Hey,

I've been trying to find a tutorial on how to make the object icons for DoD for more than three hours now, but I couldn't find anything of use.

So all I could do was in fact to decompile custom icons and see how they were done.

I made my own ones with 24-bit-tga files without an alpha channel or anything else in dimensions of 64 x 64.

So far, so good - they do work in hammer, my map is compiling right now so I'll soon know whether they work ingame aswell.

What puzzled me though was that those custom icons I downloaded have a size of 6 KB, while my own ones only have one of 3 KB.

Is there any tutorial on how to do these professionally?

The forum search only gave me [REL] and [Request] results, so that's been of no use to me so far (like all the other websites I usually ponder for tutorials and such).

Any help on this one would be greatly appreciated... :)

Cheers,

Albatros

I don't think a tutorial exists (I searched a quite a bit myself).....I figured out how to do it by finding a site that had custom icons for download. From the directory paths specified in the instructions text file, and the format of the icons provided, it was easy to figure it out from there.

If they come up in hammer then they should be working fine. File size differences might be from different parameters for the texture file, things like 8-bit specific, or 16, or the nice filter or all sorts of things. It most likley doesn't mean much I wouldn't worry about it.

Just a side note, obj icons don't seem to be being included into .bsp packed files using pakrat or MAN, so just test it all first before distrubting it.

Heya,

yup, they're all working fine.

The packing issue could indeed be a problem, Ca-Chicken-Soup. In case you'll find a solution, would you mind telling me?

Thanks so far :)

Albatros

Custom obj icons can be packed into the bsp for the ctf gamemode at least, although dustin diamond packed custom icons into strand, which is det mode.

So it can be done, I did it with flurry.

:)

The icons I noticed tend to be offset to the right, with a small part of them on the left side, like an edge, when the alpha channel is loaded. Is there a reason for this, and if so how would I set my icons in the image?

http://www.jfgclan.com/guest/prop/icon.jpg

Originally posted by ultranew_b
Custom obj icons can be packed into the bsp for the ctf gamemode at least, although dustin diamond packed custom icons into strand, which is det mode.

So it can be done, I did it with flurry.

:)

My aren't working even with ctf mode flags. For some reasons Ransons flakk custom obj comes up, but others do not. I've looked at all parameters and haven't been able to figure it out.

And as for the offset problem, I don't know why it would do that. I can't even remember doing an alpha chanel to be quite honest, but there is one for the edges isn't there...

Hey ultranew_b,

how did you pack your bsp? Have you been using MAN or something different? :)

Thanks so far,

Albatros

I use pakrat to get everything into the bsp.

@ Ca-Chicken-Soup:

This is the obj icon path I used for flurry:

materials/sprites/obj_icons/flurry/icon_obj_88_axis.vtf
materials/sprites/obj_icons/flurry/icon_obj_88_axis.vmf

Remember to change the paths in the vmt as well or it won't work.

Here is the .vmt for the above:

"UnlitGeneric"
{
"$translucent" 1
"$baseTexture" "sprites/obj_icons/flurry/icon_obj_88_axis"
"$vertexcolor" 1
"$no_fullbright" 1
"$ignorez" 1
}

Hope this clears it up a bit.

:)

Originally posted by Propaganda
The icons I noticed tend to be offset to the right, with a small part of them on the left side, like an edge, when the alpha channel is loaded. Is there a reason for this, and if so how would I set my icons in the image?

http://www.jfgclan.com/guest/prop/icon.jpg

Nah, that's just a display glitch in Hammer. Just position them normally.

Actually I exported the vtf with vtf explorer and thats how it looked, but I will just position them to fit.

Thanks a lot, ultranew_b. I'll download that one then and use it as well. =)

I'll try to get all this into a tutorial and send both an english and german version to some dod mapping websites, though it's not as complicated as I thought, other mappers might be reluctant on making custom icons for the same reason. :)

Originally posted by Propaganda
Actually I exported the vtf with vtf explorer and thats how it looked, but I will just position them to fit.

That's odd. I did the same for my objective icons in another map and they didn't show up like that... What did you use to open the tga?

Also, i'd check the .vmt for any 0 point coordinates.

You said you are having problems with pakratting your icons in, correct? Are you using a custom soundscape? The reason I ask is because Pakrat seems to have a problem with screwing up a random texture when you add the soundscape txt file (or some other txt file, but i'm almost certain it's the soundscape).

Try paking all the custom content into the bsp EXCEPT for any txt files, then see if it works. In dod_strand_b4, a texture got screwed up and wouldnt show up (flak_box.vmt). The texture was 100% fine, but when pakrat added it, it would show up as purple checkboards. To solve this, i added all the custom content except that bad texture and then added it manually using the command line bspzip tool.

Hi Dash, you can use the program "360g".

It won't deliver the .tga, but you can modify or check anything you wish directly in the vtf file.

I found vtf2tga.exe in the sdk/bin folder to be almost as unreliable as the average weather forecast, meaning I never ever got it to work correctly.

Cheers,

Albatros

I use Photoshop for all my vtf work.

Plug-in here:

http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?c=154#p154

:)

Originally posted by Dustin Diamond
You said you are having problems with pakratting your icons in, correct? Are you using a custom soundscape? The reason I ask is because Pakrat seems to have a problem with screwing up a random texture when you add the soundscape txt file (or some other txt file, but i'm almost certain it's the soundscape).

Try paking all the custom content into the bsp EXCEPT for any txt files, then see if it works. In dod_strand_b4, a texture got screwed up and wouldnt show up (flak_box.vmt). The texture was 100% fine, but when pakrat added it, it would show up as purple checkboards. To solve this, i added all the custom content except that bad texture and then added it manually using the command line bspzip tool.

Lol I've had the same problem with that same texture. I'll add it like you suggested thanks.
Without hijacking the thread, pakrat adds the problem obj icons but they still don't show up in game. They have to be ziped or .rar'd with the map. But I'll try sticking in an extra folder to see if that helps.

And to Albatros:
If there are no solutions found for these sorts of things, you can just distribute the map in a .rar with the problem files in the appropriate folders (You should distrubute in .rar/.zip anyway as it halves the .bsp size). Don't forget a .res file too so that cl_download-ers (or whatever the command is...) get the remainding files.