Modding a love hate relationship

[ExpDevourer]

Heh just as the title suggests, this is a post for anyone to help out or gripe about their current projects, I was suggested to post my current gripe in the open forum here, so here is my dilemma I'm working on.

I have checked out everyone's links included in the posts I have made, very helpful btw but I am still encountering issues,I have been reading, and trying numerous things on here to get my ideas to flesh out for my dungeon. I have basically mastered the basic functions of the Dungeon Editor, its just altering things or creating new items that is giving me issues. For instance, I have been banging my head against the keyboard (not literally ) in an attempt for starters just to color my frigin walls in my creation!

It seems like it would be so simple, but I can't seem to get the game to accept it, there was a download I got from one of the other modder's on here that had a 3D wire image of the map, and I downloaded a program called Gimp to access it. Everything seemed to be working out, had the right colors and shading, and even saved it as a .psd folder, per his suggestion even though I don't have Photoshop. And I still could not get the game to accept it, in hindsight there is a few things about the editor that have me scratching my head.

The Edit tab, don't see the use honestly, the export ( I assume that is to post your creation ) the post to Workshop....is that not the same as export? And the ID tags under monsters etc. As there was a few alterations and creations I wanted to attempt to some monsters later. Any help anyone can give me in this matter would be greatly appreciated. Everyone has given me links, but there seems to be a blank where the terminology or legends are, a lot of the problem I am having with these programs is the obscure terminology, such as Nodes, etc etc etc. if a compromise could me made someone a little more proficient than myself with alterations could craft me a few items I would more than be willing to let them use my creations for their own mods, and give them credit in mine for their work, because I know how aggravating it can be sometimes.

However I know this is asking a lot, so if that is a no go, any helpful pointers in these regards will suffice, I'll continue to try and fidget with these scripts and 3D animation programs till I can figure it out.

[ExpDevourer]

Update: May be on to something, will let everyone know soon, trying something I didn't notice before.

[msyblade]

Outside of the animation stuff (which has multiple problems hardcoded in that cannot be addressed until an update), Most of what you're having trouble with is far more simple than you are thinking.Feel free to pm me with any specific question about creating custom assets/scripting or design. If I cant help you directly I likely know someone here who can help you directly And we all enjoy helping others, the reward well outweighs the effort!

[Asteroth]

My project is taking an eternity.But that's mostly because of story writing, I may love to cook up a D&D plot but I am still very much not a writer.

[ExpDevourer]

Outside of the animation stuff (which has multiple problems hardcoded in that cannot be addressed until an update), Most of what you're having trouble with is far more simple than you are thinking.Feel free to pm me with any specific question about creating custom assets/scripting or design. If I cant help you directly I likely know someone here who can help you directly And we all enjoy helping others, the reward well outweighs the effort!

Thanks for the speedy replies you two, Asteroth, story is my strong point, I have a ton of ideas, its the application of those ideas I'm having problems with, if you ever need an assist with story ideas just give me a shout. You just saved me a lot of aggravation on the first part, animation, so I'll wait before adding that. I'll add both of you to my friends on here, and PM you shortly with my issue, I figure I'm doing what I always do, I'm over-thinking this, making it more complicated than what it probably is.

[Isaac]

I came in here expecting a tutorial.
(How to mod a 'love hate relationship'.)

As for textures, you must save your images in the DDS format, and refer to them in the material definition as though they were of the TGA format. It's a kludge.

For example:
Your custom image should be exported from Gimp (or Paint.Net), as 'My_wall_texture_dif.DDS'.
And referred to in the material definition as: 'My_wall_texture_dif.TGA'

IE:

Code: Select all

defineMaterial{
	name = "brick_wall01",
	diffuseMap = "mod_assets/textures/env/My_wall_texture_dif.tga",
	specularMap = "mod_assets/textures/env/brickwall_stone_root_spec.tga",
	normalMap = "mod_assets/textures/env/brickwall_stone_root_normal.tga",
	doubleSided = false,
	lighting = true,
	alphaTest = false,
	blendMode = "Opaque",
	textureAddressMode = "Wrap",
	glossiness = 15,
	depthBias = 0,
}

[ExpDevourer]

I came in here expecting a tutorial.
(How to mod a 'love hate relationship'.)

As for textures, you must save your images in the DDS format, and refer to them in the material definition as though they were of the TGA format. It's a kludge.

