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Changing BfME's color scheme for the interface

Tutorial for Battle for Middle-earth II BFME 2, Battle for Middle-earth II: Rise of the Witch-king ROTWK

Stealthsnake

Category:	Graphics
Level:	Intermediate
Created:	Saturday March 24, 2007 - 17:32
Updated:	Friday August 27, 2010 - 19:45
Views:	7966
Summary:	This tutorial will help you change the game's interface color

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The prerequisites for this tutorial are the following

- Final Big
- Any image editing program -- a little more advanced than Paint ;)
- Knowledge of how to get new art ingame
- ... coffee :P

Now, here comes the most boring part of it. So get prepared to sip some of that coffee !
You will need to go into the APT folder in your install directory. In there you will see 88 .big files (for ROTWK).
They contain most of the art you need to edit. Get all the .tga files you find in these .big files, and extract them to your modding folder, in a subfolder called arttextures.

Once you have found all of the files in the ROTWK's APT folder, extract the last interesting textures in the textures1.big file, filepath being art\CompiledTextures\SF.

Go back to the main directory, and extract all the aptcomponents files from textures1.big. There may be more or less files depending if your running BfMEI, BfMEII or ROTWK.
Once done, make a new folder with the path CompiledTexturesAP and place the new aptcomponents files in there.

Now you will need to go through all the texture files, and edit them.
Theres no need to go into details about this, just use the recolor brush if you want to keep it simple.
You could at this point design a new palantir, or new art design. For example, EA's ROTWK a spiky theme, you could replace it with your own theme.
So once your done with the texture files. You should have them all in the art\textures folder.

Next, go back to the main ROTWK folder, and extract loadpage_bg out of the textures2.big file. This is the load screen you see when loading Create A Hero for example.

I suggest editing it in accordance with your new theme, but well you're free to do it your way ;)
Once done, make a new folder in your new art folder with the path : CompiledTextures\lo and place the edited loading screen in there.

Once you're done editing all of the files, now comes the easy part.
Simply drag the art folder and all of its content into FinalBig to create your custom .big file and run your mod using the -mod command.

That's it for editing the color scheme. Next page will tell you how to edit the font color.

Credits

JEV3

Part 2

Comments

Display order: Newest first

Lurtzy - Sunday November 9, 2008 - 21:41

I too have this problem

druchii22 - Friday October 17, 2008 - 8:49

I have the same problem that Lord of the Rings Junkie.

Lord of the Rings Junkie - Thursday November 29, 2007 - 12:53

When I extract the images they don't have their alpha channel anymore. I can't seem to restore it in an image editor either, since some areas are surrounded by strange colored patches. For instance, view 'apt_InGameRadialMenuStage_1.tga' in Final Big with alpha blending turned off in the viewer.

Only the palantir pictures except for apt_Palantir_1.tga have an alpha channel.

Linas - Friday August 10, 2007 - 11:22

Can you help me change palantir color? :) I try, but i can't understand it...

jimiojoe - Tuesday May 1, 2007 - 16:15

Ohhhh i have fixed it - sorry for the spammage of comments - but i think people might want to know this, i have found the ap images need to be in this directory art>textures - exactly like that, when i use compiled textures it does not recognise them, and when i put them in an ap folder it does not recognise them, it sort of makes sense because if you look at the file location within the apt.big files thats how their laid out, not with compiled textures.

So as my other images work, im using the -mod command, i therefore have to have the compiledtextures with all my other files, then another folder next to it called 'textures' - its annoying using the assetdat creator because you have to rename the textures somethign else whilst the compiled becomes named textures and has all the apt images directly in compiledtextures aswell... and then rename them back once its done - does that make sense?? i hope that will help someone as it seems odd to me but this is how i got it to work

Bart (Administrator) - Tuesday May 1, 2007 - 12:05

are you sure that's where they are supposed to be? what is the location of the textures in the original .big files?

jimiojoe - Monday April 30, 2007 - 14:52

ok i have an actual problem now :D -

i have extracted all of the apts, and changed them all, and put them with the rest of my compiled textures, but in the ap folder - but for some reason it seems my asset.dat is not reading them

my asset dat always works fine i know how to use it, but i think its just not reading the files - they are in .tga format (i've tried btmaps) - i think the assets not reading them because a lot of those files were over a megabyte and when i made new asset it barely added a few kb to the assetdat file.. - any ideas??

jimiojoe - Monday April 30, 2007 - 13:23

Ahh Yes Very good tutorial really :D

jimiojoe - Monday April 30, 2007 - 13:22

OH NO SORRY IGNORE ME :D sozz im silly

jimiojoe - Monday April 30, 2007 - 13:12

you say "thats it for editing the colour scheme" but i have edited all the files above mentioned but that hasnt changed all the colours of the buttons and stuff, one pic from the apt images has made all the scroll buttons and drop down menus turn a different colour as i wanted, but the main buttons when loaded are not...isnt there any coding involved?

i might have made a mistake...but i have double checked and my shell menu has the new background and stuff, but the big major buttons like skirmish etc. still that horrid green colour (i using bfme2)

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