Greetings.
I'm planning out my process for mod creation. Poking around some existing mods and reading up on the material linked elsewhere in this forum gave me a pretty good idea how to set things up, but I'm still left with some questions.
1. I notice that the FFX art asset named FFX-tiggot (or something like that) is included in most of the FFX mods. Is this the invisible object used for camera control in spectator mode in the rumble room? Is it neccesary to include it in my mod? Are there other meshes from the FFX art folder that are necessary to include?
2. Some mods place the character meshes in the Art/custom_characters folder, while some are in the Art/library/characters folder. Some have meshes in both. What's the difference?
3. What considerations are there for making an episodic mod, like the original Fantastic Force for FF1? Would you recommend releasing a mod in this fasion (like issues of a comic) or would you recommend completing the mod first and releasing it in it's entirety?
4. How do you start with clean (or at least greatly stripped down) DATs? Is it even possible? All the mods I've checked in FFEdit did not use clean character or power DATs, but rather were merged with the official campaign character DATs. Not a big deal I guess, but it kind of annoys me having all that clutter I won't use.
5. Is it generally kosher for modders to use released meshes and skins in their mods, assuming they credit the creators, or should I seek permission from each creator? I've been catching up on the forums but I am not entirely up on the current standards and don't want to step on any toes. From my reading, it seems one must tread very lightly, especially if not a regular.
5. wow. yeah. in any case, feel free to use any of my work as you will. i honestly believe for the most part this is the way ppl feel. why else even release? i also think most creators appreciate an email heads up. so, the answer from my perspective is use anything that is currently available, and give an email or pm to the creator letting them know. if the don't want you to, they will tell you. if you have something that has been taken down or removed, either contact that creator for permission or use something else.
yes, on mods for :ff: !!!
1 & 4. The easiest way to start a mod is with a clean FFX folder and just build up from there. Yes your dats will have entries you don't use, and there will be assets like the tiggot that you may not need, but in most situations by trying to clean up your mod and make it free of assets you aren't using, there is a good chance of tweaking something. Trying to diagnose and track down something you broke can cause you lots of headaches, so its easier to start with the FFX base and then just be careful about adding on only things your mod uses... and let the existing stuff just be.
2. Character meshes can exist in either location (or anyplace else within the art directory), you just need to make sure that dat entries point to the right place. I don't think that one way is more right than another, its really more of a personal preference and how you like your content structured.
3. Episodic will work best if you want to get feedback or want to tackle a mod in smaller easier to handle pieces. This again is more of a preference to how you want the mod played and your personal level of commitment, time, and energy you want to spend working on it.
5. Bearded pretty much summed it up nicely. I would add to check the read me's for any released item.
1. The tiggot mesh is used in several powers. Removing it will break all of them. I'd recommend you not touch any of FFX's meshes or skins if you plan to use it. Several of the others are used with specific powers as well, although none as extensively.
1. Echoing what others have mentioned, the best way to build an FFX-enabled mod is to start by copying the ffx3 folder and renaming the copy to your mod's name and then create your mod over that.
In addition, if you really feel a need to tidy up the DAT files and remove unneeded entries, you might start by culling from the game's characters (Alchemiss, Mentor, etc.) and their corresponding objects. You can probably also remove most of their powers (e.g. those designed especially for them, like alchemiss Arcane Blast). The problem is that some parts of FFX may be using those powers and you won't know if the power is really needed until you try to play a character with an FFX attributes that needs it. That's something that's very hard to test for. And, of course, if you remove even just the character or object entries for a character, then players can't use them in the Rumble Room and so on.
ffx_tiggot is an indestructable invisible man used for example to pick up and throw stuff for the telekinetic attribute.
He was named after my cousin's imaginary friend, and one of my cats now bears the name Tiggot. :)
I understand your point about all the clutter in the dats, but the way FFEdit works could drive you mad trying to declutter them. As I recall, deleting a character entry, say, causes you to lose your place in the list and scrolls it back to the top.
So I really wouldnt bother with the declutter. Someone may well want to play Alchemiss or an Alien Warrior or whatever in the danger room in your mod anyway.
And episodic release is a good way to go I think. It lets you get some feedback on your work before compleeting it, which can definitely be important to spurring you on to finish.
Quote from: DrMike2000 on September 23, 2009, 03:51:06 PM
ffx_tiggot is an indestructable invisible man used for example to pick up and throw stuff for the telekinetic attribute.
