StarCraft 2 Customisation

Customise Background Images

2011-03-05T05:37:00.087Z

After getting spammed through emails from people asking me to make a Facebook, I did just that. If you want to be kept up to date on new dds releases or any updates to the blog in general, I'll be keeping things up to date on Facebook.

As many people have become aware, it's possible to edit your SC2 .mpq files to customise your menu to look just how you want it. Although changing the entire interface wouldn't exactly be simple, changing the background can be done in a matter of minutes. I'm sure by now most of you are sick of Tychus staring you in the face every time you log in.

Why not have someone a little more welcoming?

And here's a few friendly faces I'm sure most of you will recognise that I made myself.

But anyway, enough showing off, how's it done?
First off, this is for educational purposes only. Understand that this is in fact against the Blizzard Terms of Use. While it's unlikely anyone will be banned for this, it's still a possibility and you should think about whether or not you're willing to put your account at risk for something so small. That said, I've edited mine pretty heavily and feel pretty safe. On top of that, GSL Code S champion oGsMC is also using it.

Source

1. To get started, you're going to need a few programs. The first being MPQEditor. This will obviously be used to open the .mpq files which are located in C:\Program Files\Starcraft 2\Battle.net. The one we want is Battle.net.mpq. Be sure to back up your MPQ in case you decide to change your mind later or make an error along the way. Also, the only way Blizz can detect that you're doing this is when a patch comes out. It'll be able to detect the difference in filesize for your current MPQs and might get suspicious. If you're nervous about getting banned, replace your custom MPQs with your backups whenever a patch is released, and simply revert after it's installed. Currently it's still pretty safe as I've had my custom ones installed for the last 2/3 patches, but it's up to you.

Once you've opened the mpq, then open the folder inside it called Battle.net and then 'Shared'. Here you'll see a hell load of .dds files, each representing pieces of the menus and backgrounds etc. If you're interested in spending your time changing anything and everything about the menu, you're best off downloading MysticThumbs so that you can extract them all and see the images on the icons instead of having to open each individual one. If you're only interested in a new background, this won't be necessary.

2. There are eight main background files we're most interested in. I know the dimensions look weird for the one's I've added, but trust me, they're accurate. This will NOT remove the gap on the left of the screen for Terran and Zerg. I explain how best to deal with this in #3.:

Home Background (1500 x 808)
c9a309d4dd98195a94c061fb6e4a698c9668740c.dds
Standard Menu Background
01110e2102da23d81a9ade8db2578e4711555663.dds
Quickmatch Terran (1352 x 812)
38ce15e9795375b3da85a7a2a5f2e616f9915f34.dds
Quickmatch Zerg (1424 x 820)
edb3d6511b5e5e026a4f9905ba926e2e465d323b.dds
Quickmatch Protoss (1508 x 832)
36276c7561a180810757b037865c7c34e08ce351.dds
Quickmatch Random (1504 x 808)
c12ca1f639f313ba31e40e2d0671d789dd92b37b.dds
Multiplayer Join/Create Custom Background (1500x808)
f8d9af948f117cc961795193c5185630751f7144.dds
Multiplayer In-Lobby Background (1500 x 808)
a4479d8a457b3a2852450356343e36eedf01fba2.dds
Score Screen (1500 x 808)
28a0d83f17ab2011a755f61b8c838fec3cbd734e.dds

I'll provide download links for some of the work I showed earlier. If you want to use them, it'll be a matter of simply replacing the files with the relevant name. The program auto saves work on changes made so don't worry about closing it. Also, do NOT run SC2 while MPQEditor is running. It won't be one bit too happy.

