13 réponses à ce sujet

[Adonnay]

Hey,

during the development of my weapon replacement mod I noticed that I have a few (hopefully) nice designs that would never see the daylight because of the limitation to only 6 replacement slots. That's why I decided to release the excess blades as a stand alone mod. Those weapons will be unique and have some nice stats and probably no tints.

Now comes the tricky part. I have no idea yet on how to incorporate the weapons into the main game without affecting too many other mods (ideally no mod at all) and without too much hassle on my side since my time to set this up is very limited (half a day per week at most).

So any help or suggestion is welcome. 

I won't post pictures of every new sword because I think the experience is better when discovered ingame. I think you just have to trust me on the designs


Just one thing: No Requests. I will listen to your input and I expect honest feedback. That also means negative feedback is welcome. Perhaps I will encorporate some of your feedback into new additions but I won't make any promises.

So... next stop: Getting new weapons into the main campaign.


Some of you might probably recognize this one:

Modifié par Adonnay, 31 mars 2010 - 10:41 .

[mikemike37]

two main tasks ahead of you

- append the ***_variation.gda file to allow you to choose the weapon models from within the toolset
- jump into the toolset and go through the weapons, changing their appearance.

the _variation.gda files (5-15 minute job per file, 4 files needed maybe?)

• In the toolset, open Program Files\\\\Dragon Age\\\\packages\\\\core\\\\data\\\\2da.erf
• locate the relevant erf, ex. longsword_variation.gda
• extract anyplace
• open using GDApp
• add your lines - use unique IDs, start above 100 to prevent conflict with official releases  (ideally reserve them on Builder Wiki)
• remove the official ones (or see below)
• save as longsword_variation_adonnay.gda or similar (first bit MUST be longsword_variation_)
• place GDA in your Program Files override

alternatively (I should say, this doesnt work for me, but is the "proper" way to do it)

• open Program Files\\\\Dragon Age\\\\tools\\\\Source\\\\2DA\\\\rules\\\\ItemVariations.xls
• add your lines - use unique IDs, start above 100 to prevent conflict with official releases  (ideally reserve them on Builder Wiki)
• remove the official ones (or see below)
• save as longsword_variation_adonnay.xls or similar (first bit MUST be longsword_variation_)
• put through the excelprocessor.
• place GDA in your Program Files override

toolset (1 hour job to go through all weapons and choose a different appearance)

• start toolset (or restart)
• change module to Single Player (your changes will only take effect on single player module games - i dont know of a way of changing the database for all core resources, sorry)
• change whichever items you fancy like changing. The Item Variation should have your new appearances, if not, somethings gone wrong!

alternative naming (5 minute per weapon... optional)

May I offer an alternative to replacing them by using the same name as the official stuff? You can change the _variation file to point to a differently named model (ex. w_lsw_adsweps1). By doing this, your mod can be replacing or non-replacing by a very small GDA change?  To replace the official stuff, just change the ModelSubType column to point to your model names for existing official IDs. extend the IDs as mentioned above to add further variations.

One super-elegant solution would be to have all your models listed in IDs ranged 100-110, say and put that in one _variation file. In another variation file, you point the official IDs to your models.

As it is, I am unable to prevent your models using a material with the same name as the official campaign ones. This means even if i rename the model, it will have to use the official material by that name, or the official model will have to use your material. see my dilemma?

Good luck with it! Let me know how you get on  

Modifié par mikemike37, 31 mars 2010 - 01:23 .

[tmp7704]

Adonnay wrote...

Now comes the tricky part. I have no idea yet on how to incorporate the weapons into the main game without affecting too many other mods (ideally no mod at all) and without too much hassle on my side since my time to set this up is very limited (half a day per week at most).

So any help or suggestion is welcome. 

Just a thought, but you could perhaps release these as "Builder - DA Models" type of add-on? I'm thinking it could work then similar to how the extra haircuts and such mods function -- people can reference these meshes when making their own individual weapon add-ons or whatever, and it gives them larger selection of meshes to pick for their items.

