More helmets, no heads

[Legacy_Mavrixio]

               Why dont we make only helmets instead of heads?

- Helmets are automatically resized and so one model can be use by all races and gender.

- Helmets are unlimited (there's no limit on base items) while we are limited to 255 heads per race and gender.

Anyone is up to make / convert heads to helmets?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

Mavrixio wrote...
- Helmets are unlimited (there's no limit on base items) while we are limited to 255 heads per race and gender

Sounds interesting.  Are you basically suggesting  making multiple new helmet base item types, each with 254/255 helmets in them?  Have you been able to test this out yourself with one or more new helmet base item types?  Any oddness?

 I was under the impression that when picking up unidentified items in row 256 or greater in baseitems.2da, the strref would erroneously report the string from row minus 255 or something like that..   Tdonaldio posted a thread about this several years ago (Omnibus: "Bad strref on Unidentified Items") and then it was revisited in a fashion last year. 

That doesn't invalidate your idea in any way, it just seemed a peccadillo worth bringing up if I understand what you're getting at.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 12 juin 2012 - 04:40 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               Hmmm...not a bad idea at all!  Instead of heads as heads, heads as helmets (if I am understanding this correctly).

Has this been tried already?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Failed.Bard]

               A quick test just now shows that it works, it took all of a minute to convert that demilich head to a helmet.  The issue I ran into is that the transparencies from the plt became shinyness, and I don't know enough about that part of it to know what setting to change to fix it.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

Failed.Bard wrote...
A quick test just now shows that it works, it took all of a minute to convert that demilich head to a helmet.  The issue I ran into is that the transparencies from the plt became shinyness, and I don't know enough about that part of it to know what setting to change to fix it.

I'll bet that's because the player model, itself, has an environment map applied.  Here's a very quick test to see if that's the case: Extract a copy of appearance.2da and put it in your override directory.  Then, for whatever race you're testing with, edit that row's ENVMAP column information, changing it from "default" to "****".

Does that change things back to transparent in game?

My coffee is still brewing so I might be wrong, but I think this is more an artifact of the item you chose to test, rather than the method itself.  Maybe I'm missing the mark on that. (?)
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Failed.Bard]

               

OldTimeRadio wrote...

Failed.Bard wrote...
A quick test just now shows that it works, it took all of a minute to convert that demilich head to a helmet.  The issue I ran into is that the transparencies from the plt became shinyness, and I don't know enough about that part of it to know what setting to change to fix it.

I'll bet that's because the player model, itself, has an environment map applied.  Here's a very quick test to see if that's the case: Extract a copy of appearance.2da and put it in your override directory.  Then, for whatever race you're testing with, edit that row's ENVMAP column information, changing it from "default" to "****".

Does that change things back to transparent in game?

My coffee is still brewing so I might be wrong, but I think this is more an artifact of the item you chose to test, rather than the method itself.  Maybe I'm missing the mark on that. (?)

  Worse, it looks like it was just a typo when I renamed it, and it was still using the default shiny texture from the helm I replaced.  It's displaying the model properly now, but I can't get it to recognize the plt.
  Any idea if helmets are even able to use the skin, hair, and tattoo channels? 

Edit:  I tested with the plt swapped to cloth 1, leather 1, and metal 1&2, and it displayed, so the plt is being recognized, but maybe those channels on helm just aren't.  Sadly, that's it for time for me for testing today though.  I'll maybe play with it a bit more tomorrow if nobody figures that part out between.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Failed.Bard, 12 juin 2012 - 02:48 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               Aw geeze, sorry I just realized the thing you probably would have wanted to edit in this case would probably have been the baseitems.2da, line 17 (presuming you're using the helm line), changing the Part1EnvMap column info in that row from "1" to "0" (or possibly "***").  That may be neither here nor there, but I wanted to correct (hopefully, LOL) my error.

The oracle of the Omnibus seems to imply that only leather, cloth and metal layers (1&2) are used.  I haven't fiddled with this myself, though.  (Omnibus: "helm* plt hair" brings up a couple threads indicating this).  I'm not sure how much of a pain in the butt it would be to move those layers around.  In situations where one is attempting to convert a non-PLT item (i.e. a TGA-textured monster head, for instance), this method should work.  I use the technique for all kinds of things where some of NWN's texture hardcoding might get in the way and it's never let me down yet.

Edit: Thanks for testing this out, F.B!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 12 juin 2012 - 02:56 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <dividing his...>

Mavrixio wrote...
Why dont we make only helmets instead of heads?

- Helmets are automatically resized and so one model can be use by all races and gender.
- Helmets are unlimited (there's no limit on base items) while we are limited to 255 heads per race and gender.

Anyone is up to make / convert heads to helmets?

