Tutorial, modding Act of Aggression team colors

[McNash]

Tools you will need:

Wargame Red Dragon modding suite (courtesy of enohka)
https://github.com/enohka/moddingSuite/ ... tag/v0.8.2

Optional: extra documentation for all of you who want to learn more:
http://forums.eugensystems.com/viewtopi ... 87&t=45922

Instructions:
1. Download the mod suite and unpack it
2. Run it and in the file menu, press open, look for the path (your hard drive letter):\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Act of Aggression\Data\ACTOFRUSE\PC\(the folder with the highest number as name)
3. Inside that folder, whose name will depend on the current version of the game (every new patch you get a new folder), you will find the file named NDF_Win, select it and open it
4. Look for pc\ndf\patchable\ui\components.ndfbin, you can either write components on the search text field or look at the list (it should be near the bottom of the list)
5. Double click it and select TActOfRusePlayerColor, to the right you will see the instances with the available colors of the game
6. When selecting an instance you will see in their properties, which appear to the right of the selected instance, the following:
-AppliedUnitColor
-LabelUnitBackgroundColor
-LabelUnitBorderColor
-LabelUnitPlayerNameColor
-MinimapColor
-DistrictColor
-VisualIndicatorColor
7. Now for the fun part, the first 8 instances correspond to the 8 available colors of the game, each one has the 6 properties mentioned above, those are the ones you need to edit, however, there is a quirk with that.
8. Let's say you have Instance (some number): C07044FF, the hex color code, which it's show when double clicking upon the ARGB code, it's not shown in the right order, instead, it follows this order: B=C0, G=04, R=44, A=FF, notice this is wrote from right to left but each pair its show from left to right, the correct interpretation order would be FF4470C0 (which in this case is blue)
9. If you want to switch that blue to another color, for example beige, first you will need to get the correct ARGB, which in this case is FFc68c5a, and then you need to change the order to 5a8cc6FF
10. Be sure to change all the properties colors, that way you get the right effect.

I am still not sure how well this mod works for multiplayer, but it should be ok, at least in skirmish it didn't gave me any problem.
I want to thank the people who made this possible, including the Eugen Systems team and enohka an the other modders who made this possible, oh, and here are some screenshots:

[ace40k]

first of all, thanks for your great help in figuring this out! i have modded the colors based on your guide and it worked. for instance, i tried to keep my color palette as "militarized" as possible, that is, no bright colors but rather tones you can find in modern camos or uniforms



i even managed to get more than 8, aroung 20 are unlocked here. but i dont know how this might affect players in multiplayer who havent that many colors. will it desync or is it just not showing up? testing would be cool

[McNash]

first of all, thanks for your great help in figuring this out! i have modded the colors based on your guide and it worked. for instance, i tried to keep my color palette as "militarized" as possible, that is, no bright colors but rather tones you can find in modern camos or uniforms



i even managed to get more than 8, aroung 20 are unlocked here. but i dont know how this might affect players in multiplayer who havent that many colors. will it desync or is it just not showing up? testing would be cool

For all I know only the first 8 might work, theoretically they shouldn't make any further desync, guess a test may do the trick in order to see if the other colors work, by the way, how did you add the extra colors?

[The W:AB Noob]

8. Let's say you have Instance (some number): C07044FF, the hex color code, which it's show when double clicking upon the ARGB code, it's not shown in the right order, instead, it follows this order: B=C0, G=04, B=44, A=FF, notice this is wrote from right to left but each pair its show from left to right, the correct interpretation order would be FF4470C0 (which in this case is blue)
9. If you want to switch that blue to another color, for example beige, first you will need to get the correct ARGB, which in this case is FFc68c5a, and then you need to change the order to 5a8cc6FF

Oh, for the longest time, I though modding colors was impossible since the Suite always gave me a crash. Ah, so you have to change the order! Gotta test it out now!

[ace40k]

how did you add the extra colors?

you just need to change this number:



for me it was actually just random to try and put 20 there. dont know what happens if you try something higher though

[McNash]

how did you add the extra colors?

you just need to change this number:



for me it was actually just random to try and put 20 there. dont know what happens if you try something higher though

Thanks for the data, what I see is that each of the colors seen there are for different elements of the game such as neutral units and other stuff, by adding them to the selectable colors you are simply allowing all of them to be selected.

[ace40k]

Thanks for the data, what I see is that each of the colors seen there are for different elements of the game such as neutral units and other stuff, by adding them to the selectable colors you are simply allowing all of them to be selected.

also note that the first element (266) in "AlliedPlayerColorsByColorIndex" determines the unit color of your ally in team games (normally green). you can change it to anything you want as well. havent managed to assign multiple colors to allies or enemies in team matches though, that is the only thing that would truly make it amazing

Eugen probably be like "muh teamcolorz ;_;" right now...

[General Mig]

first of all, thanks for your great help in figuring this out! i have modded the colors based on your guide and it worked. for instance, i tried to keep my color palette as "militarized" as possible, that is, no bright colors but rather tones you can find in modern camos or uniforms



i even managed to get more than 8, aroung 20 are unlocked here. but i dont know how this might affect players in multiplayer who havent that many colors. will it desync or is it just not showing up? testing would be cool

can you post the code for these team colors please

[McNash]

Thanks for the data, what I see is that each of the colors seen there are for different elements of the game such as neutral units and other stuff, by adding them to the selectable colors you are simply allowing all of them to be selected.

also note that the first element (266) in "AlliedPlayerColorsByColorIndex" determines the unit color of your ally in team games (normally green). you can change it to anything you want as well. havent managed to assign multiple colors to allies or enemies in team matches though, that is the only thing that would truly make it amazing

Eugen probably be like "muh teamcolorz ;_;" right now...

I switched them to white and black, now I can say I am playing chess,

General Mig, use Paint dropcount to get the hex codes from the image once you open it in Paint.

[The W:AB Noob]

Those codes are called hex (short for hexadecimal) color codes. The ARGB code McNash is talking about stands for the Alpha (Transparency) Red Green Blue.

Use this to find RGB codes: http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_colorpicker.asp
and this to find alpha: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1585 ... -in-colors