Widescreen Gaming Forum

Yes sir, this mod works great for me

Thanks for the feedback!

nothing like playing the Minas Tirith map the way it was meant to be played.

That's the exact reason I started the mod in the first place. The super-low camera just did not capture the epic scale that The Lord of the Rings demands.

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VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods

I posted a couple screenies in the Widescreen section. No time for surround atm, but maybe I can do some "faux TH2G" playtesting later...

By the way General, now that I saw it in action again, I can confirm you were right : the CE dragon is just a different skin... ;)

By the way General, now that I saw it in action again, I can confirm you were right : the CE dragon is just a different skin... ;)

A skin change should be rather simple. I'll browse some of the texture archives.

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VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods

Maybe not that simple... The summoned dragon (CE or not) doesn't look like the 'dragstrike' texture at all, which is the same in the CE and regular version anyway. Can't find any other relevant texture in any .big file.

The dragon texture in the ws mod is the regular one by the way.

It's amazing how cautiously they seem to have "hidden" that texture. Needless to say, the additional maps are a much more essential feature of the CE so let's not catch a headache trying to sort this out ;)

What? Throw down a gauntlet and then say "Don't run it"? ;) :)

Besides, I think you might have found the treasure map:

The dragon texture in the ws mod is the regular one by the way.

The mod doesn't include any textures, but it does include a full set of the .ini files from ini.big, and those files are from my non-CE version of the game. Can you upload or send me the ini.big file from your CE version?

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VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods

Okay, I'll PM you when I finish uploading the file. There's a couple interesting entries in there actually, and in datainiobjectevilfactionunitsevilbeastssummoneddragon.ini I see this :

RandomTextureFixedRandomIndex = Yes
;// this set of replacements correspond (in number and in order) to ...
RandomTexture = SumnDragon_C.tga 0 SumnDragon_C.tga
RandomTexture = SumnDragonB_C.tga 0 SumnDragon_C.tga
RandomTexture = SumnDragonC_C.tga 0 SumnDragon_C.tga
RandomTexture = SumnDragonD_C.tga 0 SumnDragon_C.tga
RandomTexture = SumnDragonE_C.tga 0 SumnDragon_C.tga
;// ... this set
RandomTexture = SumnDragon2_C.tga 0 SumnDragon2_C.tga
RandomTexture = SumnDragonB2_C.tga 0 SumnDragon2_C.tga
RandomTexture = SumnDragonC2_C.tga 0 SumnDragon2_C.tga
RandomTexture = SumnDragonD2_C.tga 0 SumnDragon2_C.tga
RandomTexture = SumnDragonE2_C.tga 0 SumnDragon2_C.tga

:idea: :?:

Odd. I ran a text diff on the .ini files from your version and it came up with no differences with mine. :?

I caught a small tip on another forum, saying that the CE version comes with a different game2.dat file. Here's the MD5 hash from mine:
E82F5311F97750868DD18FCD5594C6D8

How does that compare to yours?

Do you only have the CE version? If I could compare all the files between the 2 versions it would probably help reveal the changes.

MD5 tool: http://www.elgorithms.com/downloads/chaosmd5.php

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VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods

Mine is : 4B38163D4001AFDF71783AEA5EA2F2D3 (here's the file)
Yes, I only have the CE.
Also don't forget I have a data3.big with only an empty mithriledition.txt in it; could this be a trigger for CE contents and maybe the RandomTexture replacements ?

There's a total of 4 different skins for the summoned dragon in Textures3.bigartcompiledtexturessusumndragonxxx.dds - looks like the CE version's "dalmation" skin is sumndragonc_c.dds and sumnddragonc2_c.dds , no idea what the others (green, gold...) are, I'll try some export/rename/import and see what it does...

Okay, I think I got it, at least partially. Not really pertaining to your mod or WS gaming so maybe I should post this on some BFME2 forum instead, but hey.

There are actually 5 different skins that consist of two 1024x1024 texture files (body & wings).

dragon_c.dds & dragon2_c.dds


dragonb_c.dds & dragonb2_c.dds


dragonc_c.dds & dragonc2_c.dds


dragond_c.dds & dragond2_c.dds


dragone_c.dds & dragone2_c.dds



So there are 5 different "summoned dragons", and each time you use that power there's a probability of getting each skin.
To verify this I used a trainer to "chain summon" dragons, and eventually got all flavors in both my not-modded CE and Widescreen Enhanced versions. BUT :
1) the first time you summon the dragon in a game, you always get the "default" skin (I'm not 100% sure though, maybe there's no default at all)
2) if you have the CE, dragon "c" replaces all others - as the "default" dragon at least.




Games where you summon several dragons are not that common I suppose (need lots of power points + cooldown time), so one'd think there's only one dragon skin available per version of BFME2 - except maybe in the rare event of a multiplayer game with several dragons of various colors summoned by different players. However even if you have the regular non-CE version of the game, it seems you have a chance of summoning dragon "c" just like any other - from your "second" summoned dragon on. The same probably applies to the CE : you always get dragon "c" first, then any skin can pop up if you use the power again.

Again that may not be 100% true, I'm a bit fed up of playtesting this :lol: (and trying to explain tings I'm not even sure of.. in english...) but in any event, if you really want to be sure summoned dragons will always have one specific skin, you can always rename or replace the relevant dds files (just watch that syntax ! All files are "_c" and "2" is for wings)...

Anyone toying with this, please post your results ;)

Great work, scav. I didn't suspect that the first summon would always be the standard skin, so I'll need to playtest again using multiple summons. Fortunately I can mod the regeneration value so the dragon can be summoned as quickly as I want. ;)

I have all those same skins in my non-CE .big file. Given that our .ini files also showed no differences, I'd say EA has done a fairly good job of hiding how the CE features work. We can crack it, though. :)

I don't have lots of time for modding ATM, but I'll get back to this when I can. If you feel like it, would you be willing to dump a directory list of your CE install folder into a .txt file and share it? PM me when you can. I'd like to compare all files/folders/sizes/dates with my non-CE version. No hurry, BTW.

Also, don't know if you have CnC: Zero Hour, but I put up a quick Triplehead fix for it here:
http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/node/9747

WAY more fun with such a huge view of the battlefield. :D

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VirtualDub Game Recording Guide | BFME2 & RotWK Widescreen/Triplehead Mods