How to make images for custom mech?

[Vindictor]

Hey guys.

First off, this is my first post. So, awesome job Megamek developement dudes.

Well, I've always been atracted to the idea of customization in my games, the better the cusomization, the better I like the game. This is the reason I can still play Mechwarrior 4 (My first mech game). Since then I was introduced to the wizkids dial thingies, they were alright, but didn't have quite the feel I liked. Then I played the good old battletech war game, wow, was that a load of fun. Sometime after that I found Megamek.

Then I found the MekLab.....oh happy days.

But, I got sick of all my units having the default Icon, so I learnt how to make my own Icons.

And here lies my question.

These are not varients of canon mechs, these are completely my own.

One is called "Odys" the other "Tork", both are Heavy.
If I make an Icon and give the icon the name of either of the mechs above, the ingame icon remain the default-heavy.
If I change the default-heavy, they both change in apperance, yet they are completely defferent mechs.

Sorry for my fantastic spelling.
How do I make an Icon to go with an ORIGINAL mech.

[Akira213]

there os a kind of "index-file" from which MM reads which graphic belongs to which Mech. When there is no entry for a certain Mech then MM uses the default. But I'm at work right now and therefore can't tell you from here how that file is exactly called :/

[Jayof9s]

data/images/units/mechset.txt is where you'll want to go to find out the syntax.

You *can* edit the mechset.txt file to include your customs, however it then means you either need to redo it each time there is a new version of MM or copy over your old one and risk missing out on any updates made officially.

The better method is to add your customs to localclient_mechset. And then you can safely copy and paste into any new version of MM without worrying about missing potential new unit art.

[JakobM74]

I was so glad to find this thread.
I have also been struggling to implement this for the last three days.
Pardon, but could you give a slightly different version of the instructions that's broken down a bit more?  The instructions in the files is a little muddled

Thank you for all the hard work and good times.
J

[Drakyn]

Does this still work? I've been trying to implement my own texture. and it keeps crashing when I try to add my mech to my roster.

chassis "Gladius" "mechs/Gladius.gif"

This is my code at the very bottom of localclient_mechset

I have the image in Megamek/data/images/units/mechs as a .png

I've tryed changing the file type from .gif to .png, didn't work.
I've changed the "mechs/Gladius.gif" to just "Gladius.gif", didn't work.
Finally, I tried using a model already used by the game "mechs/Linebacker H.gif", and it didn't work.

[Hammer]

Can you attach your gif or png file here, your unit file, and is there anything in the log?