6 réponses à ce sujet

[Cracker Jack]

Foreword: I am posting with near-total ignorance of the intricacies (and mundanities) of modding in DA:O, so I’ll apologize in advance for any part of this that comes across as stupid.
 The idea, in short, is as follows: Take an already-existing DA:O model (Lets say: the lethal-looking Saruman-esque Mage’s Staff model) and make an item that DA:O treats as a shield that uses that model. This is taking a concept from an Oblivion mod, which had short staves used as shields, I was wondering if something similar could be done in DA:O – it’d go nicely for Weapon and Shield Arcane Warriors I think. Since people can put new models into DA:O, I suspect it should be possible – though I expect it’d look pretty wonky without some sort of tweaking.
I was wondering if anyone had any advice or comments on how I’d go about doing this: Is it possible at all? Any guesses as to probable pit-falls? What tools would I need, and what would the steps be for something like this? Things like that.
Thanks for your time.

[DarthParametric]

I'm not sure why you'd want to do that exactly, but, sure, in theory you could make a shield using pretty much any model. You'd be stuck with the existing animations though (at least for the moment), so that might result in some clipping issues, and I imagine the "sheathed" position might be a bit ropey.

[Cracker Jack]

Thanks for the response - as for why... its a matter of taste: I've never been a huge fan of shields in DA:O, so I thought that an off-hand defensive parrying weapon might be a more interesting alternative, and for why a staff, they're fairly big so I figure that at least in the ready position it'd look less silly than say, a dagger. I hope. The staff also has the benefit of being able to say, with a straight face 'A Wizard Did It' in response to any apparent oddness and gives Arcane Warriors a more distinctive visual option, besides otherwise looking like a sparkly translucent fighter.



I'm glad to hear it should be possible - it'll be interesting to see exactly how silly some of the clipping problems are. I mucked around in the toolset briefly, but I couldn't find a simple way to do it - do you know of any guides for making items use models that aren't already on their dropdown lists?



Thanks again.

[TimelordDC]

I like the idea - brings to mind Gandalf wielding a staff and blade in LotR. Good luck with your efforts!

[DarthParametric]

Creating it has nothing to do with the toolset as such. You'd have to export a new model from either Max/GMax or Blender using one of the 3rd party import/export scripts. All you'd do in the toolset is create a new UTI and set up a module to get it into the game.

EDIT: Just for a laugh to illustrate the principle I quickly knocked this together:

Modifié par DarthParametric, 18 novembre 2010 - 05:53 .

[Cracker Jack]

Well, using an extremely Kludge-tastic method for a quickie test (exporting the shield and stave models with DATool, then dropping renamed staves into the override folder) the results are... Not half bad actually.Turns out my screenshots didn't seem to work, so I'll try and get some new ones later.



You were bang on about the sheathed position being a bit wonky, and the staff is floating most of the way up, and an inch or so in front of the forearm, but otherwise it looks pretty damned good. Some of the shield bashes and normal swings invoke lots of good old Gandalfian orc-thwacking imagery, and I didn't notice any clipping really Oh yeah, shields with heraldry though? Looks kind of odd. Damn my lack of screenies.



Okay, so I guess my next step will be to see if there's an easyish way to angle the staff a bit (so it matches the shields, solving the tripping-hazard sheathed position) and I dunno, moving it back and down the arm a bit so its in the fist rather than the forearm. Now, I'm intimidated by modelling software and have no idea how to use it - would what I'm describing be possible for a complete novice using GMax/Blender/Whatever?



Thanks again for all your help, and the Shield-Nug is awesome.

[DarthParametric]

Neither program is probably what I would call user-friendly, although I've never used Blender so I am only going on what I've heard for that. I have long experience with GMax though (which is a crippled version of 3DS Max 4) and it is definitely horrible to use IMO. I actually do all my modelling in another app and just use GMax as an export vector so that I have to use it as little as possible. If you are starting from scratch I'd probably suggest Blender, just because it is a more well-rounded app in terms of features. Eshme's Max/GMax DA import/export script is arguably superior to NewByPower's Blender DA import/export script though, so you may want to give both a spin and see which you prefer.

What you'd want to do is import an existing shield model, then import a staff. Position the staff mesh as appropriate, using the shield mesh as a guide. Make sure the staff mesh is a child of the GOB and that the node is a child of the staff mesh. Then delete the shield mesh and export. If you want to get a bit fancier, you could add the handles from the shield to the staff, as I did with the nug (which you can kind of see if you look closely). This requires some modelling work and editing of the UV map (and texture) though, so it's not quite as straightforward.

If you want to set it up as a new shield rather than simply overriding an existing one, you'll need to extend one of the shield variation GDAs with your new model's info and create a new UTI in the toolset. You'll want to be doing this in a new module, so you can use a script to add it to the player's inventory on load. All that has been detailed in a number of tutorials, both text and video.

Modifié par DarthParametric, 20 novembre 2010 - 01:48 .