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BattleTanks II is a combination action/strategy tank combat game where you can battle against up to 3 other teams of computer-controlled tanks, in one of 5 unique battlefields. BattleTanks II features three tank types to choose from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. There are many ways to win a war in BattleTanks II. If you like being the commander of your army, you can sit back away from the action, directing your army’s actions strategically. However, if you prefer action, there’s nothing stopping you from helping your tanks out and join the fight. You can make sneak attacks, massive assaults, try weakening your enemy with artillery, and much more. John Judnich is the creator of this game.

Post tutorial Report RSS Designing your own Battle Tanks II Teams

Here is a tutorial on how to add your own teams and countries to Battle Tanks II. Enjoy!

Posted by on - Intermediate Other

Hello all you Battle Tankers out there! Bear with me - this is my first tutorial - but hopefully by the end of it you will have made an additional team to add to your Battle Tanks install. Before you start anything, I suggest you back up the entire directory (navigate to C:\Program Files\BattleTanksII and copy the entire directory, and paste elsewhere on your machine. If something gets screwed up, then you can easily fix the problem and still have a working install.

Suggested knowledge/software to successfully completing this tutorial:Knowledge of HTML LanguageKnowledge of XML Language A Text Editor (Notepad, Wordpad, Notepad++, etc - Wordpad or Notepad++ preffered)Image Editor (Paint/Microsoft Powerpoint will suffice)Patience + Time :)

Step 1: Back up your install. Simply copy your Battle Tanks directory and paste on the desktop. This will be used as a backup and won't be touched, but if something goes wrong, then its there if we need it.
Step 2: Lets make the tank skins! Navigate to C:\Program Files\BattleTanks\Tanks\Abrams. We'll start by making a tank skin for our new team. (Lets make China) You can do this one of two ways. The first way is to make your own skin from scratch, which is both time consuming and difficult. Thus, were going to do it the second way - copying and editing existing working tank files. Lets copy the Body_German.png and rename the copy Body_Chinese.png. Now using whatever image editor you want - I'd start with Powerpoint, and recolor the image. I recolored mine red, as you can see in the description picture. Over the German signs on the tank, I made yellow colored stars and an arrow, to make sure that all the signs are lined up. See the images section of my profile page to download my version of this. Repeat this step for the M10 and Sherman Tank, as well as any other tanks you may have made. (For me, this step took a long while)

Step 3: Time to add our skins to the tanks themselves! Open up the file Heavy.tank in a Text Editor and find the texture tags. There should be four lines of very similar text, all saying "< texture team="American" file="Abrams\Body_American.png"/>" Copy this line and paste in right below it, and change the team name to "China", and the file to "Abrams\Body_Chiense.png". Now your Abrams tanks will be able to use the new skins. Repeat this step for the M10 and Sherman tank files, as well as any other tanks you may have made. (Again, this took a long time for me) Don't run the game just yet - you won't be able to use your new team yet.

Step 4: Time to give your new team a flag and a flag/base! Navigate to C:\Program Files\BattleTanks\Maps\Common. Here you will find the trees, (I'll post a tutorial later on how to add your own trees) flags, flagpole (.x) files, and the Icons. Copy an existing flag (Germany Works) and find a Chinese flag online. Using your image editor, change the copied German flag to feature the Chinese flag, and rename the new file ChineseFlag.png. Next, Copy the icon. This next step is both difficult and can be time consuming, so be careful. Do NOT open an Icon.png file in Paint, as this will kill the transparency. You can add transparency back later in Powerpoint, but its just easier to edit the files in a more powerful program, like Sketchpad or Photoshop, where transparency is retained. Since most people, including me, don't want to pay for Photoshop, I'll demonstrate how to use paint and powerpoint. Copy the AmericanIcon.png (or any icon for that matter) and rename the copy ChineseIcon.png. Though the file itself is 16 x 16 px, the flag itself will not occupy all of that space, just the area in the middle. You can see in the file there is a small white 'bar' at the top and bottom of the image. Open the image up in paint and zoom in. Copy/Paste/Design your new flag over the existing one, but do NOT cover over the white space! Next, save the file, and copy it. Open up powerpoint, and paste the image in. (I am using Powerpoint 2007 - 2010 works well too - but if you have 2003 this is still possible) On the ribbon (navigation bar) click Picture Tools Format, and on the left side of the options pane there is an option to recolor. You can use this function to recolor tank skins as well. Click Set Transparency, and use the color selector to select the white section of the icon. This will re-render transparency over the white section of the Icon. If anyone is confused in this step - feel free to message me and I'll get back to you ASAP!

