A question

[harbingerofjustice]

Hey. I just had a question on modding. Is DAO easier to mod than say, Morrowind? I'm interested in trying, as I have a few stories of my own to tell, and I was definitely interested in modding them to DAO, as I've read, it seems to be fairly easy to do.

[DarkeWolf]

Heyas Harbinger, welcome to the nexus!

 

Honestly....no, t'isn't. Morrowind is really easy to mod in comparison to DAO. The entire system is completely different, there are much fewer tools available for DAO, and Bioware's approach to some of the things with this game engine.... well, my opinion is that they are over-complicated and some of it does have a decent sized learning curve. Add to it that the tutorials that you have to find online leave something to be desired. It seems like to accomplish something you have to start in one tutorial, bounce to another that teaches you how to do another part of it, then bounce back and forth between tutes.

The toolset is also not as user-friendly as TESC was.

[harbingerofjustice]

why thank you. how sad.....I really was hoping that it would be. It certainly looks so, but that could just be the excellent work of the modders. Would toolset be what I needed to try?

[DarkeWolf]

Hey, no prob ;)

It's.... a lot different than what you'd have been used to with TESC. Toolset (TS, Toolcrap, Tools**t, etc) uses a lot different methods to do what you did in TESC, and has some added functionality than TESC did, such as being able to do dialogs, cutscenes, and stuff like that. Its just getting used to it, and figuring out how to achieve your results that are the hardest part. Its the learning curve, compiled with the difficulty in following along with the tutorials that is what makes it hard. Well, that and quite a few folks have a "connection to database error" with TS that is REALLY difficult to fix.

So there's your starting point. If you can't even get the TS to run, you're kinda SOL :(

You can find the TS by google/yahoo/bing w/e by searching bioware toolset download or if you have problems getting it from the source, you can also search fileplanet dragon age toolset and you can get it from fileplanet after you sign up for a free membership.

 

Most of it is handled by the TS. Graphics work.... textures use standard .dds format, so any program that is compatible with that format will work. The meshes however are a proprietary format .msh and .mrh. There's only a few plugins that will handle .msh format (.mrh are contained w/in the .msh so no worries there). Theres a script for blender (still has a few issues with rigging, bones, and animations, but has come a long way since it's inception), Carrara (dunno if it works with the DAO .msh) 3dsmax/gmax, and I think.....lightwave? You can find them by searching program name .msh

 

There's a few files that can be edited in notepad. Mostly scripts and .ini files, and a Few that need to be edited in an excel compatible program (Or Excel itself, if you have MS Office) but most of them are the TS.

 

There's a few helpful links here at nexus. http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/167987-common-questions/

social.bioware.com is also a good source of DAO stuff, http://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/index.php/Tutorials along with their forums (IF you can get access to the areas you need, membership doesnt give full access there....)

as is http://dragonage.wikia.com (I'd recommend using a browser like Firefox or google chrome for them tho... they've been getting hit by some banner viruses here and there on and off with flash and most other plugins blocked.)

 

But yeah, that should at least get you started, if you get TS running.

Good luck, and hope we see some stuff from ya! :thumbsup: