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eh.. show me a tutorial of this please.

It is my first time doing mods anyways.

"We have tutorials for everything!"

Meh...

I never knew they made mod tutorials... should've told me before, anyways lock topic?

I never have found that button or whatever it is... Maybe he hasn't either?

Look below the users viewing the topic. And it will say Moderation Something

Click the drop down menu, And select Close/Lock topic.

What?

That is what I see...

There's always my tutorial here as well for RetroGRP: http://www.staredit.net/index.php?tutorial=208 I was hoping people would use it.

You have to be the creator of the thread.

I see that anywhere, whether I am creator or not.

Nope... I even went to my own topics to check. Doesn't exist.
Owell, I will live without it...

Anyway back to the topic.

All of StarCraft's unit graphics, wireframes etc are stored in graphics files, commonly known as GRP's. To change the unit graphics you see ingame, you'll have to modify those GRPs. But how does one do that? Well, you modify them with your favourite imaging program (MS Paint, Photoshop, Paint shop pro etc.), but first you need to extract the images from the GRP. You need RetroGRP to do this. RetroGRP might look complex with all it's buttons and textboxes, but once you've got hang of it, it's not hard to use. First of all, you have to load a GRP file you've extracted.

Load External File button: Lets you open a GRP file that you have extracted from an MPQ.

Set Output Directory button: When you press this button, RetroGRP asks you to select a location on your harddrive. All files that you might extract from the GRP later will be saved into this location.

Preview image: Shows a preview of what the diffrent frames, or images, in the GRP looks like.

Write out BMPs button: With this, you write out BMP files that you can modify with any imaging program. It writes out the contest of the GRP in other words. When you press this button, you will get a screen that said All Bitmaps and Only - Unique Bitmaps with a button you cannot click.

All Bitmaps button: The sprites inside the GRP contains only 180 degrees of the unit (meaning a half circle).

Only - Unique Bitmaps button: If you only want to save all unique frames (and ignore all identical copies), then press this button.

( One ) Large Bitmap button: Unknown. Always grayed out. I suppose it will create one bitmap of the whole thing, if it is clickable sometime.

Compile to GRP button: You press this button when you have made your modifications to the BMPs you've created, and when you want to create a new GRP with the new BMPs in it. When you created the BMPs, a *.ral file is created as well (We'll get to it later). You have to load the file in order to get RetroGRP to compile all files and create a GRP with them. The new GRP with the modified BMPs will be created in the directory you specified with the Select output directory button.

-=Exit=- button: Pretty obvious, don't you think? It exits RetroGRP smile.gif .

Scale checkbox: Zooms in the GRP so that the frame covers all of the Preview image.

< and > buttons: You go to the previous and next images in the GRP file with these buttons. Use them to see what's in the GRP.

*Textbox with number*: This textbox shows wich image in the GRP you're currently viewing. Starts at 0.

<< 10 and 10 >> button: Very similar to the < and > buttons, but instead of showing the previous and next image, it shows the 10 previous and 10 next files in the GRP. In other words, if you're at frame 4 in a GRP file, and press the 10 >> button, RetroGRP will show frame 14.

# Of Frames textbox: Displays how many frames, or images, there totally is in the GRP. As you can see in the screenshot above, the Medic has 230 frames. This is nothing "unnormal". Many of the units have many hundreds of frames, especially infantery units.

Load Palette button: You have to use a palette to make the images display properly. Without a palette, the image will appear in strange colors. Diffrent GRPs use diffrent palettes. We'll deal more with it later

Locate Archive button: This allows you to open a MPQ archive, and all the *.grp files in it will appear in the Dropdown menu below. Note that this doesn't seem to work for everyone. If RetroGRP gives you an error while you try to load an MPQ-archive, you will have to load GRPs with the Load External File button

*Dropdown menu*: When you have opened a MPQ archive with the Locate Archive button, you will get a complete list of all the GRPs in the archive in this list. When you select a GRP in the list, RetroGRP will attempt to save the GRP to the folder you specified with the Set Output Directory button.

'unit_zerg_zergling' Format checkbox: If you have this unchecked and save a GRP to your harddrive, RetroGRP will create the same subdirectories as the GRP had inside the MPQ archive. For example: If you save unit\protoss\dragoon.grp and don't have this checked, RetroGRP will create a folder called unit, and create a folder called protoss in the units folder. Inside the protoss folder, it will save the Dragoon GRP. If you check this checkbox, it will create the GRP in the folder you've specified, and name it "unit_protoss_dragoon.grp".

Reset Locations button: Closes down RetroGRP and deletes all stored locations (The specified Output directory, the GRP file, the palette location).

X: textbox: Displays how large (in pixels) the frame, or image, is.

Y: textbox: Displays how wide (in pixels) the frame is.

More about *.ral files:
As I said, a *.ral file is created when you extract BMPs from a GRP. These *.ral files are just simple textfiles that can be opened in Notepad. In them you will find a list of all BMPs that's been extracted. If you want to add or remove a BMP from the GRP, then add or remove a filename in here. Be aware that you must edit the unit's iscript information in order to make it display properly if you add or remove a frame, though. Look for ICE tutorials if you don't know how to do it.

More about Palettes:
Ah, the palettes! These aren't any problem unless you have a few diffrent GRPs that all requires different Palettes to be displayed properly. All unit GRPs use one Palette, but some spells use diffent. Also, the wireframes and icons use diffrent palettes. The standard palettes comes with RetroGRP, but for the rest: You have to find them on your own. As far as I know, there arn't any palettes available for download on the internet. Feel free to send me an email if you're having problems with it!

Well, that's about it. RetroGRP isn't really hard to use at all. Play around with it a bit, and familarise yourself with it. Also remember that RetroGRP can open GRPs from many games, not just StarCraft. These games are StarCraft, BroodWar, WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness, WarCraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal and WarCraft II Battle.net Edition. WarCraft II use GFX files instead of GRP. However, those files are the same. Just rename the GFX files to GRP, and they'll work with RetroGRP.

Internet Explorer doesn't disply the moderation settings. I never knew I could cloes my topics until I switched yo FireFox. (Thank you Omniscent Figure Above for FireFox)

First of all, I made a news post previously about a new modding tutorials section. Secondly, you should always check stickies. You know BOTH of these, but you were too lazy. Don't waste your time and dont give us lame excuses like "no one told you"... What do you want me to do, have in big blinking letters at the top of everypage CLICK HERE FOR TUTORIALS!