11 réponses à ce sujet

[EyezaGotSKILLZ]

Hi,

I'm a complete noob, and I was wondering if anybody could help me figure out how to create a snow wolf in the nwn2 toolset. I know I could just use the winter wolf, but I'm looking to use the regular wolf model, but just with a touch of snow on his back, as opposed to the full on white fur of the winter wolf. I also don't dig the ear ring. If anybody could help me out with this, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[M. Rieder]

The process is called re-skinning. What you have to do is open the texture file of the wolf's skin and then change it according to what you want. With a little practice, this can be accomplished fairly easily.

I believe there are tutorials on the process. Search the forums because I know there are several threads on it. Search for re-skinning.

Once you re-skin the wolf, all wolves will look like the new one. If you want to use snow wolves and regular wolves, you will need to duplicate the model and add it. There is a tool called the MDB cloner which can do this. I've never used it, but I think you could find a tutorial on it pretty easily.

[EyezaGotSKILLZ]

Okay, so I downloaded the MDB cloner... but there's not much explanation on how to use it. I've figured out where to find the appropriate wolf mdb file, but once I unzip it, where do I put the duplicate file that I plan on modifying? Also, once I do modify the clone of the wolf file, where do I put it?

[M. Rieder]

That's above my skill level. All I've ever done was re-skin an existing model. I never cloned it.

[Morbane]

Modifié par Morbane, 07 mai 2011 - 12:28 .

[-Semper-]

EyezaGotSKILLZ wrote...

I've figured out where to find the appropriate wolf mdb file, but once I unzip it, where do I put the duplicate file that I plan on modifying? Also, once I do modify the clone of the wolf file, where do I put it?

the texture is in the nwn2_materials.zip and is called mostly identical to the model. if you're unsure you can also load the wolf model into the cloner and down at the bottom there are fields with the textures which are linked to that model (diffuse and normal, sometimes tint). open the zip and extract the diffuse texture - c_wolf_cl_body01.dds. you don't need to alter the normal map or tint map because you only want to change colors.

now open this diffuse texture with a 2d editor like gimp or photoshop and change it to your liking. afterwards save it as a dxt5 compressed dds - you will need plugins for that. photoshop uses the nvidia dds plugin while gimp uses another free version.

after saving your texture you need to open the wolf model with the cloner. change the name of the model to something different and link your custom diffuse texture to that model. now you have to edit the appearance.2da. copy line 181 as it is the wolf and create another line at the end of the list. paste the content from line 181 (but not the id 181) and change it to your custom wolf.

now you need nwn packer to create a hak file. put your model, diffuse and 2da into a hak and link it to your module within the toolset to be used. you can also drop those files at your override folder.

[EyezaGotSKILLZ]

Okay, I've changed the diffuse texture to my liking, and I've linked it to the model. Now I'm trying to figure out how to edit the appearance.2da... Could you give me more explanation on that end?

[-Semper-]

just open it with a text editor, disable line break and copy the line content (everything but the id). create another line at the end of the list with the correct id (last id+1) and paste the content from line 181. now change the model_body and model_helm to the name of your renamed wolf model. drop everything inside the override folder and you can select your new appearance within the toolset.

[Dann-J]

If you don't like the winter wolf that comes with the game, then you can re-use that line in the 2DA to point to your new wolf model. Just copy the line for the regular wolf, paste it over the current winter wolf entry, and change the MDB model it points at. You may want to keep the first couple of entries in that line though, so that your custom wolf is still called 'winter wolf' in the appearance drop-down list in the toolset.

I tend to use the built-in 2DA editor in the toolset for modifying 2DAs. Just put a copy of the existing 2DA in your override folder before starting up the toolset. When I add custom creatures to a module, I tend to create a folder for them in the override initially, until I've got everything working correctly. Then I bundle up the new model and skins (and any custom animations), and the modified 2DA into a HAK, so I can clean out the override folder.

Modifié par DannJ, 08 mai 2011 - 11:02 .

[EyezaGotSKILLZ]

Man, this stuff is complicated. Do I have to change the string ref at all in the 2da editing? I just can't get it to work... I must be doing something wrong.

Oh yeah in Gimp when I try to save the diffuse texture, I have the option of compressing in several different dxt5 formats such as, BC3/ DXT5, BC3n/ DXT5n, Alpha Exponent (DXT5), YCoCg (DXT5), and YCoCg scaled (DXT5). I was wondering which compression I should choose.

I also have an option to generate the mipmaps, I was wondering if I needed to do that.

I also get this message when I try to save the diffuse texture...

"DDS: It appears your image may be a volume map,
but not all layers are the same size, thus a volume
map cannot be written."

It says to flatten the image... or make all the layers the same size... in order to save the DDS file, so I did that. I was wondering if that's what is messing this all up.

Also, when I try to link the modified diffuse texture to the renamed wolf model, the texture file doesn't show up, and I have to switch to dds files in order to find it. I don't know if that means anything.

Modifié par EyezaGotSKILLZ, 10 mai 2011 - 05:20 .

[EyezaGotSKILLZ]

Yayyy I got it! Thanks Semper and everybody else who chipped in! Man that took awhile... Almost a freakin' week.