He was named after my cousin's imaginary friend, and one of my cats now bears the name Tiggot. :)
I understand your point about all the clutter in the dats, but the way FFEdit works could drive you mad trying to declutter them. As I recall, deleting a character entry, say, causes you to lose your place in the list and scrolls it back to the top.
So I really wouldnt bother with the declutter. Someone may well want to play Alchemiss or an Alien Warrior or whatever in the danger room in your mod anyway.
And episodic release is a good way to go I think. It lets you get some feedback on your work before compleeting it, which can definitely be important to spurring you on to finish.
Ha, some nice trivia there, Doc. Yeah, I am really enjoying the episodic nature of PCT, as it creates a MUCH less stressful project than an all-in-one mod, however, that isn't always an option. For example, so much was constantly being added to the DCUG, that an episodic release wasn't really an option at first.
Ok, I will follow your advice and just use a clean FFX install as my base mod (renamed of course).
Bearded, I will also follow your advice regarding custom content usage.
Thanks for the input all. No doubt I'll have more questions as I progress. I'll ask them in this thread as they come up.
My idea is to do a New York Stories mod - an anthology of episodic stories featuring a rotating cast of Marvel characters occurring primarily in NYC (possibly Hell's Kitchen specifically). Kind of a new Marvel Knights. Characters that I want to feature are DD, Black Widow, Moonknight, Luke Cage, Dr. Strange, Dazzler, Cloak & Dagger, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, Spiderwoman, Shang Chi, Nick Fury, Doc Samson, Black Panther, Punisher and others. Spidey, the Fantastic Four, and Xavier's Westchester X-men are also likely candidates to appear. I am shooting for a more gritty, street-level feel rather than a cosmic, save-the-universe epic.
One last question... would you recommend that character powers all start at level 1, all start maxed at level 5, or somewhere in between? If the mod is to be episodic, it won't be possible for the player to level characters as they would with a normal campaign, so perhaps just start all powers at level 5? Marvel characters' powers are all well-known and their power levels fairly well established anyway - leveling such characters might seem more cheesy than fun.
Sid, I think that one of the things I've enjoyed most about PCT (another episodic mod) is the ability to actually use characters whose powers grow and evolve. In DCUG, everyone starts at 5, so you can't upgrade them. I'd encourage you to set them up with an eye towards how the FF team is set up.
This sounds like a lot of fun! One of my many, MANY ideas that I may never get to was a project very much like this. I look forward to seeing what you come up with! If you are going to use EZScript, feel free to let me know if you need help, and feel free to canibalize my scripts for anything useful. Just give me a bit of credit if you do. :D
Quote from: BentonGrey on September 23, 2009, 04:32:36 PM
Sid, I think that one of the things I've enjoyed most about PCT (another episodic mod) is the ability to actually use characters whose powers grow and evolve. In DCUG, everyone starts at 5, so you can't upgrade them. I'd encourage you to set them up with an eye towards how the FF team is set up.
Hmm, I'll have to have a look at how they do that with an episodic mod. For episodes 2 and later, do you just script an XP bonus for the characters at start equal to the approximate accumulated XP from previous missions? Or is there a way to carry it over - maybe export to a text file then read it in next episode?
I agree with you that part of the fun is leveling your characters and choosing how you want to prioritize your powers. It just seems, I dunno, off somehow when dealing with established characters. You are probably right though. The fun of leveling the characters is worth ignoring such inconsistencies.
QuoteThis sounds like a lot of fun! One of my many, MANY ideas that I may never get to was a project very much like this. I look forward to seeing what you come up with! If you are going to use EZScript, feel free to let me know if you need help, and feel free to canibalize my scripts for anything useful. Just give me a bit of credit if you do. :D
Thank you for the kind offer Benton. I'll probably take you up on it. I have some experience coding, but precious little experience with python. I've looked over the EZ Script manual and I think m25 has done a wonderful job basically creating a high-level language with which to code missions. Looks like the learning curve won't be too bad, but I don't doubt I'll get stuck a time or two and need some help.
Quote
Hmm, I'll have to have a look at how they do that with an episodic mod. For episodes 2 and later, do you just script an XP bonus for the characters at start equal to the approximate accumulated XP from previous missions? Or is there a way to carry it over - maybe export to a text file then read it in next episode?
