General, useful, additional mod questions

[Lunarman]

Has anyone figured out how to get these to work. I'm making a map for a mission (based on the square park map) and I need there to be traffic and civilians walking about. I've left the civnodes and roadnodes still on the map but they don't seem to be working. Do you have to add the cars and civilians manually then set them to run the course? There weren't any people on the map before I edited it but then I can't remember if civilians are used on that map in the campaign.

Has anyone got this working?

Thankyou

Lunarman

[GogglesPizanno]

If I remember correctly they describe this in the Art documentation with the mod tools.

I think it works in that there are splines positioned on the maps (using 3D Studio when the level is created) like strings that define a series of paths (I believe these are what show up as nodes in the editor). Placing a vehicle or a civilian ON the spline (using the editor) tells the game that they should start moving along that path.

Placing a vehicle OFF of the spline will just have it be a non-moving static object.
Placing a civilian OFF a spline will just wander around aimlessly on their own.

At least this is how i remember at the moment without looking at the documentation....

[Lunarman]

Thankyou very much. I'll take a lot at these art docs.


I wonder how you find those splines.

Thanks again

edit----

the art docs confirm what you said. However there doesn't appear to be any way of detecting the splines unless you made the map in max. Maybe nifskope can reveal something .

[Lunarman]

It worked! You do actually just put the civs and cars on the roads and they drive, very exciting ;)
Ok, new question


In the FF1 and possibly FF2 your heroes could talk to civs by clicking on them. They'd get a random response about the weather or heroes or something. It was called chatter. Do they have this in FF2? and if yes, how do I turn it on?

Thankyou

Lunarman

[Boalt92]

Lunar:

did you have to use nifscope to find the "splines"?  can you post your solution?  this has been bugging me, and i had given up on it.

B92

[GogglesPizanno]

did you have to use nifscope to find the "splines"?

I dont think there is any way of really seeing them since they are for all intents and purposes outside of 3D Studio, invisible.

I would think that if you saw the civilian or traffic node markers in ffedit you could make a reasoned guess as to the road or sidewalk that it was on and kind of position in the middle of that accordingly. It sounds like thats all Lunarman did. He'll have to confirm.

In the FF1 and possibly FF2 your heroes could talk to civs by clicking on them. They'd get a random response about the weather or heroes or something. It was called chatter. Do they have this in FF2? and if yes, how do I turn it on?

As for the chatter, I totally forgot about that.
I cant honestly say if i know if that happens in  :ffvstr: or not. Never paid attention   :huh:
If it doesn't that would probably be a pretty easy thing to add via the new FFX plug-in system.
The only part missing would be the audio files of the talking itself. You could probably just grab them from FF if needed. That might be a neat little thing to throw together.

[Lunarman]

In response to splines, lol.

Yes, I just looked at the civ nodes and placed civilians on them. Because, you see, the civ nodes are always placed on splines.

I tried turning on the automatic FFVTTR chatter (which is in the game in the cshelper.py file) but I got errors instead of it working. Something about bad names, I may look into it but then again I may not. sorry

Thanks again,

Lunarman

[Boalt92]

Yes, I just looked at the civ nodes and placed civilians on them. Because, you see, the civ nodes are always placed on splines.

that's what i was afraid of...i was hoping to be able to add new civilian nodes to a map that didn't already have them.
oh well...

B92

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Have you tried duplicating and moving them with nifskope?

[Lunarman]

Well I couldn't find any civ splines in Nifskope. I have a feeling that are completely invisible even to nif editing softwhere.

[HumanTon]

A couple of notes--First, don't forget to make sure there are traffic light nodes at intersections (the docs explain how.) Oherwise you'll get lots of collisions. Of course, that may be what you want..... Second, the traffic nodes on several of the FFVTR maps are missing or screwed up (it's been a while, so I forget the details, but I do recall the giant "hot dog festival" map has broken traffic nodes.)