3. If you want to create your own .dds files, you're going to need Photoshop, Gimp or something similar. Hell, even paint would work. I used photoshop so I'll be writing from that point of view. Photoshop can't actually save images in a .dds format by default, but if you're running an x32 version, you can download the NVIDIA DDS Plug-In to do it. ~~If, however, you're running an x64 version, this won't work.~~ Instead you'll need to download Paint.NET. (Update: After many years of incompatibility, the wonderful people over at NVIDIA have finally released the plug-in to work on all x64 versions of Photoshop, including the recent CS5 release! It's a fine day for science. That said, if you can't get your hands on Photoshop, Paint.NET still does the trick.)
Save your image from photoshop in a .png format and then open it with Paint.NET and save it again as a .DDS. Alternatively you can use ImageConverter Plus which is a much lighter program than Paint.NET and faster for this purpose. However, I'm pretty sure this is trial software and will need to be paid for after a month or so. The quality also won't be perfect which is a pretty important factor. This option should only be considered if Paint.NET can't be. Mac users can also use Aorta for their .DDS files, which is completely free. When you're done, be sure to rename your .DDS file with the relevant code provided, and then drag and drop it into the Shared folder in the MPQEditor. Some of the menus have weird placement coordinates and will end up making images look choppy when you apply them. You'll see what I mean if you make one to replace the quick match Terran/Zerg backgrounds. To counter this, I used the Elliptical Marquee Tool and selected a large oval of the picture and applied a Layer Mask, then revealed selection. After this, I applied a Gaussian Blur effect and just adjusted it to how I preferred. Another method is to apply a layer mask and Gradient transparency to reveal the left side. To learn more about this, scroll down to the section titled "Photoshop".
Again, make sure you close the MPQEditor before running SC2 to test your .dds, keeping in mind it'll save changes automatically.

If you want to mess around with some of the other game textures, just extract the "Shared" folder from the MPQEditor to wherever you want and you'll be able to see every single texture individually. Not all textures used in the games are maintained in this one individual MPQ, so if you don't find something you're looking for, just try opening a different one.
Unfortunately, MysticThumbs only comes with a 30 day trial. To my knowledge, there is no free alternative for Windows 7 or Vista. If you're still rockin' an XP, you can download the NVIDIA DDS Thumbnail Viewer which is totally free. If not, any files you want to mess around with I advise getting done as soon as you can unless you want to pay something like $20, I can't quite remember. I myself have a lot of fun playing around with the various files so I ended up buying it. It's also for this reason I'm willing to accept requests from people who wouldn't be willing to do so after their free trial expires. There's a ridiculous amount of textures to mess around with in these files. Like searily. 1491 icons in this single mpq.

For a majority of my downloads below this point, I'm currently using Mediafire to host them. For some annoying reason, they tend to take down my files at random times. If you notice that a link is broken, please just take two minutes to leave a comment bringing it to my attention.

I've been getting a lot of comments and emails regarding picture resolutions. I've uploaded a photoshop format template of the background menu to make it easier to get your custom picture just how you want it. Note that this is mainly for the main menu background. While it may also work for protoss and random, it won't work for terran or zerg because of the slightly smaller resolutions.

Download

A question people seem to be asking me a lot is how I seem to have a Chinese SC client when the beta was only recently released in China. This was just another result of me messing around with the mpqs. While exploring, I came across these two dds' and decided they looked awesome and that I must have them. Was just a matter of replacing the name for the Chinese .DDS with the original .DDS names. Or alternatively, you can just Download mine and replace the previous ones from your Battle.net.mpq. You don't need to remove the previous .dds files as you were basically replacing the same files with files that were already there.

Sounds

The sounds of the game can also be changed or swapped around using this exact same method, only located in various different mpq files. For example, if you navigate to Starcraft 2 > Mods > Liberty.SC2Mod, open base.SC2Assests with MPQEditor, then go to Assets and Sounds, you'll find a majority of the unit sounds made in the game. From here you can freely change any you like. I would advise against completely removing a sound you may not like, though. Instead maybe just replace it with a blank recording of similar length.

If you do intend on adding your own custom sounds, it's important that the format remains the same as the file you're replacing. For a majority of cases, the sounds are in .wav format. I recommend Media.io for this. Here, you can convert your files directly online to .wav and also to .ogg, another sound format used in the .MPQs.

Downloads

As for downloads to the first pictures I posted, The first one and the Boxxy one are already completely .dds ready installed .MPQ files. All you need to do is replace the battle.net.mpq in your SC2 folder and you're ready to go. No programs needed. Can't have both, so choose wisely. Kabuto or Omanyte?

Download Medic .MPQ
Download Boxxy .MPQ
Download Boxxy .DDS (You'll still need the MPQEditor for this one)

As for the last picture of Tifa, this is in .dds format so you'll at least need the MPQEditor just to put it into the file. This download also comes with three more different edits. One for each race selection under the quick match menu. Images and download links below.

