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How to combine mods
by MaxGhost
I decided to make this guide because of the problem the modding community of HoN faces, and because of my combination mod solution slowly coming to an end.
There are a few programs and tools you will need to be able to do this. Also, I'm not saying these are the best tools to do the job, but these are of my personal preference.
This guide requires you to have intermediate knowledge of how computer files and folders work and it requires you to have some common sense.
You will need file extensions turned on in your folder options turned on for you to be able to do some things during this guide. If you don't know how, Google it.
Note: This guide is for Windows operating systems for the first two steps. Notepad++ and 7-Zip are both cross platform applications, so for those using linux, they can easily use the linux versions of the programs.
1. Download and install the following programs:
i. Notepad++ Installer (.exe)
ii. Compare plug-in for Notepad++ (.dll)
iiia. 7-Zip file archiver (.exe) (32-bit)
iiib. 7-Zip file archiver (.exe) (64-bit)
2. Install the plug-in for Notepad++.
Navigate to the following folder: C:\Program Files\Notepad++\plugins
Place the downloaded ComparePlugin.dll into this folder and it should be installed.
3. Get the mods you want to combine.
Visit The Modification Repository and download the mods you want to combine together.
Once you've done that, I suggest you put all the mods (.s2z files) into one folder that you can easily reach (desktop mabye).
4. Open and extract the mod files.
Next, we'll need to open the mod files with 7-Zip. The easiest way is the right-click on them and under the new 7-Zip menu, choose "Open Archive". This will bring up an explorer-style 7-Zip panel. Now, you've opened the mod. After opening the mod, we'll need to extract it to another folder, so click the extract button. Make a new folder inside of your folder you just made in step 3, and give it the name of the number of the mod. For example, if the mod is "resources009.s2z", call the folder "009". It should look like this:
5. Open mod files with Notepad++.
First, open Notepad++ (shouldn't be too difficult). Then, navigate into the extracted mod's folder. Using the same example, open the "ui" folder inside of the "009" folder. You should have some .interface files and possibly some .package files in it. Some mods even include other folders too. If the mod has the game.interface file in it, you'll want to open that with Notepad++ by right-clicking on it, then clicking Edit with Notepad++ (If you don't have that option, do Open with and find notepad++.exe). Now, Notepad++ should open up and you should have the game.interface file opened in one of the tabs. It should look like this:
6. Find and open the original game .interface or .package file.
Next, we will want to open (but not extract) the resource0.s2z file, which contains the game's original .interface and .package files. First, navigate to: C:\Program Files\Heroes of Newerth\game and like in step 4, open resource0.s2z with 7-Zip. Now, go into the ui folder in 7-Zip, and find the game.interface file. There should be around 70 interface files, in there, but we only want game.interface for our example. You can extract this file into another folder into the folder you created in step 3, and I suggest that you name the folder "original" or something similar. Now, like in step 5, open the original game.interface file you just extracted.
Before you do anything else, I suggest that you save a copy of the game.interface file with "Save As..." in Notepad++ to a new "ui" folder inside of a new folder would call "Combo", or something else if you prefer.
7. Compare the two files.
Now that we have two game.interface files open we're ready to start bringing changes over into our original file (which we're saving in a new "Combo" folder). In Notepad++, click plug-in at the top, then go into the Compare menu, then click "Compare". Here's a picture of the menu:
Now that we've done that, we should have a new window in notepad++ on the right that should look like this:
As you can see above, all the blue and violet lines and blocks on the right window are differences between the two files we have open. I opened an older version of mod 009 just to show what you might see when you compare files. In my example, the file on the left is the original game.interface file, and the one on the right is mod 009's game.interface file.
8. Making the necessary changes.
Since our original file is on the left, we must make the changes in that one. Now, use the scroll bar, and scroll slowly, and look for highlighted lines in the files, that show a part that has been modified. Here's an example:
In this picture above, you see a big block of PINK highlighted code. This means it's been ADDED into the mod. You can also tell it was added by the '+' symbols to the left of the code. So now, you'll want to copy and paste this large block of code into the left side.
