ShianaTalaranja Posted June 11, 2011 Share Posted June 11, 2011 Currently i am writing a new tool for myself && all other modders out there. It is (another) low-level .esp modifier, which starts where tes4edit leaves off. (and a later version will also do something like tes4files, but not exactly the same - i will come to this later) The idea got me yesterday. I wanted to use Abriaels beautiful human races as a default - replacer for the human-like (imperial, redguard, ...) races in my oblivion installation, but had to notice that due to the textures used in his/her mod the females looked beautiful, but the males looked like fags (may i write this word?). So i searched for any replacer, that allowed me to just replace the - lets say - female imperials against another race like female abriaels imperials, without touching the standard imperial males. But - there is no such possibility today.Or a replacer, for example that allows me to replace the brownEyes of every Female in the game against green ones. -> but not as a texture replacer which leads to googlie eyes if the sizes dont match, but instead by replacing the formids of the eyes in every female NPC_ structure. So i began to write the tool a few days ago.The Status so far is this:-----> i understand how the .esp file system works.-----> i can read in simple (generated with TES4Edit by copying some entries from another .esp) .esp files-----> i can modify the contents in the memory-----> i can write back a working .esp that is compatible with oblivion and other .esp editors.in other words: i am halfway through so far, but i wrote it in PHP. So - because not everyone ownes a server and therefore - before uploading the file to the nexus i have to port it to another programming language. My next steps are to write the Record-Search engine and the user-interface, but - atleast before i write the gui - i want to port the utility to another programming language Which one shall i take? I would prefer JAVA. But i heard of memory issues. Are there any known memory issues with opening large files? My Tool will use a lot of memory, since all the contents of the .esp are held in memory. Or is a C-dialect (either objective C or C++) better suited for this? If so - who knows a free compiler that works under windows ? Maybe something like Delphi is better suited for this work?(Since i cant write code in C# this aint no alternative..) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheReverendTholomewPlague Posted June 11, 2011 Share Posted June 11, 2011 http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html Enjoy :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShianaTalaranja Posted June 11, 2011 Author Share Posted June 11, 2011 Thanks! This was really helpful. I am using it with the wxWidgets -Extension. (Never found my way into the MS-MVC..) The Porting goes slowly and my spare time is limited, but , I guess next Weekend i will have the first Beta to upload to the Nexus.. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkInMKUK Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 Shiana - take a look at the thread on "proper" khajiit and argonoan bodies/animations. The work being done there covers a lot of species and gender-based physical changes, including skeletal variations. I have no idea whether it would be of use to you to see how they have done stuff, but it would be a real shame if their work and yours turned out to be incompatible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShianaTalaranja Posted June 13, 2011 Author Share Posted June 13, 2011 Its a completely different approach they have taken. They try to realize the gender-based modifications with scripts, - this costs processing power, makes oblivion slower, etc.. but till today it was the only way to go, because the only other option you have had was to change the skeleton for the gender by modifying every single NPC in Oblivion - and any addons - by hand. This is where my tool steps in.It scans the .esp for NPC_ entries based on formulas (like Race=argonian and gender=female) and then does the changes for every entry (like changing the race to something new, or just replacing green eyes to yellow or exchangin the used skeleton) - something which would take a few days if done by hand - in a few minutes, for all the mods you have selected. But these changes are done in the .esp directly (or it compiles a patch .esp which contains the changes - i am not sure on that, maybe i will implement both versions) - so no additional processing power will be used. AND you can still use the approach they have taken in addition (for example to change the body .nifs - which aren't saved for every NPC_ in the .esp file). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkInMKUK Posted June 13, 2011 Share Posted June 13, 2011 (edited) Sounds useful - I'll post a link to this thread for info from there. One obvious advantage of the script approach is no need to modify every esp file you have, but your alternative would certainly be more efficient processor-wise. A suggestion for your tool - the ability to tie in clothing variations is useful, so you can have (for example) a BAB body and clothing for one race, and HGEC C-cup with clothing for another. Obviously that would require the appropriate clothing mods as a resource, but if you are going to play with body types anyway that would be a necessity, I feel. Edited June 13, 2011 by MarkInMKUK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts