Adding a campaign/movies to Warcraft 3

Hello everyone.

I am working on a campaign that will be integrated into the Warcraft 3 single player campaign menu. Right now, we were planning to replace one of the Blizzard campaigns with our own, however we'd prefer to add one all along.

Not only would it be more professional, it would also allow us to more easily integrated our movie(s) into the game. As far as I know, the movie files are not listed in any data file, so I am assuming Warcraft 3 determines the name of the movie files automatically based on some prior data. So I don't see any other way to put our movie in than to replace the proper Blizzard movie files.

My question is this: the top-most controling file for all manners of UI data is War3skins.txt. It has at the top an open array of 4 items: Human, Undead, NightElf and Orc. These skin names correspond to the root of the campaign descriptor files (.txt), movies files (.mpq).

My question is this: has anyone attempted to add a skin, and would that allow to "add" a campaign, including custom movies. I haven't tried to do that yet (I have other more urgent things to do), but maybe someone has attempted this already.

My guts tell me it won't work because Warcraft 3 probably won't load the extra skin. However, it might =p

Thanks for any help or experience on this.

You CAN change skins!

Follow the instruction on this link:

http://www.wc3campaigns.com/modules.php?name=FAQ

search for the link about the skin/model changing

I've tried it and it works!

The movie files aren't stored in the war3.mpq file but they are in a directory located in the CD-rom.

You can play them with mediaplayer.

Hum, I meant a movie, like DivX, not a custom skin. Well now I see the confusion. I meant interface skin as defined in war3skins.txt.

Concerning the movies, I have figured it out. Although it will require quite a bit of editing (not a problem really), you can add any movie you want w/o having to replace Blizzard's files. You just have to edit the Blizzard.j file, where movie files are stored. You will need to add a case to an if/else statement, add an index for the movie, and change several WorldEdit .txt files to add a string for the said movie. You'll then need to edit CampaignStrings.txt to add the title of the movie, etc.

If you just wish to replace of one Blizzard's movie by another physical file (for example if you are replacing the human campaign), then you can simply change the string in the human movie if statement. However, say you are replacing the night elf campaign and you wish to add an opening movie. That will require more editing (same as above) because there is no, initially, night elf opening movie and thus no index variable for it and no if/else statement.

Oh, and the if/else statement is used to 1) check if the movie exists and 2) play it if it's there.

Extension must be .mpq. Compressor must be DivX, dunno which version (4 or 5 probably).

Oh yeah, you'll also need to provide a subtitle keyed text file. I am not sure how well Warcraft 3 would handle things if it can't find it. Probably nothing.

Anyway, enjoy!