Download

I recently located the Jim Raynor picture you see on the loading screen as soon as you start up the game and decided to take immediate action. Although some might say I'm going a little far by replacing a picture I only ever see once when loading the game, I'm hardly going to let that stop me. For those interested, you're more than welcome to Download this also. Don't rename it, this file just coincidentally has a much simpler name. The location of the file to replace this with is Starcraft 2 > Mods > Core.SC2Mod, open enGB.SC2Assets (or enUS etc depending on region) then go to Assets, Textures and replace the startupimage.dds located there. Alternatively you could always again make your own .DDS image, rename it to startupimage.dds and replace the default loading screen with whichever picture you want. The default dimensions for this are 2048 x 1160.

For those unfamiliar with this, the picture is actually originally totally unrelated to SC2. It was designed for a release intended for the Xbox/Ps2 called Starcraft: Ghost which was discontinued. I messed around with it for a few minutes to re-dimension it, remove old website logos and add the SC2 logo and that was my result.

Photoshop

A lot of people have been wanting more details on how to get around the unusual offset placements for Terran and Zerg quickmatch screen, so that's what you're going to get. As an example, I've taken a random nice looking Terran related picture from google.

I've followed the requirements carefully, and redimensioned the picture to 1352 x 812. So, it should fit perfectly, right? Awesome!

But oh no! D: It's not working at all. Unfortunately there's no way to get around this unusual picture placement. (Well, not that I've found... yet.) So, if we can't get around it, we still need to make it look as appealing as possible, because that's hideous. Open the picture up in photoshop. On the bottom right, you'll see the picture listed in the "layers" section. If there's a small lock icon next to it, double click the icon of the picture in the layer and click ok. Now, look below and there's a few icons. Click the one that lets you add a layer mask.

Now you'll notice a white box appears next to your picture icon. This is the layer mask. Next, go to the tools and select Gradient.

Once you've selected that, go to the far left of your picture, left click with your mouse and drag it slightly to the right of the picture. Hold down shift to keep the line straight. When you release, it should look like the picture below. If you don't see the chequered boxes and instead just white, it's because the white box icon that appeared in your layers reference has been deselected somehow. Click on it and try again.

This might not look very faded now, but that's because the background is very bright. Keep in mind the SC2 background is dark. If you want a closer example of how it'll really look, add a new layer and paint it black. I'll explain that in the next step. For now, you've probably noticed you don't have an edge of the picture to reference to. How can you tell if the picture is faded enough? Saving and installing it only to realise it wasn't faded enough can get annoying as all hell. Adding a black layer can help this also. Look below your layers reference box again and click on the button to add a new layer.

This should now add a new layer that'll appear above your picture. Now pick the paintbrush from tools on the left and make sure black is selected. Paint everything black. (Press [ and ] to increase/decrease brush size) You'll notice you're painting over your picture. Don't worry about that. When you're done, just click on the black layer and drag it below your picture. Now this is a closer example of how your picture will actually look in SC2. But we can also use this to get a reference of how well faded our picture is. Click on the layer for your original picture again and press V so you can move it around. Move it slightly to the right so you can get a comparison of the edge.

As you can see, the bottom of the picture is still kinda sharp. No worries, just go back to your gradient tool and drag it further this time, keeping in mind to hold down shift to keep it straight. After you're happy with your result, export the DDS and install it to your MPQ.

Now, one thing I've noticed with saving images as DDS that have been gradiented like this in Photoshop is that they tend to look like this

Nasty. Unfortunately, I honestly haven't a clue why this is happening, or if it's just me or what. If it's happening to you, then no worries. Simply save it as a PNG and then open it in Paint.NET which I was referring to earlier in the guide and then save it as a DDS. When you get the popup after that, click on the dropdown box on the top left under "File Format" and pick A8R8G8B8". It's the top one under interpolated alpha.

And there you have it! and because I know I'll inevitably be getting emails asking for a download to this one anyway, here you go.

