MAP QUEST

[UnkoMan]

Yeah, I put them to the middle. I went to take a screenshot just now, though, and they looked fine, so maybe I was seeing things? Imma leave it be.

That folder was empty in my mappack, I don't know why... However they were in your PA mod!

Yeah, I dunno about the bike. If I could ever figure out blender I could presumably toss some dents on, mess it up a bit?

Oh! And, quick question... am I able to change or create the text strings associated with objects? I forget if I have asked this before somewhere. Then all the buildings wouldn't have to say "Berlin" or "Patriot City" or whatever.

[cmdrkoenig67]

I'm sorry that I couldn't be of more help to you on the map textures, Unko buddy.

BTW, The Cafe building in can be re-skinned as a good western Adobe-looking building, I believe.  Also, check out Nuclear Winter's base buildings from , those can be re-skinned to look like that Arab-style building you posted.

Dana

[BentonGrey]

Dana!  Hey man, it's good to see you!  I'm glad we've got the map master to weigh in on some of these things! 

Yeah, I put them to the middle. I went to take a screenshot just now, though, and they looked fine, so maybe I was seeing things? Imma leave it be.

That folder was empty in my mappack, I don't know why... However they were in your PA mod!

Yeah, I dunno about the bike. If I could ever figure out blender I could presumably toss some dents on, mess it up a bit?

Oh! And, quick question... am I able to change or create the text strings associated with objects? I forget if I have asked this before somewhere. Then all the buildings wouldn't have to say "Berlin" or "Patriot City" or whatever.

Emissions: Cool, hopefully they'll work well.

Mappack: Hmm, sounds like you've got a messed up download, because I just checked my .zip file and it does have those files.  I'd try downloading it again.  I'm glad you found the files, though!

Bike: I guess?  You're out of my area of knowledge now. 

Text: DARN IT!  Ha, I knew I missed something!  Yes, editing text strings is totally possible and very easy.  Just go to Data(or Mod)/Lang/English, and open up your strings.txt.  Then it's just a matter of editing or adding.  You'll note that stuff has two types of entries.  For example:

3fandral precision stab_01, precision stab
3fandral precision stab_desc_01, strike an enemy in a weak point, delivering great damage

The first is the name of the item/power/character, the second is the description that shows up when you mouse over.  Characters have a third one which is their bio.  Note the bolded sections above.  Those are the format text that tells the game what type of label this is.  The stuff before that is the EXACT name as it shows up in FFEdit.  It cannot be different, or the game won't recognize the string.  Once you've done you're editing, back up your Lang files, open up FFEdit, and on the main tab, look at the middle box, which is labeled Speech, Text, and Language.  Set your data path to the appropriate mod's Lang files, set the output somewhere else.  I like to go just one directory up.  This avoids some problems.  Click the 'generate language files' button, and then go get a cup of coffee.  After a while (longer for larger files, of course), you'll come back to find some shiny new dats.  Replace the ones in your Lang file with the new ones, and you're all set.

You can use other tools (I think M25 made one), but I find they occasionally introduce errors that are gamebreaking and REALLY hard to find, because they are just extra spaces.

[UnkoMan]

Thank you Bent, Dana, Glob, Cyber, DJ, whomever else has been a help who I may have forgotten. Glad this community is still around, even if it isn't buzzing quite so much these days.
EDIT: Oh and this strings stuff, sheesh. No wonder people just leave that alone. Thanks for cluing me in though, Bent.

My current questions: What is the most painless way to package maps for installation.
Would it be best to zip relevant things from the \Art\ folder, with all paths intact, and include my object.dat, which could theoretically then be merged with whatever object.dat somebody else uses? Would that be the easiest way to get all my new object templates to another person?
Then, just toss up the Mission folders as their own things?

Also I did mess up a bit by altering terrain.nifs and replacing them, instead of setting up the layout file to point to the new terrain nif first. I'm having a bit of trouble correcting that right now, without losing all the objects from the original terrain file, quite a bit of which I have used already. Perhaps if somebody knows of a way to edit .dat files manually some way, without messing up the formatting and making it unreadable like any of the text editors I have tried seem to do? Otherwise it is just going to take a lot of work logging where I have placed each and every item, and replacing them all back where they should be. Like, a loooooooot of work. Like, it will be a huge pain in the butt, but now I've learned it for future times I want to mess with the terrain .nifs.