WoW 3D: Guild Emblems (Patreon)

Overview:
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Emblem IDs
- Chapter 2: Guild Tabards (Common)
- Chapter 3: Guild Tabards (Rare/Epic)
- Chapter 4: Guild Shirts
- Chapter 5: Replaceable Texture Props
- Chapter 6: Replaceable Texture Props - Guild Chest
- Chapter 7: Replaceable Texture Props - Garrison Monument
- Chapter 8: Replaceable Texture Props - Alchemy Cauldron
- Chapter 9: Replaceable Texture Props - Banners/Pennants
- Chapter 10: Guild Cloaks
- Chapter 11: The Easy Way™ (Blender)
- Conclusion

Introduction

In this guide, we're going to take an in-depth look at guild emblems. This includes everything from wearable tabards, all the way to the guild alchemy cauldrons.

The guide is split into chapters for each of the various applications of guild emblems, with each chapter providing insight on how it works, as well as a step-by-step demonstration of how to replicate it.

As with most of my guides, they will be aimed at Blender users, however the general concepts and methods should be applicable to any 3D software. Additionally, we'll be making use of my wow.export toolkit.

But wait! Is this going to be one of those guides where there's ten chapters of technical explanation before I just provide an automated solution? You bet it is! Check out the last chapter for a super-easy, super-awesome automated solution (providing you're a Blender user).

Before we start, now is a really good time to go check out my guide on character models, as we'll be using both my rigs and skin shaders from that in a number of chapters.

Chapter 1: Emblem IDs

The first thing we need before we can put together any kind of emblem is a design. Specifically, we need the corresponding IDs behind the design.

There are five properties of a guild emblem design: icon, icon colour, border, border colour and background colour. 

To make the process of finding these IDs as quick as possible, I've composed a series of charts below which neatly map each of the five properties in a visual manner.

Emblem Design Chart (0-195)

Emblem Colour Chart (0-16)

Border Design Chart (0-5)

Border Colour Chart (0-16)

Background Colour Chart (0-50)

Using the original example shown in the in-game emblem creator from above and looking over each of the charts, we can easily figure out the five ID that correspond with that particular design.

Chapter 2: Guild Tabards (Common)

When someone mentions a guild emblem, the first thing most people think of is the standard guild tabard that's been in the game since Classic. In this chapter, we're going to look at how those put together as we replicate it in Blender.

Make sure you've read through Chapter 1: Emblem IDs, as we're going to need the five design IDs from that chapter.

Let's start by collecting the textures we need. To do this, open up wow.export and switch to the Textures tab. In the filter box, go ahead and enter emblem_XX_YY with XX being the ID of our icon design, and YY being the ID of our icon colour.

Note: If your ID is a single-digit, you will need to zero-pad it. So emblem_5_6 would actually be emblem_05_06.

You should find two texture components, a torso lower (TL) and a torso upper (TU). Select both of these and export them (as PNG) for later.

Repeat this process again, however this time we're searching for border_XX_YY with XX being the ID of our border design and YY being the ID of our border colour.

Finally, repeat the process once more, but this time we're looking for background_XX with XX being the ID of our background colour.

Once you've done that, you should now have six texture files that look a little something like this.

You may have already figured out how these pieces slot together to form a tabard texture, but here's a quick visual explanation anyway.

Once compiled, this can be composited over a character skin to give them a tabard. For the rest of this chapter, I'm going to walk through the necessary steps to add this tabard to a skin shader on one of my character rigs.

If you're not familiar with working with character skins or need a refresher, take a look at the Let's Cook chapter of my Character Models guide.

For this example, I'm going to be using the human female rig (all rigs can be found in the guide mentioned above). Start by making sure the tabard geoset is enabled, which for this rig is HumanFemale_51_TabardFull.

To start, we're going to add two Image Texture (Add → Texture → Image Texture) nodes to the shader. In each of the nodes, load in one of the background textures for our tabard. Additionally, make sure that the Extension is set to Clip on both.

Next we need to connect the relevant mapping nodes (already found in the shader) to these nodes. Look closely at the suffix of the texture names. For background_32_tu_u.png the tu stands for Torso Upper, and the U stands for unisex (that last bit is irrelevant here).

Go ahead and connect the two image textures to their relevant mapping nodes. Use the TorsoUpper mapping for the _tu_ texture, and TorsoLower for the _tl_ texture.

Add two more nodes to the shader, a Mix RGB node (Add → Color → Mix RGB) and a Math node (Add → Converter → Math). Set the Operation of the Math node to Add.

Connect both of the Alpha outputs of the Image Texture nodes to the Value inputs of the Math node. It doesn't matter which one goes in which socket.

