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| Re: New to JA2 Modding[message #204088]
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Mon, 15 December 2008 05:20  
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 Khor1255 |
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Messages:1815
Registered:August 2003
Location: Pleasantville, NJ |
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O.K., making characters involves using a few utilities I mentioned before. For the sake of convenience I will re-list the utilities here and expand the desciption of Proedit to include what it actually does:
SLF Explore (or a similar unpacking utility such as Dragon Unpacker) allows you to open the game's .slf files (contained in the Data folder of your game's main directory). You should extract all files you want to work on into folders named and spelled exactly like the slf (with of course the exception of the .slf suffrix) and place these folders in the Data1.13 folder of your main directory. What this does is allows you to access and alter any file in the game you like and put it in a folder the game will access first before looking at the .slf. It is not important that you place every file of the .slf in this folder but rather just those you are going to alter. You can always add more later.
Proedit is a powerful character editing utility that operates from your Data1.13/binarydata folder (if you are modding the 1.13. If you are not it operates from the data/binarydata folder). With it you can change practically every attribute you can think of in a character (gender, race, stats, skills, even personal likes and dislikes, etc.). In vanilla Ja2 you can also change the equipment a merc starts with using this utility. In the later versions of the 1.13 you have to use .xml contained in the Data1.13/tabledata folder to change equipment at least in niv mode.
Proedit also contains the character's slot number that is basically the master key to all files that relate to this character. This number is found in the upper left hand side of the proedit window before the characters name.
Also you must know that in the 1.13 it is necessary that after you make your changes and save your work this data is written to only the Prof.dat file. In order to get these changes to appear in the 1.13 version you need to copy/paste the prof.dat file to somewhere outside of the binarydata folder then change the name of this file to whatever difficulty level and guns setting you prefer to play on (eg Prof_Experienced_TonsOfGuns.dat) then insert it back into the binarydata folder allowing it to overwite the old file. Repeat this process for every difficulty/guns setting if you want the changes to be universal for every player. It is important you name these files exactly like they are named (including the .dat part in this case) or they will not function in the game.
The EDT Editor changes the text portions of what characters say as well as their descriptions. For Aim and Merc characters, the imps, the rebels and the hirelings you meet in country their dialog is contained in the mercedt file. This needs to be extracted into a folder of the same name and placed in the data folder if you are modding vanilla ja2 and the data1.13 folder if you are modding from that version. For the rebels and the hirelings you also need to change the files that correspond to their character number in the NPCData file.
All other types of characters not mentioned have a slightly different process but we will stick to the hirelings for the sake of clarity.
Also contained in the binarydata file is the .edts that describe the aim and merc backgrounds that appear when you hire them. You might want to change these descriptions but it is important to use the exact number of letters and spaces contained in their existing descriptions and match this exactly or there will be an overflow problem in the edt file that will cause the descriptions to go haywire. If I am remembering correctly you can reduce the number of letters and spaces used in the descriptions but never exceed them. Please experiment with this a little. The first time I did it I had about four hours worth of work go in the toilet because I did not know this.
STI Edit (which allows you to save Ja images as bitmaps and import bitmaps into STI format for use in the game) along with an imaging editor of your choice. The only thing to really know about this utility is that it is pretty limited as an imaging editor (so you'll want to get photoshop or something else to edit images) and more importantly how colours appear in STI Edit is sometimes radically different than how they appear in the game. You should try to avoid using colors that are close to the background palette of the image you want to change and remember that anything approaching white in an image is greatly exaggerated by the game. Just test it a few times and you'll get a feel for what colours work best. Basically, the simpler the better.
Speeches are contained in the Speech file for all AIM, Merc and IMP characters and the NPC_Speech file for everyone else but also the battlesnds file for the little remarks they make usually during combat. These speeches do not have accompanying dialog.
You would also need a sound editing utility if you want your characters speeches to actually have sound and of course a microphone to record your speeches. I use Goldwave but anything that offers a conversion to
Bit rate 88kbps
Audio Sample Size 4bit
Channels 1 (mono)
Audio Sample rate 22 khz
Audio Format IMA ADPCM
will do.
You can find these properties in the properties box when you right click on any speech file. It is contained in the summary section.
That's about all I can think of at the moment. If anyone wants to contribute to this please feel free to do so.