Requests

Any additional .DDS files I end up making for whatever reason, be it requests or boredom, I'll post below here. If you're interested in knowing exactly when I post new files, I'll also post updates on my Facebook. Any further requests can be sent to teliko@live.ie or left in a comment below. Requests must include large image links as well as what part of the menu you want it to replace. From now on, I'll be ignoring lazy ass requests such as "Can you make me a picture for The Simpsons?" or stupid stuff like that. If you want me to dedicate my time to you, the least you can do is find the picture yourself.
I will no longer be accepting requests that require heavy photoshoping before it looks decent for free. I always get carried away with attention to detail and the amount of requests I'm getting is taking up too much of my time. All I'll be doing with requests is re-dimensioning / dds converting from this point on. Any requests that do require attention with photoshop will still be considered, but for a small fee. Any requests that I decide to complete will be posted publicly below. If I'm sent a paid commission, it too will be publicly posted unless otherwise stated by the requester.

Requested by Saltyballs (Download)

Requested by Hellfox (Download)

Requested by Denda Reloaded (Download)

Requested by ~Maverick~ (Download)

Requested by Tin (Download)

Requested by Goliathsorrow (Download)

Requested by Blasterion (Download)

Requested by Nguyen (Download)

Requested by Blasterion (Download)

Requested by Hellfox (Download)

Requested by Shard (Download)

Requested by MooMooMugi (Download)

Requested by Polar_Nada (Download)

Requested by Kaltekueche (Download)

Requested by Synistre (Even though he made a better one after) (Download)

Requested by Synistre (Read section above Nova regarding loading screen dds files to install (Download)

Requested by 子揚 (Download)

Requested by Tin (Download)

Commissioned by Matías (Download)

Commissioned by Yuen (Download)

Requested by Sangje (Redimensioned from Synistre's) (Download)

Requested by TheBlueOne (Download)

Requested by Sarang (Download)

Requested by Anonymous (Download)

Requested by Makofueled (Download)

Requested by Stetter (Download)

Requested by TheBlueOne (Download)

Requested by Anonymous (Download)

Requested by Bacher (Download)

Requested by Nguyen (Download)

Requested by Steveling (Download)

Commissioned by Razor (Download)

Commissioned by Carver (Download)

Requested by SandNikka (Download)

Any further DDS files from now on will only be added to the Facebook page, as this is getting kind of cramped.

Anyone who no longer wants to use custom pictures and forgot to backup their mpq can download the defaults for Terran, Zerg, Toss, Random and main menu here. These files are in .DDS format, so you're still going to need to MPQEditor to replace them.

StarCraft 2: Brood War

2011-03-05T01:45:00.000Z

This is a new mod I've been working on for SC2 that focuses on swapping as many of the audios as I can with the Brood War equivalent of those sounds. So far this includes various unit sounds for all races including a majority of weapon sounds like Marine gunfire, and spell effect sounds such as High Templars Psionic Storm. It also includes Brood War music in-game and in the menus, a few building construction sounds for Protoss and Zerg, explosions and other random things such as Scanner Sweep, Stimpack etc.

Seeing as not every SC2 unit was actually in Brood War, I had to improvise for a few units by swapping them with other BW units that aren't in SC2. While a lot of them are obvious fits, some of them are based off votes casted in the Team Liquid thread here.

Units that've been swapped include;

Immortal -> Dragoon

Void Ray -> Arbiter
Phoenix -> Scout
Viking -> Wraith
Stalker -> Dragoon Fenix

Hellion - > Vulture

Thor -> Goliath

Brood Lord -> Guardian

Corrupter -> Devourer

Infestor -> Defiler

The units that still remain default are Mothership, Reaper, Marauder, Raven, Roach. Some of the advisor sounds were also left default as they didn't have warnings in Brood War for things such as minerals/gas depleted or game resumed.

While this is a pretty revised version with a lot of help from the members at Team Liquid, there might still be a few things left out. If you come across anything, just let me know and I'll take care of it.

Installing

To get started, you're going to need the MPQEditor as always, and like all MPQ editing, this is obviously against the ToS. Most of you probably know that already by now anyway, but I have to say it in every post or else somebody will shout at me.

Because this particular project has so many varying features, they can't all be installed at once. I've broken the downloads up into separate sections for voices, sound effects, music and Zerg units. The reason Zerg doesn't go with Terran and Protoss voices is because Zerg units are categorised as sound effects, and thus, are stored in a different MPQ file than voices. The Zerg advisor will be included with Protoss and Terran though, because that's obviously a voice.