Next, connect the Color output of both your Image Texture nodes to the Color1 and Color2 inputs of the Mix RGB node you created.

It doesn't matter which goes into which socket, however for the Image Texture node you connect to Color2, go ahead and also connect the Alpha output of that node to the Fac input of the Mix RGB, as shown below.

Select both of the Image Texture nodes as well as the Mix RGB and Math nodes.. Press Shift + D to duplicate the nodes and move them to the side.

Do the same thing again, so you now have three sets of the nodes.

Using the folder icon, swap the images on the middle two Image Texture nodes for the emblem textures. Do the same for the Image Texture nodes on the right, loading in the border textures.

Just as we did before, connect the TorsoLower and TorsoUpper mapping nodes to the four new Image Texture nodes, being sure to link them correctly based on the _tl_ or _tu_ suffix on each texture.

Go ahead and make two more Mix RGB nodes (Add → Color → Mix RGB) to the shader. We'll refer to these as Mix A and Mix B.

Connect both the Color outputs of the emblem Mix RGB node and the background Mix RGB node to the Color1 and Color2 inputs of Mix A (respectively).

Additionally, connect the Value output of the emblem Math node to the Fac input of the Mix A node.

Connect the Color output of the Mix A node to the Color1 input of the Mix B node, as shown below.

Almost done. Go ahead and connect the Color output of the border Mix RGB node to the Color2 input of the Mix B node. Additionally, connect the Value output of the border Math node to the Fac input of the Mix B node.

As shown in the character model guide, go ahead and add another Mix RGB node to the shader, this time linking it in at end of the layer chain as shown.

Finally, connect the Value output of the remaining Math node over by the background textures to the Fac input on the Mix RGB node we just created. Last, connect the Color output of our Mix B node to the same Mix RGB node, as shown below.

After a little bit of reorganization, this is what our final shader looks like for the character.

Hopefully everything went to plan, and your character should now be wearing a fancy looking guild tabard.

If that seemed a lot like hard work, be sure to check out The Easy Way™ chapter at the end to turn all of the above (including the wow.export steps) into one easy button.

Chapter 3: Guild Tabards (Rare/Epic)

In Cataclysm, two variants of guild tabards were added, the rare [Illustrious Guild Tabard] and the epic [Renowned Guild Tabard].

While they use mostly different files to the original tabards, the process of setting them up is identical. Rather than repeat all the steps again, follow Chapter 2 again, but using the textures listed below where necessary.

Background (Rare)
Torso Upper → rarebg_XX_tu_u.png (XX = Background ID)
Torso Lower → rarebg_XX_tl_u.png (XX = Background ID)

Border (Rare)
Torso Upper → rareborder_XX_tu_u.png (XX = Border Colour ID)
Torso Lower → rareborder_XX_tl_u.png (XX = Border Colour ID)

Background (Epic)
Torso Upper → epicbg_XX_tu_u.png (XX = Background ID)
Torso Lower → epicbg_XX_tl_u.png (XX = Background ID)

Border (Epic)
Torso Upper → epicborder_XX_tu_u.png (XX = Border Colour ID)
Torso Lower → epicborder_XX_tl_u.png (XX = Border Colour ID)

Note A: Neither the rare nor epic tabard use the Border Style ID as used in the original tabard, since they don't have alternating border designs.

Note B: The emblem textures used are the same as with the original tabard in Chapter 2, thus not listed here.

As with the normal tabards, check out The Easy Way™ in Chapter 11 if you'd rather just automate this entire process.

Chapter 4: Guild Shirts

As well as the updated tabards added in Cataclysm, three qualities of shirts were also added, each tier being unlocked rewards for various guild achievements: Common, Tailored and Artisan.

For each quality of shirt, there are three ranks available: Initiate, Member and Officer. Each achievement unlocks all three ranks for a given quality.

Before we can put the shirts together, we need to collect the various files needed. The amount of files we need changes depending on which rank of shirt we're using, due to the increasing sleeve length.

In all of the following file names, replace XX with your background colour ID and replace YY with your border colour ID from Chapter 1.