Also, if the code is blue, and there are minus ( - ) symbols to the left of it, it's been removed from the code. If it's purple, it means there's something missing from those lines, and if it's blue with a >>> symbol to the left of it, it means there was a change somewhere in that line.
So now, your job is to make all the changes.
9. Repeat steps 4 to 8 for other mods.
For step 8, just make the changes to the same game.interface file you made changes to the first time, and keep saving it in the same "\combo\ui" folder.
10. Import all the other mod files from inside the mod's .s2z
If you remember in step 5, I mentioned there might be other files and folders inside of some mod's s2z files. Namely some .tga pictures, .package files, other .interface files, etc. You'll want to extract the contents of those mods into your "\combo\ui" folder. DO NOT EXTRACT THE GAME.INTERFACE FILE WITH THEM OR IT WILL OVERWRITE ALL YOUR WORK. You should not be overwriting any files at all during this step. Once that's done, you can move on to the next step.
11. Turn your mod into a .s2z mod file.
Now, navigate to your "Combo" folder. Right-click it, and in the 7-Zip menu, select "Add to 'ui.zip'". (Note that if your combo uses files outside of the ui folder, you will have to select all the files in your combo folder and then zipping.) This will create a new file next to your ui folder, and you will want to rename it to "resources013.s2z" (or any other mod number of a mod you combined with during this guide). You can now place the mod in your \Heroes of Newerth\game folder, and enjoy!
**To-do list.
- Revise the text
- Add more pictures
- Add protips
Last edited by MaxGhost; 09-18-2009 at 03:56 PM.
Nice guide, now for me to find out how to actually make a mod >.<
**If you have any questions about keybinds in HoN, feel free to ask and I'll try my best to help.Originally Posted by Eccentrikit
Omg so awesome my eyes are bleeding.
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh...ad.php?t=12217
I read that, but doesn't really help much... I am pretty stupid >.<
**If you have any questions about keybinds in HoN, feel free to ask and I'll try my best to help.
Hah, nice maxghost. I dobut many people want to spend the time doing this though.Most people will just wait for a program to do it for them or full mod overs.
Last edited by picklefish; 08-26-2009 at 03:17 PM.
I got tons of requests on my combo thread... hopefully this'll drop the number abit... To me it only takes around 10-15 minutes to make a combo, cause I'm used to it.Hah, nice maxghost. I dobut many people want to spend the time doing this though.
Linux users can use Meld as a GUI alternative to notepad++, or you can just use diff :>
thank you i love till know i was editing with simple notepad O_O
so is it a .7z archive, or a regular .zip?
Uncompressed zip. So in other words, if you do Right-click -> Send to -> "Compressed (zipped) folder", and rename from there, that will also work.
Very helpful guide. Thank you very much.
BTW: The newest notepad++ download appears to have the plugin pre-installed.
Hmm. good to know.
Is there a command to reload UI without restart HoN?
something like "ReloadUI()"
Thank you.
Yes. Do CTRL+F8 and type in 'reloadinterfaces', but if you only want to reload the game interface, you can do 'reloadinterface game'. 'game' can be any interface name, like main for example.
Nice tutorial.
I will try this when I get home. =)
Could someone combine and upload different mods, for those who still don't get it. (I might be one of those. :P)
Cool, thanx alot!
Just combine 3 mods and it took 10x faster than I thought, a mod even had only one line to paste.
MaxGhost was right, it does takes only few mins cause it took me less than 5mins to combine 3 mods.
I just open A's game.interface then the other 2, search what B/C mods have but A does not and paste all the extra codes in B/C mods into A, that's it.
You can download my combination in MaxGhost's Combination request topic
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh...513#post238513
-012 - Improved Buff/Debuff Indicators by Vadi
-013 - Target UI + Teammate Info by Barter
-018 - Bard's Unitframes by Bard
PS. Guess we need an interface website to host all mods/addons soon
Im having problems with turning it into a sz2 file... it just looks like a zip file to me..
then rename the ".zip" to ".s2z"
Be sure to have "hide extension name" unchecked
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