Aegis inventory graphic enhancement mod

[Aegis]

Hello everyone!

I'm a very big fan of Might & Magic 6-8, periodically replaying them every time I need to feel the "good old games" taste.

I was delighted to find them on GoG recently, assuring me a reliable source for them even as the OS continue to evolve.

I was a lurker here for years, but I have made great use of both Greyface's patches and mods and the other fan made versions of the game.

Finally, I decided to make my own little contribute to the game, and so decided to make a graphic mod to make the MM6 inventory look a little better.

The result is this little mod, where I change the image of more than 75% of the items in the game, mainly reworking on MM7 and MM8 items (who have a better image quality) to make the new versions of MM6 items, but sometimes I have also used images found on the web or reworked on items found in other people's mods.

The mod is quite simple, you just need to put the file provided into the DATA folder of your MM6 folder, without needing of overwriting anything, so if you don't like it you can simply remove the file and everything will return as normal.

To work, it needs Greyface's patch, but I plan to also make an integrated ICONS file for people who doesn't want to use the patch (but I really suggest you to use it, it is very good and makes the game a lot more enjoyable without changing anything major).
I have purposely avoided to change files that had text into them, so the mod is compatible with every language version of MM6, and it's also compatible with every mod that doesn't change the position of equipped items onto the paper dolls (with that mods on, some items may be shown in the wrong spot of the paperdoll while equipped).

The mod includes smaller potion bottles and Plate Armors, so it helps saving space in the inventory.
I have tried to keep images as coherent as possible to the text descriptions of the items.


Please, let me know if you find any bug or if you think any of the new images would need a rework and I'll try to do what I can.
This is a beta release, I may add other images swap or correct some of the ones already included basing on your feedbacks.

Here you are:

http://www.filedropper.com/aegismodicons

A little preview:

[Anubis]

Thanks for your contribution. I really like these changes. To me, this is visually appealing. I'm definitely going to use this mod the next time I do a MM6 playthrough.

Since you mentioned this is a beta release, I'm just gonna make one suggestion. I never liked the fact that several artifacts/relics looked the same, such as Zeus/Pellinore/Golden Plate, Galahad/Apollo/Golden Chain Armor, Percival/Artemis/Stellar Bows. If you haven't done so already, you should make these artifacts/relics graphically unique from everything else!

[Aegis]

Hello Anubis!
Thanks for your kind words.

About the artifact/relics, to my understanding MM6 just uses the same pic for both high level equipment and relics. There are not 2 separate entries for them, and the relic just points at the same image as the high level equip.
That means that, sadly, without a massive rework of game itself (something that is beyond my knowledge and skill) making separate images for Artifacts and Relics is impossible.

If someone ever makes such a change, I'll gladly find/make separate images for those items, since I agree that seeing them with the same look of ordinary equipment is pretty boring.

[tomchen1989]

Thanks. Very nicely done. Much better-looking.
However, unlike your screenshot, after applying AegisMod.icons.lod, a potion bottle still takes as much space as it used to take, which is 2 x 1. The image is indeed smaller, but the space under the shrunk image have to remain empty and cannot be filled with any item.

[Aegis]

Thanks. Very nicely done. Much better-looking.
However, unlike your screenshot, after applying AegisMod.icons.lod, a potion bottle still takes as much space as it used to take, which is 2 x 1. The image is indeed smaller, but the space under the shrunk image have to remain empty and cannot be filled with any item.

This is a glitch of old save games. New bottles will occupy just 1 square.

To fix it on old save games, I suggest you to remove the mod, open the save, drop all the bottles on the ground, make another save without exiting the map and then re-apply the mod and pick up back the bottles.

The same applies for plate armors into the inventory. Either equip them or drop them on the ground, otherwise the inventory in old saved games will glitch and the extra space liberated by the mod will bug and become unavailable.

[GrayFace]

The image is indeed smaller, but the space under the shrunk image have to remain empty and cannot be filled with any item.

The bottom square will remain occupied even if you get rid of the bottles. So, do as Aegis described above, it's a must!

I'll think about making the new images possible.

[Aegis]

The image is indeed smaller, but the space under the shrunk image have to remain empty and cannot be filled with any item.

I'll think about making the new images possible.

That would be great (And thank you for all the work you do for us M&M fans!)! If you manage to do it I'll start to work on the separate images for the relics right away!

As I said I'm not good enough to tell, but it is already possible to add extra images into the ICON lod, even if they are not used.
If it would be possible to change the name of the image pointer into the artifact (es.: Mordred pointing at the image "Mordred" instead to "Ldagger5"), than it would suffice to make a copy image of LDagger5 named Mordred into the icon.lod to leave the game as it is for the ones that would like to play it unchanged, but it would at the same time allow modders to change the Mordred image separately from the one of the Divine Dagger.

[GrayFace]

As I said I'm not good enough to tell, but it is already possible to add extra images into the ICON lod, even if they are not used.
If it would be possible to change the name of the image pointer into the artifact (es.: Mordred pointing at the image "Mordred" instead to "Ldagger5"), than it would suffice to make a copy image of LDagger5 named Mordred into the icon.lod to leave the game as it is for the ones that would like to play it unchanged, but it would at the same time allow modders to change the Mordred image separately from the one of the Divine Dagger.

That's already possible, just change the 2nd column ("Pic File") of items.txt from icons.lod, place modified items.txt in DataFiles. Only various parts of clothing can't be changed that way.

[Aegis]

As I said I'm not good enough to tell, but it is already possible to add extra images into the ICON lod, even if they are not used.
If it would be possible to change the name of the image pointer into the artifact (es.: Mordred pointing at the image "Mordred" instead to "Ldagger5"), than it would suffice to make a copy image of LDagger5 named Mordred into the icon.lod to leave the game as it is for the ones that would like to play it unchanged, but it would at the same time allow modders to change the Mordred image separately from the one of the Divine Dagger.

That's already possible, just change the 2nd column ("Pic File") of items.txt from icons.lod, place modified items.txt in DataFiles. Only various parts of clothing can't be changed that way.

Interesting... I'll try to experiment a bit with it then...

But sadly changing the items.txt will make the mod not language-universal. I'll have to make separate mods for every language.

[GrayFace]

Don't worry, I recently made a tool that compares 2 text tables and then uses the list of modified cells to change the one on user's computer. Needed it for my patch for the same reason.

[Aegis]

Don't worry, I recently made a tool that compares 2 text tables and then uses the list of modified cells to change the one on user's computer. Needed it for my patch for the same reason.

Cool! How does it work? Is it integrated into MMArchive?

[GrayFace]

It's a command line tool