10 réponses à ce sujet

[Vasterion]

Hi guys, just got a few questions based on creating a mod -

1. Firstly - is Dragon Age 2 looking like a better platform to mod from (for terms of access and  terms of potential)? Could be a bit early to tell, but some may be in the know?

2. How modable in the UI? Particularly the starting screen? I'm looking at trying to create mod, which can include a new gender, and more than the 6 races and backgrounds that are already present.

3. Is it possible to create new weapon types? i.e create a spear, halberd, etc.And if not how do you think having a spear would look with the animation set of the great weapon (many of the finishing moves are stab based).

4. How do you like the idea of the having a staff both as a melee weapon and range? All magic users have access to a toggle ability (granted as soon as a character takes a specialisation in spellcaster), which allows them to autocast in effect what they already have - based on an elemental effect according to the staff. I.e Staff of Fire allows small fire bolts, Staff of the Heavens allows the Bolts of Lightning, etc.

5. Is it possible to create a new damage type? I know I change the wording of existing ones, but I mean entirly new ones?

6. Does anyone play Warhammer? Would anyone be interested in one as such? (Looking at working with High Elves first, then looking at other races, perhaps Chaos Dwarves, Ogres, and perhaps Cathay to allow a bit of my own inspiration flow).

[Proleric]

1. We don't know whether there will be a toolset for DA2. My reading is that it's unlikely. Even if I'm wrong, it will almost certainly be DAO-compatible, because we understand that Bioware is using an almost identical toolset to make DA2. So IMO there's little risk in starting work now in DAO.

2. With the UI, it's important to distinguish between content and format. You can easily make new content like classes, races and origins (there are tutorials on the wiki). It's not easy to change the format - so, for example, adding an extra row to that screen for a wholly new concept (e.g. Alignment) is not for the novice (and probably not for the expert, either). I'm not sure about additional genders.

Other people know more about 4-6 than I do.

[Apolyon6k]

2. Like Proleric said you can edit the content but changing the format is possible but far too much work.
Adding a new gender shouldn't be a problem just look up the tutorials on 2das and edit gender.gda the way you like it. I restricted the player to be only female in my mod so adding more options might be a little more work but it is possible.
There are 6 races present? Interesting i counted only three but there can be up to six with content creation.

6. Do you want to add the Warhammer races into the world of Ferelden or in a standalone mod in the Warhammer world? The later would be interesisting but the first would just kill immersion for me.

to 3. - 5. It could be possible but much work. For 3. you might have to create custom animation. If you are proficient with a 3d modeling program that is possible otherwise not really.

Modifié par Apolyon6k, 03 décembre 2010 - 03:43 .

[Vasterion]

Thanks for your time guys. Sorry, I had forgotten to state that I'd already had experience - modding both M2TW and Dawn of War. Those were generally low poly models (about 4K total maximum for your standard "troop" in an RTS), whereas with Dragon Age, I can finally have a crack at looking at medium-high count models.



I have modded UI's before (with both aforementioned games) - if it's a case of changing reference locations in a text file, I'm not averse to major trial and error, but I'll wait and see.



As to the races/origins, I meant add in more than the 6 spaces currently available. However, I've just thought that to create a full story line for each race and substory line for each origin, without going into the whole "hack 'em, slash 'em, do it again, repetetion", there'll be so much work needed.



As to modelling - yes, I'm proficient with 3DSMax, ZBrush, Milkshape, and texturing with Photoshop. I haven't yet tried animation.



And yes, it would be in a seperate Warhammer World. If I was to choose the races, it would be High Elves, Vampires, and Chaos, as potential starting points.

[Apolyon6k]

have a look at the wiki there might be some ideas on UI modding. It's based in flash action script so you have to edit those if you want to change the UI in any way.

[Proleric]

Here's the UI tutorial. Not something I have any experience of, though.

[Phaenan]

Vasterion wrote...

I have modded UI's before (with both aforementioned games) - if it's a case of changing reference locations in a text file, I'm not averse to major trial and error, but I'll wait and see.

UI modding in DA doesn't really involve changing refs or anything, but if you're up for the challenge you could have a look at the UI Modders group. Some people stated they're especially interested in modding the chargen UI, and it's certainly something appealing for anyone willing to create new classes & origins.
As far as origins and core classes are concerned, I'd say it's fairly possible to mod that UI and make it extendable. Not saying that it wouldn't involve a noticeable learning curve and some hair pulling, tho. 
However, I'm not sure the gender bit can be done. The UI actionscripts can hardly have any interaction with the engine or dascripts, and while it's possible to add a new field saving the player's choice for later may prove itself challenging, if at all possible. You can invoke a handful of external DAScript command from the actionscripts, and read 2DA values and such, but I don't remember any routine allowing to save a local var or a plot flag, for instance. Maybe FtG will have a better memory than I on that matter. While less fancy, it might be easier to use a simple popup right after the chargen to have the player choose the character's gender.

Modifié par Phaenan, 04 décembre 2010 - 12:07 .

[Vasterion]

Hair pulling, ah, I'm not so good at that. Receeding hairline and all, I prefer to keep it where it is .



Thanks for all your help. It's given me a lot to think of, and now I know that it's reasonably open to anything, I can work on properly coming up with a story that's not just a copy paste of Dragon Age in Warhammer - in particular how to allow a character to correspond while they're mute.



This is one of the first classes I'm going to get on an model. I could use either the Axe or Greatsword anims I think for this.

[Vasterion]

Sorry for the double post - just wondering what's a good idea for Weapon Poly Counts? I don't want to go and spend 10K on a weapon only to find out that people can't run larger than 5K. Same for people really.

[ladydesire]

Community contest 6 wiki page has a set of triangle count recommendations ( I assume this would be the polygon count value) for the latest contest.

[DarthParametric]

You'll need to use normal maps. There's no reason to waste 5-10K polys on a weapon. Keep them sub-2K. That's a triangulated mesh of course, so that's 2K tris not quads.