Marvel Multiverse according to...DEATH?

[DEATH]

All right True Believers,

I have been following the progress of Benton Grey's DC mod, and it looked to me like an incredibly cool idea.  All those characters as built-ins, ready to go.  Aaahhh...the possibilities!  At any rate, it occured to me that perhaps I could turn my Marvel fixation into a way to give something back to the community that has given me so much (not like you've cured me of cancer, but it's gotta be hundreds of hours of gameplay).

Having said that, I also know my own limitations: I travel a lot for work, there are lots of Marvel characters I don't know that well, and I have a predilection for the 70's to early 90's period during which I was very actively reading the books.

Nevertheless, would there be interest in this in the community at large?  Would there be anyone interested in helping out on such an endeavour (and is that a dangerous question?)?

DEATH

[BentonGrey]

Howdy Death...ha, it's funny, but I was actually planning on doing the Marvel Universe according to Grey MANY many many moons from now, when I had finished my first project.  Ha, you're doing it would save me having to ^_^.  I'd certainly be happy to help in a very limited capacity ;)

[DEATH]

Hi Benton,

Probably the biggest thing would be any advice you could give...what to do, what not to do, that sort of thing.

DEATH

[BentonGrey]

Well, I assume that this is for FF2?  In that case, I'd wait to start on it until the FFX 3.2 gold comes out, it will make things easier on you, as you won't have to try and merge things.  Secondly, I'd create a custom_characters folder in the same directory that your FF1 hero files follow (if you are going to be using them as your blueprint), and put all of your meshes in there. 

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

gold should not be significantly different from the current Beta.  We're working on it now, and the changes are minor at best.

[BentonGrey]

In that case, forget what I said ;)

[kkhohoho]

I think that this would be great for the community.  Many members seem to like Marvel's older days better then what the're doing now.  For example, many think that Tony Stark is now a bad guy, and they also have gotten information on the subject of Cap's coming death.  Many members of the community would be able to help create the mod's continuity, and make it the way they want it to be.

[Lunarman]

indeed. I like the continuality that they used in MUA. I didn't know Tony Stark had gone evil though? Iron man should always be a good guy :)

[kkhohoho]

indeed. I like the continuality that they used in MUA. I didn't know Tony Stark had gone evil though? Iron man should always be a good guy :)

If you read Civil War, you would be one of the many here at FR that think Tony is now a bad guy.

[quiet]

I actually have started with some marvel built-ins, so Im all for this project.  I think the best way to portray the heroes and villians when translating them is to put them in iconic light.  There is too much history and the characters change at the whim of writers too often.  I would just refer to someone like ironman as an billionare industrialist, who created a high tech armor and is a member of the avengers.  if you use the ironman from civil war mini series, most people would see him as a villain, but if you asked someone to describe ironman they would probably say he is a hero.  On the same note, juggernaut and saberetooth should never be associated with any hero team they would always be villains to most people.

[FLASH_22798]

Like with Benton's DC project, anything I have done as far as skin, hex, NifSkope, etc., is available if needed for use.   Also, I know my time is limited, but if you post needed characters in the requests forums like Benton does, I'll help out whenever I can.   I grew up with Marvel in the 80's and 90's, so those are the characters that are "real" for me, not as they are now.   So I'd love to see this project get going.

[BentonGrey]

If it were me, I'd actually set it back in the FF timeframe, the 60's and 70's or so, and I'd use 'The Marvels' as my reference for the feel and history of the characters, since it really serves to unify the Marvelverse.

[DEATH]

I think I'm gonna go with the 80's timeframe; it's what I know best, and seems fairly iconic to me.  I do, however, reserve the right to change my mind.  I already have the FFX beta, so I guess I'll get started using that.  Benton, did you copy your FFX folder and work from there?  Did you delete all the extraneous stuff from other characters?

Also, is Benton's DC Mod (beta) currently available from Cat's site?  I'd like to look over some of what you've done as far as how characters are represented (I'm always interested in seeing how others do this)...

DEATH

[BentonGrey]

Yeah, well then that's what you should do :).  I basically just used my FFX3 folder, because sometimes FFXEdit does weird things when you point it at another folder.  So I would copy and rename your FFX folder, so you have an original back-up, then work out of the FFX3 folder.  The first thing I did was append all of the hero files for the characters I was using to the .Dat, then I deleted all of FF heroes and villains, but NOT the minions.  It made it a little easier to test, since they can serve as something of a baseline of generic minion types.  I havent' deleted any FF powers yet....although I may eventually.  As far as my alpha, well it's not available yet, I assume that Cat is still working on packaging it up.  Once it is ready, he'll send me PM, and I'll send the link to all of the testers.  I'll send it to you as well, if you like.

[DEATH]

Hi Benton,

Yeah, that'd be great.  I really appreciate the help.

DEATH

[BentonGrey]

No problem at all Death, I imagine I'll let you do all the hard work, and then I can customize my own version from yours when it's released.  Haha, that way I can have what I want, and the community won't have to wait ten years for me to get to the Marvel U as well!  Haha, everyone wins :D

[DEATH]

Benton, my friend, I like the way you think!

:)

DEATH

[DEATH]

Soooo...I've started work on the mod, and one of the first things that occured to me is that if I'm going to release this, how will all the directory specifications work?

What do I mean?

I have the game currently installed on my drive I:\, which I have dedicated to FF and FFvTTR.  I'm trying keep everything (including custom meshes) in the directory for this mod.  Hence, all the specs for nif locations will refer to drive I:\.  How is this handled when the mod is passed on to someone else?  There is, seemingly, a way of dealing with this, as one can install mods like EZFX and FFX to some drive other than C:\ with no difficulties, and they include a few custom meshes...

DEATH 

[Blitzgott]

I have the game currently installed on my drive I:\, which I have dedicated to FF and FFvTTR.  I'm trying keep everything (including custom meshes) in the directory for this mod.  Hence, all the specs for nif locations will refer to drive I:\.  How is this handled when the mod is passed on to someone else?  There is, seemingly, a way of dealing with this, as one can install mods like EZFX and FFX to some drive other than C:\ with no difficulties, and they include a few custom meshes...

You could ask catwhowalksbyhimself to teach you how to do it. He is doing it to BentonGrey's mod.

[DEATH]

I thought it might be good to get the response on the forums.  I suspect that with the release of FFX 3.2 and EZScript, more and more people will want to try their hand at modmaking.  If there is anything that needs to be taken into consideration at the outset, best to know about it.

DEATH

[BentonGrey]

Yes, and BentonGrey should have been bright enough to do it himself, but didn't think about it :huh:.  Haha, I'm sure Cat could help you.

[TaskMasterX]

This is a great idea. I did something similar for :ff: a while back, called Custom_AI. What I was aiming for was, since custom characters won't use special powers, like Teleportation, Sprinting, Invisibility, etc., I made about 50 characters from Marvel and DC as built-ins and created AI scripts to allow them to use these powers and also to make them behave as they should (like making Hawkeye stay at a distance and fire his arrows). I'd be willing to help in a limited way(I'd be interested in helping make the AI scripts for your characters) and you (and BentonGrey for his DCUG) can use anything you'd like from Custom_AI.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I have the game currently installed on my drive I:\, which I have dedicated to FF and FFvTTR.  I'm trying keep everything (including custom meshes) in the directory for this mod.  Hence, all the specs for nif locations will refer to drive I:\.  How is this handled when the mod is passed on to someone else?  There is, seemingly, a way of dealing with this, as one can install mods like EZFX and FFX to some drive other than C:\ with no difficulties, and they include a few custom meshes...

Simple.  The mod information for meshes and stuff does not store the absolute location of the data, just the relative location.

In other words, whatever folder the mod resides it, the game will look there for the art folder, and so on.  It doesn't matter what drive the game itself is installed, any mod will work as long as its placed inside the main FF directory and doesn't have specific information in the files.

That being said, when setting up your templates, make sure you are doing them the way that the default campaign does.  If you select the file button and select the mesh, that can cause problems.  Select the mesh that way, then delete everything before the word "library"

[DEATH]

Cat,

     Awesome!  Thanks.


TaskmasterX,

     Yeah, I used your customizations way back in the day.  Thanks for the hard work.  Speaking of AI for  :ffvstr: , is there a way to get the built-ins to use M25's AI?  I've been using this for my hero files, and, in my humble opinion, it rocks!  Plus it also means I'd be able to largely generate the AI files myself.

DEATH

[M25]

Built-ins can and do use the AI.  Run them through the AI generator and you will find their AI definitions in

<yourmodhere>/Missions/Scripts/m25aidata.py



The AI generator gives a generic best guess result, but you may want to tinker with the AI definitions to get behavior that is more appropriate to a specific character.

[DEATH]

M25,

     Cool, thanks.  Yeah, I've customised the AI your mod generates on Hero files, I'd just never run it on built-ins.  Never had a reason to, until now.

DEATH

[BentonGrey]

Bah, something else I'm going to have to do :P

[DEATH]

Benton,

     Whups!  Guess I just made your to-do list longer, eh?  Sorry about that...

DEATH

[jocke32]

any news on the mod ?

[BentonGrey]

I certainly hope there is, this way I don't have to keep doing these mods until I'm old and gray.....well.......you know, that OTHER kind of gray.....