Adding new Items to the game

[Nighthawk 15]

There is a need for certain information about the creation of new items.

As far as I know there are several steps when adding a new item to Sacred 2.

 

Starting with meshes and textures, if one feels the need to be utterly awesome and create new stuff on the highest level.

There are several files which should contain all the necessary data for the item, that need to be adjusted properly.

How that is done in detail?

I don't know. There have been several questions about already existing sets with an improbable droprate and their adjustment for a more realistic dropchance has not been achieved yet.

 

The purpose of this thread should be to gather all the necessary information for the creation of new items (which I wasn't able to find here).

The first possible sources for that information would be czevak and marcuswob, who are part of the CM-patch team. And I will contact them via PM asap, but their recent activity suggests, that it may take some time to get a reply. In the meantime I'd like to see if anyone else knows how its done. Feel free to enlighten us.

Having the knowledge might accelerate the process of including new content by having more interested people working on it. (should have probably been done several years ago, but whatever)

 

by the way... This is not about modifications of the Balance.txt. Threads on that topic are in existence already.

 

Some of the following points may not make much sense yet. I'm collecting the Information from e-mails and need to keep everything sort of together^^

1. All activities are restricted to the "..\scripts" folder, the "global.res" in "..\locale\*your_language_code*\" and the various textures and meshes contained in "..\pak".

2. To any modder: If you add new items, try to keep your own ID-range in the blueprint.txt, so that there is no overlapping with other mods...

Edited February 2, 2013 by Nighthawk

[wolfie2kX 528]

Yeah.. Your best bet would be to be patient and wait for a reply from Marcuswob and/or Czevak. Namely because the process involves creating far more than just a nice graphic with textures and the like. You have to incorporate it into the game - and that in and of itself is done by far more than just editing a few text files.

[Nighthawk 15]

I've been involved with a modding group for Oblivion, so I can estimate the sort of efford, that needs to be invested. Especially when even a halfway decent editor is absent.

 

Sooner or later it comes down to typing numbers and letters into a sort of database (the actual incorporation). My biggest problem in any case (outside of not knowing where/how to incorporate the data) would be the creation of meshes and textures, because I've never really done anything of the sort (at most I've edited existing textures...).

 

btw... The way the cm-patch is delivered, I wouldn't be suprised if it turned out, that Marcuswob and Czevak were former Ascaron employees ^^

Edited January 30, 2013 by Nighthawk

[wolfie2kX 528]

I don't believe they are - BUT - they have been working with one to some degree or another.

 

Frank "Rente" Rentmeister - to be exact. He's one of the employees that was on the list in the Epic Office Quest and can be found in game in the southern reach of the Orc territory of Nor Plat. With the CM Patch he even drops a lightsaber when you talk to him.

 

Anyhow... As long as you know what you're in for... Still, best to learn how to do it from the masters.

[Nighthawk 15]

Progress report:

From the beginning I expected this to go step by step.

Czevak was kind enough to reply to my request.

The first piece of information is, that everything apart from ingame texts, meshes and textures is dealt with within the scripts folder.

 

I'll update this and further details in the opening post for easy access.

[Killibot 5000 4]

Interesting thread Nighthawk.

I'm curious, has any further progress has been made with this project of yours since the last time you edited the opening post in February? o.O?

 

 

 

[edited for grammar/clarity]

Edited May 8, 2013 by Killibot 5000

[Nighthawk 15]

Interesting thread Nighthawk.

I'm curious, has any further progress has been made with this project of yours since the last time you edited the opening post in February? o.O?

 

This Idea kind of lost its flow, after Czevak stopped answering my questions.... after the first question...

He was/is busy. At the end of march my exams started and university keeps me busy to this day... and some...

I hoped I could rely a little bit on the community, but as it seems it makes a significant difference whether there's a proper editor for the game (like TES:CS) or not.

[Flix 4,968]

Shoot. Another dead end. I was hoping to add some custom sets for the Dragon Mage and maybe a couple other characters but I don't think I'll be able to figure this out my own. The meshes and textures I want to use are already present and ready to go, but what in the heck must be edited to incorporate them into the game?

[Dragon Brother 616]

If you intend to add them as completely new and droppable items with their own names then quite a few files, including (but possibly not limited to) blueprint.txt, surface.txt and global.res (the tricky, encrypted one).

[Flix 4,968]

Yep the idea is brand new sets that drop with their own names and properties. I've ideas/designs for up to 3 Dragon Mage sets, 2 Dryad sets, and 2-3 Inquisitor Sets.

 

"Quite a few" files to edit is fine so long as they're txt files, "encypted" is a headache though.

 

I think I'll send czevak a message and see if he'll float any information my way.

 

In the meantime I'm basically just comparing the scripts from before and after CM Patch to see what they changed. I've just finished checking blueprint.txt and I see how they added the new sets and bonuses in that file. So that's one step I can check off the list.

[Flix 4,968]

Alright I've examined all the scripts and I had some major "Eureka!" moments. I now understand how to:

1) Generate the items themselves, including bonuses and set bonuses (blueprint.txt)

2) Tell the game what 3D model and surface ID to use (itemtype.txt)

3 Tell the game what textures to use (surface.txt)

4) Make the items droppable (drop.txt)

 

So that's nice chunk of the technical stuff I've worked out (hopefully).

Once I test out my findings I'll write a more detailed guide if I'm correct. The main hurdle remaining is inputting the actual text of the item's name, which I'm guessing is in global.res. So that's up next. And unless I crack that thing open and it's nothing but a pile of 1's and 0's, I may be ready to unveil my mod in another week or two.

[Dragon Brother 616]

Well if you do manage to edit global.res you'll have to tell us how you did it, I've always wanted to have a play around with it.