[mikemike37]

thats exactly what the above will allow.

Modifié par mikemike37, 31 mars 2010 - 01:21 .

[tmp7704]

mikemike37 wrote...

As it is, I am unable to prevent your models using a material with the same name as the official campaign ones. This means even if i rename the model, it will have to use the official material by that name, or the official model will have to use your material. see my dilemma?

You can assign a separate and custom material to the model by editing its *.mmh file with the toolset -- there's records in there which arrange the mapping of model surfaces to *.mao files of choice.

[mikemike37]

oh really? thanks tmp7704!

[tmp7704]

Yup, for example, opening the "ef_arm_lgtb_0.mmh" in the Toolset...

the field MMH_MODEL_HIERARCHY_MODEL_DATA_NAME links that *.mmh to a particular mesh. By just editing it, you can easily "clone" an item, having custom-named copy of *.mmh of similar item point to custom-made mesh.

Then, when you open the MMH_CHILDREN section, at least one of the children entries (last one in this particular case) is of type "mshh" and handles description of how the mesh chunks should be positioned and used. MMH_MESH_GROUP_NAME field matches the surface name of the mesh ("EF_ARM_LGT_ArmorM1" in this case), and the MMH_MATERIAL_OBJECT field links to *.mao file -- in this case, "pf_arm_lgtb".

Modifié par tmp7704, 31 mars 2010 - 01:35 .

[mikemike37]

ah thats cool. ive done a lot of modelling from scratch with chewygumballs 3ds max script, not actually tried to edit existing mmh files before though. I'll definately make use of that at some point though

[Adonnay]

Alright... thanks for the replies and the info. What I've done so far is create a new variations file and thus new base weapons to chose from. I've also created new weapons (uti files) that use the new models. What I'm missing now is how to put them into the stock campaign...

[mikemike37]

oh sorry... drop them into your override folder. if you use your program files override folder, it should apply to all modules.



Program Files\\Dragon Age\\packages\\core\\override



if that doesnt work, im happy to glance over what youve done.

[Adonnay]

Heh, I think we misunderstood each other. I want to place the weapon somewhere in the world. May it be a chest, a vendor or a mob? How can that be achieved without interfering with other mods? Can it be achieved at all?

[mikemike37]

you can change the single player campaign weapon blueprints to replace them - dont forget to export them though.

alternatively you need to find the creature or placeable blueprints you want to add them to and change their inventory. the easiest way is actually to open the area file, make a new chest placable (or any other container) and add the item to its inventory. then place the placeable in the area and export all the resources youve changed (area, pleaceable, items). 

In either case any existing resource that you modify (area, vendor, creature, placeable), will interfere with other mods that have changed the same resource. it may be possible to find a way to do this in a more friendly way, but i do not know it, sorry. particularly vendors may be "append-able" rather than "replace" with a new resource. im not too expert on the toolset...

Modifié par mikemike37, 31 mars 2010 - 05:36 .

[Adonnay]

Okay, thanks for your time to explain, I'll look into that



Btw, how would one distribute "builder resources"? Create a builder package in the toolset or just pack the meshes and textures into a zip?

[mikemike37]

in your case, I can't think there will be many (any?) "builder resources" except for the raw models/textures in whatever format before you converted them (which i wouldnt really call builder resources). Generally though, things like level and head morphs can be distributed in an unprocessed way using Tools > Builder > Builder to Builder Create. Ordinarily, players would only need the exported versions of these files.

I think perhaps rather tmp7704 meant that by only appending the _variables file (not changing the original IDs in any way), and having your weapon models as non-replacing in such a way that no change would be made to the game. In such a case, the mod would effectively be "for builders only" (since alone it would do nothing) The only content would be assets for builders to create new items with.

EDIT: actually there may be a difference between an exported item and a "builder" item. You can package your weapons up in a builder to builder file using the method above and distributing with your mod if you wish. I'm not sure it'll be all that necessary though, most people will prefer to make new weapons with your appearances, which they wont need that for.

Modifié par mikemike37, 31 mars 2010 - 08:41 .