Hey, let me answer you something
>I have a very limited kowledge
>of modifying Fo2, and I
>was wandering if someone would
>take the liberty of helping
>me?
Okie dokie.
>First, to create new graphic images,
>you have to use an
>FRM to BMP converter, then
>edit it and don't add
>any new colors or something
>like that, then change it
>back into a FRM with
>a BMP-FRM converter. Right, now
>this is the unclear part,
>do you just gzip everything
>and rename it critter,dat or
>master.dat?
I'm not sure about that one, I've never made custom graphics before. I'm not sure about the gzip part, but you're probably right cuz you have to do that with item/weapon files. And I'm almost certain it doesn't involve renaming it to a dat file, it probably just needs to have its original name(like BHOOD.FRM), and you put it in the correct subdirectory. Like it I did the BHOOD example(used that cuz its one of the 1st things on the master.lst), and since my fallout 2 directory is C:\Fallout2, then I would place my new gzipped frm file in C:\Fallout2\Data\art\backgrnd\. Just add the program files and blackisle subdirectories if you installed it in the default directory. To take the graphic out of the game, you simply delete or move your frm file out of the directory
>Second, how do you edit the
>damage a weapon does?
I remember one of the TUF(The Unknown Files) mod team members created a cool program that skips all that hex editing crap. I'm still glad I learned hex editing to do this, though, cuz the stuff that I knew and they didn't wasn't incorporated into the program(stuff like death animation for the weapon, im not sure if you could pick the projectile shot out, you might have been able to, and I posted the info I discovered on what armor makes you look like what a couple weeks after that program was made.) If you JUST want to change damage and other stuff like cost,weight,action points, and damage type, try hunting down that editor thing. I'm not sure if I am correct, since it has been around 9 months since I was into mod making, but the name "Kemen's Item Editor" rings a bell.
>Third, Hell Patrol mentioned something about
>changing what the character looks
>like when you wear a
>certain armor (which means creating
>a sh*t load of images
>for every gun).
I'm not sure if you are able to edit the animated crap(like creatures), I think so far they just figured out how to do inventory items and non-animated stuff like that. At least that is where they were back in the spring of '99. I wish I still had that damn list of how to change a player's looks, and a list of the id numbers for a lot of creature's appearances. I'll probably do it myself again eventually, but if anyone wants to figure it out themselves what I did was look for similarities in Mason's(of the salvatores) pro file and the metal armor's pro file. Then once I found the offset for where in the profile effects what an armor makes you look like, and what NPCs look like, then I just looked in a bunch of different creature files and copied down their info. Word of advice though, don't make ALL the armors in the game into weird crap. If you make fire gecko armor, the only weapon you would be able to use is your flame thrower, if you had the Robot Armor(I think that will be my secret armor in my mod, Mighty Morphin Power Ranger armor. lol ) the only weapons you could use are rocket launchers and miniguns, Horrigan(I got tired of making mods before I ever figured out how to make him, so I've never been him before) can probably only use laser/plasma/bozar/any sort of that crap and knives(somebody HAS to include Horrigan armor in a mod, seeing how many damn people have posted saying that you should be able to wear his armor. that mod would definitely be popular).
Another downside to using charcters like boxers and robots is that they have no "use" animation. That means they can't open doors, lockpick crap, use lockers(I'm not sure if ANYONE besides the main characters can use floor containers.) climb ladders, .etc. The only strange on I remember being able to do this crap(I forgot if it could open floor locker things or not) was the geckos(not sure about the fire gecko, I think it was only the Goldens.) The geckos could only use unarmed weapons(and they had separate animations for kicks and punches!), but to open or use stuff they just smacked it. I think that is head and shoulders above the players way of doing that crap, It looks like my dude is fondling people when he is stealing stuff and opening doors. Like I said before in a previous post, I'm pretty sure you also get the critter's sounds too, so you get that kick ass hydraulic sound and sweet animation when you are a Sentry(or power rangers) Robot punching someone. And you get the idle animations like the brain robot spinning around in circles. Oh yeah, I just remembered something. I think either the aliens or albino queen wanamingo(or both) also could open stuff. They also had 2 different unarmed animations(biting and whipping). Thats another thing I forgot. Unless you make an unarmed weapon with a range of 2 or something, you still won't be able to attack more than the 1 hex limit with the unarmed attacks(unlike the Alien who could whip someone 2 hexes away). One thing I don't understand is how my player character could EVER fit into a rat or mantis costume, and a centaur costume(That reminds me of ANOTHER thing, multi-hex critters look really weird going through doorways, since no matter what you always take up 1 hex.)
I hope some of that helped, and I'm gonna make at least one new weapon's art different(Gonna render me a grenade launcher in truspace) so I'll post more detailed crap on doing that stuff once I figure it out.
Hell Patrol
