Changing a critters appearance - how? I have the graphics.

L

lujo

Look, Ma! Two Heads!
I've read about people using the coloured brotherhood armors to change the appearance of NRC guards, and I liked the idea and wanted to see how it looks and feels in game. So I found and downloaded the whole package (black, blue, brown, red, jumpsuits, everything), a batch file renamer and... now after a few hours wasted digging through the files, the web and the NMA forums I still have no idea how to put any of it into the game.

Since I've somehow also started making (terrible) missing tribal animations, I'd love to also be able to see them in game if I ever finish them XD


Also, I'm curious what the game looks and feels like with color coded combat armors on certain things instead of the goofy stuff and the compromises. If anyone teaches me how to add this, and it can be easily shared, I promise to put a nice tasteful bundle for anyone's enjoyment. I'm thinking grey jumpsuits for hubologists, blue combat armor for vault city patrols (and guards if I figure out how to do it), more sensible desert/brown combat armors on NCR cops, and black on the raiders. No stats changing just graphics, if anyone wants. I'm mostly curious.
 
I've done it by renaming the critters to coincide with the names of their other animations. For example: I incorporated the punk girl animations that were made so that particular critter in encounters can use different weapons besides the SMG and melee one it usually had. Of course, you have to change all of that on the world map to equip them with such (gave them rifles, etc.) The problem is you have to individually rename each file and that can get a little tedious, since there usually is quite a few of them. If there was an easier way to do that, I'd also sure like to know.
 
CPL said:
I've done it by renaming the critters to coincide with the names of their other animations. For example: I incorporated the punk girl animations that were made so that particular critter in encounters can use different weapons besides the SMG and melee one it usually had. Of course, you have to change all of that on the world map to equip them with such (gave them rifles, etc.) The problem is you have to individually rename each file and that can get a little tedious, since there usually is quite a few of them. If there was an easier way to do that, I'd also sure like to know.
Click to expand...

Well, that's actually easy. I downloaded this thing here http://www.advancedrenamer.com/ (googled it, lol) and batch renamed stuff easily ^^

The naming format for the FRM's is XX YYYY ZZ, where XX marks male, female, hero, neutral and evil (I think), and the zz is the list of animations which have to check out somewhere, and the YYYY is the name of the critter (or ID or something). What you do is simply tell the advanced renamer to change the YYYY part into what you want it to be. So I guess that's one way of mass changing stuff.

So I guess that I could maybe turn the NCR cops into desert colored combat armor dudes, which would make some sense I suppose. Or blue ones, but I'd want something else with the blue ones.

But I can't do that for say, NCR rangers, VC patrols or the Raiders in Combat Armor because they all reference the HMCMBT?? or HFCMBT?? which are male and female hero combat armor sets respectively. What I need to do is change the protos with a hex editor or something and make those guys chose other stuff. Or something, but I'm not particularly sure what and I sure hope someone knows.

I'm actually staring down a Hex editor untill it makes sense (never seen one in my life before), and what I got out of it might allow me to change the VC patrols into blue armored dudes that way. What I figure here is that whatever I do I might have to repack critter.dat and I wonder what happens with the compatibility then.

Or do I just hex-edit the protos to reference something else?

I'm not really looking to change gameplay or anything, just make a nice graphics combination for RP / Economy Rebalance users to treat themselves to as a side dish. And kinda to see what it looks like.

So, err, the very useful PRO file format wiki entry told me that the 0X0008 AABBCCCC seems to say which line (-1?) in the critter.lst in critter.dat is where the first frame is supposed to be for a critter (87 for the NCR Cops).

How do I add to that list? Make a new list? What do I do? XD

Cmon' ppl, Miria has a suit or Red Combat armor she'd love to try :)
 
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First add new FRMs to ROOT\DATA\ART\CRITTERS\CRITTERS.LST, i.e.:

Code: 
NABRWN,11
NMDOCC,11
MADEGG,58    // default list ends here
RESERV,11    // new shit starts from here (RESERV to keep the list order if we want add something later on, before what we added after it)
RESERV,11
RESERV,11
NMBMAX,11   // 'proper' addition start here
NMBMET,11
NMMAX2,11
NMLTH1,11

and then:

- edit protos (in Mapper, for example) - you'll have to re-save maps to see the changes,
- try to use Fallout 2 exclusive (?) set_art_fid (or something) metarule to override look of the critter via script,
- people were talking that sfall has some functions to deal with protos too,
- you can probably edit map files as well (either text, or hex) - in Fallout some critters have different look than their protos (see Khans) - kinda non-script equivalent of set_art_fid (or something) metarule.


----------------- EDIT

Re-saving the map is required if this map contains protos you edited.


----------------- EDIT2

If you edited critter's look (proto), I think you'll have to remove critter from map, and then add it once again - its art fid will be not updated even if you re-saved the map.
 
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Allright thanks to @Continuum and @Endocore s tips, I managed to get all the models into the mapper, which is nice. I also managed, somehow, to set up the mapper (somewhat) and I managed to create text files in the "dev" directory for NCR guards in Brown Combat armor and Vault City parolmen in blue ones. Just an experiment.

Now I need to get mapper not to crash on every other map I try to open (HELP! :_( ), and then find all the critters I'd like to get the new fid (right?) replaced on, which includes copying the inventory and attaching the right scripts to them, I suppose, and then... Rename the txt files into .pro files and save the maps. Then package the critter.lst and all the arts in one folder, maps in one folder and txt files in one folder, and then I guess that's it, right?

