Home » Fable TLC » Discussion » General Mod Discussion » Looking around.
| Looking around. [message #67337] |
Mon, 24 September 2012 13:10  |
Lenop
Messages: 83
Registered: September 2012
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Revised first post. Categorizing TLC's potential for modding by can or can't be done.
Things that don't appear to be moddable:
Animation.
Maps, landscapes, heightmaps and navigation.
Quests, gameflow and cutscenes.
Effects.
No new spells.
What that leaves is:
Armor, clothing, hair, except dynamic meshes aren't compatible with the DirectX format.
Weapons, seemingly without any limitations.
Items, consumables, trophies, gifts, various other things.
NPCs and creatures.
Expressions.
Map scripting, but moot without navigation editing.
Textures.
Collision.
And then there's editing existing stuff.
I'll find some way to make something awesome out of all this.
It's just very limited.
[Updated on: Sun, 30 September 2012 14:38] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: Looking around. [message #67350 is a reply to message #67337] |
Thu, 27 September 2012 01:17  |
Lenop
Messages: 83
Registered: September 2012
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Thanks for the reply DarkONI. 
Having replayed the game, I see a great number of opportunities to change and improve the way things are. Sadly this community isn't as active as I had hoped, but hopefully the information I need is still here as well as a couple people to put out advice now and then.
Having taken another more thorough look at the game, it's apparent that you can't do a whole lot if it gets in the way of quests. For example, you can't merge all the maps because quests like to be started in their specific maps. You can either sandbox the game by removing all quest elements and killing gameflow or you can just work around it.
Another thing I've noticed, there are no ways of triggering cutscenes on demand, with the exception of the darkwood silver key arrow stone thingy but I don't know if that's tied into the quest or hardcoded or what. Might be dangerous to play with. But what this means is that there's no way to create new cutscenes and get them into the game.
What I haven't checked into yet is mapping. I may not be able to merge maps and keep gameflow but I hope I can at least make the existing maps better, bigger. More information on that would be most appreciated.
I'm still looking into a hundred other things, new creatures, items, trophies, weapons, potions, clothing, interactions, and I'm looking into changing the way the hero morphs based on stats as well as villages and towns and crimes and so many other things. Time, all things in time. I'll figure it all out eventually.
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Edit:
Once I get my modeling and graphics editing tools installed and ready, I see a lot of models and textures that are compatible with each other. What I mean is that they look like they're made in a mix'n'match manner which allows for customization of buildings, characters, weapons, and a lot more. Definitely worth probing.
I'm curious, how is NPC navigating handled? That looks like a complicated subject when I browse through the binaries with FableExplorer. I was screwing around with the heightmaps in the maps and, aside from the height being about 5000 times higher than I expected, the landscape didn't go with it. So I was walking on air way high in the sky. Maps in particular appear to be extremely complicated, it seems that it would be very difficult to create my own from scratch. A lot of things I still don't understand. I am reading around the forums but it would save me so much time if someone pointed me in the right direction or just told me what I need to do.
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Edit:
Having some trouble with my utility installs, but that gave me more time to look at the files and FableExplorer's features and took interest in animations. They don't look like any format I've ever worked with before. Is it possible to make new ones or just edit existing ones? There aren't really any tools for editing the animations, is editing them even possible?
Without animations, cutscenes, terrain mapping, quest scripting, or navigation data editing, there really isn't a whole lot I can do here. 
[Updated on: Thu, 27 September 2012 22:23] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: Looking around. [message #67352 is a reply to message #67351] |
Fri, 28 September 2012 05:43 |
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You can't really edit animations without a hex editor and a lot of skill.
You can remap actions to different animations though, with the CAppearanceDef tool.
"All of the work, and none of the play, will surely provide for a speedy decay"
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| Re: Looking around. [message #67353 is a reply to message #67352] |
Fri, 28 September 2012 06:09 |
Lenop
Messages: 83
Registered: September 2012
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Thank you morerunes. I know my way around a hex editor but some of these things look far more advanced than my level of skill can take on.
Some other things I've noticed is that meshes don't have their own collision. A disappointment when my player walked straight through the walls of my new building. I looked closer and it looks like collision is handled through external meshes, but FableExplorer doesn't export them the same way. And it looks like a different format from other meshes too. And it looks like their are different meshes for different states - like a door being open or closed, it will have two collision meshes for each, so I'm assuming that means no animated collision, which in turn means I can't make a windmill that blocks access. And, while I was noticing things, it looks like NPCs and creatures don't have collision, only a facsimile of it via hit detection. On the plus side, that means I don't have to deal with Havok physics but it has a lot of downsides, like my cool windmill won't work.
The more I look the more disappointed I become. Not by any fault of this community, no, seeing the blood and guts of Fable I can see that this community has come very far to mod it. Proprietary formats and custom floating points and bassackwards redundancies and obsolete data, this game is a mess. It's a shame that Lionhead didn't release so much as a single tool or any format specs so that people could make tools. I applaud you guys, having done so much to come this far. It's just a shame more can't be done. 
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| Re: Looking around. [message #67355 is a reply to message #67354] |
Fri, 28 September 2012 12:18 |
Lenop
Messages: 83
Registered: September 2012
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Interesting suggestion but that wouldn't help me. It would still lack any sort of collision. And I doubt the work required to get the kraken set up right without crashing the game (it's a heavily scripted boss fight that takes place during a quest) would be worth it even if it did work right. I like the way you think though.
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| Re: Looking around. [message #67357 is a reply to message #67356] |
Fri, 28 September 2012 17:13 |
Lenop
Messages: 83
Registered: September 2012
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Thanks for the reply nicomon.
I checked out the wiki and saw the rotating statue script, very handy. It works with collision, conditionally. If the player is constantly moving, the collision between the player and the rotating object continues to update. But if the player holds still, the collision will go through the player and you can end up getting stuck. The other issue with this method is that it will only spin around the z axis, and I'd want it to spin on its side. Still a good out-of-the-box idea though, thanks.
ChocolateBox, I remember seeing the tool. I thought the Shadownet tool was more recent. But I'll check it out. Thanks for the tip.
Edit: There are other things besides a windmill that I'd like to do, by the way. 
[Updated on: Fri, 28 September 2012 17:15] Report message to a moderator |
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