playable advent mod: details, feedback

[davidlallen]

As I mentioned in the steam comments thread for the mod, they have added a built-in facility for class specific armor. I am pretty sure that is what is causing this graphical problem. I will look into replacing my home-grown attempt at class specific armor, with this new facility. That should help quite a lot. I will try to have that up by Saturday.

[TastyPoptard]

One of my biggest complaints about this mod is that the customization is artificially limited, even though it's already capable of being so much more. I mean, just by fudging around with another mod, I was able to make all of my aliens so much more amazing! Look!

 

http://i.imgur.com/zAfOvkW.png

http://i.imgur.com/4x52wXJ.png

 

Please, the next update, could you add in a few lines to unlock armor patterns for the aliens? They'll be looking even better for everyone if you do.

[davidlallen]

Those are pretty neat screenshots. Please help me out by explaining exactly what you already figured out how to unlock. My experience with modding xcom2 is that I can spend 5-6 hours figuring out some little point, so after a week of my hobby "fun time", I have figured out 2-3 little things. The more you can help me out, the faster I can go.

Edited May 13, 2016 by davidlallen

[TastyPoptard]

Huh, you aren't able to? I thought you'd just easily be able to turn on props and armor pattern and get it done simply. I had to use a very roundabout way to apply camos (and accidentally discovered how to fix the humanface syndrome that plagued me after the new patch on the way).

 

To get the camouflage, it's only a few steps:

1. You need the Uniform Manager Mod, plus any camo mods you'd like.
2. Start with the alien you wish to decorate. Make a uniform of them as they are, and then export selection.
3. Find a human soldier of the same gender as your alien (female for Vipers, male for MECs and Chryssalids). Import the alien's uniform and equip it. Your human should look like an unholy fusion of alien and man or simply be invisible from the neck down.
4. Make sure your human is very neutral. Bald, no facial hair, no props. Change their armor pattern to whatever you want. Color is not important.
5. Save their uniform, then export it again.
6. Import it on your alien and equip it. They should appear like the same abomination the human looks like for now.
7. Go customize them, and simply change a color. Back out to the soldier roster.
8. Go examine your alien again, and you should be back to normal and with the pattern all over themselves. You can customize it how you like and finish it.
   1. Mutons and the basic MEC suit aren't able to be customized (though the reinforced armor is).
9. Save the uniform again for good measure, and you can export/import directly to other aliens of the same species very simply. It helps to repeat this process for multiple types of patterns so you can make one master file, and quickly change any alien to how you like them.

Yeah, I have no idea why this works, but it does. Hopefully you can make something of it, and make it a feature instead of just a bug.

[davidlallen]

Thanks for the info. That seems like a pretty random set of steps and I have no idea what that actually does. Once I get all the existing features working I will spend a little time to see what is happening under the hood with your steps.

[davidlallen]

Well, the mod has developed a terrible graphics glitch after the patch. The aliens have an extra human head:

http://i.imgur.com/aOJMBBx.png

http://i.imgur.com/eNsMLLM.png

 

The graphics were done by maclimes, who has gone quiet. If anybody can suggest how to fix this, I would appreciate the help!

 

xpost: https://www.reddit.com/r/xcom2mods/comments/4jc3zb/patch_crisis_my_aliens_have_an_extra_head/

[koopakidshyguy]

Seems like the issue's with the customizable armors, they must've changed up the armor formatting somehow... yay. Personally, I've switched them back to the standard pawns in the research project files for my build to prevent future issues, but that's an admittedly destructive fix, as the customizable skins were really flipping awesome.

 

Really starting to wish they could have just gone with the Enemy Within expansion model, crap like this just takes the wind out of my sails... Bad enough that faceless/gatekeeper still aren't cooperating, sucks more to have stuff outright break from underneath you, but c'est la vie, :\

[VaciliNikoMavich]

So is the mod fixable?

From what it sounds like, you guys are going "backwards" and having us use the vanilla models again? (Which i didn't have a lroblem with in my opinion concerning the viper and mec)

[davidlallen]

Please give us a little time to research the problem and fix it properly.

[TastyPoptard]

Poptard to the rescue again!

 

I discovered how to fix the head thing, and it's working perfectly for me.

 

You'll need the 'load from character pool' mod, the invisible face mod, and the uniform manager mod will help.

 

Save a human character with the invisible face with no props, hair, or facial hair (else you'll have an alien with a floating hat or something), and then on your alien character load that character. It'll import the human character, but for some reason still have the 'this is an alien' classification. If you do something that will make the game refresh the character render, like load a saved alien uniform, changing a uniform color and backing out to the soldier roster, or something similar, it'll go back to having both the proper mesh and texture. I'm guessing the humanish-face is still "there," but it's all invisible, so it's no issue. Then you just change the character name and bio back to whatever you want, but it does mean you have to pick a nickname again.

 

I think the issue comes because the game tries to either load an alien mesh with human features,

http://i.imgur.com/CdmnRGt.jpg

 

or a human mesh with alien features.

 

http://i.imgur.com/tsChe5t.jpg

 

 

I'm assuming that because having an alien mesh prevents you from changing the features, the trick is to use the import character and/or import uniforms to force the game to apply the proper features, and once they're aligned and the model is re-rendered, everything's back to normal. Likely, that's also how my texture changing trick above works, with the disconnect of alien mesh/features being intentional.

 

 

It's worked for the Viper, at least. MECs still have tiny floating teeth and eyes, and I haven't had the chance to test it with the Chryssalid or others. So, I'd say, don't pull customization back immediately. I'm no modder, but it may be that the game doesn't remember not to spawn your aliens with a human head, and that making completely invisible heads/eyes/lips is the way to go for now.