Common (Initiate)
shirt01_commonbg_XX_tu_u.png + shirt01_commonbg_XX_tl_u.png

Common (Member)
shirt02_commonbg_XX_tu_u.png + shirt02_commonbg_XX_tl_u.png
shirt02_commonbg_XX_au_u.png

Common (Officer)
shirt03_commonbg_XX_tu_u.png + shirt03_commonbg_XX_tl_u.png
shirt03_commonbg_XX_au_u.png + shirt03_commonbg_XX_al_u.png

Tailored (Initiate)
shirt01_commonbg_XX_tu_u.png + shirt01_commonbg_XX_tl_u.png
shirt01_rareborder_YY_tu_u.png + shirt01_rareborder_YY_tl_u.png

Tailored (Member)
shirt02_commonbg_XX_tu_u.png + shirt02_commonbg_XX_tl_u.png
shirt02_commonbg_XX_au_u.png + shirt02_rareborder_YY_tu_u.png
shirt02_rareborder_YY_tl_u.png + shirt02_rareborder_YY_au_u.png

Tailored (Officer)
shirt03_commonbg_XX_tu_u.png + shirt03_commonbg_XX_tl_u.png
shirt03_commonbg_XX_au_u.png + shirt03_commonbg_XX_al_u.png
shirt03_rareborder_YY_tu_u.png + shirt03_rareborder_YY_tl_u.png
shirt03_rareborder_YY_au_u.png + shirt03_rareborder_YY_al_u.png

Artisan (Initiate)
shirt01_commonbg_XX_tu_u.png + shirt01_commonbg_XX_tl_u.png
shirt01_epicborder_YY_tu_u.png + shirt01_epicborder_YY_tl_u.png

Artisan (Member)
shirt02_commonbg_XX_tu_u.png + shirt02_commonbg_XX_tl_u.png
shirt02_commonbg_XX_au_u.png + shirt02_epicborder_YY_tu_u.png
shirt02_epicborder_YY_tl_u.png + shirt02_epicborder_YY_au_u.png

Artisan (Officer)
shirt03_commonbg_XX_tu_u.png + shirt03_commonbg_XX_tl_u.png
shirt03_commonbg_XX_au_u.png + shirt03_commonbg_XX_al_u.png
shirt03_epicborder_YY_tu_u.png + shirt03_epicborder_YY_tl_u.png
shirt03_epicborder_YY_au_u.png + shirt03_epicborder_YY_al_u.png

Note: In addition to the textures listed above, you will also need two emblem textures, as shown at the start of Chapter 2.

Now that we have all the necessary textures to build a shirt, the process is similar to that of the guild tabards (I'd recommend reading the earlier chapters on those first).

Navigate to the Shader Editor for your characters skin and start by adding an Image Texture (Add → Texture → Image Texture) node for each one of the textures for your shirt.

Be sure to set the Extension of all your Image Texture nodes to Clip, as shown in the image above.

Using a similar flow from the tabards, we now need to group our Image Texture nodes into logical pairs of two. Using the Artisan Officer shirt as an example, we have five logical pairs, highlighted below.

Take a close look at the filenames above to see how they're paired. Textures of the same layer go together, such as epicborder, emblem, or commonbg, and then they're grouped by their component slot. AU (ArmUpper) goes with AL (ArmLower), and TU (TorsoUpper) goes with TL (TorsoLower).

For some variants, you're going to end up with textures that don't have a pair. For example, the Tailored Members shirt does not have lower sleeves, so both of the AU (ArmUpper) textures have no AL (ArmLower) to pair them with. These can be left by themselves for now.

For each of the pairs, add a Mix RGB (Add → Color → Mix RGB) and Math (Add → Converter → Math) node. Set the Operation of the Math node to Add. You don't need to add anything for the non-paired textures yet.

In the above picture, I've collapsed some of the nodes (using the triangle beside the node name) for a cleaner overview.

For each of the pairs, connect the Alpha output of both Image Texture nodes to the Value inputs of the Math node we created for it.

Do the same again, this time connecting the Color outputs of both Image Texture nodes to the Color1 and Color2 inputs of the corresponding Mix RGB node.

Lastly, for whichever Image Texture node you linked to Color2, go ahead and connect the Alpha output of that node into the Fac input of the Mix RGB node.

At this point, your paired nodes should be connected like this. Feel free to move your nodes around to keep them organized in a way that makes sense for you as the shader gets more complicated.

Now is a good time to hook up our UV mapping. Assuming you're using my character rigs (as recommended at the start), you will find the Mapping nodes already present in the shader.

Connect the relevant mapping node to each of the Image Texture nodes, including those that are not paired.

Check the suffix of each filename to determine which mapping node to use. AU = ArmUpper, AL = ArmLower, TL = TorsoLower and TU = TorsoUpper.

This next step it a little trick to explain. We need to reduce however many Mix RGB (and non-paired Image Texture) nodes we have down into just one.

The exact method of cascading the nodes will change depending on the exact amount of pairs and single nodes you have.

An important thing to remember creating the cascade is the order in which textures need to go:

- The background textures should always be at the bottom.
- The emblem should always overlay the background.
- The border should always be last to overlay.

