tells you how to use there tools to do the same thing

[Scorpion_mj]

I'm not a complete newbie to homeworld modding, I made mods, not very good ones, for Homeworld and HW:C, this HW2 is a lot different I think, I finally got my badge to show up correctly in single player, I know this is probably a easy thing to do for most of you but is there any way to change the color of my ships in single player, any help would be great, Thx in advance

Scorpion_mj

[BLESS]

First of all im a total noob to all things excel and how macros work. Can someone run me through how the excel spredsheets in the rdn tools work especially the shiptuning.xls

I assume that u change values on the specs that u want on each ship then after ure done u press that big "Create/Update/Export Ship Data" button. But then i'm presented with two options, the "Send [shipnamehere] to file" and the "Send All ships to File"...what do these two functions do? Either way i get a MS visual basic "runtime error 76 Path not found" . How do i fix this? Does it have to do with the fact that i didn't extract the rdn tools into the homeworld directory like the readme says??

oh this was highlighted in yellow in the debugger thingee
"Set NewFolder = FS.CreateFolder(TargetDir + ShipName)"

[Mikali]

Hot Tip:

If you place a shortcut to your 'Data' folder in your 'My Documents' folder, you won't have to go through all those directories when using a modding tool.

[shiz98]

THX! Now I can finally get started! So basically, all I have to do is to look at the lua files and figure stuff out. Programming experience iscoming in handy!

[Cabinny_San]

Speaking of The Developers Toolkit I am having some difficulty getting it to work still could you possibly post a visual map of how to get it running ie. how the one for using the data files? Please, Por favor, I would appreciate it

[Dpath2100]

You have shown that foolproof it truly is - for behold: installed a mod, I have, and like it I do. Point Defense Systems 2.0 could not have been installed for me without you.

[Alex Drake]

Thus, this thread ha served its purpose if it helps just one person get to their mods....

[merlin58]

:bow2: right i've done all that bakuras say's thanks bak.now what do i do,not only a'm i a noobie to homeworld but also too the pc.if you know of a continue of bakuras advice like a walk through of the next tseps.like some1 buildin a simply ship then i'd be in heaven. cheers for all you'er help..mel

[mbatesy84]

Anyone know how to change the fire rate of a gun? it was easy with HW but looks like HW2 is being a swine!

LOTS OF THANKS TO
Bakuras

i prefer to use the tuning sheets in excel though. makes things slightly easier to find.

now.. where the hell did i put my leg!