No, Part two just adds on to part one, including a new campaign.dat which has all the missions so far. They you just load the last save file and continue from there.
Having started (and stopped :P) a mod several times, I can give you at least one piece of helpful advice:
.DAT files are negligible in terms of memory used. Don't even worry about them (I tried stripping them once and took a couple of days to save a whopping 100K).
Your custom characters and voicepacks they use will turn your mod into a 700MB+ behemoth. Not as big a deal these days with high-speed internet, but something to keep in mind as you're adding custom characters.
Hope that helps and looking forward to it.
B92
Having some trouble already with my first EZScript. The biggest problem really is that I can't even
diagnose the problem so I'm not sure if it's my EZScript, my DATs, or my map. Or something else
entirely. :<
My goal was unambitious. I wanted to see if I could get a simple EZScript mission working as the
first mission of a test campaign. The script is a single encounter (with appropriate cutscenes) of
encounter type Heist. Daredevil must stop Electro and some thugs from pulling a Heist.
Here's what I did:
1. Copied FFX folder to create a new mod folder.
2. Meshes - Copied my (working) meshes for Daredevil and Electro from my Custom folder to my
mod folder.
3. Used EZHero to put DD and Electro into the character DAT. Set primary folder in FFEdit to my
mod folder and DD & Electro appear as normal. Changed Electro's AI (in FFEdit character tab)
to CGGenericVillian. DD's is CampaignGenericHero. Origin is left blank for both.
4. I thought I remembered reading neither Tier A nor Tier B should be left empty for built-ins and
DD only has 5 powers, so I moved his 2 ranged attacks from Tier A to Tier B. Don't remember if I
did this step initially or sometime after testing in an effort to troubleshoot (I tried many things).
5. I made a mission folder using the EZScript campaign folder template as the base. I deleted
all other mission folders (but not the Scripts folder - just the campaign mission folders).
6. In FFEdit > Campaign tab, deleted all official campaign missions from the DAT. Added my
campaign mission folder to the DAT.
7. Copied the contents of the City Landmarks map folder (map that comes with FFX which I
understood to be EZScript-ready) to my mission folder.
8. FFEdit > Mission tab. Loaded the map.dat. Clicked New and added a marker called
daredevil. Made it Type=Character, template=Daredevil. Clicked Edit In-Game and added DD
to the map. He appeared. I did this because it is mission 1 of the campaign and he must be
added to the map since there is no breifing screen on mission 1. Clicked ESC to close map and
saved DAT. I did not set up my own markers. The EZScript manual made it sound that I didn't
have to - it would use the encounter markers already on the map. I intend to use my own markers
when I do this for real, but I was just trying to get the bare minimum up and running for this
excercise.
9. Wrote my EZScript using the EZScript editor. At first it had some errors, but eventually I got my
syntax right. Not too sure about the Item property (manual was sketchy), but I found EZScript
didn't spit errors about it if I put a template name here. I put Item = tape_drive, and later I tried
Item = skull. EZScript gave no error for either of them (but neither never spawned that I could tell).
I did not put these objects directly on the map in FFEdit (manual was sketchy on that too but I
assumed the item to be heisted would spawn as part of the encounter at a random encounter
marker).
10. Created a custom shortcut and ran my mod.
Behavior:
The proper map loads and DD appears where he should. I have full control of him. However, the
Heist encounter never runs as far as I can tell. Electro and the thugs do not spawn. Per my Alert
cutscene, I should get an immediate red arrow on Electro, a primary objective, and a brief
cutscene with Electro babbling. I get none of those.
I will post my EZScript in the next post.
Any ideas? I have tried everything I can think of. I tried putting my mission in the story folder and
running it as a story in the RR. Didn't work either (crashed the game actually). Not sure if my
EZScript is broken or not even being run at all.
Here's my mission.txt.
Story: Jewel Heist Electro
Starting Encounters: Jewel Heist
#---------------------------------------
# Jewel Heist
#---------------------------------------
Encounter: Jewel Heist
Type: Heist
Villains: Electro
Minions: thug_with_bat, thug_with_gun
Item: skull
Primary Objective: "Defeat Electro" for 1000 prestige and 500 xp
Next: End
Alert Cutscene:
Red arrow on Villain
Villain says, "Hurry up with those jewels you idiots!"
Start Cutscene:
Hero says, "Electro knows better than to rob a jewelry store on in my back yard. He must be mad to think he could get away with this."
