Too damn complicated

I'm very frustrated sorry if i don't seem to be making sense.

Okay.. downloaded some custom skins, I figure no problem, download some MPQ program, pop the skin in and that should be it.

First was TechMPQ.. it works I think. I located the skin I wanted to add in to War3.mpq, then it asked for packed file, I wasn't sure what the meant, if it was making an entirely new MPQ file or if I was just naming what the file would be inside the MPQ. So I just put "idunno" figuring its unlikely to work but I would maybe figure it out.

Opened up Warcraft III directory to see if it made a new MPQ file.. didn't. So I opened up World Editor to see if the file I added would be in there, it's not.

So I came back here and looked for a tutorial, found some, read some, didn't really help me much. So I thought I would look for a simpler program.

Downloaded MPQ2KGUI 1.1, appeared to be the same thing.

Downloaded WinMPQ. I unzipped it, and find many folders inside. I read the readme file, and it tells me to install Visual Basic 4, Runtime Pack 3, and MPQcontrol. Installed them all, then went to the WinMPQ folder, and saw a folder named WinMPQ with "Shadowflare MPQ Archiver" underneath it. Double Clicked it, and it said "Error Loading File"... well hell.

So I e-mailed the guy who created this (I suppose it was) asking him about it, and hopefully he will respond.

I just said screw it, and decided to just extract some files and play around with some stuff.

Went back to TechMPQ.. Successfully extracted highelfarcher from WarMPQ. Then I realize, of course, I would need a image file convertor.

Came back to WC3Campaigns, downloaded War3FileConvertor. Gives me some error message saying application failed to intilize properly... so I read the readme file, which explains that I need to extract it to Warcraft III directory. Ok, no problem. Did that, and backed up War3.exe like it says. Double click on War3FileConvertor and it says Ordinal 697 Could not be located in dynamic link library War3.

At this point I have a headache. Confused and angered.. I go back to TechMPQ, for some reason or another. Now TechMPQ doesn't want to work, as a "Library initilization failed". Great.

Decided to open War3toGUI since its the only working program I have downloaded this evening. And then close it after I realize I don't know what the hell i'm doing.

Now i'm back here at WC3Campaigns and at the Forum looking for someone who speaks human english to explain to me what i'm doing wrong and what I can do.

Thanks and I don't mean any disrespect to the creators of these programs.

Hehehe, sounds funny.

Anyways, im not sure why your WinMPQ doesn't work, imho, its very simple and just the best un-MPQing program out there!

I do know the MDL Converter won't work with war3 1.03, so don't feel bad about that one...

Anyways, try to explain what exactly you want to do, and ill try to help.

Well at first I just wanted to put the custom units i download from this site's "Skins and Models" section of the downloads into the game and then after I got too confused trying to do that, I just extracted a file and was trying to convert it to a gif or jpeg or bmp or any common graphic file to edit.

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Ok, first of all, to convert the images, download the War3 Image Extractor. You can convert and extract all the Warcraft 3 images with just that program -- no MPQ program required for that.

With a skin, lets say you download an Arthas Skin. Open up any kind of MPQ program (I prefer WinMPQ) go to file-->open, select your map, then click the big ADD button to add the skin to it. Fimd the Arthas Skin you downloaded, and put it in the path that the readme that you got with the skin told you to put it in (in this case, after you click add, then find the arthas file, when it asks you to give it a path, Artha's path would be textures\)

You can also see the paths with the Wc3 Image Extractor of all the skins too.

Christ.. War3 Image Extractor won't work, all the necessary files are there but "the specified module could not be found"

As for the MPQ thing, I see what I was doing wrong, I thought this was patching over War3 MPQ, not just a map... but still I have to find a MPQ program that works.

So you want to extract some .blp file in war3.mpq and save it as jpg or something? Try Warcraft III Explorer (http://www.blackpawn.com/war3). It's very easy to setup (just unzip and run, no copying files around from this dir to that dir etc etc). When you run it you'll get a treeview of all the files in your war3.mpq. All you have to do is find the .blp you want to extract and right click on it in the tree view and select extract. You'll be asked where to save the file to and in what format (you can select jpg, gif, png, bmp, etc).
Hope this helps.

YAY! That program works! Thanks! Did you create it Blackpawn? I'd say its the best program unassociated with Blizzard made for the game thus far.

The program is so cool.

That solves one of my problems, but I still can't get a working MPQ thingy to get customs into my maps.

Hehehe, thanks MrAwesome.

I haven't tried sticking anything into MPQ's yet so can't help you with the second issue, but I bet one of the other tools out there can do it.

Hmm well I think i've tried all the ones WC3Campaigns has to offer... sure would be nice if the WinMPQ creator replied to e-mails.

Oop well, except for the new program just added. MPQ View, thats working, YAY! Now to a find a tutorial...

Oh wait I don't think I can add skins with this program.

New Map Editor, eh? Would be nice to make one that can import skins directly and make it so that you won't have to use 10 different programs at the same time.

ya that would be nice like click a costom unit thing and it brings up the war3patch.mpq and lists all the .blps. when someone makes that it will be a happy day a really happy day.

Amen to that.