There are severe limitations to what modders can do for Dragon Age 2 when compared with Dragon Age Origins. The biggest problem is a lack of an updated Toolset released by Bioware to work with the new file structures. Some of you may be aware that Bioware released a Toolset for modders with Dragon Age Origins; this allows modders to create great works that benefit the game greatly and share them with the public. However Bioware has not yet announced whether it will be releasing an updated Toolset for Dragon Age 2.
Even without such an update, modding can still be done on this game, albeit not to such a great extent as Dragon Age Origins. But new breakthroughs in modding are always coming from unknown directions, we now have the ability to edit models when we did not before, we thank tmp7704 greatly for this breakthrough.
One of the few possible modifications to make can be done using the GFF editor, found here: pyGFF. Using this tool, people can make modifications to existing items in game by changing their save game; or swapping around models for items. The GFF can also be used to change some forms of gameplay such as Talents/Spells. While editing through the GFF can be complicated and daunting for new modders, it is the most versitile modding tool we have at present.
Adding new items to the game is possible now; but can be very difficult, especially to new modders.
Another form of modding which is possible, are retextures; these will change the textures of in game items such as armour or weapons. This will usually require going into the games uti files and finding the appropriate textures you wish changed and extracting them, editing them and placing the newly modified texture (once converted to an ERF) into the Override folder (see below)
At this time, to install the majority of all mods simple requires either the end user (i.e. you) to drag and drop the appropriate files into their override folder, usually found here: "My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age 2\packages\core\override" (If this folder is not present inside the "Core" folder, just make a new folder and call it Override) or to make the modification themselves, there are several tutorials on how to do this available on the Nexus Forums.
I hope this thread has given you some insight into what is possible to do with this game, and look forward to hearing from you.
If I have missed something, or there is new modding news I should be aware of, please feel free to make a post here and I will edit my original post as needed, giving full credit to those who brought it to my attention.
Thank you for reading.
Eleglas
News Updates:
[6th April 2011]
It has recently been brought to my attention that sound and music files can now be edited, kudos to TehOpheliac for bringing this to my attention and to the BSN member Refara for this awesome tutorial: http://social.biowar...66408/2#6793978
[17th May 2011]
This may have been known for a bit longer, but I only found out today; but thanks to tmp7704 over at the BSN, we now have the ability to edit the models of armours and such. We all thank tmp7704 for this amazing breakthrough and hope to see more from him and kudos to ishmaeltheforsaken here on the nexus for bringing this to my attention. In order to edit the models you will need this tool: http://social.biowar...v=files#details
List of Tutorials:
Custom weapons in DA2 - markoBG
How to run DA2 Windowed (No Border) - XunAmarox
[How] To change the color to the textures - henryXD
How To Add,Remove and Swap Skill/Spell Effect - kurniallah2412
Re-skinning using GFF Editor - GreatFuzzy1
Adding Attribute, Skill & Specalization points through pyGFF - b33tlejuice
Resource & Content swapping or replacing - AmmonLymphater
Editing Music Files - Refara
Armour Retex in DA2 - OdanUrr87
List of useful modding Tools:
pyGFF
Gibbed Save Game Generator
Thought Proccess's ERF Packer
ww2ogg Music Editor
Lightwave import-export plugin
Edited by eleglas, 26 May 2011 - 11:04 PM.