Author Topic: Wing/Tail colors/textures (Read 767 times)

Legacy_Armaerafaen · « **on:** May 12, 2012, 11:55:52 pm »

This is my first post here, so I apologize if this is in the wrong location... I'm having trouble with wings and tails in my game. I've installed the CEP on my system, but when I give my character a tail, it doesn't use the character's skin color- it just uses the default texture. I do have I've tried using Lisa's tails and wings as a hak as well, but still nothing changes.

I've currently got everything installed and patched up to community patch 1.71b4.

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? I'd appreciate any help. If I need to delete a line from the textures_tpa.erf or anything I can do that.... but I wouldn't know where to look to start.

Also, are there any tutorials on creating new playable races? I've seen a lot of subraces, but is there any way for me to add a new race in addition to 'human' 'elf' etc.? Or is that the same as creating a subrace?

Thanks in advance for any help and advice '<img

'>

Legacy_Rolo Kipp · « **Reply #1 on:** May 13, 2012, 01:22:05 am »

               <piling up...>

This is *exactly* the right forum for this post :-) Welcome!

Most tails and wings are modeled with a set texture. The only way to change them would be to change the texture it uses, either in a modeling app like GMax or 3DS or in a text editor (if you've converted the models to ASCII).

The closest thing I've seen to a tutorial on creating new races (as opposed to sub-races) are the articles about the crab and the Wemic in the Custom Content Guide. Not only is that worth reading, but I printed it out, bound it and keep it handy.

There *are* ways to make new races... but it's a long hard row to hoe. Worth it in the end, but not a simple thing.

<...a heap of homework>

                     ModifiÃ© par Rolo Kipp, 13 mai 2012 - 12:24 .

Legacy_Failed.Bard · « **Reply #2 on:** May 13, 2012, 01:49:15 am »

               I believe the only colour changing tails in CEP are the belt based models. There's a cat tail for sure there, that uses hair colour.

Legacy_Lightfoot8 · « **Reply #3 on:** May 13, 2012, 02:01:51 am »

Armaerafaen wrote...

Also, are there any tutorials on creating new playable races? I've seen a lot of subraces, but is there any way for me to add a new race in addition to 'human' 'elf' etc.? Or is that the same as creating a subrace?

Rolo wrote...
There *are* ways to make new races... but it's a long hard row to hoe. Worth it in the end, but not a simple thing.

Correct me if I am wrong, but was not the Character Creation GUI the main problem with creating Player Playable Races.  The fact that there is no way to add a new race to the character creation screen kind of put a damper on anyone making new races.

Legacy_Rolo Kipp · « **Reply #4 on:** May 13, 2012, 02:18:17 am »

<wiggling...>

Lightfoot8 wrote...
Correct me if I am wrong, but was not the Character Creation GUI the main problem with creating Player Playable Races. The fact that there is no way to add a new race to the character creation screen kind of put a damper on anyone making new races.

The GUI is *one* of the big problems, but it is not insurmountable.

Specifically, we can a) alter the 7 base races or 'B)'

change a lot of stuff after character creation (during a "New Character" module/area). Shoot, someone might disable all the base races but human, rename it to "Baby" and have new characters crawl in diapers to the appearance/race they want... Hmmm... <don't even think about it, old man>
'Twould be pretty funny... <heh. for about three seconds>
That would be 3 seconds of laughter. Don't laugh at it. Er, sneer. <*sneer*>

So, yeah. The limitations of the Character Creation interface has put a big damper on things. But not stopped them cold ;-)

The fact that you can dance around in Yuanti or Wemic shape demonstrates that, eh?

<...in the wiggle-room left by others>

Legacy_Carcerian · « **Reply #5 on:** May 13, 2012, 03:11:46 am »

Actually it depends on the tail, a few are .PLT based, so do actually conform to your skin color...

In toolset use the | key (shift+\\) to browse tails in CEP quickly. You should see Lizard and Devil Tails appended by ",skincolors". These will match your skin color correctly ingame, even if they look pure white in toolset...

(from CEP's tailmodel.2da)

608 "|Tail: Lizard, SkinColors" c_t_liz_plt ****
609 "|Tail: Devil, SkinColors" c_t_devil_plt ****

In theory making other tails into Skintone PLTs woulnt be impossible with a bit of texture-to-plt work and minor mdl hacking... (theres a really good tutorial on mixing armor tgas and skin plt's by Old Time Radio, it might work here too)

As far as proper subrace support goes, you have several options, from the basic simple systems (you want one with onenter, onrest, and ondeath/onrespawn support, at least for most races), to more complex (and powerfull) systems like Shayans Subrace Engine (currently SSE 3.0.6.9 b13) or the PRC's subraces (PRC v3.3G). It all depends on how fancy you want to get, what you want to require of your players in way of haks, and how much scripting you feel comfortable with...

