There's only one way to provide customization features to users... design & the actual means to alter whatever resources that execute it. Code integration requires planning and structural assets. Some are located in an exit call by a goto loop, others declare how this activity must take place. You're in or you're out of an internal process driven by procedures, functions & declarations. The loop has the last decision to evaluate - win or lose with indications from or by multiple files.
X; Might as well start with the worst of the bunch. 3D models built around a series of elements; perspective, pitch, yaw, tilt, surfaces, textures, UV mapping, orientation, point of origin, assembly points, connections, animations, calibrations, depth, width, height, angles, form, variety, detection, patterns, style, purpose, components in a Z'Y'X' primes virtual space... and best of all, editable. If you have the skills of professional artists that mastered the task after a few years or less working with the appropriate softwares though. Namely, Discreet's 3dStudioMax and similar solutions for developpers. DirectX is a standard from a list of many. Applications measure up or down to it. Like it or not.
Why? Because you think you can do better and seriously want different models. There are affordable programs such as Blender or Wings3d, but be warned -- unless they reveal what the tricky 3ds optional parameters are or you have the patience to plunge in books about this subject for weeks, you'll possibly have nothing but a conversion of already made meshes where you'll need to add & orient HardPoints on with 3dsStudiomax, no less. At $4000+, i doubt most casual RTS4X players or target users (Everyone 10+) would bother.
DXpack; Proprietary system for Interfaces design & Interactive deployment of executable components created for many more programs than just GC2 by people at SD. Much of what is seen on screens is simply a representation driven by PNG images (in our case) and input/output routines via clickable buttons & text fields, to make it simple. Not far from a menu on steroids which can also be scripted to react at lower levels such as realtime memory & monitor.
Why? You probably hate the fonts, colors, proportions, sections, frameworks, texts, backgounds, foregrounds, symbols, icons, numbers, characters, restrictions, video sizes, calibrations, dropboxes, overlays, buttons, animations, plenty more -- they used.
PNG; Alpha channel is possibly the most useful binary art invention since photography. Sure, Adobe Photoshop can drop layers of thick oil paints on canvas and allow you to save your creativity wonders every step of the way but for wise speed & compression efficiency, they HAD to stack the images somewhere in pro-active memory slots - reserved - while tracking down accessible assets repetitively, continually or rapidly. Without such format these FPS you get from the PCIe cards, well, they'd spike too low like mad.
Why? You prefer a lake to the oceans, green or purple.
BIK; Proprietary video format licensed. As good if not better than PNG above. Highly flexible, completely sealed, extremely easy to edit or convert or drop smack dub in the middle of a movie using cyclic individual frames. Compressed videos that pops in all over, shaking heads of opponents, animations, tutorials.
Why? You prefer clouds to thunder, fast or slow.
MP3+WAV; The Sounds or the Musics, duh.
Upcoming -- in threads 3b,c,d... DDS, FX, TIPS, TXT, STR, INI, ERR, ShpCFG, GC2**, SAV, XML+!+, etc.