With those things in mind, let's look at how we would structure a simple shirt with just two pairs. To do this, we simply create another Mix RGB and Math node, and join them together as shown.

Using the same method, if we end up with a single non-paired texture, we simply join it into the structure in the same manner, be creating another Mix/Math pair.

If we have an odd amount of pairs, simply keep cascading them down until we're just left with one set of nodes at the end. Remember to keep the layer order in mind.

The most pairs a shirt will have is five. Even then, we do the same method of cascading everything down into one single Mix/Math pair.

This may seem quite complicated, but once you get the hang of it, it should make sense and be a lot easier than it looks to structure.

Once that's done, go back to the main nodes of the shader and find the layer chain. In the same way that we add texture components in the Character Models guide, add another Mix RGB, we'll refer to this node as the Layer Mix.

Remember that single Mix/Math pair that we ended up with from our shirt nodes? Go ahead and connect the Value output of the Math node to the Fac input of the Layer Mix node, and connect the Colour output of that Mix RGB node to the Color2 input of the Layer Mix node.

Assuming everything went to plan, your character should now be wearing a fancy guild shirt! Good work, following all of that is not easy.

Even with experience and macros, that entire process of setting up a guild shirt was long and arduous. We've all got better things to be doing with our time.

I highly recommend you check out The Easy Way™ in Chapter 11 if you're a Blender user, as it reduces this entire chapter into a single click.

Chapter 5: Replaceable Texture Props

Since Cataclysm, there have been numerous props added to the game that have your guild emblem composited onto them:

- The guild chest summoned by the [Mobile Banking] guild perk.
- Group cauldrons placed by the alchemist item [Cauldron of Battle].
- *Garrison Monument for completing [Mythic Draenor Raider].
- Faction-flavored reputation banners available in three tiers.
- Pennants held by the player on certain mounts, such as the [Vicious War Lion].

* The garrison monument as it appears in-game does not show the guild emblem, but instead a map of Draenor. This seems like cut-content, but since the files exist in the game for it, I'm including it.

These props are known as "replaceable texture props" and they're all constructed (almost) the same way. Each prop has two unique textures for the emblem itself, a background and a border.

The image above shows the textures used in the garrison monument as an example. Unlike the previous guild emblems we've put together, these ones have no colour. The reason for this is they are coloured dynamically by the game engine using the GuildColorBackground and GuildColorBorder data tables.

Additionally, replaceable props also have a guild emblem composited onto them just like tabards and shirts. Rather than using the _tl_ and _tu_ textures used before, there's another series of emblem textures without any suffix which are used here.

These emblem files, just like the border and background from above, have no colour variants. As before, the emblems are also coloured dynamically, this time using the GuildColorEmblem data table.

Since setting up these props is almost identical for all of them, I'm going to explain the process in full for the Guild Chest in Chapter 6, and then for the others I will just explain any necessary differences in the following chapters.

Chapter 6: Replaceable Texture Props - Guild Chest

Following on from Chapter 5, we're going to cover the full process of setting up a replaceable texture prop here. Let's start by grabbing the model we need from wow.export.

Alliance Model:
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/guildchest_alliance01.m2 [448517]

Horde Model:
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/guildchest_horde01.m2 [448518]

Once you've exported the model of your choice, go ahead and import it into Blender (or your own software of choice) and add a new material which we'll call GuildEmblem.

Start by adding two Image Texture nodes to the shader (Add → Texture → Image Texture). I've also swapped out the Principled BSDF node for a Diffuse BSDF (Add → Shader → Diffuse BSDF) node at my own preference.

In the Image Texture nodes as shown above, I've loaded in the guildchestcloth_alliance_01 and guildchestcloth_allianceborder_01 textures.

By default, these images should already be present in your Blender file after importing the guild chest and can simply be selected from the drop-down list.

If for some reason you don't have them, go ahead and export the necessary textures, which I've listed below, from wow.export and then select them with the Open Image button on each Image Texture node instead.

Alliance Variant Textures
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/guildchestcloth_allianceborder_01.blp [458531]
world/skillactivated/containers/guildchestcloth_alliance_01.blp [446012]

Horde Variant Textures
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/guildchestcloth_hordeborder_01.blp [458532]
world/skillactivated/containers/guildchestcloth_horde_01.blp [446014]

Once you've done that, you'll want to find your emblem texture as well. To do this, simply search for emblem_XX.blp in the wow.export Textures tab, where XX is the ID of your icon design from Chapter 1.

Remember to zero-pad the ID if it's a single digit. emblem_5.blp would actually be emblem_05.blp instead. Once you've found it, export the texture as a PNG.

