Help...modifications? (Tommyboy Ironman)

[ShawDAMAN]

This particular iron man (ironman mk20_tf) by tommyboy is precisely what I am looking for... with a few small exceptions that perhaps some of the more knowledgeable people here could help me with....

Here's my main issue.... for some reason the 'nodes(?)' for his weapons are out of place. For instance if you give him a beam attack the beam 'originates' from somewhere to his right, in empty space, instead of from his palm or chest. I am going to be using this skin/mesh in  and I have already run the nif and the keyframs through nifconverter to make sure that wasn't the problem. No success. 

Secondarily, this skin(?) or mesh doesn't seem to have the boot thrusters enabled. There is an appropriate .tga file in the standard skin folder (male_basic_fire) but no 'jetstreams' show up. I am wondering how to alter that, since I happen to like them. As it is, when he flies there is no effect.

Finally I would like his chest implant to be blue like his eyes but this I can easily do myself as I have done some skinning work.

I have tinkered with some of the mod tools but it is very hard to get them to work properly with the downloadable versions of FF/FFVT3R which perversely change the folder names/layouts/locations and files just enough to foul things up. 

So I really need help.  Thanks all for your forbearance.

[tommyboy]

My weapon nodes are almost always linked to the right hand bip, so make sure the FX is set to originate from there.
IE in the editor "fx" tab the "node attachment point" "start" should be set to "Bip01 R Hand".
If you cannot run the editor,  I suggest requesting help on getting the editor to run in whatever version you have downloaded.

As to the boot thrusters, there is more than one version of the mesh. The early release had no bootjets. (Of course you can assign a flying fx via the editor, too).
The pic you posted seems to be the latest one. I just downloaded and extracted the mesh that pic points to, and the jets work for me in ff character tool, and (after eznifconverting), in ctool2, so I don't know what to suggest, other than maybe download and convert again.

I hope that helps a little.

[ShawDAMAN]

Good news- reconverting the nif file (and brightening lighting values) solved the jetstream problem  thanks.

Weapon node is still an issue though. I have no idea currently how to go about fixing that. I guess it's time to start trawling through old posts  It's strange, as this is absolutely the only mesh I have ever had such a problem with (and I have at least 50 custom ones in my characters folder. 

Just so it's clear what I mean (since my terminology may be off) here's a pic of a beam attack being used. you can see the beam originating from off to his right in empty space.



Tommyboy, I take it that this aspect of the mesh works fine for you?

The same beam attacks (these are just the stock ffvt3r effects, nothing special) work fine on all other characters. Crazy.

[Cyber Burn]

Are you using the original animations that came with the mesh? Sometimes using alternate animations cause FX to come from a different area on the mesh.

[ShawDAMAN]

Are you using the original animations that came with the mesh? Sometimes using alternate animations cause FX to come from a different area on the mesh.

You're absolutely right, and I do occasionally experiment with different keyframes, but no, I downloaded and reloaded tommyboys files twice to make sure it wasn't my own tinkering.  Thanks for the suggestion though.

[justintyme2174]

Is the fx you are using in the pic Manbot's energy focus? If so, that fx is attached to the weapon node, not the hand itself.  I believe a lot of the built-in fx from FFVTR are attached to a weapon as opposed to a hand.

[ShawDAMAN]

Is the fx you are using in the pic Manbot's energy focus? If so, that fx is attached to the weapon node, not the hand itself.  I believe a lot of the built-in fx from FFVTR are attached to a weapon as opposed to a hand.

No it's actually 'ray gun' but it happens with virtually all beam attacks. some appear near the head, but none in the correct place.

[justintyme2174]

Ray_gun is one that is also set to begin at the weapon point of a mesh.  It will never shoot correctly from the hand as is because of this.  The ones that begin at the head, like Mentor or Blitzkreig, are set to begin at the head of the mesh and will never line up correctly with the hand.  You would probably be better off to install some of the custom fx available for the game and use those.  I believe there are some specifically designed for Iron Man.  I use one called "pulse_bolts" for my Iron Man on the same mesh and the fx is set to emminate from his hand and appears correctly.  Hope that helps.

[ShawDAMAN]

Ray_gun is one that is also set to begin at the weapon point of a mesh.  It will never shoot correctly from the hand as is because of this.  The ones that begin at the head, like Mentor or Blitzkreig, are set to begin at the head of the mesh and will never line up correctly with the hand.  You would probably be better off to install some of the custom fx available for the game and use those.  I believe there are some specifically designed for Iron Man.  I use one called "pulse_bolts" for my Iron Man on the same mesh and the fx is set to emminate from his hand and appears correctly.  Hope that helps.

Nah man. Ray gun and any other beam effects I assign work perfectly with other meshes, for instance, Afghanants ironman:



Here's another ironman mesh using manbots energy focus effect, again, from the palm, no problem:




Meanwhile, even attacks that you KNOW are supposed to come from the hand(s) like el diablo's fire attack simply do not work right with this particular mesh:




So it must be the mesh/skope somehow or...? I am stunned, I thought it would be something simple that I merely overlooked in my dumbness  haha  Thanks a lot for trying to help though I really do appreciate it. I have a couple of FX packs installed and it's the same story with them.... sometimes effects appear in different places, but never the correct place.

[ShawDAMAN]

And by the way, in regular Freedom Force, it's the same story. 

[spydermann93]

Well, if you look closely, the Tongues of Flame power does in fact start with his hand (you see the glow orientating around his hand), but shifts to the side.