For the first download, this includes every voice sound. All unit voices for Terran and Protoss, and the Advisor for all races. To install this, go to C:\Program Files (x86)\StarCraft II\Mods\Liberty.SC2Mod and open enGB.SC2ASSETS with the MPQEditor. (Or enUS/deDE/zhTW etc depending on region) Once you've opened it, go to the folder LocalizedData and you should see the two folders "Facial" and "Sounds". This is where you need to drop the download. This will automatically replace all three races voices.

For those of you who only want to install a particular races voices, or only the Zerg advisor voice, go one step further and open the "Sounds" folder. This is where you'll need to drop your download.

All races voices
Terran only

Protoss only

Zerg advisor only

Music

If you want to add the Brood War music, go to SC2/Mods/Liberty.SC2Mod, open the base.SC2assets with the MPQEditor, then go to Assets, Music and drop all of the files in the download below into that location. This adds menu music, in-game music and victory/defeat pop-up music.

Download

Spells and Weapon Sounds

This includes things like Siege Tank entering siege mode/attacks, all Probe sounds, Psionic Storm, Yamato Cannon, Stimpack/Marine gunfire, Medivac healing, SCV repairing and the Hellions flame swapped to Firebat.

Go to SC2/Mods/Liberty.SC2Mod/base.SC2assets (the same one used for music)
Open with the MPQEditor and navigate to Assets. Drop the extracted download there.

Download

Zerg Unit Sounds

This includes Zerg units spawning, attacking, moving, drones, eggs, overlords etc. This doesn't include the advisor, as it's part of a different MPQ. You'll need to install that individually as instructed above.

Go to SC2/Mods/Liberty.SC2Mod and open base.sc2assets with the MPQEditor. Navigate to Assets/Sounds and drop the extracted download there.

Download

Model Swapping

2011-03-04T21:47:00.006Z

Similar to the Thor -> Thor Collectors Edition swap, this time I'll show how any unit model in the game can be swapped to any other you want. As an example, one I've already prepared is Ghost -> Nova which you can download here. To apply it, ~~simply extract the two folders to SC2\Mods\LibertyMulti.SC2Mod~~ (R.I.P 1.3.3).
Now that the previous method has been removed due to a patch, a new more complicated method is required. Instead of creating a folder structure inside LibertyMulti.SC2Mod, you must copy the original MPQs required to that folder and then add the files to the relevant location within the MPQs in use, so you'll still need MPQEditor. By using this folder prioritising method, no MPQEditing actually takes places which supposedly considers this not disobeying the Blizz Tos, because nowhere did they say we can't add more folders to theirs. That said, Blizz still have the right to ban anyone for any reason they want, so don't consider yourself immune to ban just because of this method, although the risk is still incredibly low.

What this folder prioritising does is when you load the game and the game loads all the MPQs, it'll first look in LibertyMulti.SC2Mod and then Liberty.SC2Mod, but because ghost (or whatever edit you might make) was already loaded from the first folder, it'll simply skip it from the second, but still load everything else that wasn't in the first folder.

As you can see from this Nova file, it's been fully edited to give the correct icon, model, animations, portraits and sounds. With this particular file unfortunately I wasn't able to animate the portrait. Trying to get a static fully textured version alone took me hours due to Blizzards retarded organisation. A more simple and common edit such as Marine to Marauder would be possible to animate the portrait, because both characters are used within Multiplayer games. Characters like Zeratul, Kerrigan and Nova all have unique portraits which Multiplayer is unable to load animations for as they're separate files.

To get started on making your own, you'll need MPQEditor. All characters used in Multiplayer are contained in SC2\Mods\Liberty.SC2Mod folder. A majority of the files like base models, animations and portraits are contained in the base.SC2Assets folder, while sounds are enGB.SC2Assets. I'll give a simple example for this, being how to swap Marine and Marauder. Keep in mind that with this method you won't need to be replacing any files within the MPQ itself.

