19 réponses à ce sujet

[AmstradHero]

In a single player add-in, it's easy to add in party NPC interjections using conversations with stages.  You simply assign the relevant npc (gen00fl_<name>) and ensure that you have the HENCHMEN<1-3> slots filled in your three companion slots.

With this done, any companion who speaks will be automatically given their line and the correct camera angle based on their position within your party.

However, will a standalone module, this no longer appears to be possible. I do not appear to be able to find anywhere that will map specific npc tags and note them as being "special" such that they will be automatically mapped to the relevant HENCHMEN stage position within the conversation.

Is it possible to do this?  Or do we need a work around to have party members interject reliably within our stage based conversations for stand alone campaign?

The options I see are:
1) Simply assign companions (ie creature tags) to particular stage locations - meaning you would have to juggle your party member locations within the stage, or limit your interjections to three specific party members.
2) Create a new stage with sufficient locations to accomodate all possible party members and use this as the "default" stage for any conversations involving party interjections.

Neither of these are particularly desirable.  How do we get around this issue for standalone campaigns? How have other modders gotten around it for new party companions added into the single player campaign?

[TimelordDC]

I haven't tried this yet - at present, I just have a single companion that I've manually assigned tags to.



Have you tried extending the toolset_henchmen 2da?

[AmstradHero]

Thank you very much! I did not even know that file existed!  I modified it and had to place it in packages/core/override rather than in my module's add-in 2DA folder, but now I'm no longer getting the toolset "error" for my NPCs not being mapped to a stage location.  In addition, the preview line command works perfectly.

Now I just need to figure out why my party picker stage is broken (I had it working previously and don't remember changing anything since last time) and I can test to see whether it actually works in game. For some reason my camera is now pointing in the wrong direction (off to the side) and none of my character portraits appear in the little circles at the bottom.

*sigh* The trials and tribulations of modding.

[AmstradHero]

It appears I'd deleted by gda files from my override directory, and only had them in my 2da folder. The game doesn't read anything from the 2da folder, so my party picker was being completely ignored.

I can now happily report that both the toolset and the game pick up companion presence and that interjections work perfectly!

[ladydesire]

I've had moments like that with the toolset myself.

[Karma]

AmstradHero wrote...
... now I'm no longer getting the toolset "error" for my NPCs not being mapped to a stage location. 

I get the same error whenever I duplicate and edit existing dialogue. I can't export the dialogue files anymore because the companions (both mine and the OC ones) are not mapped to a specific stage place; they're mapped to the generic henchmen spots. Would it be a waste of time to add my companions to that list, re-binarize that spreadsheet, and put it into the packages/core/override folder? Could that solve this issue? I've not been able to solve this problem for many weeks now.

[AmstradHero]

My steps are as follows:

1) Add in the tags for my NPCs into that 2da file and used the excelprocessor to generate a .GDA file.

2) Place that .GDA in an appropriate directory - within the module/override *should* be fine, you just can't have it in the 2da folder.

3) For conversations with stages, make sure that HENCHMEN1-3 are mapped to suitable places in the stage.

4) Any time I want a companion to speak, I simply type in their tag (which matches the one I put in the 2da file) within the "Speaker Tag" box in the Dialogue tab.

With this done, I can happily save and export the conversation.
Of course, you'll still want a party plot to determine if the companion is actually IN the party and hence can interject, but that's an in-game issue that won't prevent you from doing any processing on the dialogue or exporting it.

[jackkel dragon]

Is there a specific tag that a "place" needs to have in order to be a henchman place? Even after modifying the toolset_henchmen 2da I can't use the henchman stages properly...

[AmstradHero]

Stage 1p_200_all uses places follower1, follower2, follower3, and 2p_200 uses follower1_1, follower1_2, follower1_3... but the place names shouldn't actually matter. The main thing is to make sure that you map the tags HENCHMEN 1, HENCHMEN 2, and HENCHMEN 3 in the cinematics tab of your conversation where you also map OWNER and PLAYER. If you've done this, then it should all work smoothly. These are required to map your followers to a stage location, and at this point the game will accept the use of your henchmen tags without having them explicitly mapped to a stage location because they can be mapped to a HENCHMEN location.

[jackkel dragon]

I'll have to check that tomorrow, then. (It's night for me.) I thought I did what was needed, but still got errors. I'll make a debug conversation and see what I'm doing wrong...

[Lathaon]

What does the SpecialStaging column actually do?

[jackkel dragon]

Lathaon wrote...

What does the SpecialStaging column actually do?

I think it's for Dog and Shale to give them their unique spots (outside of HENCH1-3). They wouldn't fit into any of the normal spots.

[Lathaon]

Ah, looks like the ones with that set to 1 appear in the list separately, as HENCH:. I guess those slots take priority over the generic HENCHMAN ones since creatures can't be in two places.

Modifié par Lathaon, 03 octobre 2010 - 08:14 .

[Apolyon6k]

Sorry about hijacking this topic but my question is related:
Normal stages are linked to a specific location on the map, right?

I ask because i have a guard patroling an area and want to use a dialogue with injections for that guard. If i set up a stage for him at one place in the area wouldn't he and the party jump to that stage?
And if that is the case can i use injections without a stage?
Or is there a dynamic stage that just uses relative positions?

Modifié par Apolyon6k, 03 décembre 2010 - 01:03 .

[Proleric]

IIRC an NPC can make interjections anywhere if the conversation has no stage and the dialogue lines are flagged as Ambient on the Plots & Scripting tab.

By "interjection" I mean lines that are heard but not seen.

In principle, stages always specify relative positions.

They only become absolute when you create an instance of the stage in the area.

To make a dynamic stage wherever the NPC happens to be, in the conversation Root Cinematics tab check "At Current Location".

The tricky part is that the camera(s) could easily be blocked by trees or other props, so it's probably only useful for wide open areas.

[AmstradHero]

I tried using one of these recently but found that every line from the NPC caused him to jump around. However, I was using "1p_200_all" rather than "acl_1p" under the _Dynamic folder within the stage resources. I haven't yet done a playthrough to see if using that stage instead fixes the problem.

[Proleric]

I found that the conversation owner doesn't move if they are at the origin [0,0,0] of the stage. I gave up on it because of the trees issue.

[AmstradHero]

That would explain it then. acl_1p has actor2 at the origin with no rotation, whereas in 1p_200_all the owner is at -1,0,0 and -95.5,0,0 orientation. But I concur, usefulness of dynamic stages is definitely highly dependent upon the area design and the roaming pattern of the NPC.

[ladydesire]

The easiest way I've found is to create a stage specifically for that character and dialog; this way you can control camera placement and character positioning to minimize intereference, instead of being at the mercy of Bioware's default dynamic stage.

[Proleric]

Yes, once you get the hang of it, custom stages are really useful. When the NPC is on the move, I find the default (no stage, close up) is as good as anything for human-sized creatures. The close-up generally avoids the "trees" issue. Thinking about it, I guess a dynamic custom close-up stage for larger and smaller creatures is probably the answer, as you suggest.