If you have any questions you might get lucky again and catch me without my Christmas cheer on. Good luck with the project and please feel free to ask any question. Occasionally a modder wanders into here with a little time to kill.
[Updated on: Mon, 15 December 2008 06:21] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Sergeant Major
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| Re: New to JA2 Modding[message #204133]
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Mon, 15 December 2008 19:16
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| KEN C |
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Messages:244
Registered:May 2007
Location: Aberdeen Washington USA |
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Khor, your instruction is clear and concise. If you would place that on the wiki you would benefit many modders.
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Sergeant 1st Class
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| Re: New to JA2 Modding[message #205397]
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Fri, 02 January 2009 17:35
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| Khor1255 |
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Messages:1815
Registered:August 2003
Location: Pleasantville, NJ |
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I am sort of out of my element with the IMP questions these days since the very useful editor has been broken by the latest versions of the 1.13 but I will give it a shot.
In your Data1.13 tabledata folder there is a file called IMPItemChoices.xml you can open this .xml up by double clicking on it. Inside there are numbers that look like this: 6. This is what tells the program how many items the IMP starts with. If you add an item to the list you MUST make sure this number reflects how many items you want the IMP to have or the game may act very screwy.
Next is a list of items starting with: 212. The number that is surrounded by the >< marks is the number of the item that corresponds to the Items.xml. In this case it is 212 which I believe corresponds to a first aid kit. You simply open the Items.xml to find the item you want to add, enter it on it's own line and make sure to amend the field so that it states how many items you actually want the IMP to start with.
The other fields in that XML I am unsure of. I think you can safely edit the IMPs the way I described but you may have to do the same thing for every list since I do not know what this field corresponds to and they no longer have helpful headers at the top of each xml to remind you as you work.
Sorry, this explanation is incomplete but I have all but given up on fooling around with the current version of the 1.13 so I can only offer what I know. If anyone has anything to add please do so here. It would be helpful to have this as a reference for anyone.
EDIT
This link http://ja2v113.pbwiki.com/XML%20-%20IMPItemChoices should make this a little more clear. It explains some of the fields I am unsure of.
[Updated on: Fri, 02 January 2009 17:51] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Sergeant Major
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| Re: New to JA2 Modding[message #205401]
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Fri, 02 January 2009 18:10
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| Balious |
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Messages:42
Registered:April 2007
Location: England! |
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Thanks for the help Khor.
After having a quick look at them I thought i never understand it but as I kept reading on and with the information you have gave it is starting to become easier on the bits you have explained.
It just take me quite a long time to find the certain items/weapons i need to put in once I actually know what their names are.
I have a question about this too. Can you do this for each IMP you make so they have different equipment or is it for all the IMP you make they have the same equipment?
EDIT:
Just noticed you edited your message will look at the link now. Thanks again for the help Khor.
[Updated on: Fri, 02 January 2009 18:11] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Corporal
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| Re: New to JA2 Modding[message #205406]
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Fri, 02 January 2009 19:02
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| cougar |
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Messages:254
Registered:March 2000 |
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Not really but you can assign different items to different skills or attributes. So if you have an I.M.P with lockpick he can be given a SCAR-L while your martial arts guy gets a M16A4.
BTW you could just use the XML editor, it can do the job in a fraction of the time.
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Master Sergeant
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| Re: New to JA2 Modding[message #205483]
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Sat, 03 January 2009 22:03
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| Balious |
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Messages:42
Registered:April 2007
Location: England! |
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Thanks I just downloaded the XML editor. I am not quite sure how to use the program but I have a look at it to see how easy it is to use.
About the different items. Say if my IMP had the same strength and Marksmanship. Would she/he get both or just one at random?
Edit:
A new question has came up to me. If I edited the starting merc equipment for AIM mercs for the cheap ones like Barry and Ivan and drop their equipment and get rid of them. If I hired them again would they still have the same equipment? Also would this come to close as cheating in anyway?
Another question. Is it easier to edit the IMP items or the mercs? From what quick look of the XML editor I seen I think the mercs are easier but I did not have a proper look at it yet.
Thanks for the help.
[Updated on: Sat, 03 January 2009 22:07] by Moderator Report message to a moderator
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Corporal
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