Upon checking the FX in FFEdit, El Diablo's "Tongues of Flame" power does in fact start on the "Bip01 R Hand" and shifts to "weapon" on the "launch" and "core" node attachments.

[ShawDAMAN]

Well, if you look closely, the Tongues of Flame power does in fact start with his hand (you see the glow orientating around his hand), but shifts to the side.

Upon checking the FX in FFEdit, El Diablo's "Tongues of Flame" power does in fact start on the "Bip01 R Hand" and shifts to "weapon" on the "launch" and "core" node attachments.

It may appear to start from his hand in the screenshot but it doesn't really. The flames have a more spread out 'effect' than most beams so they encompass the hand a little bit. it really looks quite ridiculous when it's all in motion.

I don't see how the issue is the FX themselves when they work fine on other meshes..?

[spydermann93]

Like others have said, most FX start from the "weapon" attachment point, which coincidentally happens to be right where their dominant hand is. That gives the illusion that it is coming from their right hand, but in actuality, it is coming from their weapon point, or vice versa.

[tommyboy]

Well, if you look closely, the Tongues of Flame power does in fact start with his hand (you see the glow orientating around his hand), but shifts to the side.

Upon checking the FX in FFEdit, El Diablo's "Tongues of Flame" power does in fact start on the "Bip01 R Hand" and shifts to "weapon" on the "launch" and "core" node attachments.

It may appear to start from his hand in the screenshot but it doesn't really. The flames have a more spread out 'effect' than most beams so they encompass the hand a little bit. it really looks quite ridiculous when it's all in motion.

I don't see how the issue is the FX themselves when they work fine on other meshes..?

The issue isn't the FX per se. It's how the FX match up to how the mesh is set up (ie it's a mesh "problem" or "issue", or if you are a salesman "feature").
I just looked in ffv3r and some FX do indeed come out wrong on that mesh (and a couple of my others too).
Once I go into the editor to set the FX to use Bip01 R Hand for start, launch, and core too, they work fine.
Which is what I told you in the first place.
Changing the FX should not impact on other characters who use it, provided they have a right hand and use it to fire the FX, it will still work correctly.
If you cannot, or do not want to do that, then either live with it, or use other meshes instead.
I believe Grenadier has done something like that armour, and his meshes wont require any FX adjustment.
More than that, I cannot suggest.

[ShawDAMAN]

Which is what I told you in the first place.
Changing the FX should not impact on other characters who use it, provided they have a right hand and use it to fire the FX, it will still work correctly.
If you cannot, or do not want to do that, then either live with it, or use other meshes instead.
I believe Grenadier has done something like that armour, and his meshes wont require any FX adjustment.
More than that, I cannot suggest.

Aw now I feel bad. You sound a bit...peeved. Sorry to be a pest haha. It's probably my favorite Iron man mesh that I've seen, beautifully done and in my modding/editing ignorance I just found it very strange as it was the first time I encountered such a problem. I hope you don't think anything I said was meant to reflect badly on your work- I honestly thought it was probably an oddity about my computer or FF installation not the mesh itself-thats what it usually has turned out to be.  Thanks a lot for your effort to help and all the great stuff you have available on your website. It's much appreciated.

I'll try again to get ffedit to work on this stupid gog.com version of FFvt3r.   cheerio

[tommyboy]

Which is what I told you in the first place.
Changing the FX should not impact on other characters who use it, provided they have a right hand and use it to fire the FX, it will still work correctly.
If you cannot, or do not want to do that, then either live with it, or use other meshes instead.
I believe Grenadier has done something like that armour, and his meshes wont require any FX adjustment.
More than that, I cannot suggest.

Aw now I feel bad. You sound a bit...peeved. Sorry to be a pest haha. It's probably my favorite Iron man mesh that I've seen, beautifully done and in my modding/editing ignorance I just found it very strange as it was the first time I encountered such a problem. I hope you don't think anything I said was meant to reflect badly on your work- I honestly thought it was probably an oddity about my computer or FF installation not the mesh itself-thats what it usually has turned out to be.  Thanks a lot for your effort to help and all the great stuff you have available on your website. It's much appreciated.

I'll try again to get ffedit to work on this stupid gog.com version of FFvt3r.   cheerio

No offense taken, it is a mesh issue, but because I tend to already have altered my FX in my games long ago, I forget that the issue is still there.
I would suggest that I upload my fx.dat file, but without knowing what you have installed (ezfx, ffx etc etc) it probably would not help that much.
I hope you can get the editor to work.
I imagine the folder structure would need to be very similar to the original cd version, or lots of other things would need to be changed.
Basically, you need to work out where the gog version installs the ff executable and put the editor in that folder.
Then point the editor to wherever the .dat files are (in the "data" folder of the main install, in the original game).

[ShawDAMAN]

No offense taken, it is a mesh issue, but because I tend to already have altered my FX in my games long ago, I forget that the issue is still there.
I would suggest that I upload my fx.dat file, but without knowing what you have installed (ezfx, ffx etc etc) it probably would not help that much.
I hope you can get the editor to work.
I imagine the folder structure would need to be very similar to the original cd version, or lots of other things would need to be changed.
Basically, you need to work out where the gog version installs the ff executable and put the editor in that folder.
Then point the editor to wherever the .dat files are (in the "data" folder of the main install, in the original game).

Thanks! With much tinkering I got the editor to work at least partially. (yay.)  I wound up creating a couple of new FX so as not to disturb any of the existing ones and now he's quite usable. 



even a pretty convincing 'unibeam' with some head/center node tinkering



so thanks again. My 'avengers' team is now complete, lol.