Think Red Alert 2 !

Making New Units

STEP ONE: Borrow Some Voxels

For this you will need XCC Utilities. Open the RA2.MIX and hunt down the LOCAL.MIX that's hidden inside. (If you are having trouble seeing the internal file names try reinstalling XCC, I had the same problem and corrected it that way. Also make sure that the "Directories" are pointing to where XCC lives.) For this example we're going to build a unit I'll call the "Meat Grinder". Find the IFV body and extract it (left click on the file name and select "Extract"), this will bring up a file save dialog box. Save the IFV body as "NAIL.VXL". Scroll up the XCC file list and also extract and save the IFV's HVA file as "NAIL.HVA". Now comes the fun part. Scroll down until you find "FVTUR11.VXL", which is a unused turret that you may find amusing. In our example here, we're saying that it is a massive "nail gun" cannon, but if you look at it you might think it would be better as a flame thrower turret. Extract it as "NAILTUR.VXL". As before, also save the matching HVA file as NAILTUR.HVA".

After all of this you should have four new files sitting in your XCC directory:

NAIL.VXL
NAIL.HVA
NAILTUR.VXL
NAILTUR.HVA

You should notice the pattern, where "xxxxTUR" refers to the turret for a unit. While you can combine turrets into a single voxel file, most people find working with separate files easier to handle. Take a look at the FV code for an example of how Westwood uses multiple turrets.

STEP TWO: Finding A New Home

Using the XCC Mixer utility create a new MIX file, we'll call it "EXPAND54.MIX". When Red Alert (and FinalAlert) wake up they will look inside of EXPANDxx files for things such as voxel files. After you build your new EXPAND file, open it when XCC Mixer. Now open up Windows Explorer (the old File Manager won't work here) and move to the XCC directory. Resize the Explorer window so that you can also see XCC Mixer. Now, "drag-and-drop" all four of the new files that you made in Step One. Click on the XCC Mixer "Compact" button. You will notice that all of your new files now have offset numbers and that a fifth entry (a housekeeping list made by XCC Mixer) has been added. Now go ahead and click on XCC Mixer's "Close" button, and you'll see the file list go blank.

Have you been frustrated with the difference between ECACHE and EXPAND files? For now just put your voxels in an EXPAND file and the cameos in a ECACHE file. In fact, you could insert the ECACHE file into the EXPAND file just like Westwood does it. Why did I end our test file with "54" and not "01"? For one thing, this makes it safe from conflicting with official files, such as Yuri's Revenge, and because I wanted to show you that there was nothing magical about "01".

STEP THREE: Wiring It Up

First we add an entry in the ART.INI file which lets Red Alert know there is a new graphic.

[NAIL] ; The NailGun Tank
Cameo=CHROICON
Voxel=yes
Remapable=yes
 

Now open up your RULES file, here we need to do two things. The first is to add our new unit to the list of units with a "nn=NAIL" line, where "nn" is the "next number" at the end of the list. Now we'll add some unit code to make our new toy come alive. Please note that this is NOT a play balanced unit ready for your mod, it's just for demonstration porposes.

; The NailGun Tank
[NAIL]
UIName=GUI:MEATGRIND
Name=Nail Gun Tank
Image=NAIL
Prerequisite=GAWEAP
Primary=MP5E
Strength=200
Category=AFV
Armor=heavy
Turret=yes
IsTilter=yes
Crusher=yes
TooBigToFitUnderBridge=true
TechLevel=2
Sight=8
Speed=7
CrateGoodie=no
Owner=British,French,Germans,Americans,Alliance
Cost=700
Points=25
ROT=5
IsSelectableCombatant=yes
Explosion=TWLT070,S_BANG48,S_BRNL58,S_CLSN58,S_TUMU60
VoiceSelect=GenAllVehicleSelect
VoiceMove=GenAllVehicleMove
VoiceAttack=GenAllVehicleAttackCommand
VoiceFeedback=
DieSound=GenVehicleDie
MoveSound=GrizzlyTankMoveStart
MaxDebris=2
Locomotor={4A582741-9839-11d1-B709-00A024DDAFD1}
MovementZone=Normal
ThreatPosed=15 ; This value MUST be 0 for all building addons
DamageParticleSystems=SparkSys,SmallGreySSys
VeteranAbilities=STRONGER,FIREPOWER,SIGHT,FASTER
EliteAbilities=SELF_HEAL,STRONGER,FIREPOWER,ROF
Accelerates=false
ImmuneToVeins=yes
Size=3
OpportunityFire=yes

STEP FOUR: Have It Your Way

Using this very simple process you could create hundreds of new units justby combining bodies and turrets. In addition, you could even use voxels which were not turrets as turrets. For example, the Scrin Fighter may not fit the look and feel of RA2 as an aircraft, but it would look interesting as a high-tech turret. The important thing to remember is that all of the voxels can be used in different ways. As you scroll through the available selections you might come up with some interesting ideas. Does the turret for that tank look a little like a one-man speedboat? Does that odd looking barrel look more like a missile?

But wait, there's more. If you're like me, you'll have Tiberian Sun also loaded on your computer. Even though many of the original TibSun voxels are inside of Red Alert Two, many of the original objects were replaced by Red Alert versions. Thanks to XCC it is but a moments work to extract them, rename them, and reuse them in your own mods. One example would be the Nod Laser Turret, which might look better as a high-tech weapon turret.

And what about all of those original voxels that are available on the net? With some effort, you could go through about a hundred or so looking for one really good one. Sadly, creating voxels is an art-form which takes more than a little time to master.