Back in the shader, add another Image Texture node (Add → Texture → Image Texture) and load in the emblem texture you just exported.

Make sure to set the Extension for all three of the Image Texture nodes to Clip.

Now we want to add an RGB (Add → Input → RGB) and a Mix RGB (Add → Color → Mix RGB) node for each of the three Image Texture nodes.

Next, set the Blend Method of each of those Mix RGB nodes to Color, and link the Color output of the respective Image Texture nodes into the Color1 input of the Mix RGB nodes.

Finally, adjust the Factor slider of the Mix RGB to 1.0 and connect the Color output of the RGB node to the Color2 input of the Mix RGB node.

Once you've done that for all three of the Image Texture nodes, your shader should look a little something like this.

Next up, add two more Mix RGB nodes (Add → Color → Mix RGB) to your shader and place them somewhere together. We'll refer to these as Mix A and Mix B respectively. Connect the Color output of Mix A to the Color1 input of Mix B, as shown below.

Connect the Color output of the Mix RGB node for your background (guildchestcloth_alliance_01 or guildchestcloth_horde_01) to the Color1 input of the Mix A node.

Do the same again connecting the Color output of the Mix RGB node for your emblem to the Color2 input of the Mix A node. Additionally, connect the Alpha output of the Image Texture node to the Fac input of the Mix A node.

Last, we need to connect the border nodes. Start by connecting the Color output of the Mix RGB node to the Color2 input of Mix B, and then connect the Alpha output of the Image Texture node to the Fac input of Mix B, as shown below.

Finally, connect the Color output of the Mix B node into the Color input of your Diffuse BSDF node. Once all done, your shader should look something like as shown below.

At the moment, our new material is not assigned to anything on the chest, so we can't actually see it. Back in the 3D Viewport, switch into Edit Mode (Tab) with the chest selected and deselect everything (Double tap A).

With your cursor positioned over the white fabric of the cloth, press L to select all linked faces. You should now just have the fabric selected, as shown.

In your material list, while still in Edit Mode, select the new material we just created - in this case called GuildEmblem - and then hit the Assign button.

If everything went to plan, and if you squint hard enough, you can probably see that your emblem is now on the chest!

Let's add some colour. Just to verify that we have everything set up correctly, go ahead and choose three random colours on the RGB wheels in your shader. You should see the result immediately.

Success! Although, we just randomly picked some colours. If that's all you're after, then you're set. For the rest of this chapter, we're going to look at how we can get the actual colour values from the game.

To do this, we're going to need the background, border colour and emblem colour IDs that we chose in Chapter 1.

For each of those, we need to look up the internal RGB values used for replaceable props using the GuildColorBackground, GuildColorBorder and GuildColorEmblem data tables.

Here we can see that if we're using the emblem ID 13, our RGB values would be 84, 55, 10. Be sure to check the order of the columns, as here they're R B G, not R G B.

Using those tables to map our IDs to RGB values, we can just take those and throw them into the RGB wheel, right? Not quite.

Currently, the RGB values are in the 0-255 range, but for Blender we need them to be in the 0-1 range. This conversion is simple, just divide the values by 255.

Pro-tip: UI fields in Blender actually support math. If you open up the RGB input fields for an RGB node, you can simply type in the division and it will be done automatically for you.

Once you've gone ahead and put the RGB values in divided by 255, you might notice that the colour that you get is actually quite wrong.

What's happening here is Blender uses the sRGB colour space, whereas the values we get from the game are in the linear colour space.

To correct that, we need to apply a little bit more math to our values. The conversion from linear to sRGB colour space looks like this.

Confused? Fear not, Blender will actually convert it for us if we provide the value in a hexadecimal format instead. To help with that, I've created a handy chart that has all options listed by ID, converted to hexadecimal.

Check the chart for your border colour ID, emblem colour ID and background colour ID. With the hexadecimal in hand for each, simply enter them in the hexadecimal input for the corresponding RGB nodes.

With the chart in-hand, it should be quite simple to get the correct look for your prop using true to in-game colours.

That's it for guild chests! This chapter can be applied to all other replaceable texture props, however there are some minor differences, so go ahead and check out the relevant chapters on those.

If this all seemed too much like hard work and you'd rather this entire chapter was just a single button click, you're in luck! Check out The Easy Way™ chapter at the end of the guide.

Chapter 7: Replaceable Texture Props - Garrison Monument

As mentioned in Chapter 5, the garrison monument that appears in-game doesn't actually have a guild emblem, but in the game files it does. So, since it can, I'm going to cover it here anyway.

The first thing we need is the model. Switch over to wow.export and export the variant that you'd like, I'll list them both below.

