DrStupid87 Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 (edited) Basically, I've always loved the aspect of design in games. Spore being the best one (NOT the best game, but one of the best for designing your own stuff). And whenever an elder scrolls has come out, I've always thought "Man, I wish I could choose how my weapon/gear looked." The easiest way I can visualize something like this is to breakdown all of the weapons into their component parts (so for swords: pommel, handle, hilt, lower blade, middle blade, upper blade) and for each part, add a 'snap-point' to them. So once the user sees a pommel they like, they can 'snap' a handle they also like onto it and repeat all the way up their weapon so that all of the parts fit together seamlessly. For the purposes of comparison, I made this replica of the Zeldas Master Sword using scenery parts from the Neverwinter Nights 2 toolset: I just slapped parts together at the time because I had no idea how to model. Sure, I can model things now but the principle is that for people who want to design their own weapons, they shouldn't have to learn how to model and skin what they want. They should be able to do it as cleanly and quickly as possible using a design aid (a'la Spore)As for the weapon values, whatever base material was being used (Iron ingots lets say), that would determine how the blade looked (a glass balde template, but re-skinned as iron) and how its data was affected (iron, so less damage than steel). And that's about it really. So! Seeing as I have barely any modding experience, anyone more experienced fancy a go? Is this a decent idea? Is the god-damn cake still a lie? Cheers! Edited January 14, 2012 by Dr Stupid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffman12 Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 So basically, the way they handle weapons in Borderlands, but craftable. I like this idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrStupid87 Posted January 14, 2012 Author Share Posted January 14, 2012 So basically, the way they handle weapons in Borderlands, but craftable. I like this idea. Thanks! Borderlands had a good idea but could have done better with it, especially the ending. I was actually working on this same idea in flash and with guns. Here's the demo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorpony Posted January 14, 2012 Share Posted January 14, 2012 If development of NifSE got to the point where the game engine could make .nifs on the fly then I could see this happening. I thought of doing something similar a long time ago but having to premake every possible combination of parts would lead to thousands of nif files. RP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrStupid87 Posted January 15, 2012 Author Share Posted January 15, 2012 If development of NifSE got to the point where the game engine could make .nifs on the fly then I could see this happening. I thought of doing something similar a long time ago but having to premake every possible combination of parts would lead to thousands of nif files. RP Based on that weapon maker demo I linked above, you wouldn't have to premake any parts (I think. I've no idea how to mod in Skyrim). Every part would be stored in its own array (pommels[pommel1, pommel2, pommel3...etc]) and this nif file would store a custom weapon as pommel[pommelx]. handle[handlex], hilt[hiltx], lowerblade[lbladex[, middleblade[mbladex], upperblade[ubladex];.Once the parts had been selected, it would then need to store the selected parts as a weapon and snap them together, rather than predefining every single combination of parts (each combination of my weapon parts adds up to be roughly 1 million combinations). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razorpony Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 Well modding for gamebro (the engine for all Bethsoft games) requires a nif file to be associated with each item defined in the construction set. The ability to make nifs on the fly while playing is still a pretty new concept and hasn't been fully implemented. However, NifSE has the potential to do what you're talking about. A script would gather the various parts the player selects and add them all to a blank nif then save it as new weaponname.nif. It would open up a whole newworld of crafting for sure. RP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrStupid87 Posted January 15, 2012 Author Share Posted January 15, 2012 Well modding for gamebro (the engine for all Bethsoft games) requires a nif file to be associated with each item defined in the construction set. The ability to make nifs on the fly while playing is still a pretty new concept and hasn't been fully implemented. However, NifSE has the potential to do what you're talking about. A script would gather the various parts the player selects and add them all to a blank nif then save it as new weaponname.nif. It would open up a whole newworld of crafting for sure. RP Ah I see. I suppose the trouble after setting things up with NifSE would then be getting the right kind of interface whilst smithing to make the part selection easy enough to work. Although I have to admit the prospect of trying something like this myself makes me pee my pants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrStupid87 Posted January 15, 2012 Author Share Posted January 15, 2012 Does anyone know specifically how Spore got its design features to work together? I remember a press release saying it was all about how the A.I handled everything but beyond that, I don't know anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allephus Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 (edited) Well, I thought about it and I was curious why it would absolutely NEED to generate new files. Why couldn't it just simply be an aesthetic attribute in game, while basically just picking a new look for the same item. For instance: Take a steel sword and make it with the same ingredients but pick a certain look from a list of the handle, the blade, and the details. Kinda like Jedi Knight Academy as well. It would require new files for the designs you can pick from, but not few new weapons if they're the same thing. Edit: It WOULD require heh Edited January 15, 2012 by Allephus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeffman12 Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 (edited) Theoretically, you would just need a .nif for each part of the weapon, not every single combination, and they'd just be snapped together like a lego set. Of course I don't imagine a weapon editor in Skyrim would be like Spore's so much as selecting from a list of pre-determined parts which will end up going in predetermined areas. Also, spore managed to encode creatures, buildings, and vehicles into a .jpg format, I think that's a little advanced for our capabilities. Edited January 15, 2012 by Jeffman12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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