Modding details? Ask away!

[Amineri]

I was able to get my weapon model to load into the game--thanks for the info. However I now want to make it customizable. How do you make it so a model will accept colors and weapon camos from the in-game palette?

 

So, the answer depends somewhat on what material you used. If you imported the whole model with a material as defined in your 3D authoring tool, I'm not sure you'd be able to. We used the same materials as Firaxis (included in the SDK). WeaponCustomizable_TC for the conventional/magnetic, and M_Master_PwrdWep_TC for the beam.

 

In both cases, you need to define the tint-able area of the model in one of the textures. The MSK texture, Blue color channel, if I recall correctly. Since it's the full channel, you can use grey values to determine amount of tint/pattern.

 

Also, when configuring the material instance in UnrealEd, be sure to enable tinting. For the WeaponCustomizable_TC material, under Switches, enable UseTint and under Pattern, enable Pattern (and perhaps set the Pattern_UVScale if needed). For the M_Master_PwerdWep_TC, there's no toggle for tinting (it's on by default), but the Pattern/ Pattern toggle and Pattern_UVScale need to be enabled.

 

And if you are curious about the difference between the two, the former allows for "metalness" in the alpha channel, while the latter allows for flickering emissive and has "gloss" designed to better match the powered armors.

[Amineri]

Hi Amineri do you happened to know how to add a gremlin replacement?

 

I have the model, ( working on his rigging/Animations currently ) and where can I find the Lids animated tree?

 

do I add him like the SMG? and if so what's the difference with the animations ?

 

 

Gremlin models, textures and animations are under the "Weapons" section in UnrealEd. The Gremlin archetypes (as secondary weapons) are under GameData/Weapons/Weapon_Types. There are different archetypes for each of the three tiers, and the weapon animations used are defined in the archetype. It's a special archetype class, however : XComAnimatedWeapon.

 

I'd suggest by starting with the WP_Gremlin_CV archetype, copying it to a new art package, and then modifying it bit by bit.

[Negativz]

 

I was able to get my weapon model to load into the game--thanks for the info. However I now want to make it customizable. How do you make it so a model will accept colors and weapon camos from the in-game palette?

 

So, the answer depends somewhat on what material you used. If you imported the whole model with a material as defined in your 3D authoring tool, I'm not sure you'd be able to. We used the same materials as Firaxis (included in the SDK). WeaponCustomizable_TC for the conventional/magnetic, and M_Master_PwrdWep_TC for the beam.

 

In both cases, you need to define the tint-able area of the model in one of the textures. The MSK texture, Blue color channel, if I recall correctly. Since it's the full channel, you can use grey values to determine amount of tint/pattern.

 

Also, when configuring the material instance in UnrealEd, be sure to enable tinting. For the WeaponCustomizable_TC material, under Switches, enable UseTint and under Pattern, enable Pattern (and perhaps set the Pattern_UVScale if needed). For the M_Master_PwerdWep_TC, there's no toggle for tinting (it's on by default), but the Pattern/ Pattern toggle and Pattern_UVScale need to be enabled.

 

And if you are curious about the difference between the two, the former allows for "metalness" in the alpha channel, while the latter allows for flickering emissive and has "gloss" designed to better match the powered armors.

 

Ok. And how did you make the MSK? I tried making one and only got the stock of the model able to change colors but it's a very faint change and the patterns are almost transparent.

[Caiman]

 

What is the "ModShaderCache" and which files access it?

 

Do we always need to name it *ModName*_ModShaderCache?

Is it enough to rename another ModShaderCache like that (like from another Mod) or do we have to edit this files within?

 

Thx in advance :smile:

 

The ModShaderCache is something that is built during the second step of the build process.

 

Unreal uses compiled shaders (compiled from the materials). If the shaders are not compiled in advance, one of two things can happen. Sometimes the wrong shader gets used, and ends up with incorrect references, resulting in a "bad" material (we'd see solid block during our development), or the shader will be compiled at run-time, resulting in sometimes significant lag, depending on how many in total have to be compiled.

 

So the ModShaderCache.upk is automatically build from the art packages in the mod Content folder, and is only used by the game at launch to load the precompiled shaders.

 

When I was researching this a while back, I discovered that some UnrealTournament maps would take several minutes to load due to having to compile the shaders at run-time. And nobody wants that :smile:

 

 

So I can delete this file from my refference Mod and the ModBuddy will generate a new one automatically during build?

[SakuraKoi]

[Soldier X2CharacterTemplate]
-CharacterBaseStats[eStat_FlankingCritChance]=50
+CharacterBaseStats[eStat_FlankingCritChance]=100

The first line prefix - tells the merger to remove the line, using both key and value. The second line prefix + tells the merger to add the line if it doesn't already exist.

 

Alternatives are the ! prefix, which removes based on key, ignoring value, and the . prefix, which unconditionally adds the line, even if that results in a duplicate.

 

Well, that finally made my Increased Enemy Squad Size Mod working... I think, I already thought once that it would be finally working (because I really missed the Build Mod option and only build the solution) and now I tested twice to make sure. Now let's see if I can also modify the number of pods because it's a bit more complex since those have to be placed....and I have no idea what EncounterZoneOffsetAlongLOP really is or how it works, the DefaultMission .ini reads that it tells in which zone they spawn and patrol but I have no idea how to find which zone is which, I even failed to implement the "GodSaveTheQueen" (for the most extreme example) in the first Mission and I do not know why it does not work. All I currently did was inserting a

,           PrePlacedEncounters[2]=(EncounterID="DKVx3_GodSaveTheQueen", EncounterZoneOffsetAlongLOP=5.0, EncounterZoneWidth=26.0

I guess I'll have to test a bit further to see what may be missing but I'd be glad if someone could tell me what at least EncounterZoneOffsetAlongLOP is about.

[adelthorne]

Hi, How can I make xp and leveling a bit harder, and so that healing, hacking, reviving and carry ppl out matters.

 

I tried to fiddle in DefaultGameData_XpData.ini
And I want higher xp for rookie to squaddie, and more even xp per lvl, I think the characters lvl up to fast.

bUseFullXpSystem=false I tried to set it to true, and change these lines
RequiredXp[0]=0
RequiredXp[1]=1
RequiredXp[2]=70
RequiredXp[3]=160
RequiredXp[4]=305
RequiredXp[5]=520
RequiredXp[6]=825
RequiredXp[7]=1250

With no luck at all, I have only test this with the first mission though, all lvl up even those who did not kill any.

 

bUseFullXpSystem=false (I tried to set this to true, but no luck at all.)

RequiredXp[0]=0
RequiredXp[1]=500
RequiredXp[2]=1000
RequiredXp[3]=1600
RequiredXp[4]=2300
RequiredXp[5]=3100
RequiredXp[6]=4000
RequiredXp[7]=5000

[notzombie]

Thanks for the tips on psi sustain, Amineri, that really helped a lot.

 

Now I want to do something after a certain amount of time has passed, like some sort of delay poison. One of your soldier could be infected in a mission, and maybe few days later on the sphere you get notification that your soldier suddenly died. Or it could even happen in the middle of another mission.

 

is there a class I can look up that does something like that? or a system I can hook into to that allows me to do logic checks and perform action in set time periods.

 

[cwingnam]

I would like to know if it is possible to change the script to not wound soldier if the damage taken is less than the bonus health value from armour and items.

// Health is adjusted after tactical play so that units that only took armor damage still require heal time
function EndTacticalHealthMod()
{
	local float HealthPercent, NewHealth;
	local int RoundedNewHealth, HealthLost;

	HealthLost = HighestHP - LowestHP;

	// If Dead or never injured, return
	if(LowestHP <= 0 || HealthLost <= 0)
	{
		return;
	}

	// Calculate health percent
	HealthPercent = (float(HighestHP - HealthLost) / float(HighestHP));

	// Calculate and apply new health value
	NewHealth = (HealthPercent * GetBaseStat(eStat_HP));
	RoundedNewHealth = Round(NewHealth);
	RoundedNewHealth = Clamp(RoundedNewHealth, 1, (int(GetBaseStat(eStat_HP)) - 1));
	SetCurrentStat(eStat_HP, RoundedNewHealth);
}

[adelthorne]

I know you have not answered my first question, but another thought.

Is it possible to mod start continent?

 

And one more, is it possible if a retaliation mission is let say in Russia, that the game search for Russian names, Instead of John Scott, I know John might have fled to Russia, or where there on a vacation. But still like say 90% of the names come from that region.

[Joshuahoeth]

I made an interesting discovery when browsing through the Physics assets, I am inexperienced so correct me if I am wrong here but the Sectopod does have a ragdoll that is rather.... eh let's just say incomplete as it's skeleton is rather glitchy, or at the very least the main body is, so I am thinking it may be possible with some tweaks to replace the lame death animation we have now with a ragdoll, is this doable, Obviously we'd need to change the Physics asset as the one that currently exists is, as stated previously, a broken mess, but I for one love satisfying ragdolls and let's face it, the lame explosion we get now, isn't satisfying

Edited February 9, 2016 by Joshuahoeth