Alliance Variant (Lunarfall)
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/6hu_garrison_monument_raid01.m2 [1030951]

Horde Variant (Frostwall)
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/6oc_garrison_monument_raid01.m2 [1030952]

Once you've got the model, the steps to texture it are almost identical to Chapter 6 with the guild chest, there are only two differences.

The first difference is the background and border texture files. Regardless of faction variant, those textures files are as follows.

world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/flagpart_monument_raid.blp [1030962]
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/flagpart_monument_raid_border.blp [1030965]

The second difference is the way in which the emblem is mapped. A lot of WoW models use a secondary UV map, and this is one of those cases. In order to access this, make sure you have UV2 data enabled in wow.export (you will need to re-export it if not).

Since secondary UV maps are not supported in the OBJ standard, you'll need to make sure you import the prop using the Blender add-on provided with wow.export and not the default OBJ importer.

Once you've done that, the object will have two UV maps. To assign the emblem to the second UV map, simply create a UV Map node in the shader (Add → Input → UV Map), select UV2Map, and then connect it to the Vector input of the emblem Image Texture.

Once you've done that, you should have a garrison monument with the guild emblem applied. Check out The Easy Way™ at the end of the guide to automate this too!

Chapter 8: Replaceable Texture Props - Alchemy Cauldron

In Cataclysm, a number of alchemy recipes were available to create cauldrons which guild members could take flasks from, and these cauldrons were naturally guild styled.

The first thing we need is the model. Over in wow.export, export the variant for the faction of your choosing; I'll list both below.

Alliance Variant
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/guildcauldron_alliance_01.m2 [449191]

Horde Variant
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/guildcauldron_horde_01.m2 [449110]

Once you've got the model, the steps to texture it are the same as the guild chest, as outlined in Chapter 6, however with two differences.

The first difference is the background and border texture files. Depending on which faction variant you've chosen, those textures are as follows.

Alliance Variant
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/guildcauldroncloth_alliance_01.blp [449188]
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/guildcauldroncloth_allianceborder_01.blp [458529]

Horde Variant
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/guildcauldroncloth_horde_01.blp [449107]
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/guildcauldroncloth_hordeborder_01.blp [458530]

The second difference is that the emblem is mapped onto the cloth with a secondary UV map. This is the same as the garrison monument outlined in Chapter 7, so rather then repeat it here, go and check out the end of the chapter!

Chapter 9: Replaceable Texture Props - Banners/Pennants

Another type of replaceable texture prop available is the reputation banners. There are three ranks of reputation banner available, with a different variant for Alliance and Horde, for a total of six props.

Less familiar is the guild pennants. These are almost identical to the lowest tier of reputation banner, however they have some differences. These are held by the player when riding certain mounts, and also carried by guild companion pets.

Here's a complete list of the models available, in the order (left to right) shown in both pictures above.

Reputation Banners (Alliance)
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/battlestandard_guild_alliance_a_01.m2 [458522]
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/battlestandard_guild_alliance_b_01.m2 [458523]
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/battlestandard_guild_alliance_c_01.m2 [458524]

Reputation Banners (Horde)
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/battlestandard_guild_horde_a_01.m2 [458526]
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/battlestandard_guild_horde_b_01.m2 [458527]
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/battlestandard_guild_horde_c_01.m2 [458528]

Pennants
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/pennant_guild_alliance_a_01.m2 [461352]
world/replaceabletextureprops/guild/pennant_guild_horde_a_01.m2 [461353]

The guild cloth for all six of these props are textured in the same manner that the guild chest from Chapter 6 is, with three* differences.

The first difference is the background and border texture files. Depending on which faction variant you've chosen, those textures are as follows.

Alliance Variant
battlestandard_guild_clothalliance_a_01.blp [457665]
battlestandard_guild_clothallianceborder_a_01.blp [458521]

Horde Variant
battlestandard_guild_clothhorde_a_01.blp [458028]
battlestandard_guild_clothhordeborder_a_01.blp [458525]

Note: I've truncated the directory names from these textures because they were super long, however searching for them in wow.export should be quite easy!

The second difference is that the emblem is mapped onto the cloth with a secondary UV map. This is the same as the garrison monument outlined in Chapter 7, so rather then repeat it here, go and check out the end of the chapter!

The third and final difference only applies to the horde variants (sorry or congratulations). The edges of the horde banners, unlike any others, are frayed.

To make sure we render this correctly, you'll need to use the Alpha channel of the background Image Texture as a mask for the object.

In addition to this, you'll also need to make sure the Blend Mode of the material is set to Alpha Clip.