[GogglesPizanno]

Well it turns out the splines themselves are not part of the nif file at all. 3DStudio exports those splines as a list of of nodes with coords in the paths.txt file (in the level layout directory for the level). So really all the paths are is a series of nodes that are imported to a level when you import the level layout file.

Now there is some very specific info about the placing of the nodes etc that exporting from max does to insure they work (the art docs specifically mention placing at z=0 and snapping, not welding). I tried just placing a line of nodes on a level changing them to Roadpath nodes, and no love. So TECHNICALLY it looks like you could create your own paths by placing your own nodes in ffedit (or manually editing your own paths.txt file) but it looks the the 3D exporter is formatting or positioning or something in the placement to insure they work that is probably too complicated or exacting to do by hand.

[Lunarman]

Well, I don't think FFVTTR uses a path.txt file. Only FF1.

Although, like the extents, it may be possible to import them into a mission file.

[GogglesPizanno]

I think you're right about FFVTR not using them on its own maps.

When I was testing this out i was using a converted FF1 map (as I know that they use paths.txt files) and it does in fact import the file and the cars for the level do follow it.

Still doesn't solve the initial dilemma of easily being able to create or modify them....

[Lunarman]

Just confirming that even though FFVTTR doesn't use path.txt files cars and civs can still follow roads which are there.

[Bony]

I downloaded some mods from FR-Productions. They are very good but I have a problem (or I think I have one): There is no text in cutscenes. For example: Xmenclassic: It starts with Prof Xavier at a street, some guys appear and then it jumps directly to a fight at a different place. No talk, no introduction... You don't know why you fight, what and so on. Same with Dark Intentions or Spider Man. In Spider Man, there suddenly is this Rhino and I can't move Spidey so I think there is some talk or information that is not displayed. After a while you can move Spidey but Rhino doesnt react to Punches. Help!

MISS_01_N, neutral, The life of a hero is a complicated one.
MISS_01_N1, neutral, Especially for the poor soul of Peter Parker.
MISS_01_N2, neutral, Many people want him dead...and that's usually an everyday thing
MISS_01_N3, neutral, With great power...
MSPC_01_S, neutral, Amazingly...the city seems calm and safe tonight. Maybe I can take a break after all.
MSPC_01_S1, neutral, So much for that idea...
MSPC_01_S2, neutral, Hey bolts for brain, why don't you set the car down and let's have a nice little chat, ok?
MSPC_01_S3, neutral, Man, you nearly took me out!
MSPC_01_P, neutral, Hold it right there, Rhino!
MSPC_01_P1, surprised, Boss...you really think we should be handling this?
MSPC_01_P2, neutral, Keep it together man! Back up is on the way!
MSPC_01_P3, angry, Stand down, Rhino!
MSPC_01_P4, surprised, AHHHHHH!!!
MSPC_01_R, neutral, You've got to be kidding me!
MSPC_01_R1, neutral, spider-man...just the bug I wanted to see!
MSPC_01_R2, neutral, Yeah...heh heh heh. Now I'm gonna finish you!

I think that is the text which should be displayed (from C:\Freedom Force Vs The 3rd Reich\spider-man\Lang\English\captions.txt) but it isn't!

[Bony]

That's the solution: I have the German version of the game, so I must copy the "english" folder in "C:\Freedom Force Vs The 3rd Reich\spider-man\Lang\English" and rename it in "German" located also in "C:\Freedom Force Vs The 3rd Reich\spider-man\Lang\German"! And that with all mods. I hope that's useful for other players. Now the Rhino is attacking also! Nice!

[Previsionary]

Hey Bony,

I'm glad you got your problem resolved but this probably shouldve been in its own thread. Anyway, thanks for telling me (us) about the problem and giving a solution. It should "probably" be added to the wiki as well, no?

[Bony]

I posted a tutorial HERE. Everybody feel free to add this to the wiki.  :rolleyes: