Looking for Mod Requests!

[Timbab]

Posted this on reddit and the Emu board, but;

Posting this out of curiosity.

Are there any mods people would like to have besides a texture overhaul? Texture overhaul is coming eventually, can't tell you a timeline for now.

Looking for small to medium stuff.

Post away and I'll see what I can do, I'm looking for ideas and to get a feel what is wanted the most.

 

[Uli]

Texture overhaul and more texture overhaul and and and stuff

 

[Timbab]

Texture overhaul and more texture overhaul and and and stuff

Come awwwnn Uli, be my partner in crime.

You know you secretly want to!

 

[Uli]

Texture overhaul and more texture overhaul and and and stuff

Come awwwnn Uli, be my partner in crime.

You know you secretly want to!

I suck at texturing & modelling you know that!

Unsure if I actually got any free time this year but will help out where I can.

 

[Timbab]

TIME TO LEARN, THEN!

No, but seriously, I can use help with all kinds of stuff, from basic shader problems, to trying to figure out .prt files in more depth, questions about .iff, other files, etc.

Mostly groundwork problems that make modding easier, really.

I'm going to be more and more busy as January approaches, gotta be done with something by Feb 1st, but want it done by late December, then I'll most likely have a downtime until next late summer, which is when I'll do most of the werk!

I want to do a sound overhaul too, need to figure out how far the game can be pushed. I know Kay stumbled on some problems, but I never went into them, so I'll probably need help there.

Also, totally random, but if you're ever bored, can you look into these 2 .dll's from 2 different enb's?

Link

They're essentially the same, except one is updated to ignore the hud. I've tried the 'newer' one, and it works, it ignores the hud, but it inverts lighting/shadows, for whatever reason.

Source, the one that works like normal, is the generic 0.076, the one that inverts is the 0.158.

<3

Edit:

By the way, do you know of any .iff editor outside of treExplorer? One that shows the chunk structure. I've searched my fingers off, the only thing I can find is history on the .iff file format, rofl.

Edit2:

Aw man, in the CU/NGE they added new weapon datatables for effects and sounds, came around patch 15, I can't seem to be able to use them (can't find a file that links to them), I'm guessing they were handled by the client? Fuck.

I might be able to trick the sound/multiple sound effects that came with 15, but effects based on X limb and stuff I don't think is possible.

Can anyone look into it? Maybe I've missed something.

 

[DAK]

I have one...

Something that always bugged me.
I know the game uses the same interior for all the star ports (excluding Theed) So if you simply mod the .mgn files it effects all of them. but I was wondering:

Is it possible modify something, somewhere, within the client, to separate the interior files (haven't messed with these much) to call out for a separate set of interior starport meshes that have been texture swapped?

So for example, you land in a Tatooine Starport, and the walls, rather than being all metallic and technological, are using textures that reflect Tatooine (sandstone, stucco, ect.) ...but then land at a Rori/Naboo starport and the textures reflects the interior of Theed's star port.

Is this possible to do in any way?

 

[Timbab]

What do you want exactly, the models changed or the textures?

Both can be done, but in order to keep with working on the current server, you could only modify the models to a similar shape.

Whole texture swaps are really easy to do, if you take it from a different star port.

I'm assuming you mean a texture mod. I'll do a full texture mod anyway in due time, so that will be covered, but solid idea!

Btw, just to correct you, mgn = models with skeletons (ie, moving stuff, clothes, armor, etc), msh = static models (buildings, vegetation, weapons, etc).

 

[DAK]

What do you want exactly, the models changed or the textures?

Both can be done, but in order to keep with working on the current server, you could only modify the models to a similar shape.

Whole texture swaps are really easy to do, if you take it from a different star port.

I'm assuming you mean a texture mod. I'll do a full texture mod anyway in due time, so that will be covered, but solid idea!

Btw, just to correct you, mgn = models with skeletons (ie, moving stuff, clothes, armor, etc), msh = static models (buildings, vegetation, weapons, etc).

I knew that - I get the abbreviations confused all the time. I said .MGN because I'm messing with them the most.

Simply put, I was asking if it's possible to texture-swap the textures, on the interior .msh files, and rename them, so there are separate interiors for certain planets...but after further research I found that all the interior starport .msh files are separate for each planet anyway.
From the look of it, I could have swore SOE simply just used the exact SAME interior meshes - but it appears that they only just copied/pasted and renamed them...so yes, I now know it's possible. Thank you....

