Heroes IV 'skin pack'

[Paladin]

Did you know that the Heroes IV main menu background and music can be changed easily? With my HoMM4 skin pack, you can do this in a few clicks. More information - from the readme (my very first readme ):

This 'skin pack' can be used to change the main menu artwork and main menu music in Heroes and Might and Magic IV independently of any expansions installed.

There's one file for each possible combination of menu and music; the original vanilla version, The Gathering Storm and Winds of War.


Examples:

Using the 'H4 menu WoW music.h4r' file obviously changes the menu to show the original artwork and play the Winds of War music.

Using the 'WoW complete.h4r' file changes both menu and music to the Winds of War versions.

All files have been tested, and should work on any and all versions of Heroes of Might and Magic IV, both the Ubisoft and 3DO/New World Computing versions, with or without Equilibris or any official expansions installed.

This package was made using mh4 (Heroes of Might and Magic IV Resources Explorer and Modifier) by Olivier Soares to extract from and rebuild the .h4r files, and Filzip by Philipp Engel to make the .zip archive.

It can be downloaded from Megaupload (thanks for hosting my file for free):
HoMM4Skins.zip

Warning: It's 55 MB.

[Metathron]

We discussed this a few months ago. TheUndeadKing offered a very good and easily implementable solution here. But hey, one more can't hurt!

[Paladin]

Oh...

I wasn't aware of that. Well, I have something else up my sleeve - wait and see.

[TheUndeadKing]

(Thanks for the credit, Metathron. ) And thanks for the contribution, Paladin.

[Nazgul]

I'm sorry for necro-posting, but since all links here are broken for now...

I made own skin-pack (classic, GS and WoW) which can be downloaded here (20mb)

[iLiVeInAbOx05]

Hi Nazgul, no need to apologize There has been some interest recently in changing the main menu background, so this is a welcome necro-post

[Karmakeld]

I never stumbled upon this before, so indeed a welcomed necro-post.
Too bad CH didn't host the original pack.
Kalah, how about hosting this new one, so the link doesn't expire?

[cjlee]

Skin pack isn't anywhere as important as improving the AI and game stability... I never bother to look at the game screens anyway.

[iLiVeInAbOx05]

While I agree with you Cjee, we don't have access to the source code to really modify the AI. Also, this post seems like it's just something to help the casual modder that just wants to customize some small things, like a new background for a campaign they're working on.

[Karmakeld]

true it isn't important compared to adding new stuff or improving the existing, but people have still asked for ways to change either background picture and or music, so I don't really see the compare..

[cjlee]

yeah, sad that people can't gain access to the H4 source code. I look at the awesome work done for h3 and would love to see H4 (which I prefer, btw) to gain a new lease of life.

equilibris was awesome, btw, just to give credit where that was due. Too bad it was so good that I had difficulty finishing many Equilibris maps, and eventually the unfinished maps piled up and I put it aside.

[Wolf-croW]

I'm sorry for necro-posting, but since all links here are broken for now...

I made own skin-pack (classic, GS and WoW) which can be downloaded here (20mb)

Yay!
I register in the forum just to thank you... so... THANK YOU!

[jeff]

I never stumbled upon this before, so indeed a welcomed necro-post.
Too bad CH didn't host the original pack.
Kalah, how about hosting this new one, so the link doesn't expire?

I have asked admin if we can host it.

[jeff]

We are now hosting it. The link is https://www.celestialheavens.com/homm4/Homm4Skins.zip .

The user should be warned in the readme.txt file that using the name new_mod.h4r will overwrite that file if it currently exists. For example, playing Lamentia's Story, that file holds the custom portraits. So anyone using facetool to enhance their game cannot currently use that skin package.

[Karmakeld]

I believe you might be able to extract the skins and put them in your data folder outside of any existing new_mod.h4r file and thus be able to use both. But I will have to try it on my pc to confirm it, but still great that hou host it

[jeff]

I believe you might be able to extract the skins and put them in your data folder outside of any existing new_mod.h4r file and thus be able to use both. But I will have to try it on my pc to confirm it, but still great that hou host it

That was my thought as well, but I have yet to try it.

[Karmakeld]

Hmmm. So I tried it and it caused the game to crash.
I tried some other methods including renaming, extracting etc. but it'll either crash, freeze or cause memory failure error.
I even tried opening the skin pack with Namerutan's tool, export it as ora, then import it and save it as h4d file, but that still didn't work.
I know you can place the campaign splashscreens directly in the Data folder and changes can be read, so I guess it should be possible somehow.
Anyway, there's a simple work around - I just tested and confirmed it. Simply rename it to storm_updates.h4r or x2_updates.h4r.
I plan on using one of those to pack new objects once finished, but atleast there's these 2 file names available and it's simply a matter of renaming.