Recommended mods?

[Squarehead]

I've never tried mods for these games so i'm looking for recommendations, if there are any It seems to be mostly about new characters, so i'm guessing you can recruit those or are all those character mods mainly for MP (never tried MP and not too interested in that).

Are there any graphical overhauls for the games?

[Cyber Burn]

The "Comprehensive List of Mods" can direct you to lots of mods to play, quite a few well made mods for both  and  .

[Squarehead]

I did download some mods (characters) but their readme's doesnt even say if they're for FF1 or 2, how to install them or what the character's are really for or how to get them..

i'm sure it makes sense to the hardcore players but for me not so much..

[BentonGrey]

Hi Squarehead, welcome to the community!  There are tons of fantastic mods available for both FF1 and FF2, and there are still great materials being created for FF2 (and even some cool stuff still being produced for FF1).  I think you're a bit confused about the terminology we use around here. 

Mods are overhauls of the game's single player campaign that create a new experience for you to play through. 
Meshes are the 3D models that the game uses for characters and objects.
Keyframes are the animations that such models use.
Skins are the textures that get put on over the meshes to create different characters.
Herofiles are specific FF game files that tells the game what powers and abilities a certain custom character has.

It sounds like what you've been downloading so far are meshes, skins, or herofiles.  The bulk of the amazing resources created for these games fall into those categories.  There are materials to be found in this community with which you can realize just about any character, especially any main-stream superhero character, in the game.  These art assets and herofiles can certainly be used in multiplayer, but they most often used in the games' sandbox modes, Rumble Room (or Danger Room in FF1), which allows you to throw any combination of characters together in combat.

If you're looking for mods, the actual "Comprehensive List" that CB indicated is really a great place to begin tracking them down.  You can find it here:
http://freedomreborn.net/forums/index.php?topic=48992.0

Which game do you have, FF1 or FFvTTR?  If you've got both, then you'll have no shortage of great mods to try out.  As for recommendations, I'd strongly encourage you to try the following:

FF1=
Everything by Dr. Mike is a must, as he has, with little doubt, created the best mods ever seen in this community, accomplishing things through the FF engine that you wouldn't have believed possible.  Those include the following three titles:
The Strangers
Tales of the Navigator
Amazanauts
Pulp Fiction is a must if you like...well...pulp fiction.  It's a really neat story that does for pulp characters what Freedom Force does for Silver Age characters.
The Great Hunt is one of the most wide ranging of mods, including characters as diverse as Wolverine and the Shadow, and it is certainly a lot of fun to play.
Matrix is pretty amazing as well.  It's a really cool adaptation of the film, and it does some really amazing stuff with the engine as well.

FFvTTR=
I'd highly recommend the mods by John Jr. and Prev.  They've both created a lot of really cool adventures.
Captain America: Legacy, JLA: Yesterday's War, Legion of Superheroes, and World's Finest by John Jr. are all great, with fun stories and a wide variety of characters and settings.  You'll be hard pressed not to find something you like.
Crisis Mod is a crossover adventure of big proportions with an equally big cast from DC and Marvel.
X-Men Classic, Spiderman: Web that Binds, Batman, and Exiles by Prev. are all a lot of fun as well.  There are a lot of entertaining stories and some cool gameplay in these mods.
PCTales is a lot of fun if you enjoyed the vanilla FF campaigns.  A lot of us have a big soft spot for the Irrational characters, and this project allows you to revisit them.
The Legion of Superheroes mod by Tommyboy is also pretty cool, and he created a ton of custom content for that campaign.

I myself have made a few mods on a variety of subjects, and I'm working on more.  You can find my own poor offerings here:
http://bentongrey.wordpress.com/

[Squarehead]

BentonGrey, thank you very much! Yes i know what the different mods are (meshes/skins etc), but i was a bit uncertain if they were for MP, Rumble Room or for the Campaign.

I'm mostly interested in mods that can be used to play the main campaigns of both games.. Those new campaigns sounds interesting as well! I'm gonna start with FF1 (been ages since i played it, bought and played it when it just came out).

Is the game difficult to mod? I've done mods for Morrowind (uses the same .nif format as this game i believe), System Shock 2 and quite a few other games. Would be fun to try that eventually, i'm mostly interested in making (or upgrading/overhauling) environments..

[Previsionary]

To help you out:

Most skins can be used for both games. Most meshes can be used for both games, but the majority of the stuff created in the last few years are FFvTTR exclusive. FX meant for FF1 can be used in FFvTTR. Essentially, 95% of anything made for FF1 can be used in FFvTTR with varying degrees of effort and success. FFvTTR is backwards compatible in that sense but uses an updated .nif system.

There are tutorials all over FR to help you with installing and getting these files to work, including the "comprehensive list of tutorials" thread in the Freedom Force Discussion thread. You can also browse the wiki: http://frworld.wikispaces.com/Tutorials

As far as where modifications will and won't work: In the basic game, anything you add to it will work in multiplayer and rumbleroom naturally. They will also work in campaign mode if you recruit a character. It starts to get a little complicated past that because actual mods are treated as their own little game with their own settings and adventures.

Difficulty: Depends on what you want to do and what you have access to. Skinning, fxing, and texturing in general might be right down your path based on the information you've provided above. Only thing needed is an art program that can handle TGAs and/or DDS files. Meshing is more difficult as it's 3d modeling and requires 3ds Max 4 and/or 5. Blender CAN be used for static files. Mesh alterations can be accomplished through nifskope and hex editors, but it requires a little work and can be a little difficult to really master. And then there's coding. This game uses python as a programming language and no one other than a VERY few people seem to have learned it at all. There is an easier way to modify the game as far as creating adventure goes and that is EZscripting, which is essentially a converter of sorts.

[Squarehead]

Thanks!

Yeah it would be static meshes that would interest me and maybe doing new textures, but if hex editing is required it does sound a bit difficult..

[Previsionary]

Hex editing isn't required for anything so no worries on that front. In fact, no one hexes anymore except on rare occasions. It's archaic and has been completely replaced with skoping via nifskope.

[BentonGrey]

You're very welcome Squarehead.  I'm sure you'll enjoy many of those mods.  Dr. Mike's, as I said, are especially amazing.  They are what got me to try my own hand at modding, and I owe whatever limited success I've had to their inspiration. 

If you're interested in creating content, that's fantastic!  We always need new artists and modders in the community.  As Prev said there are many different ways to get involved, but let me add that the advent of EZScript has made creating mods (and by mods I mean new stories you can play through in the game) much more accessible.  As I always say, if I can do it, anybody can.  Modding is still pretty complex in some ways, and EZScript takes some getting used to, but the level of complexity tends to be a reflection of the complexity of your ideas.  Sadly, my own ideas tend towards the grandiose.   Anyway, this is the friendliest community I've ever encountered online, so you should find no shortage of folks willing to help you figure out how to do whatever it is that catches your interest.

[cmdrkoenig67]

I did download some mods (characters) but their readme's doesnt even say if they're for FF1 or 2, how to install them or what the character's are really for or how to get them..

i'm sure it makes sense to the hardcore players but for me not so much..

The comprehensive list of mods will tell you which game each of the mods are for.

Dana

[Squarehead]

Great

I know NifSkope very well so it would be fun to make something eventually, i usually make overhaul mods, building and improving on what's already there, i'm not a big fan of scripting.