Where are these icon files??

[David boutwell]

Can someone tell me where these two icons can be located?

1. The file that produces muzzle flash when a unit fires.

2. The crater files. Apparently there is more than one file with craters in it, because I did an UNSHP, MAKSHP, HDSHP edit of one, but the changes didn't show up in the game So, I'm thinking that I edited the wrong one.

The reason that I'm looking for these is because I want to reduce the size of the craters to more realistically reflect the crater that would be produced by the powder charge of Civil War field artillery ammunition for my SPCW mod.. In addition, I want to modify the muzzle flash to a line of smoke "puffs" for infantry weapons (unless it carries over to artillery, in which case it would not look right). I've already changed the "tracer" effect to what looks like a quick flash of grey heading down range. It looks VERY cool, even if you really couldn't see a volley of minie balls heading down range. It achieves the goal of showing who's firing at who with a nice look. The puffs of smoke would top it off nicely.

Regards,

David Boutwell

[tracer]

To the best of my knowledge craters are in icon0014.shp and smoke/flashes are in icon0015.shp; I'll check for other locations and let you know if I find any.

[David boutwell]

Tracer,

I found the muzzle flashes in the mbmuz.shp file. I had seen them in there before, when I was using UNSHP.EXE to go through all of the non-terrain and icon shp files, but didn't recognize them for what they were, as, in the game the muzzle flash happens so quickly, you don't really recognize the string of icons that make it look that way!

Since locating the file, I have modified it to where, instead of one muzzle flash, you see a line of them, plus puffs of smoke that fade. It is very cool, and I like starting a scenario and getting into a firefight just to watch the muzzle flashes. It adds a heck of a lot to the action!

I feel sorry for the Civil War enthusiast who will have to process all at once all of the new things that I've added to this mod. Think of what it was like the first time you played SPWAW, and that was the culmination of several changes that had happened to SP over several years. We kind-of had the opportunity to ease into it. With this mod, It wil be kind of like playing the old SP for the first time, but with all of the bells and whistles of SPWAW. That's not to say that this mod. will not have a million things that could be improved. I'm sure that it will. Most of the things that I've done are audio and visual changes, and text changes to the mech.exe file. The game engine and source code is still SPWAW. I wish that I could change some things to better reflect Civil War combat, as well as to allow a greater variety of infantry icons, as opposed to the variety being in the vehicle icons, but I don't have the ability to make those changes. But it is still very fun to play, and it doesn't "feel" at all like a Civil War game with a WWII "body". I hope that someone out there with the ability to make those improvements thinks that they COULD do better!

Regards,

David Boutwell

As for the crater files, I'll check those two files you mentioned.

Thanks for the response!

Davis Boutwell

[David boutwell]

Problemn solved, Tracer. Thanks! I don't know why I missed those in the 14 icon file. I guess that I thought that they were further down the line than that, and never started looking at files that "early" in the list.

Thanks,

David Boutwell

[tracer]

The craters are an 'oddity': they're clearly a terrain/map feature, but since they appear as a consequence of battle the game categorizes them as an 'Iconxxx' rather than a 'Terxxx'. Think of them as you would the icons for wrecked vehicles, which have the same affect on movement.

Looking forward to SPCW!

BTW: what is 'UNSHP.EXE'? If its what I think it is I'd like a copy.