Is there an easy way to add alternative art for a card?

[luckylavs]

I apologize if this question has already been asked before, but I couldn't find it in my search...

In the folder CardArtManaLink, you can see cards with multiple versions -- for example,three versions of the Serra Angel.

Serra Angel.jpg, Serra Angel (1).jpg, and Serra Angel (2).jpg.

Now let's suppose I want to make another version of Serra Angel, and call it Serra Angel (3).jpg. I already know how to resize the image to 288 x 232 pixels.

But how do I tell the game to consider using the fourth version? Is this process relatively easy? Or would it involve recompiling the whole game?

Thanks in advance.

[Aswan jaguar]

The game loads all Serra.jpg randomly (or so) so it will upload your artwork as long as you name it correctly Serra Angel (3).jpg.
If you want to make certain that the game uploads your cardart you will have to erase (or better rename the other so it doesn't read them) and name it accordingly.

[Korath]

You don't have to recompile, but you do need to regenerate some .dat files.

1. In Manalink.csv in the magic_updater directory, there's column labeled "Num Pics". Make a backup of that, in case whatever you're about to use to edit it mangles it (which is common enough that I don't even try to use Excel or Openoffice anymore; I just use a text editor).
2. Find the row for your card, increase the value in the Num Pics column to the new number of pictures, and save it.
3. Run the csv2dat program in the same directory; it'll give you a bunch of warnings, but should make new card_id.h, Cards.dat, Rarity.dat, and DBinfo.dat files. (The value in question isn't in Rarity.dat, but I'm not sure offhand which of the other two dat files it ends up in.)
4. Copy those three dat files into your main manalink dir (with magic.exe in it), again backing up the previous versions just in case.

You'll have to do this again whenever you upgrade versions.

[Aswan jaguar]

If you want to add it to the existing ones do as Korath said above,and it is going to be selected almost "randomly" (you will have though more chances to see your cardart in game if you have all 4 Serra Angels in the deck as from my experience the first 2 jpgs are loaded more times than the 3nd.)

[luckylavs]

It worked!!

For other people reading this, "Num Pics" is the 16th column of a given card, where each column is separated by semi-colons.

Thanks guys.

[Sonic]

You might want to read this as well:

http://www.slightlymagic.net/wiki/How_t ... ard_Images