Basic Modding with Playable Examples

[niphty]

I'd always assumed the crashing was due to my super suit in my personal experience. If I died, and it was trying to reheal me, etc.. then the game would be like 'Full life, dead? WHAT!' and crash. I never traced it down because of that, though I suppose it warrants a deeper investigation now I'll see what I can figure out.

[Faiakes]

Great guide niphty

My question is whether an inventory image of a weapon can be shrunk to fit the handgun slot.

I've tried with the Noiseless Viper but apparently the image is in the .ogf format which is inaccessible.

I've sent you more details.

[niphty]

While you can change the size the weapon fits in, the graphic can't be resized at the moment. There's no way to get around that at the moment, unfortunately. Just be happy they fit and don't crash (usually) hehe.

[Faiakes]

Originally Posted by niphty

While you can change the size the weapon fits in, the graphic can't be resized at the moment. There's no way to get around that at the moment, unfortunately. Just be happy they fit and don't crash (usually) hehe.

Is the image that appears in the inventory that .ogf file ?

If it is, does that mean we have to wait until the SDK comes out or just until a program that can edit .ogf files comes out?

[FoxTwo]

Originally Posted by niphty

additional_inventory_weight & additional_inventory_weight2 - Pretty straightforward options. Note, though, the game will only display you as being able to carry 70kgs, regardless of what you set this to. But with higher numbers you won't get overloaded just by carrying 150kgs, even though it still shows up as a red number.

I discovered what these 2 fields actually do!!

While making my self-repairing armour mod, on a whim I decided to add these 2 into my definitions, and viola! I found that:

additional_inventory_weight = 10

is as expected .... allows you to carry 10 more kilograms of weight in addition to the 50kg default, effectively you can carry up to 70 kgs before being unable to walk.


additional_inventory_weight2 = 10

just SHOWS "60kg" on the UI in your inventory screen (50kg + 10kg). It doesn't affect you functionally.

So in practice, the 2 numbers should always match, so that if you had these in your configs, your UI will show 60kg, and the figures will only start turning red AFTER you carry over 60kg of stuff.

But if you want your UI to show the actual total weight you can carry before being unable to walk, then you just need to add 10 to the figure in "additional_inventory_weight" in your "additional_inventory_weight2", so that the numbers will start turning red 10kgs before the actual max weight.

As a practical example, in my own armour mod, I had:

additional_inventory_weight = 40
additional_inventory_weight2 = 40

My inventory screen shows "90kg" (50kg + 40kg), meaning I can carry up to 100kg before being unable to walk. Numbers only start turning red after I had loaded up with more than 90kg of stuff.

Hope this info is useful to somebody...

[ZanderArch]

Originally Posted by niphty

While you can change the size the weapon fits in, the graphic can't be resized at the moment. There's no way to get around that at the moment, unfortunately. Just be happy they fit and don't crash (usually) hehe.

Holy crap! Niphty is wrong!

All you need is Photoshop with a .dds Plugin. The file is gamedate\textures\ui\ui_icon_equipment.dds. I've edited it WITHOUT photoshop with a cheap .dds Converter, but since I was editing a JPG in MSPaint, it lost the translucency and looked ugly, but I did manage to take the Scope and Silencer off the Sniper TRs-301 Unique rifle, shorten the magazine, and length the barrel, AS WELL AS fold the stock on the RG-6 so it looked good when I turned it into a pistol But, like I said, transparency went to crap.

PS: this is only for the inventory images, not the ingame model.

[niphty]

So you can do it, but the image goes all to hell, in your words.. which means it's useless =D I don't see how I'm wrong, when I posted that, I hadn't seen anyone done it. Right now I still haven't seen someone do it. Can you link a mod where someone has resized the image of a 4 grid gun to 3? I'd really like to make a tiny-SVD mod.

[Faiakes]

Originally Posted by ZanderArch

Holy crap! Niphty is wrong!

All you need is Photoshop with a .dds Plugin. The file is gamedate\textures\ui\ui_icon_equipment.dds. I've edited it WITHOUT photoshop with a cheap .dds Converter, but since I was editing a JPG in MSPaint, it lost the translucency and looked ugly, but I did manage to take the Scope and Silencer off the Sniper TRs-301 Unique rifle, shorten the magazine, and length the barrel, AS WELL AS fold the stock on the RG-6 so it looked good when I turned it into a pistol But, like I said, transparency went to crap.

PS: this is only for the inventory images, not the ingame model.

That is great stuff ZanderArch. At least now I know which exact file I am looking for.
Which dds converting program did you use (link?) Were I to use Photoshop would the quality be unaffected?

[ZanderArch]

Originally Posted by niphty

So you can do it, but the image goes all to hell, in your words.. which means it's useless =D I don't see how I'm wrong, when I posted that, I hadn't seen anyone done it. Right now I still haven't seen someone do it. Can you link a mod where someone has resized the image of a 4 grid gun to 3? I'd really like to make a tiny-SVD mod.

That's using a Cheap converted image and then editing in standard Micro$oft Paint. If you were using Photoshop with a .dds plugin, you could make good quality replacements with the Transparency still intact.

.dds Conveter: http://www.dsabstraction.com/ddsconverter.rar
This is what I used, but converting it back and forth will loose transparency; unless you want to do something totally solid, then it'd work...*Gets skinning idea.*
OR, if you have photoshop, you can do this right with this .dds Plugin: http://farcry.filefront.com/file/gof...QyMzcxMzYxNTEx

[niphty]

Dedicated to ZanderArch :P

Of note: it’s early and I’m not checking this over very well at the moment, and it’s going to need two posts, so editing won’t be possible. Hopefully S.T.A.L.K.E.R. can help make sure it looks nice

Well, by no means do I consider it a basic tutorial, but here it is.

Part.. something: DDS?!

No, it doesn't mean dance dance, shenanigans! Nor is it some new, hip toy. It's a DirectDraw Surface! Whee!

Now, most people scoff at DDS files simply because they don't know what they are. DO NOT BE FOOLED.. it's just a hyped up image file. I have to admit, I'm don't usually dig into graphics beyond the occasional animated gif and resizing images, but these DDS things are nothing to be afraid of.

Now, there's a lot of text about how do I edit these files, how do I view these files, etc. I can only say one thing here.. LINK!
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/n...ure_tools.html
That's the site to go to for your DDS needs as it has an easy DDS viewer utility, along with plug-ins you'll need if you're going the Photoshop route. Oh, and if you think your dreams are crushed because you don't have Adobe Photoshop, it's probably best to tell you now.. the DDS converter posted here: http://www.dsabstraction.com/dds_converter.htm (thanks for the link =D) works just as well as the adobe plug-in, and may be a bit less confusing for the average person. So I'll be writing using it.

First thing.. install the DDS Converter! You won't get far without it =D Once installed it's pretty straight-forward, though a couple options will need noting.
Next up.. open the program and find a DDS file to convert. I’m using the textures/ui/ui_icon_equipment.dds for a starter file, to make the Tiny SVD mod Once you've clicked on it, a preview should appear with lots of little inventory icons for the in-game equipment. Now the fun begins..

The upper right corner - yes, a section devoted to a corner! These are all the basic details you'll want to make note of when you first open/convert a DDS file. Note the file's compression (DXT3/5 for all the STALKER files I've played with so far, but you know what they say about assumptions.. ). Also note if it's Mipmapped or not, more on that later. A HUGE option you'll want to verify is the ALPHA CHANNEL! I can't stress enough, Alpha channel is the blend channel in graphics (so says the intarweb!) so if you fail to export/import this data, you'll end up with an image which doesn't mesh with what you want in game

Once you have your image data at hand, you're ready to convert. nVidia's documents say they prefer to convert from JPEG to DDS, so we might as well export to JPEG. Select that from the list to convert to, and then go to options.

Noteworthy Options - While the majority of the options are self-explanatory, you will need to make sure to set them the first time you run this program, and a few will change time to time. The directory change option is up to you. Obviously we don't want to delete the old files, and depending on your preference, you can choose to close the converter on success. I'd also recommend leaving the buffer alone for now

Since we'll be saving in JPEG, you can choose the conversion quality level at the bottom. To the left = no quality, all compression. To the right = high quality, low compression. I'd recommend bumping it up over 90, but that's just me I didn't test to see how well they turned out at different levels.

In the upper right you can choose to save time or memory, can't get both I'm afraid!

And the last segment is the DDS segment. This is where the data we took earlier will come in handy. Be sure to select the DXTc format of the file when you’re outputting the DDS. You'll also note the Mipmap option here again.. so let's take a little break to discuss it.
Mipmaps, basically, are scaled versions of an image, starting from largest and moving to smallest. Generally these are used as grids to overlay where you may need the same texture in a large and small format, or anything in between. You'll find this in most static terrain, and one of the best examples you can look at is the tree bark When the option says Mipmap#: it means the number of iterations of the image from largest to smallest. Essentially, this option will take the image presented, and generate the required Mipmaps from it. The converter will only output the main image, it's entirely up to you to ensure the file you convert back into the DDS has the same properties as the original That's why I said to be sure to write it down!

Lastly be sure you check the option for Save Alpha, since we need that channel, and the program should skip the alpha channel if none exists. If you're paranoid, then check your notes on the image, and uncheck it if necessary

I don't believe the add dithering and fast compress options are necessary, but you might want to play around with them Also, most people seem to recommend sticking with the nVidia option at the top of the DDS options. I haven't tried the S3 converter yet.

Once you're done with the options, go ahead and convert the DDS to the JPEG. Now, this program is a bit odd in that it doesn't associate with DDS files, so you have to manually start it. If you want to keep it open for next time, click on the button that says Restart. Otherwise, close the software for now.

What you should get is a shiny new JPEG (likely in the same folder, unless you changed that option). You can then import this into your favorite editing tool, just be sure it uses the alpha channel in SOME way, or you won't save that data when you convert back to DDS.

Onwards to editing glory!