 

[Timbab]

Yeah, they did some pretty odd things, I stumble upon new stuff every single time I look into the files. Incompetent fools.

But yeah, you can even just switch out the textures without touching the mesh. Copying from theed Theed, you'd need to do custom textures of course, partly at least, most of the textures are put on seamless anyway, so you can just replace.

I'll try to remember to look into the star port meshes sometime when I really have nothing to do, see if there is even any difference. Actually, just look at the file sizes first, see if they're identical, if yes, then it's a copy, if no, then they changed something, even if it's tiny.

 

[DAK]

so far this is what I've got:

Spoiler

This is the "mun_tato_starport_s01_u01_r4_foyer4_mesh_r4.msh" section of the Tatooine starport interiors. I've checked the other starports, and they remain unchanged, as I intended. (I changed the shader references in the .msh file.)

So far, It's doing what I want, it's just the textures don't look the way I thought they would. (That stupid tiled floor will have to go - they warped some of the textures in the hallway) I might need to resort to custom textures and/or shaders to get the "Rusty & dusty" look I'm trying to go for. I'll try again tomorrow. Hopefully the Naboo Starports will look good enough with a simple swap.

And FYI - yes, they did just copy and paste the interior meshes, and rename them. Possibly with the devs intent to change them later...and then they decided nobody noticed anyway.

 

[Timbab]

Are those crates and boxes part of the mesh? No, right?

Odd though.

Better get used to warps and stretching. The retards at SOE loved to royally fuck up their textures with awful UV work.

If it's really bothering you, open the .mesh in 3ds max with rosutos importer/exporter and do completely a completely new UV on it, fixes all their screwups, but then you need completely new textures.

Keep it up! Always good to see people messing with the files.

 

[DAK]

I might give it a shot, someday, then. Right now it's kinda frustrating keeping track of all the textures I'm using - so if I approach it again, I'll give his Importer/exporter a try. It'll likely be easier in the long run and if it doesn't go outside the hit-box too much, I think I'll tweak a few things structurally if possible, to make it a bit more "Tatooine-like".... Like the passages leading to "docking bay 94".

And no, BTW, the crates and the objects are separate. The screens are about the only thing that's part of the mesh.

 

[Timbab]

Ah, I see, good to know.

Yeah, buildings and textures at the moment are kind of a head scratcher.

If you wouldn't remap, I'd make like green placeholder textures with letters and numbers on them, like t1 through t100, because they're all seamless anyway and some are on top of others, here is what I mean:

That helps a lot to figure out what goes where.

For other buildings where textures are borrowed from all over, you'll ultimately want to rename the textures, then rename .sht it uses and edit it in treExplorer so it links to the copied textures, then edit the .msh in treExplorer so it links to the copied .sht.

Most important thing about SWG modding, in my opinion, scrap the awful original file chains and create new ones, for everything that needs to be kept 'unique', so that modding one file doesn't lead to 10 things in game being changed.

 

[dusty825]

A step by step on how t import NGE items for dummies like me

 

[Timbab]

Compare the file types of an NGE item and a PreCU item.

Open both in treExplorer side by side, look at the FORM names, usually there is a number difference for the same FORM.

Madeup Example:
FORM0007 = NGE
FORM0005 = PreCU
So you'd want to change the FORM0007 to FORM0005

If you need more help, tell me the file type, or a specific file, so I can show you an example with screenshots.

 

[spudinho]

I have a request. would it be possible to make speeder deeds to look like the speeder? just for decor so i could have my own speeder garage

 

[Timbab]

Think so, I've barely looked into item files or models, unsure about the size.

Was gonna my tool to read and write object.iff files in a few days anyway, so I'll look into it then.

 

[spudinho]

Thank you.

 

[Timbab]

Here you go:

Worked like I thought it would, size was fine from the get go too.

Basically open the deed file for the vehicle, example:
/object/tangible/deed/vehicle_deed/shared_speederbike_swoop_deed.iff

Open the last node, go down to the XXXX chunk that has the 'appearanceFilename', which should look like this by default:
appearanceFilename..appearance/eqp_tool_datapad.apt.
Change it to the .apt for that vehicle, so in the Swoop's case, it would be
appearanceFilename..appearance/swoop_bike.apt.

Here are the files for the Swoop, Speederbike, Landspeeder and AV21. Hope the Landspeeder is correct.

Download link​

But remember, it's only client side, only the people who have the mod will see it.

 

[spudinho]

Cheers mate. Ill have a look when i get chance log on but looks perfect