Dawn of War Introduction
Dawn of War, as with Relic's other games, is highly modifiable. Not only that, but get the graphics settings high enough (stupid low spec defaults!) and you can really zoom in and see things up close and personal. This means that detail is important, and customisation can be very rewarding.
The easiest thing to add to Dawn of War are colour schemes (color schemes to all of you 'u' dropping Americans) in the .teamcolour files. These are created by the army painter, and can be copied and shared to allow other people to use chapters and craftworlds of your own creation.
The next step up is to get creative and get your hands messy with some graphics. Create a .tga of the right size and you can create your own banners and badges. This adds more individualism and uniqueness to your creation, picking your units out on the field of battle.
Finally (for those of you who don't have a few thousand to spare for 3DStudioMax and the like) there are .WTP files - the patterns and team colouring files. These files control what colours can always be seen and which colours in the army painter apply to where. A few changes in these files and your standard Space Marine can become an authentic Angel of Redemption complete with trademark halved armour!
Note that if you play a network game with someone who doesn't have the same .wtp files installed, then you'll see their colour scheme using your .wtp files and they'll see your colour scheme using their (potentially default) .wtp files. It won't stop you playing online, but it could lead to some interesting results!
If you download several .WTP files for different colour schemes (say the complete Crimson Fists, the first Hive World Terra alternate pattern and the Quartered Space Marines texture) then rather than forget which pattern you have installed, or waiting until the game and the army painter is running, you can use the Dawn of War Pattern Switcher to control, organise and record which patterns you have and which are installed.
As well as the work done by myself and TGSC, we'll gladly accept any work done by anyone else. Please submit them or contact us
So, with so much you can alter, what is stopping you? Go out there, change things and have fun! And don't forget to read the Dawn of War tutorials and the Dawn of War FAQs.