Though a bit out of date, this NwVault Entry might make some intresting reading on the topic: CEP 2.0 Races Brownie/Wemic

                     ModifiÃ© par Carcerian, 13 mai 2012 - 02:54 .

Legacy_Armaerafaen · « **Reply #6 on:** May 13, 2012, 03:44:19 am »

Wow... Well, thanks for all of the input on the races- I can see I have *quite* a bit of reading to do '<img

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A quick question- do (or can) any of the haks load for the base game? Or is that purely something that is loaded when you start a mod that specifically calls for them?

I'm wondering if I don't see the tails changing color because I'm testing them by starting a new basic NWN campaign.

edit: In terms of what I can have the players use... At the moment the goal is to come up with something my wife and I and our mutual friend can play as a three-player romp. I hadn't touched NWN for almost ten years, until our friend told me how much fun she'd had playing it a bit ago, and I decided to dust it off and see what sort of additions and upgrades the community had added. The answer to that was "a LOT", and so now here I am trying to figure out how to let them have colorable tails and wings and oh my goodness so MUCH is possible now that I'd never realized before.... '<img

'>

But I have complete control over two of the machines being used, and a nice fat internet pipe to just shovel our entire hak and/or override folder over to the third player.

                     ModifiÃ© par Armaerafaen, 13 mai 2012 - 02:59 .

Legacy_Carcerian · « **Reply #7 on:** May 13, 2012, 04:01:12 am »

Haks (including CEP) are only used by modules that specify them. The only case were bioware ever used haks was for premium modules. If you want to modify tails for standard campaigns, you would need an override version requiring a modified tailmodel.2da, the new models, and their DDS/TGA/plt textures. (and in fact i did exatly that recently to test a new tail model i made). The problem there is only you will see it clientside, at others either wont see it, or quite possibly, they will see a horse or other creature riding on your back '<img

'>

Also note, the community patch is interesting work, and while I have nothing but respect for the intent it's creator(s), it has been known to cause problems, such as crashing online play, and making other mods buggy to non-functional. Use at your own risk. Technicly some servers might view it as cheating as well. (Nothing personal against the patch, but playing modded nwn online were its not expected is probably not going to make most dms and admin happy if discovered. )

Finally, despite its name, it's NOT the same as the community patches for pervious bioware-esque games such as Baldur's Gate, Torment, Fallout and Arcanum. The main difference being those ones document all changes, and ask you if you want to do each modification inviidualy, something much more problematic in nwn. No fault of Shadow's, its just nwn its a totally different creature than its ancestors, (recyceld art assets aside) and modding it is simply totally different in nearly all cases.

                     ModifiÃ© par Carcerian, 13 mai 2012 - 03:27 .

Legacy_Carcerian · « **Reply #8 on:** May 13, 2012, 04:29:00 am »

Armaerafaen wrote...

Wow... Well, thanks for all of the input on the races- I can see I have *quite* a bit of reading to do '>

A quick question- do (or can) any of the haks load for the base game? Or is that purely something that is loaded when you start a mod that specifically calls for them?

I'm wondering if I don't see the tails changing color because I'm testing them by starting a new basic NWN campaign.

edit: In terms of what I can have the players use... At the moment the goal is to come up with something my wife and I and our mutual friend can play as a three-player romp. I hadn't touched NWN for almost ten years, until our friend told me how much fun she'd had playing it a bit ago, and I decided to dust it off and see what sort of additions and upgrades the community had added. The answer to that was "a LOT", and so now here I am trying to figure out how to let them have colorable tails and wings and oh my goodness so MUCH is possible now that I'd never realized before.... '>

But I have complete control over two of the machines being used, and a nice fat internet pipe to just shovel our entire hak and/or override folder over to the third player.

In that case, you ARE the server, admin and dev, so the sky is the limit '<img

'>

Check out the shayan demo module for starters, its a mini-world with several competing race groups (feel free to use as a base)...

My home server is based off of it, + CEP24 and d20 modern (plus my own set of eqully large haks)

My advice is use haks for everythign you can, as they help keep things in order, only use override for what u must, such as GUI gfx mods, and certian 2da mods like custom domains, one handed spears etc (and actually the 2das need to be both client and server in most cases).

Incase you havent heard it 1000 times already, be carefull what you put in your override as it affects online play and singleplay as well...

                     ModifiÃ© par Carcerian, 13 mai 2012 - 03:36 .

Legacy_Armaerafaen · « **Reply #9 on:** May 13, 2012, 04:36:04 am »

               Thank you- that's very good to know. I'll make sure to set everyone up using overrides, as (at least so far) we're planning to play the original content. I think I've seen some instructions on how to unpack haks- am I right in thinking that if I unpack a hak and place its contents in the overrides, that they'll function appropriately?

Also, is it possible to put a folder tree in the overrides folder, to make my organization easer? I'm coming from modding my wife's sims 3, where her mod tree is something like 4 levels deep in some places. If I could do that for NWN it'd make my life much easier.

