Guide to modifying in-game graphics/Texmod/Creating Mods

This article is about how to create Texmod projects. For how to use Texmod, see Guide to modifying in-game graphics/Texmod. For GWW's database of player-made modifications, see Guide to modifying in-game graphics/Texmod/Player made modifications.

Warning: Directly modifying the Guild Wars program files through any third party tools is completely unsupported by ArenaNet and NCSoft. If anything breaks, do not contact support for help; there's nothing they can do about it. Also, third party programs not supported by ArenaNet might contain trojans, spyware, adware, and other harmful programs. See also: ANet's official stance.

Note: AVG, F-Secure, Mcafee, Norman, Norton, and PCtools (as well as most reliable anti-virus/anti-malware software) all detect TexMod as a "virus, backdoor, or suspicious". These are known as "false positives" and can be safely ignored if you use original versions of TexMod and the tpf package files.

Creating a mod

1. Open TexMod.
2. Click the big folder icon on the Target Application section and select Browse.
3. Find your GuildWars folder and select your gw.exe.
4. Switch to Logging Mode.
5. Select the options you want. I would advise you to keep "Show Texture on the upper left corner" and "Replace Texture (with a green texture)" on.
6. Select the Output format you want (see the table below).
7. Select the Log with button (Something that isn't bound to anything else e.g. F8). Pressing this button will cause TexMod to extract a texture when the program is loaded.
8. Select a folder you can find easily as the "output folder".
9. Press Run.
10. We will start off with modifying something easy like the "Guild Wars Eye of the North" logo.
    Keep pressing "+"(Numpad) until you find it(Notice the selected texture becomes green) and press the "Log with" key to export it.
11. Close Guildwars and go to the output folder, there should be a image and a TexMod.log file. Edit the image all you want but leave the dimensions and name of the image alone, as well as the .log file as Texmod will use this later to build the package.
    
12. Go back to TexMod and press the "Package Build" button.
13. In the Definition File browse to the Output folder and select the TexMod.log file that accompanied your edited texture.
14. Enter your name and some comments (e.g. what you changed).
15. Press Build. A new window will open up and ask you to specify a name and a place to save it. Give it a name and press save.
16. The Build Status shows you the progress. If all goes well, you will see "Success!" After the package is built, it can be loaded like any other mod.
17. (optional) Upload your project to the Wiki to share it with others.

Output format

When extracting textures using TexMod, there are a variety of different file types to choose from. This table will try to show which is best for specific uses.

2 textures have been extracted, with various formats.

• 0xF614EDF7 is a Paragon armor texture
• 0xE730F7C3 is a small UI element

0xF614EDF7

	BMP	JPG	PNG	DDS	TGA
File size	1025kb	53kb	379kb	342kb	1025kb
Alpha Channel	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes

As seen here, the ideal filetype to use (if possible) is .dds. It has the smallest filetype which supports alpha, and is the native texture format which Direct3D uses. This means that using .dds does not require your video card to do additional conversions to display your texture, using even less memory and bandwidth compared to the other formats. If your image editing program does not support .dds, plugins can be easily found for Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, and GIMP.

0xE730F7C3

	BMP	JPG	PNG	DDS	TGA
File size	5kb	1kb	2kb	5kb	5kb
Alpha Channel	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
Transparency	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes

For small textures without a reflection map, the difference is negligible. While .PNG has a smaller filesize and supports transparency, due to its lack of alpha channel it selects black as the color which denotes transparency. Because of this, you may find that .dds is preferable. Despite the slightly larger filesize, it includes an alpha channel and requires no additional conversion by the video card to display the texture.

It is recommended to avoid .jpg format despite its low file sizes. The small size may look attractive, but this format greatly degrades the quality of the image, leading to highly noticeable imperfections in mods, while also lacking transparency features.

It is worth noting that the .dds compression format is not lossless, and can result in some quality degradation. If artifacts are rendered, be sure to save the file uncompressed.

Additional notes

Fixing the "shiny" effect the hard way

• Depending on the filetype and image editor used, some textures will show a "shiny" effect in-game when modded. This is either caused by the filetype or the image editor not supporting alpha channels. (IE, JPG format, or editing with MSPaint.) As mentioned above, the ideal filetype to use for modding is .dds. If this is not possible, you can also try editing with BMP. If your textures are still shiny while using BMP, the problem is more than likely the image editor itself rather than the filetype. At this point, there are two options. One is to use an image editor which supports alpha, such as Photoshop, or Paintshop Pro. If you're interested in going this route, The GIMP, which is a free image editing program similar to Photoshop, may be downloaded from here and .DDS plugin here. If you'd rather not use a different image editor, you can then solve this problem by replacing the reflection texture of the original texture with a plain black one (see image). This fix should only be used as a last resort, as doing this will completely remove any shininess the texture once had, and may leave your mod looking dull, or flat.
• If you are unsure of how to use GIMP to edit a mostly-transparent armor or other texture, the following process does work.

1. Capture the texture you want as a .dds, and save to your folder of choice.
2. Capture the texture AGAIN, this time as a .bmp to another location.
3. Open the .BMP in Microsoft Paint to remove the Alpha layer, then edit this file using whatever editing software you prefer.
4. With the edited file open, select the entire image (control + A) and copy it (control + c)
5. Open the .dds with GIMP
6. Select the background layer in the layers palette. Above it, there will be a small checkbox that locks the Alpha layer. Make sure this is selected
7. Select the brush tool, then in the brushes palette below, click the image of your texture. GIMP allows you to use images on the clipboard as a brush
8. Carefully align the dotted outline of the brush over the image, and click once. If you see some of the semi- transparent pieces shift, then undo and try again
9. Save the file, and package your Texmod

• On a laptop you will have to press the function (Fn) key to access the numpad, the numpad keys are typically written in blue below the normal function.
• Plain text cannot be replaced with texmod.
• In the case of overlapping textures, the .tpf applied first will show.
• Video on how to make mods (using .bmp image format, as opposed to the suggested .dds)

In-game scaling behavior of graphics

Scaling test screen.

The following test results may help you when modding the extracted graphics. As you can see in the screenshot, the size of the edited graphic is not equivalent to the in-game rendered graphic. The origin graphic is scaled linear in X- and Y-axis, however not all over.

Due to the test, the scaling behavior is as follows:

Note: All pixel values refer to the origin graphic.

Origin graphics with height <= 32 pixels (eg.: buttons, inner frames, head of window panels):

• An area of 10 pixels length from the left and right border is not scaled.
• The remaining inner area is scaled linear in X-axis only.
• As an exception frame elements behave like origin graphics with height >= 64 pixels despite the non-scaled-corner-area is 10x10 pixels.

Origin graphics with height >= 64 pixels (all panels eg.: party window panel, inventory):

• An area of 40x40 pixels in each corner is not scaled.
• Starting from this non-scaled-corner-area a stripe of 40 pixels height (in Y-axis) is scaled linear in X-axis only (Y-axis remains as in the origin graphic) and vice versa.
• The remaining inner area is scaled linear in both axes.
• As an exception elements like the radar are scaled linear in both axes all over.