[Mod] Society template / tutorial

[Maal]

- - - NOT INTENDED FOR ACTUAL USE IN A REAL GAME - - -

I have received several requests for help or permissions to use my society as a template, so I have decided to make this very simple society as a template tutorial of sort. It work in game but has no flavor at all.

It has every basics and pictures required to make a society alongside a lot of #comments to guide you. You only need to copy it to a new folder (so my updates don't overwrite your work) and start editing it. It is also most likely full of grammar errors (I find new ones every time I look at it, but updating the files each time I fix one would be a real pain), I didn't want to bother my spell checker as I don't consider it to be a proper mod to be taken seriously and wanted it out asap.

When I receive more requests for help about societies I will add the answer to this "mod" in an update.

Perhaps now we will have more than 1 released society!

Some pictures, for what it is worth...

Spoiler

I have updated this with the new features added by Holy Fury, except the variable/hero thing of the warriors lodges. I haven't used those yet.

Arko has made some empty rank icons!
Steam Link

 

[moscal]

Simple question - how many random events have default societes?

 

[Maal]

I assume you mean the events that appear every few years, not those triggered by the player or by a mission/quest. (Paradox use the on_action on_society_bi_yearly_pulse to trigger its society events)

For generics events that target them all (even customs societies) there is 2 iirc, the make friend and rival events. For those targeting specific societies, there is one 1 for criminal flagged societies, 6 for devils, 3 for assassins, 6 for monastic orders, 4 for secret religions and 3 for hermetic. This is only the randomly given quests chains and does no include any other events or "quests" for the societies. For reference, the assassins have well over 100 events.

 

[moscal]

Thank

 

[starwarsfan541]

Awesome

 

[Enriador]

Perhaps now we will have more than 1 released society!

Yeah, it's so weird that after so many months only one modded Society for vanilla appeared. I'll give it a try, thanks for the hard work!

 

[TeMarChi]

This is awesome! I'm looking forward to looking at the codes and explanation on this! Thank you Maal!

 

[Arko]

A big thanks to @Maal for his work.

I a currently using it.
I've also made my own contribution by making an empty/generic rank icons set.

Here's a preview of how it looks with the various layers.
You can easily change the colours with the hue balance filter, saturation, light etc.
The file included is .pdn usable with Paint.net
I didn't included specific symbols in the tutorial file.

For your society, you'll need 3 versions with :
-frame+colours+your symbols+indicators.
-same, but without indicators
-same, but without indicators. Greyscaled.

 

[Maal]

Thanks for your contribution Arko, I've added a link in the first post to yours so your post can be found easily. (I haven't added it directly to my mod)

I have also updated the mod, I didn't understand custom_localization that much then, now I have added all (I think) the needed lines in the customizable_localisation folder.

 

[SouthBurnouts]

What text editor did you use to get the colors in the text file? Is it Notepad++ with an extension? I would like to create a society for the game to get use to modding, but I like the text file to look organized like yours.


EDIT: Found it. I looked on the CK2 Wiki for mods tips and found the extension for Notepad ++.

 

[slothinator]

@Maal I've seen from your upcoming mod how awesome your icons are and I wanted to know if you have any suggestions for programs to use and where I could learn. Keep in mind that my level is suuuuper basic but I want to be able to make my mods more aesthetically pleasing

 

[Maal]

@slothinator I pretty much only use photoshop for 2D stuff. Unfortunately I do not have many resources to help you learn how to make pictures. I've been drawing for decades (tho mostly digitally these past few years) and graduated in 3D / images synthesis. I don't really know where you could learn, as I've learned "off the internet" and telling you to go to college in arts isn't something I'd suggest today.

Are you looking into traits, things like my society logos or something else?

@SouthBurnouts Shoot if you have any questions.

 

[slothinator]

@Maal I was looking for something like the society logos, traits I can do acceptably since they're so small. Since I'm trying for a society mod, I would like the logos to look nice. And yeah, I don't have anywhere near your professional background so I'll look around for some sort of tutorial

 

[Maal]

@slothinator The basics I use for my logos is to take 2 or 3 layers, add a plaster wall texture to each (a flat rock texture could work too I guess) and use an Alpha mask for each layer. Then you just paint black or white in the alpha mask to hide or reveal the texture in the shape you want. It is better to do than since it is easy to correct mistakes than permanently erasing the texture.

The finishing touch is using tools like (photoshop names) Variation, Levels and Hue/Saturation to tweak the colors and the burn/dodge tool to make light/shadow on the texture itself. Photoshop also has some easy shadow/aura/highlight layer effects that I use to make the layers project a shadow onto each others.

This is pretty much the best I can describe how I do them, there is so many painting programs, tools, versions... that going too deep would be pointless due to the differences, not to ignore all the technical technobabble.

 

[slothinator]

@Maal Alright, thanks for the help! And keep up the great work!!

 

[Arko]

small fix : rank icons need to be placed in gfx/interface an not \gfx\interface\societies\Societies_window_gfx\common. unless of course one make the interface file expressly point to such subdirectory.

 

[moscal]

I cannot change images in GIMP

 

[Maal]

small fix : rank icons need to be placed in gfx/interface an not \gfx\interface\societies\Societies_window_gfx\common. unless of course one make the interface file expressly point to such subdirectory.

Yeah I noticed that when I did my own rank pictures, I just need to get off my lazy ass and update this.

I cannot change images in GIMP

What do mean exactly? You cannot open the picture files provided? They are saved is DDS format, try this plugin: http://registry.gimp.org/node/70

 

[Abominus]

Heyho,

I wanted to use your society_bg_tutorial_society.dds, but I cant open it with gimp. The one I modified from the vanilla-game could be opened, and be saved, but it does not show ingame.

    spriteType = { #the background of the society menu
        name = "GFX_society_main_background_schwanz_society"
        texturefile = "gfx\\interface\\societies\\society_bg_schwanz_society.dds"
    }

Name of the file: society_bg_schwanz_society.dds

schwanz_society = {
    primary_attribute = diplomacy
    is_secret = yes
    is_religious = no
    is_criminal = no
    society_ranks_gfx = generic_ranks
    opinion_to_other_members = +10
    opinion_per_rank_above = +5
    sound = hermetic_society_interface
    non_interference = {
        always = yes
    }...

 

[Maal]

About my dds file not opening but the vanilla one could, that's weird. Perhaps the encoding I used.

Do you see any vanilla society background in your society (like the assassin one) or nothing at all?