First off, open base.SC2Assets with MPQeditor. The locations we need files from are Portraits, Textures and Units. For portraits, you simply go to terran and extract Marauder then rename the file inside from MarauderPortrait.m3 to MarinePortrait.m3.
Now go to textures and scroll down to Marauder and there'll be four .dds files. This will be the same combination for a majority of units, being Marauder_diffuse, Marauder_emmisive, Marauder_normal and Marauderportrait_static for people using the 2D portrait option. Extract these four and rename Marauder to Marine.
Finally go to Units, Terran and now you'll see some files differentiate a bit because Marine has a lot more than Marauder. The reason for this is because marine has more death animations. All this means is when your new Marine dies, if he dies to something like a siege tank, the model will turn back into a marine and explode. To counter this, just copy MarauderDeath a few times and rename it to MarauderDeathBlast.m3 etc.

You're now done with this MPQ and can move on to enGB.SC2Assets for the sounds (LocalizedData\Sounds). Open TerranUnitVO\Marauder and you'll see several files for Deaths, Attacks and so on. Extract them all and rename them to Marine. It's best to look into the actually marine sounds folder while doing this, because some characters have more sound files than others. Make sure you wind up with the same number. For example, if Marine has 8 attack sounds and Marauder has 7, just copy one and rename it to 8. Files must remain in the same format.

After you've done all this, create the same kind of folder structure I made for the Nova MPQ and add all your new files to the appropriate locations. It has to look the same as it did in the MPQ. If something happens like the model has changed but the sounds haven't, you've probably put them in the wrong place.

Now lets say we wanted to do something more difficult, like Ghost to Nova. The main problem with swapping a campaign model with a multiplayer model is the portraits. In campaign, characters portraits are full 3D models which load animations from an individual archive. When you're playing campaign you may only see the head of the model, but infact the entire body is there, just not visible. Because multiplayer portraits weren't designed to load animations from an individual archive, it can't be animated unless you design a brand new model yourself.

Ghost Portrait

Nova Portrait

As you can see, the Ghost portrait only contains the upper half of the original model and contains several animations, while Nova contains the entire model with none. This is the exact model used for Nova in the campaign. The black square at the back is where the background texture is applied.

Higher detailed portraits like novas also have a lot more than 4 textures. She has individual textures for hair, face, eyes, body and any effects. Some of these files are names so rediculously that it also makes them impossible to find, because often the file name isn't even relevent to the character name, such as "sm_tosh_cloak_noise_norm.dds", "reflection_marsarabar.dds" or "t1_sm_nova_hair_diff.dds". In total, novas portrait required 26 textures.

A great way to get the file names is to use the Starcraft II Map Editor you got with the game. After you open it, hold Control, Shift + V to open the model viewer. By default the campaign models aren't even loaded, so it's best to take the NovaPortrait.m3, rename it to GhostPortrait and put it within the correct folder structure withing SC2\Mods\LibertyMulti.SC2Mod. This way we can trick it into loading the Nova portrait instead.

Once in the model viewer, expand the Assets folder on the right and go to Portraits, Terran, GhostPortrait and load the .m3. A new folder will appear in the box below. Open it and go to Materials. Within this there'll be many directories. Expand the first one and a lot of details will pop up. The first four or five details will be follow by a .dds file name. You'll know which is which because it'll say .dds at the end.

Expand every one and take note of all the .dds names. These are the files your going to need to find in the textures folder within SC2\Campaigns\Liberty.SC2Campaigns\base.SC2Assets which you open with MPQEditor and go to Assets\Textures. You won't need to rename these textures as the m3 is designed to load specifically named dds files.

If you have some knowledge with 3D modeling or just want to rescale a model bigger or smaller, these .m3 files can also be imported into Autodesk 3Ds Max using these plug-ins. Extract the 4 .ms files in the scripts folder to C:\Program Files (x86)\Autodesk\3ds Max 2011\Scripts\Startup and then the sc2_objects.ms in plugins folder to C:\Program Files (x86)\Autodesk\3ds Max 2011\plugins.

1. If you want the textures to load with it, put the necessary .dds files into a folder, click Customize at the top of 3Ds Max, Configure User Paths, External Files, Add, then select the folder directory.

2. Then click the hammer icon on the right side of the taskbar on the right of the program, then click MAXScript and use the scrolldown menu to select M3 - Import. Press Open and then locate your .m3 file.

To export your new models, just click on the drop down menu again, select M3 - Export and click Export on the bottom.