And if someone confirms (and throws a few mapper setup tips my way), before I start replacing stuff, I and whoever wants to give his oppinion have to decide who gets what. Not that much to work with, thb, and loads of people in combat armors or people I'd like to replace with combat armors. We got:

- The NCR cops, who always looked silly and immersion breaking to me
- The NCR rangers, who are easy to tell apart from the cops due to combat armor now, but would have to be different color
- The vault city patrolmen and guards (who I'd want in blue, personaly, to match the vault suits and be really impractical)
- The raiders mercenary captains who I'd like to see in black
- The bounty hunters, who I could see in red, lol
- Miria from miria for real who's gonna be in red (in part to help tell her apart from my usual female chosen ones)
- Hubologist guards
- Navarro Guards (I could also see them remain in green, but also in black)


And what we have are Red, Blue, Green, Black and supposedly two different hues of Brown/Desert colored, which kinda both look... well, brown, to me.


Just to be clear - no items added to the game, this is purely a cosmetic refreshment / "realism" / faction flavour mod for my personal enjoyment which is apparently not that easy to make because of all the map editing needed, so I'll put it up for anyone who'd like to touch up his next playthrough. Plus, I never liked the cop model, green armor is more doom than wasteland rangers to me, and all the spiked metal armor was always too much wasteland raider / slaver / caravneer flavor for VC for me.

Ohhh, I could also probably set caravn guards in color coded armors for VC, NCR and NR caravans, at least some of them, that could also be fun :)

Oh, and I have to make sure the map edits are RP and Economy Rebalance and Miria for real compatible, wouldn't want to screw myself or anyone out of those :)
 
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As for the crash for opening maps, try checking "art_cache_size" in mapper2.cfg, see if its value is too low (setting it to 256 should be enough).
phobos2077 got a similar issue few days ago.
 
NovaRain said:
As for the crash for opening maps, try checking "art_cache_size" in mapper2.cfg, see if its value is too low (setting it to 256 should be enough).
phobos2077 got a similar issue few days ago.
Click to expand...

Nice call, turned out it was but I've been an idiot who hasn't copied all I was supposed to into the folder which reads patch data so anything involving RP and other stuff wasn't getting updated. Durrrr.

Anywho, I managed to turn the NCR gate guard brown. In game too ^^ And adjusted his inventory (wow is the inventory system in the mapper a pain or what?)

And attached the proper script to him. Now I'm not sure I've sucesfully edited the protos - I've got new text files which look like protos in the dev folder, but I don't know how to turn them into actual protos. Also, I'm not sure if random encounter critters need to be edited on a map or just need their protos edited.

If I figure those two out I can totaly do this. :)



Also, found some RP bugs / gameflow fixes material, if I get a hang of this, might actually do those too. The slaver camp map needs a tweak to the shelves, there needs to be a script on them which makes the slavers tell you not to touch them, and I think that has to be placed through the mapper, might as well, try to do it see if it works, and add it to the fixes (otherwise you can get there from the den even in the current vanilla RP and get a motion tracker way too early).
 
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And one more question - how do I cange a critters name in the mapper? I can recreate a NCR policeman completely in brown combat armor except for that part, as both use the "NCR Guard" model, and when I place a new onde down, it's name is NCR Guard.
 
@ "dev" folder

It saves human readable version of proto, each time you edit it - internal purpose only. "Real", binary proto is created/modified in ROOT\DATA\PROTO dir - use only it. If you're creating new proto, it will be automatically added to ROOT\DATA\PROTO\*TYPE*\*TYPE*.LST of your Mapper installation. Also, don't mess with LSTs - game uses list order - break something in the middle, and everything behind it will get broken.


@ inventory "system"

There are only options: add something, or remove everything. There's a workaround if you want to remove one item/amount:

- select critter on map,
- use "Edit" critter option,
- click "View inventory list",
- drop any item, or given amount (like in normal game),
- deselect the critter (to avoid deletion),
- either hide all critters (to use delete cursor), or switch to "item" mode to select, and delete item which has been dropped.


@ random encounters

Those are created on the fly, on engine/script demand - it pulls all data from proto (including art fid) thus editing proto only is enough to see any changes. The same goes for create_object_sid function used anywhere in the game. In other words: if critter isn't placed on the map by default, you don't have to edit the map.


@ name of the critter

There's an option in Mapper to change the name (never used it though). But I think it only changes PRO_CRIT.MSG that contains names, as well as the descriptions of all critters' protos. This MSG is used by the engine when not overridden in look_at_p_proc, or description_p_proc by script - if overridden it takes name from script's MSG.
 
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Continuum said:
@ inventory "system"

There are only options: add something, or remove everything. There's a workaround if you want to remove one item/amount:

- select critter on map,
- use "Edit" critter option,
- click "View inventory list",
- drop any item, or given amount (like in normal game),
- deselect the critter (to avoid deletion),
- either hide all critters (to use delete cursor), or switch to "item" mode to select, and delete item which has been dropped.
Click to expand...

Why such difficulties? You can just move item(s) you want to remove from critter inventory to dude inventory (like stealing). Dude inventory obviously not saved anywhere.
 
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