Step 5: Still in the Maps\Common Folder, copy a flag mesh file (.x) BlueFlag.x - and paste in the same directory. It doesn't really matter what you name it, but make sure it's something you remember - we will need it later! I named mine ChineseFlag.x. Open the file up in your text editor. You don't need to understand any of the code there (Its Mesh Vector Coding in case you were wondering) Scroll down to the very bottom an in the section title TextureFilename { edit the item in quotes to be the name of your flag.png file (in the example's case, ChineseFlag.png) DO NOT CHANGE ANYTHING ELSE IN THIS FILE! If you change any points, titles, tags, or code, you could screw up the base, and subsequently, the map. A HTML "Tag" is just a section or block of code - delineated by < sampleTag> and ending with < /sampleTag> If you have any confusion with any terms or information I give here, feel free to contact me with a private message.

Step 6: Time to make good use of all of this! In this step we'll put it all together, and make a map with our new team. Copy an existing map file (Desert.map works well for this purpose) and rename it to anything you wish. The name of the map doesn't make any difference whatsoever, but when you have many maps (I have 20+) it makes it much easier to distinguish between them with a good name. Open the map up and give it a good name in < display name="____________"
Here is the important part. Directly below the skybox tag (< sky>) there is a tag < teams>. Here you will find all the team files put together to make a base. Copy an entire < team> tag and paste it directly below the one you just copied. (I coped < team name="American.....< /team<) Rename the team name to be 'Chinese', and set the rgb values to the color scheme you want the tanks to appear on the map. I have r="255" g="0" and b="255" The next attribute in the tage is flagicon - change this to be Common\ChineseIcon.png' or whatever the name of your icon file that we made in step 4 was. Do not touch the tag flagpole mesh, but change the flag mesh to be the name of the mesh file (.x) that we edited in step 5. You can change the scales if you wish, but this is not necessary, and is just further customization.

Step 7: Now we'll add this new team to the map, so it has some bases! Scroll down to the bottom of the file to the < objects > tag, where there is a series of similar tags, all starting with controlpoint. Copy one, and paste it back. The x and y values change the location the base appears on the map itself, so make sure you change it so 2 bases do not appear in the same place. Change the team="American" (or whichever one you copied) and change the name to the < team name="____" that you set in step 6. If they do not match, you will crash the map.
Step 8: Boot up the game and enjoy your new team! Remember that the new team will only appear on maps that you add it too, and any additional tanks you make must include the new lines of code, in order to make them function with the new team. Enjoy your new addition! Post some new teams/images on the BattleTanks II page in the addons section - I'd love to see what the community creates!

If anyone has any issues or problems encountered during this process, feel free to contact me through an email or private messages and I'll clear up any issues you may have!

Post comment Comments
rebel28 Creator
rebel28

If I remember correctly (Haven't modded BT2 in about a year).

John J told me that .x files are just .3ds files renamed.
I might be wrong, but it's worth a check.

EDIT: Or at least you can use both file formats

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Guest
Guest

It keeps on comming up with memeroy access violation

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musicamentek Author
musicamentek

this happens if there is some issue with how the new files are accessed. I'm honestly unsure how to fix this glitch; it happens occasionally, but I believe it has something to do with how BTII allocates RAM to each team.

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Fortazure
Fortazure

Check That All Files Referenced In .TANK and .MAP Files Are There, Check File Extensions Etc :)

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