If you do replace a model using a character from the campaign, you'll notice that the characters textures weren't designed to support the team colours as heavily as one would like. If you want to learn about how to make the team colours a lot more noticeable, I've also written a guide on Model Texturing.

Collectors Edition Thor Is Here!

2011-03-04T20:54:00.008Z

and I can't afford it D:

As most of you know, with the release of SC2 there was also a quite expensive and rare enough limited edition version, a pretty common thing for Blizz releases. For an extra 40 quid, you get a book of Blizzard artwork for SC2, a Jim Raynor USB with SC:BW installed, behind the scenes blah blah blah but anyway, the Collectors Edition Thor. A pretty decent looking reskin you can use in-game to make other people jelly.

While this is obviously going to be a client-side only edit, it's still pretty awesome to look at the shiney new textures and high rez 250mm Cannon Strikes!

This isn't going to be as simple as the previous MPQ edits I posted. I got the MPQ from the collectors edition and compared it to my own standard MPQ to see the exact differences and it doesn't seem to be a matter of replacing the thor textures. While some of the files I replaced may not be fully neccessary, they were bigger than the ones in the default MPQ and I don't want to take any risks. I advise you to do the same if you intend to use this. I'm going to give a pretty detailed explanation of what to do, so if you follow it carefully there should be no problems. Keep in mind that if you have a friend who owns the collectors edition, you can just get him to send you his MPQ each time a new major patch is released, but this would mean him having to upload roughly 110mb and you downloading 110mb. I don't know about you, but my upload speed is 20kb/s. The file I've prepared is 5mb.

I extracted the only files you're going to need from the collectors edition and compiled them together which you can Download here. The MPQ you need to open is located at SC2 > Versions > Base19132 > patch.SC2Archive. This is based on the current patch (1.3.6). If there's a newer folder under Base19132, use the patch.SC2Archive in that folder instead. This does not include Shaders14513, 14515. Must begin with Base. Make sure you backup this MPQ before you start incase you make a mistake. Just copy it to your desktop or something.

There's been reports that some non English clients can't get this to work. If this is the case for you, copy your base.SC2Assets from Mods\Liberty.SC2Mod to your Mods\LibertyMulti.SC2Mod. Now add the files from this download to the relevent directories within the copy of your mpq then you should be done. If you still can't get it to work, it's likely you're living in the US. A huge number of US client have been unable to get any form of MPQ edit to work. While I've been trying to work out why, it's kind of hard without the US client/account.

Once you open this with your MPQEditor, you'll notice it has the same folders as the download. Make sure you do this exactly as written because if you replace a folder when I haven't said to, you'll have to start again with the backup. From the download, first go to:

Campaigns\Liberty.SC2Campaign\Base.SC2Assets\Assets\StoryModeCharacters\Terran\SM_HyperionArmorer_RequiredAnims

Then copy the file "SM_HyperionArmorer_RequiredAnims.m3a" to the exact same place in the MPQ editor. You should be replacing a file, not a folder. While you were able to go directly to the file in the download, the MPQ still has the other default folders mixed in along the way so make sure you're clicking the right folder name.

After this, we can go back to the begining and this time go to:

Mods\Liberty.SC2Mod\Base.SC2Assets\Assets\Textures

There should be seven .DDS files all begining with "thor_". Copy all of them and paste them into the same directory of the MPQ. It shouldn't prompt you to know if you want to replace a previous file this time because these aren't in the standard MPQ.

Now go back a folder to "Assets" and move to Units\Terran and there should be four folders begining with "Thor". This time it's ok to copy all four folders and paste them directly into the same location within the MPQ, replacing the previous.

Back again, this time to Liberty.SC2Mod. Go to Base.SC2Data\TextureReduction and copy the TextureReductionVariables to the same location in the MPQ, replacing the old.

Now your Thor should be ready. You can double check it by joining the custom map called "Unit Test" where you'll be able to instantly spawn one. Or as many as you like. If your SC2 client starts to download a patch after you've done this when a Blizz patch isn't due, it means you've put on of the files in the wrong place.

Model Retexturing

2011-03-03T16:54:00.066Z

Similar to the background image replacing, we can also use SCs MPQs to change the colour or texture of any of the games models. While this might be a bit simpler to access as we only need to use one MPQ rather than four or five for the backgrounds or having to replace five different folders for the collectors edition thor, this does require a small amount of photoshop knowledge. Nothing that can't be learned with a few minutes of google.

