Where I am at so far

[PrestonUie]

ok so I feel I should explain how I'm improving from a scared 24 year old child who knows nothing to a 24 year old child who kinda knows something but is still an idiot

1. I know how to drag and drop character folders into the custom character folder thing (the folder is actually called characters), i still don't know what the heck to do with the downloads that are just skins soooooo alex website kind doesn't work for me

2. i kind been playing around with the character.NIF and the keyframes.kf and by that i mean drag and dropping other keyframes into different folders. what i can gather is that the key frames are the animations and the NIF are the models. so basically what i do is i take the skins folder and nif from one folder (like inks dazzler jim lee) and match it with a keyframe from another one (like AfghanAnts dazzler). i use the dazzler example because i love inks skins but i've noticed most of his character have problems.... mostly there hand. the all of his dazzlers hands were crushed to a point where they didn't even look like hands. so thats why i used AAs keyframes. ( also i just want to clarify that i am not dissing ink i could never do what he does) but a problem is swapping keyframes doesn't always work so when that happens i kinda hit a brick wall.

3. i was able to ad voices kinda and by kinda i mean i just did the steps in vpmax post. also some of the voices don't work so i may have done something wrong (working on it PS thank you mr.grey) and i don't know how to add new voices soooooo i don't know how to mod voices

4. i haven't gotten to fx or effects yet..... or sound effects

5. i tried to change the main menu screen music because i hate it, but i failed. i downloaded an mp3 of the avengers theme to try and change it but when i put it in my sound folder and changed its name to FFmetagame.mp3 nothing changed. i know i'm supposed to change a file name that is called FFmetagame.mp3 but i couldn't find it so i just changed the avengers one and hoped for the best

so yeah im still a baby when it comes to modding, still trying to learn and theres some things i may never learn like editing animations and that is basically because im afraid of them (not really)

[daglob]

Please excuse any of this that is too obvious. I used to work at a tech school, and tend to over explain.

There used to be a skin installation tutorial someplace; I thought it might be at Freedom Force Resource, but it doesn't seem to be.

For skins, you have a mesh, say "Male_Basic". In the MB folder there are usually a character.nif and a keyframes.kf and a folder named "skins". In the skins folder will be, at least, a folder called "standard". The standard skin is what shows whenever you load the mesh into Character Tool or the creation section of the game. Now. say you have downloaded Arm Fall Off Boy from The Vigilante's site (an old site with a lot of Silver Age characters). Within the zip there is a readme file (in this case named armfalloffboyinfo.txt) with what you need to find the proper mesh for it as well as information about who made it and any credits about who helped make the skin. There may also be some history on the character, and a description of the character's powers.

You create a folder in the skins named "arm_fall_off_boy" and copy the files from the zip to it (or, if the entire skin is in a folder already, just copy it). When you look at MB in either CTool or the game, you will see AFOB along with standard. In a directory tree (do they still call them that?) it will look something like this:

male_basic
          |
           --- arm_fall_off_boy
          |
           --- standard
          |
           --- other skins you have

Oops! Gotta go; back later.


Later:

One problem is when you have a skin and the readme/info file refers you to a site or Yahoo group that no longer exist. When that happens, you give a holler in the requests forum, and someone will probably send it to you, or, if it has been relocated, give you the new location. Another problem is if the readme says to put in on a "hex of Taskmaster", and that hex is no  longer available, well, if you have a copy of Taskmaster, you can make it yourself. Taskmaster, along with some others (most notably Tom Versatile meshes) have a lot of extra parts, like capes, hoods, weapons, holsters, belts, boots, gloves, and so on. These can be hidden or un-hidden with the Nifscope program, effectively creating different characters.

And, yes, I chose Arm-Fall-Off_Boy because he is silly.

[BentonGrey]

Good idea, Preston.  You can condense some of your learning and help here.

DG, great stuff!  One note, "other meshes you have" should be "other skins you have."

Meshes are, as DG said and P has figured out, the 3D models.  Skins are the textures that go over those models, so skins go in the skins folders for meshes. 

DG has given you a pretty solid example of how to handle the skins you download. 

Meshes:
You're already doing great with experimenting with the different keys and such.  You can get some guidance once again with those readme files.  Meshes will generally have readmes that will tell you which TYPES of keys they can use.  Many meshes are based on the basic model: male_basic, male_basic_hair, male_basic_cape, or female_basic_whatever.  So, those will take any male_basic (for male) or female_basic (for female) keys.  There are also VX meshes, which will take VX keys, and various other varieties.  You can download big keyframe packs that give you a lot of varieties.  I'm sure someone can link you to where those are today.  I don't know off the top of my head.

Nifskope:
If you like keyframes or meshes but you want to tweak them a bit, like DG mentioned, you can do that with Nifskope.  Check out the tutorials I linked you to on my site to learn the basics here.  Once you learn the interface, the basic stuff is actually SUPER easy, literally just pressing a button to hide pieces of a mesh you don't want, or copying and pasting to add or change animations from compatible sets.  Once you get comfortable doing the basic mesh/skin installation, this will give you a ton more options.
https://bentongrey.wordpress.com/freedom-force-modding/

Voices:
You're welcome!  You've already done the big part, which is installing VPMAX.  Now, if you want to add new voices, it's one of the easier things to do (which, again, is why I started with it, 'cause I was clueless!).  You can find the tutorial here:
https://bentongrey.wordpress.com/freedom-force-modding/voicepacks/how-to-make-voicepacks/

It's literally just a matter of choosing the sounds, adding entries to the speech.txt we talked about in that thread, and then generating the dats.

Music:
Remember, the music you use HAS to be in mono format.  Be sure what you download is saved that way.  I use the free program Audacity to edit, record, and generally mess with sound files.
https://www.audacityteam.org/

So, you might open up the file you got, export it as mono, and see if that works.  My guess is that is probably the issue. 



So, like I've been saying, you'll figure this stuff out.  It isn't hard (for the most part), just unfamiliar, which makes a big difference.  Also, don't be afraid of things.  Just don't try to run before you walk.  Get used to doing stuff with FF, and as you master one bit, move on to the next.  I was scared of editing keys, but then I learned that the basic stuff, which can produce REALLY fun results, is just as easy as copying, pasting, and renaming.

As long as you back stuff up (and do your heavy duty file editing in a mod instead of your main game), you're really risking nothing.

[daglob]

Also, don't be afraid to ask questions. All of us have gone through it, and the older members helped us; we're just following their example. And you never can tell: the question you ask may be one  that someone else is wondering about. just hadn't quite figured out how to ask yet.

For that matter, I've been around here for over ten years, and I'm still learning things.

[PrestonUie]

so i coverted it to mono and nothing.... GAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BentonGrey]

So, you named the file FF00_metagame.mp3?  (Did I forget the _ the first time?) Exactly?  And you put it in your Sounds/musak folder?  That should be working. 

Are you launching a mod or the main game?  It will only work in whichever one it is placed.

[PrestonUie]

ok dumb question do i need a musak folder in my sound folder

[BentonGrey]

Yes.  If you haven't unpacked your sound.ff, it might not exist, but you can create it just fine.

[PrestonUie]

  doing this until i bleed  lol

[PrestonUie]

never mind im still doing something wrong

[PrestonUie]

HAHA i found the problem, you name it FF00_metagame without the .mp3

[BentonGrey]

Got it working?  Great!