Hero Gets Item Cutscene:
Hero says, "Got the jewels!"
Items Recovered Cutscene:
Hero says, "Items recovered."
Item Lost Cutscene:
Villain says, "Ha, the devil couldn't stop me!"
End Cutscene:
Hero says, "And that's why crime doesn't pay!"
#---------------------------------------
#END Jewel Heist
#---------------------------------------
While you normally don't have to add your own markers, EZScript does require that the be set up in a certain way. Some maps start out EZScript compatible, so you want to make sure the map you're using already is.
Quote from: catwhowalksbyhimself on September 26, 2009, 01:32:18 PM
While you normally don't have to add your own markers, EZScript does require that the be set up in a certain way. Some maps start out EZScript compatible, so you want to make sure the map you're using already is.
And just to make sure that you understand what that means, any map EZScript uses must have several things: First, you need encounter1, encounter2, etc. markers. Second, you'll need hero_1, hero_2, etc., and skrimishspawn is good to have as well. Without those markers you'll get exactly what you got. The mission will load, and nothing will work.
I copied m25's City Landmarks map. It has encounter1 through encounter12, and seems to work fine on m25's rumble room stories.
It does not have hero_1, hero_2, etc markers, but I am not spawning any heroes - do I still need those?
Okay, worked on it a bit more this afternoon. I still haven't fixed it, but I have more data.
In FFEdit > Missions tab I deleted the DD character I placed on the map and placed a Positional marker called hero_1 instead. When I tested DD did not appear. I kind of expected that, since there is no base screen and no chance for the player to choose his hero. So then I changed the hero_1 marker to a Character type and gave it the Daredevil template. DD appears on the map, but the villians don't appear and the heist encounter still doesn't run.
When I try my script in the rumble room, OR when I try to generate captions in the rumble room, the game crashes when I try to continue past the screen where I select the rumble room script. It crashes with the following error:
alert: CCampaignImp::getNextMissionDef(), invalid campaign mission index
Also, I generated language files using EZscript, but when I generate DATs in FFEdit it says there is an error copying speech.txt to the language directory. Could this be the root of my problems? If so, how do you generate language files?
That error occurs when the game has issues with the campaign.dat file. I think Benton has experienced this with EZScript missions and can give more detailed info, but i seem to remember that when you start removing all the default missions, there can be some weird behavior like you are experiencing (see my above comments about trying to clean out a mod :banghead: ). I would try copying back the campaign.dat file from your FFX folder, as well as the mission directories, and then add your new mission to the list and move it to the top as the first mission and see if that fixes the error message.
As for the mission not working, it may have to do with it being a campaign mission and the missing hero_xx markers. I would open up the map, place the four hero_xx markers, and try that. Certain game modes require the markers to be there whether you are using them or not. I think campaign missions need those four markers or else it wont work...
You said you stripped all but one mission out, so it's can't find the next mission, because there isn't one. The game does not expect a campaign to have only one mission.
This you can fix by adding a dummy mission. Just name it after whatever you plan on naming the next one anyways, create of copy of any mission, then replace it with the real one when you get around to mission 2.
Thanks guys, will try those fixes.
I took your advice for the most part and didn't try to clean out my dats or mesh folders. Just left it all in there. The only exception was the campaign.dat. I deleted the official missions from the dat as well as the mission folders since it was done that way in the mods I looked at.
I'll add a 2nd mission and the four hero markers and see what happens. The hero markers are supposed to be Positional type, right?
And just wondering - you don't think the error generating the language files will break anything?
Don't just add a second mission, as the game doesn't like short campaigns. Take the default campaign and just add your missions to the front like Goggles suggested. I don't have time to look over the rest of your issues now, but I'll try and give more pointed advice later on.
Aaaaaaand it works!
I tried both methods. Adding just a dummy mission got the campaign mission to work for the first time. Electro and the thugs spawned, the red arrow was there, and the objective was given. No head nifs during cutscenes, but I think I know the problem there. Rumble room still crashed with the same error.
Adding all the default campaign missions back in (along with the hero_x markers) got the rumble room working. I haven't tried using the rumble room to generate captions yet.
So, yeah, now I can make progress.
Thanks again for the help. I may be back with more questions if I get stuck again.
In my experience, the rumble room caption generator is the most reliable. I get weird errors sometimes if I use other methods.