The MPQ needed to be used for this is called base.SC2Assets and can be found at SC2 > Mods > Liberty.SC2Mod. After opening the MPQ with MPQEditor, go to Assets > Textures and this is pretty much all the stuff you're going to be working with. This consists of every texture used for units and buildings by each race. Select anything and type out the first few letters of a unit you want to retexture. Whatever you choose, there'll be a few .DDS files for each unit. The one you're looking for is the one with "_diffuse" written after it.

After you've chosen one, extract it to where you want. Because of the .DDS format, you're going to need the NVIDIA DDS Plug-In. ~~Unfortunately this only works with x32 versions of Photoshop, and even with that, I can't confirm that it works with CS5 at all as I don't think it's been updated recently.~~ A fairly nice alternative is Paint.NET as it can still be used to retexture with a bit of practice and is fully working with .DDS files. If you really really want to use photoshop to recolour, you can just use Paint.NET to convert the .DDS to png, then do what you want in photoshop and then save again from png to .DDS with Paint.NET. jpeg won't work.
(Update: After many years of incompatibility, the wonderful people over at NVIDIA have finally released the plug-in to work on all x64 versions of Photoshop, including the recent CS5 release! It's a fine day for science. That said, if you can't get your hands on Photoshop, Paint.NET still does the trick.)

After you're done retexturing them, instead of replacing the old one inside the mpq, go to SC II\Mods\LibertyMulti.SC2Mod and create a new structure of folders here starting with base.SC2Assets, then a folder in that called Assets and another in that called Textures. Put your new textures in here. This solves the lag issue created from simply replacing the old dds files within the mpq, as well as being a lot simpler. Note that this method has been said to be troublesome on US clients.

For my example, I've chosen the Colossus texture. It's 3am here so you'll have to forgive my lack of effort put into the recolouring. If I'm honest, all I did was press invert.

Before

After

This also works for buildings. I was feeling generous this time, so I added a nice teal tint. I'm not sure how though, because I don't usually use Paint.NET. It was actually an accident but I just decided to roll with it.

Before

After

Yes, mine looks rather dire, but that's not the point.

After you're happy with your modifications, I strongly advise you to start a custom game by yourself to make sure everything is loading properly. The first time I started a game after adding some custom textures, I was having rediculous lag spikes whenever I tried to make the modified units, and when I made a modification to a building, the game took a lot longer to load. So, make sure you go to the Unit Test Map and get your game client used to all your new textures.

Modifying the texture of units will also effect your opponents or allies units, but only from your perspective.

Team Colours

Lets say you wanted to make a brand new texture by yourself, or were using my tutorial on model swapping, focusing on swapping a model such as Zeratul or the Hero units. One thing you'll notice is that these textures weren't designed for team colours. If you swap a model that's used commonly in team games, you'll notice this can be quite distracting or could even cause you to A-move your own team mates.

The way team colours work on textures is with the transparency. The actual team colour itself obviously isn't attached to the texture, else you'd need like 10 textures for every single section of each model. The colour is applied underneath the texture which will then be shown through the transparent parts of the texture.

Using the colossus_diffuse.dds as an example again, take note of the grey and white chequered boxes. This is where my team colour will seep through the texture for others to see.

To show the effect, you can now see I'm using the eraser tool to remove the entire texture, turning everything to chequered boxes. Remember that the dimensions must always remain the same. Before you start, be sure to remove the lock icon in Layers on the bottom right by double clicking the layer to remove layer from background. Some of these dds files also have an alpha one layer which must be removed before saving.

To do this, click Channels next to Layers and the right click Alpha 1 and delete. Once you try to save, the NVIDIA plug-in will prompt you with a pop up. So far, I've found the best setting to be DXT5 ARGB 8 bpp ¦ interpolated alpha (The fourth one).

As you can now see the entire models texture is gone and the model is completely red as that was my teams colour. The light effects are still there because they belong to a separate dds file. You can change that too if you wanted, but it's not going to kill anyone.

Obviously if you're going to be remaking your own model and need to do a change like this, you're not going to be doing a 100% reveal. This is just to give you an idea of how to make team colours more revealing, should you be using a model not designed to support multiplayer.