That's it for reputation banners and pennants! If you don't want to bother with any of this, go ahead and check out The Easy Way™ at the end of the guide.

Chapter 10: Guild Cloaks

Another addition from the guild revamp in Cataclysm was guild cloaks. There are three tiers of guild cloak available through various achievements, with different designs depending on your faction.

Alliance Variants

Horde Variants

Similar to the replaceable texture props from the last five chapters, these cloaks are dynamically coloured based on your guild emblem design, so make sure you've got your IDs from Chapter 1 to hand. 

The first thing we need to do is get the texture file for our cloak, which you can find listed below. Go ahead and export your desired texture from wow.export.

Alliance Variants
Shroud of Cooperation → cape_guild_alliance_a_01.blp [461150]
Wrap of Unity → cape_guild_alliance_b_01.blp [461151]
Cloak of Coordination → cape_guild_alliance_c_01.blp [461152]

Horde Variants
Shroud of Cooperation → cape_guild_horde_a_01.blp [460882]
Wrap of Unity → cape_guild_horde_b_01.blp [460883]
Cloak of Coordination → cape_guild_horde_c_01.blp [460884]

Once you have your texture of choice, open up one of the character rigs from my character model guide and rotate the model. They conveniently come with the correct cloak geoset already enabled by default.

With the cloak material selected, start by removing all of the nodes except the Diffuse BSDF and the Material Output nodes.

Connect the BSDF output of the Diffuse BSDF node to the Surface input of the Material Output node.

Add an Image Texture node (Add → Texture → Image Texture) to the shader and click the Open Image button on the node. Locate and load the cape texture you exported earlier.

Now add three Mix RGB nodes (Add → Color → Mix RGB) to the shader. Connect the Color output of two of them to the Color1 and Color2 inputs of the third, as shown below.

Connect the Color output of the Image Texture node to the Color1 input of the first two Mix RGB nodes, as shown below.

Connect the Alpha output of the Image Texture node to the Fac input of the third Mix RGB node. Then set the Blend Method of the first two Mix RGB nodes to Color, as well as setting their Fac to 1.0 on the slider.

Finally, connect the Color output of the third Mix RGB node to the Color input of the Diffuse BSDF node. Choose yourself two colours for the Color2 inputs that are grey by default, and you should now have a coloured cloak.

Picking random colours is fine, but as we learned in Chapter 6 with the guild chest, using the proper in-game colours isn't too tricky.

If you're interested in the more in-depth details of how to get the colour values from the game data, and how to translate them across from linear to sRGB colour space, give the last section of Chapter 6 a read.

Otherwise to save time, I'm going to post the final chart from that chapter below again. Cross-reference your background colour ID and border colour ID from Chapter 1 using this chart, and then input those hexadecimal values into the relevant colour selectors.

Using the hexadecimal values from this chart, we can quickly achieve colours that match the in-game rendering for the cloaks.

The final piece missing from our cloak is the emblem. To do this, start by searching for emblem_XX.blp in the wow.export Textures tab, where XX is the ID of your icon design from Chapter 1.

Remember to zero-pad the ID if it's a single digit. emblem_5.blp would actually be emblem_05.blp instead. Once you've found it, export the texture as a PNG.

Back in the shader, add another Image Texture node (Add → Texture → Image Texture) and load in the emblem texture you just exported.

Make sure to set the Extension of the Image Texture node to Clip, as shown in the above image.

Add another Mix RGB (Add → Color → Mix RGB) node to the shader and place it on the connection between the Diffuse BSDF and Mix RGB node already in the shader.

Connect both the Color and Alpha outputs of the Image Texture node we just added a moment ago to the Color2 and Fac inputs of the new Mix RGB node respectively.

You should now see that the emblem is on the cloak, but it's both uncoloured and not mapped correctly.

Let's start by fixing the first of those two issues, the colour. Add another Mix RGB node to the shader and drop it on the connection from the Color output of our Image Texture node so that it intercepts the connection.

Set the Blend Method of the Mix RGB node we just created to Color and set the Fac slider to 1.0, just like with the other ones.

Refer to the chart earlier in this chapter, cross-referencing your emblem colour ID from Chapter 1 to find the correct hexadecimal colour value, which you can then input into the Color2 input of the node.

The last thing we need to do is map the emblem correctly. Normally, this would be handled by a secondary UV map, however that is not available on these rigs. Instead, we're going to do it the good old fashioned way: manually.

Add a UV Map node (Add → Input → UV Map) and a Mapping node (Add → Vector → Mapping) to the shader. Set the Vector Type of the Mapping node to Texture.

Link the UV Map, Mapping and Image Texture (of our emblem) nodes together using the UV → Vector/Vector → Vector sockets.