Legacy_Carcerian · « **Reply #10 on:** May 13, 2012, 04:41:53 am »

Armaerafaen wrote...

Thank you- that's very good to know. I'll make sure to set everyone up using overrides, as (at least so far) we're planning to play the original content. I think I've seen some instructions on how to unpack haks- am I right in thinking that if I unpack a hak and place its contents in the overrides, that they'll function appropriately?

Also, is it possible to put a folder tree in the overrides folder, to make my organization easer? I'm coming from modding my wife's sims 3, where her mod tree is something like 4 levels deep in some places. If I could do that for NWN it'd make my life much easier.

Yup thats how it works. In fact many devs use overide to quickly test thier workls in progress, as putting stuff into a hak is an extra time eating step. Be carefull, as older 2das can omit newer content (esp 169 stuff). double check the 2das in nwn source folder, and extract 2das form the CEP top hak if needed...

Only what is in your actual override will affect the game. Any content in subfolders will be ignored.

The first place id start reading is Custom Content Mechanics - A Tutorial by Axe as he breaks it down fairly well...

                     ModifiÃ© par Carcerian, 13 mai 2012 - 03:44 .

Legacy_Carcerian · « **Reply #11 on:** May 13, 2012, 04:48:21 am »

To open haks/erfs/mods quickly for unpacking, you can associate their file types with C:\\NeverwinterNights\\NWN\\utils\\nwhak.exe. Is a great timesaver.

NWN Explorer (I use reborn ver) is also a great asset browser/extraction tool that works on both haks and core bioware files.

A fairly harmless example of a override mod you can test is fonts (just make sure "use high res" is turned off in options unless its specificly a high res font...)

30 Multi-Themed Fonts for NWN
12 Fantasy, Modern and Future Themed NWN Fonts
Baldur's Gate Font

(a few i made '<img

'>)

Also very nice to have are Icon upgrades:

Immunity Icons

Emote Icons for NWN 1.69

or even Complete GUI Alterations Package (Transparent and Colorized)

(Or just peruse the complete works of Amethyst Dragon, a most colorfull dev, look esp in "other" and "textures")

Legacy_Armaerafaen · « **Reply #12 on:** May 13, 2012, 05:59:55 am »

You know, you are *incredibly* helpful '<img

'>

Pity about no subfolders, but them's the breaks, I guess.

I added in the complete GUI package, and my WORD is it nice looking. I haven't checked them with my spellcaster, where I'm sure it makes the most difference, but yeah. I heartily approve of no more tan-on-tan-on-tan....

Unpacking the tails and wings from Lisa's pack did indeed replace the ones in game, though I wonder if there might not be better models in the CEP, which seems to be newer. This is interesting... I see what you mean about the haks being better for organizing. I had a brief moment of thinking "gosh, we could just unpack everything in... the... CEP...." and then I realized how much of a mess that would make of, well, everything.

Is it possible to take the whole storyline from the vanilla game and treat it as if it were a module, so that I could tell it to load the various hakpaks first? Or rather, I bet that's an idea someone's already had before me- has that been done before? And if not, why was it a bad idea? '<img

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Legacy_Carcerian · « **Reply #13 on:** May 13, 2012, 06:49:53 am »

It would be a learning experience '<img

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Keep in mind, most mods are designed for NWN + SoU + HotU + 169 (aka XP3)

Adding override mods then going and playing chapter 1 can of course have unforseen results (say somones spawning undead mod that happened to make npc guards wander off, heh).

Remember, lots of stuff wont be supported, or could get broken or mutated, etc...

Many features we take for granted were added much later than Original nwn (cloaks wings tails item property manipulation, all but 4 prestige classes, epicness, etc...) and thus support by bioware was added in patches..

Legacy_Carcerian · « **Reply #14 on:** May 13, 2012, 06:50:55 am »

And dont be afraid to play around with the dm client, its an incredible tool, one that makes nwn unique '<img

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Author Topic: Wing/Tail colors/textures (Read 767 times)

Legacy_Armaerafaen

Wing/Tail colors/textures

Legacy_Rolo Kipp

Wing/Tail colors/textures

Legacy_Failed.Bard

Wing/Tail colors/textures

Legacy_Lightfoot8

Wing/Tail colors/textures

Legacy_Rolo Kipp

Wing/Tail colors/textures

Legacy_Carcerian

Wing/Tail colors/textures

Legacy_Armaerafaen

Wing/Tail colors/textures

Legacy_Carcerian

Wing/Tail colors/textures

Legacy_Carcerian

Wing/Tail colors/textures

Legacy_Armaerafaen

Wing/Tail colors/textures

Legacy_Carcerian

Wing/Tail colors/textures

Legacy_Carcerian

Wing/Tail colors/textures

Legacy_Armaerafaen

Wing/Tail colors/textures

Legacy_Carcerian

Wing/Tail colors/textures

Legacy_Carcerian

Wing/Tail colors/textures