Other than as an exercise to practice CC skills, I think this is a dead end for the following reasons:

• Head-helms take up the helmet slot - very big objection.
• defining an unlimited number of heads doesn't mean much if they are already defined (modeled). IMO, most head hak packs don't really run into the 255 head limit. The *need* is not there for the effort.
• Keeping heads seperate from helms will allow the use of a far more customizable head/VFX combination. A reference head with a dozen hair combos, a dozen scar combos, a dozen jewelry/pipe/accessory combos would yield literally thousands of combinations with far less work than single-model head-helms.
• Helmet restrictions with PLT (as noted above) do not apply to heads, and having more texturing options by using the "layered" approach will be far richer in the long run.

On the other hand, I will *never* try to discourage creativity :-)

<...attention>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy__six]

               Not to make the silly lack-of-CC-knowledge comment but...

Couldn't I then unequip my head?

And not to get into the problem with heads no longer being gender or race dependant. The difference between a dwarf and a human is more than just a universal scaling.

Disclaimer: I've scripted around things like this, ie to force-attach an item of equipment onto a player before as a curse, and whilst its possible it does have a habit of messing up the inventory UI. But feel free to do something cool and prove it's actually a good idea. I like being proved wrong.


               
               

               

                     Modifié par _six, 12 juin 2012 - 09:17 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Six, that sounds like a point in favor as long as you successfully select Hans Delbrook's (egad  ... I mean Delbrück) head instead of Abby Normal's.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 12 juin 2012 - 09:17 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy__six]

               Aha! Caught you out by editing my comment before you posted to remove the point you're replying '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Mavrixio]

               

Rolo Kipp wrote...

• Head-helms take up the helmet slot - very big objection.

There's a lot of scripting workaround to seemlessly let players equip the helmet that they want, while keeping the the same helmet/head appearance

Rolo Kipp wrote... 

• defining an unlimited number of heads doesn't mean much if they are already defined (modeled). IMO, most head hak packs don't really run into the 255 head limit. The *need* is not there for the effort.

We are reaching 255 heads and I have seen other persistent world close to that nubmer too.
Many PW are far from it, other's dont use custom heads at all, but then shouln't we focus on PW that use CC the most ? '>

Rolo Kipp wrote... 

• Keeping heads seperate from helms will allow the use of a far more customizable head/VFX combination. A reference head with a dozen hair combos, a dozen scar combos, a dozen jewelry/pipe/accessory

 
Visual effects can as much be apply on helmets than heads.

Rolo Kipp wrote...  

• combos would yield literally thousands of combinations with far less work than single-model head-helms.

Not sure to understand that one

Rolo Kipp wrote...   

• Helmet restrictions with PLT (as noted above) do not apply to heads, and having more texturing options by using the "layered" approach will be far richer in the long run.

Yes, and thats the only problem that I found. Although it is also an advantage... Helmets have 6 color channels while heads have 4. It will just be a matter of changing the cloth/leather colors to match the skin, hair and tatoo.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy__six]

               

Mavrixio wrote...

It will just be a matter of changing the cloth/leather colors to match the skin, hair and tatoo.

Which since the pallettes are universal will require armour to be remade too, unless you're planning to put the skin and hair colours in locations not commonly used.

Edit: As an aside in sort of reply to Failed Bard, when we were adding masks to Q I experimented with creating a new item type to see if I could use the envmap columns in baseitems.2da to make a second helm item type that supported transparency. Turns out that ingame helms only use the baseitems.2da listed envmap (or lack thereof) when lying on the floor. Equipped, they take the line from appearance.2da. And editing appearance.2da to remove all shinyness in favour of transparency really would require a significant rework of the pallette and everything that uses it (one that Ryuujin was in favour of but never did more than a robe or two to test).

I personally think sacrificing envmaps in favour of transparency to allow for alpha'd hair, lace trims etc is a great but thoroughly impractical idea. But since this whole head-helms discussion seems like it'll take a significant amount of work to implement properly, it'd be nice if anyone comitted to the project had a look at that topic too.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par _six, 13 juin 2012 - 01:07 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Estelindis]

               For the record (um, hi everyone!), I have experimented with this a fair bit and my main problem centred around the palette.  As you've noticed, helms don't automatically grab the base skin tone of their wearers.  The solution for me has been to create a widely-expanded palette for all colours, in which some skin colours have been added as a few rows and some hair colours as another few rows.  I haven't yet explored just how far this could go...  All colours in all palettes, anyone?  (I don't actually know how large a palette NWN will accept without breaking.)  In any case, a script to automatically swap the head-helm's colours would work very easily for PCs, but not, I think for henchies.  They dont' have an OnEquip, do they?  Also, may I assume that expanded character generation would have to be added at the start of the module, so the person can choose their proper head from the helms' wider selection?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Estelindis, 13 juin 2012 - 01:17 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <making big eyes...>

Este!

<...and a bigger grin>