Finally, configure the Mapping node with a Location of (0.98, 0.6, 0) and a Scale of (-0.6, 0.35, 1.0).

If everything went to plan, you should now find your emblem mapped properly onto the cloak. At least, that's where it's supposed to go; you can put it wherever you please, you are your own boss.

That's it! That's how guild cloaks work. If that felt too much like hard work (and it definitely was), go ahead and check out the next chapter for The Easy Way™ which can do all of this and more in just a click.

Chapter 11: The Easy Way™ (Blender)

If you've made it this far (or skipped straight to this chapter), then you've made it to the good place. The last nine chapters were intended to provide a technical insight on how guild emblems are composited either for the curious, or for those looking to replicate the logic in their own software/pipeline.

Realistically, nobody wants to sit searching and exporting for all of the textures, converting RGB values from the linear colour space, or stitching hundreds of nodes together in a shader. You're in luck!

I've compiled everything outlined in this guide into a simple Blender add-on which allows you to add and edit guild emblems with an easy-to-use interface, just for you.

Let's start by downloading the add-on by clicking here. You don't need to extract the content of the ZIP file, in Blender go to Edit → Preferences → Add-ons, click the Install button and choose the downloaded ZIP file.

Be sure to check the add-on is enabled once you've installed it!

Now, before we jump in and start plastering the world with brightly coloured guild emblems, there are two important things to note.

The first thing is that the tabards and shirts are primarily designed to work with the skin shaders from my character rigs (from my Character Models guide). Depending on your use-case, your compatibility may vary.

The second note is that for all of the guild props (guild chests, alchemy cauldrons, etc), you must make sure you have UV2 data enabled in wow.export before exporting them, and you must import them into Blender using the wow.export Blender add-on.

With that out of the way, let's get to it! Let's start with a simple replaceable texture prop: the guild chest. Export the model from wow.export and import it into Blender. By default, it's going to look like this.

On your right-hand toolbar, select the Guild tab. If you can't see these tabs, toggle them by pressing N (by default). You should now see my add-on pop-up!

Switch the Type over to Bank Chest and set the Faction to match whichever variant of chest you exported, in my case it will be Alliance.

Leave the Mode at Add New Material and press Apply to Selected.

You'll notice that the controls have now expanded to include design options for the emblem, but nothing has appeared on the chest yet.

Go ahead and enter Edit Mode on the chest, deselect everything (double tab A), and then select just the white cloth (press L with your cursor over it to select it quickly).

In your Materials tab for the object, you'll notice a new mat_guild_chest material. Hit the Assign button with that material selected.

If you did that correctly, switch back to Object Mode and you should now see that your guild chest has a rather pink looking design on it.

Keeping the chest selected, you can now go ahead and use the controls to adjust the design of your chest to your hearts content - there's even a randomize button!

Want a better overview of all the options available without having to click through all of them? Check out the charts in Chapter 1, and just add 1 the IDs (E.G 15 on the chart is 16 in the add-on).

If you have multiple objects selected, you can change the design of all of them at the same time - this even works across different objects, characters included!

If you want to adjust the design of an object, but you've already changed the values since then, use the Copy Active button to load the design from your active object.

You can use the Apply to Selected button to apply the configured design to all selected objects as well.

Let's try putting our design on a character model. Start by enabling the relevant tabard geoset on your character rig.

In this example, I'll be using my human female rig, so for the tabard I enable the HumanFemale_51_TabardFull geoset.

Make sure that you have a part of the character selected which uses the skin material. The tabard geoset itself works great for this.

Open up the Guild Emblem panel from before and select either Tabard or Shirt, as well as the variant you'd like. For this, I'll be using the common tabard.

Since we want to include the tabard as part of her skin, change the Mode to Append to Active Material and click Apply to Selected.

Not only will this append all of the necessary nodes to your shader with the textures pre-loaded in, but it will also use your existing UV mapping and detect/integrate into the layer chain.

Assuming normal circumstances, your character should instantly have a tabard without needing to touch anything in the shader.

You may find that the new nodes are overlapping existing ones. The new nodes will be selected by default, so simply press G and move them somewhere more convenient.

Just as with objects, you can adjust the design without having to touch anything in the shader, and it also works across multiple objects - even of different types.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading! Whether you consumed every chapter and either gained enlightenment or a headache, or if you just came to make use of The Easy Way™, your continued support is what allows me to make these guides and add-ons, so thank you!

If you run into any troubles or have questions regarding this or any of my guides, wow.export or Blender, feel free to ping me in the #champions-lounge channel on my Discord server; the channel exists just for you!