Source : http://www.campaigncreations.org/warcraft/worldedit/mantis-icon.shtml

Making Custom Warcraft 3 Icons, by MantisScreamer

 

  1. Requirements
  2. How to edit the icon
  3. Disabled icons
  4. Pathnames/extras
In order to know how to make icons, you should already be adept with adding skins into war3 (it doesn't matter if your good at it). If you don't know how to, then you should read my tutorial about skinning. You can find that tutorial here: http://www.campaigncreations.org/warcraft/worldedit/mantis-skinning.shtml

Ok, making icons is very similar to skinning. There are just a few different things that you have to do. Lets start out by extracting an icon from the editor. Go to replaceable textures and then command buttons . Select the first icon, BTN3M1 and save it.

Now open it in Photoshop or whatever paint program you have, and make a simple change to it, such as changing the background color.

Save your image and convert it to a blp. Now import it into the import manager and rename it to replaceabletextures\commandbuttons\BTN3MI.blp . Your icon will now be changed.

When you make icons, you also need to have disabled versions. There are two ways to make disabled icons. The first way to make a disabled icon is to find the disabled version of the icon. To find the icon, look under commandbuttonsdisabled (under commandbuttons) and find the icon. The file path should be similar to the normal version. An example would be: normal icon- replaceabletextures\commandbuttons\BTN3MI.blp , disabled icon- replaceabletextures\commandbuttons disabled \ DIS BTN3MI.blp . Once you get the image save it and change it. Import the icon and make sure that the path name is replaceabletextures\commandbuttons disabled \ DIS BTN3MI.blp .

The second way is to use a non-disabled icon and do some editing. You zoom in on the picture and change the border to black.

After you do that, find a hue/saturation editor and change the lightness to - 75.

The numbers may vary from program to program, but in Photoshop this is how dark blizzard's icons are. Save the icon and import it like a disabled icon. Now get the icon to be the image of an ability and test your map. The icon should appear.

Any icon can use any icon path name. Also, when making custom icons, try to copy and paste the border of a regular icon around a custom icon to give it the “blizzard touch”. You can also do this with auto cast icons and passive icons.

I hoped this help some people with icon trouble, if you have any questions you can e-mail me at MantisScreamer@hotmail.com or instant message me with msn messenger.