For example:
Your custom image should be exported from Gimp (or Paint.Net), as 'My_wall_texture_dif.DDS'.
And referred to in the material definition as: 'My_wall_texture_dif.TGA'

IE:

Code: Select all

defineMaterial{
	name = "brick_wall01",
	diffuseMap = "mod_assets/textures/env/My_wall_texture_dif.tga",
	specularMap = "mod_assets/textures/env/brickwall_stone_root_spec.tga",
	normalMap = "mod_assets/textures/env/brickwall_stone_root_normal.tga",
	doubleSided = false,
	lighting = true,
	alphaTest = false,
	blendMode = "Opaque",
	textureAddressMode = "Wrap",
	glossiness = 15,
	depthBias = 0,
}

Heh nay its just me complaining again . Wow that is bizarre, I downloaded a plugin yesterday to work with DDS files but its pretending its not installed, so I'm going to mess with it some more and try to figure out what in the Hades is going on.

Will do, so it goes in the script file, not the model/env/ folder? Or is it both?

[Isaac]

Will do, so it goes in the script file, not the model/env/ folder? Or is it both?

Technically it doesn't matter what script you add the definition to, so long as it is in or included in the init.lua script; but materials are usually defined in materials.lua for sake of organization.

The material definitions that refer to custom assets must point to files in your mod_asset folder; where you put them within that folder is also arbitrary, but most adhere to the games' folder structure. So you would put your custom wall texture in the 'env' [environment] folder within the textures folder, because it's a wall texture.

The way materials work, is that the models have [embedded] material names, and they use the defined material that matches the embedded name. The default dungeon wall model uses the material named "brick_wall01". If you define your own material with that exact name, then it replaces the original "brick_wall01" for all models that use it, in the entire game.

If you wanted to re-skin a dragon statue, you could define your own material with the exact name "dragon_statue" , and point to your own custom texture files in the definition; this would change all dragon statues in the game.

Or, you could change the name of your defined material to something like "my_green_dragon_statue"; nothing would use it ~at first. You would then need to clone a dragon statue object define it with a custom name (and add> model = 'mod_assets/models/env/[Your custom dragon name].FBX' ) in the objects.lua file, and last (and most importantly), you would need to use the GMT by Dr. John Wordsworth to open the dragon statue model (found in the AH Asset Pack), and replace the embedded material name with your custom name ~"my_green_dragon_statue"; then save it to your "mod-assets/models/env" folder.

With all changes saved, when you reload your map in the dungeon editor you should see your custom dragon as a place-able object that can be used in your dungeon, and that will use your custom skin. This can be placed along side the regular dragon statues that would still be using the default texture.

Be aware that tiny syntactical errors in a defined editor object can crash the editor; so be sure that your work is saved before trying to place a custom object for the first time.

[ExpDevourer]

Ok before I reply to yours, I just seen that you posted a reply, I have been pulling my hair with the Gimp program, before I continue this statement though I wanted to add this from earlier I was going to post this. Program can't start because libgimp-2.0-0.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling program to fix this problem.

It places two files on my computer, one in my users with a different set of folders which it allows me to play the add-on in the plugins section, and another which it recommends in my C drive, where it has the Lib folder and plugins, that plugin folder will not allow the Winrar files to be extracted and created there, a similar error message appears???

^ now that is somewhat moot as I finally got Gimp to acknowledge that there is a DDS* picture viewer in there, however..... it still will not open the Model Files of the Asset Pack for me to experiment on, I swear it seems every time I start making progress something stonewalls me. Anyways lets see here what ye wrote.

Ahhh I did not know that, I knew we needed lua as our script.format, but I didn't know about the placement.

So that part doesn't matter either then? Good good, in our mods texture folder, not the Asset Pack texture folder? I have tried both, but neither did anything for me, so I wasn't sure.

I see, hmm something else to play with, I'll get to the script side of it once I figure out what and why we use the picture/animation editing software like Gimp, having a bit of an issue deciding on whether they are separate or require the use of both script and it in order to get this to function correctly, the developers information on the modding page was very vague.

Hmmm...point to your own creation? So far much of the problem I'm having is, I'll try and copy a script, and maybe edit out the name like you said, lets say instead of dungeon_wall01.whatever, I would put mydungeon_wall01.whatever. And try and place it in the same folder they did, but nothing seems to happen, so I must be doing something wrong.

When adding the script itself, would we use the " and the ; and sometimes the ) that I have seen in some of these scripts? Or are they just there to emphasize what people are pointing at? I know I have a lot of questions >,<. I recall reading about the clone object deal from the Developers vague modding tutorial, ahh I have downloaded Mr. Wordsworth editing tool as well, still trying to wrap my head around how its used just yet, but its on my computer.

Fascinating I'm going to try that out in a minute, I have a headache after fiddling with that Gimp program most of the day. Will do, being paranoid as I am, I have a test dungeon that I'm using to test scripts and other things on, then my actual dungeon I'm going to load to the Workshop, just waiting for the workable items to be added to it. Thanks for the info, I'm still in the dark for the most part, but at least I have something to go on now, slowly getting there.

[Brodie301]

I had similar problem with Gimp so I downloaded paint.net. It has dds file support already. I like to think of GMT as a file extracter/retracter.