18. Click Finish.
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When you create a custom monster you can use whatever model you choose but you are limited, of course, to models in the game. You can also choose your own Portrait and Voiceset. Check out the Appearance tab. For a simple model like this you do not have the ability to change any of the model pieces that make it up.
So there is our crab. The only problem is, it looks like a spider. But now that you have seen the different parts of a creature model we will need to look at, let’s get started on turning that spider into a real crab.
The 2D icon The 3D
model
The Voiceset
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I’ll bet you thought you knew by now that the section after I showed you the toolset would talk about naming standards. Well it isn’t. The basic naming standards for creatures are pretty arbitrary because you use the appearance.2da file to identify your new creature and specify its model. Inside each model there are some naming standards and we will get to them – but we will do that later because they relate more to animation than any
specifics in the game itself.
I’m going to step out of the usual flow I normally give you and start with the resource file. I will show you how you can take an existing creature, create a new version of it, texture that new version and use it as a new model. In this case, we will make a crab that looks just like a spider but is orange. Kind of a sorry-looking crab but don’t’ worry, it is just a starting point.
What we have to do is add a new creature resource in the appearance.2da file. Again, we will get the
appearance.2da file from \source\2dasource.zip
(Bioware had to change it to add their Kobolds, Rats and Gnolls).
1. Copy the new appearances.2da file to the directory for your model and icons.
2. Open appearance.2da.
3. Go ahead and take a look at it. Scroll down until you get to the giant spider entry. You should see this:
158 Spider_Dire 2128 Spider_Giant...
159 Spider_Giant 2129 Spider_Giant...
160 Spider_Phase 2130 Spider_Giant...
4. These different entries describe the many creatures in the game. I don’t show all of the columns here because there are too many.
5. Copy the Spider_Giant entry and paste it at the bottom.
6. Modify the entries as appropriate for your new creature.
Column Description Values
The first column is the creature’s ID LABEL The name of the model as it appears
in the toolset list. If you put it in quotes you can have spaces and commas. Example: "Cat, Domestic"
STRING_REF Name of the model referenced in
dialog.tlk. If you put **** in this space it should use your Label in place of the string reference in dialog.tlk.
NAME The internal label for your creature. Use an underscore ‘_’ instead of spaces.
Notes
• The appearance.2da file layout is derived from a compilation by Kinarr Greycloak.
Notes
• When they added the new monsters, Bioware created a lot of new lines in the appearance.2da file for Reserved and User slots. They did this to keep from totally breaking any newly created creatures. To update your 2da file, you can simply put your new creatures into the ‘user’ slots in the same slots where they were before.
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Column Description Values
RACE The file name of the model without
the extension. Example: c_crab
ENVMAP That's the environment map applied to the alpha channel in the model's textures.
That's the environment map applied to the alpha channel in the model's textures.'Default' is for PCs and any other creature with reflective armor.
'evmap_irrid' is only used by Stag Beetle and Umber Hulk and gives them a rainbow hue effect.
'****' no map, this will give you transparency on your model - black in the alpha channel will be completely transparent.
BLOODCOLR Colour of the blood the creature spills
when hit. R – Red
W – White G – Green N - ? Y – Yellow MODELTYPE The type of the model for determining
which animations to use. P = player animation type
F = full animation (humanoid models, generally). They use the same animations as PCs like 'run' and 'walk'. They have a supermodel that's an a_ba variant just like PCs.
Example: Succubus
S = simple animations (most animals have this, meaning they really only have their taunt animation plus attacks). These models use only creature animations like 'crun' and 'cwalk'. 'S' models cannot equip weapons. Example: Wolf
L = large creature animations (Balor, Giants, etc.). They use the same animations as 'S' models (crun and cwalk, etc.) but they CAN equip weapons. These are for 'humanoid monsters' but are not necessarily large creatures. Dragons, for example, are 'S' type because they don't wield weapons.
WEAPONSCALE Amount to scale weapons so that they are appropriately sized for use by this model.
Human = 1 on all scaling -- adjust as necessary for creature size
WING_TAIL_SCALE Amount to scale wings and tail so that they are appropriately sized for this model.
Human = 1. Model needs to have a wings or tail node to use this.
8-Column Description Values
HELMET_SCALE_M Helmet scaling for male. Human = 1 HELMET_SCALE_F Helmet scaling for female. Human = 1
MOVERATE Movement rate of the creature Defined in creaturespeed.2da (NORM, FAST, etc.)
WALKDIST RUNDIST
I am not sure on what values to use for these two but I think they set the speed of the walk and run animations.
PERSPACE Personal space: How much space the model will allow around it.
CREPERSPACE I think this is Combat ready personal space: Amount of space around the model in combat.
HEIGHT 1 is the only value Bioware uses.
HITDIST
PREFATCKDIST
These next two values determine the spacing between models during an attack and maybe which animation is used.
TARGETHEIGHT This model's impact point. This tells
characters where to aim at the model. H – high L – low
ABORTONPARRY Not sure what this means but most
animals are 0, everything else 1 RACIALTYPE This is the race of the model as
shown in the creature properties. Appears to be from racialtypes.2da but the order is wrong.
HASLEGS Does the model have legs? 0 for no
1 for yes
HASARMS Does the model have arms? 0 for no
1 for yes
PORTRAIT The portrait reference of the model. Refer to the NPC portrait tutorial above.
SIZECATEGORY The size of the model. References creaturesize.2da PERCEPTIONDIST The creature’s perception range.
FOOTSTEPTYPE Which sounds to use for footsteps. References footstepsounds.2da SOUNDAPPTYPE Some specific creature type sounds. References appearancesndset.2da HEADTRACK Does the model’s head follow the
current speaker? 0 for no
1 for yes HEAD_ARC_H Horizontal range of head tracking In degrees.
HEAD_ARC_V Vertical range of head tracking In degrees.
HEAD_NAME The name of the head node used in
the model. Example: head_g (for PCs)
BODY_BAG What gets left on the ground after the
creature dies. References bodybag.2da
8.
Column Description Values
TARGETABLE Can you target the creature for attack
or interact with it? 0 for no
1 for yes
7. Now, extract the model for the giant spider (c_spidgiant.mdl). It is in data\models_01.bif.
8. Use NWNMdlComp to decompile the binary model file (see the directions in the Weapons section of this tutorial). Rename the file ASCII model file to c_crab.mdl.
9. Now, you need to rename the Aurora base item from c_spidgiant to c_crab. While you are at it, rename the internal model reference for the texture that it uses from c_spidgiant to c_crab. We will create a new texture in a moment. You can do this either by editing the ASCII model file directly or by opening the model in your modelling tool and doing it there. This is not a tutorial on modelling, per se, so I leave that as an exercise to the reader (we’ll have lots of opportunities to look at the model file later when we start to turn the spider into a real crab).
The simplest way is to open the .mdl file in a text editor and do a global rename.
10. Now, extract the texture file for the giant spider (c_spidgiant.tga). It is in data\textures_01.bif.
11. Rename it to c_crab.tga.
12. Open it in your image program (Picture Publisher for me).
13. It is made up of variations of black and green. While it is too early to start repainting it to a crab shell, lets at least make it orangish so that it does not look like a lime green, nuclear, glowing crab. I did this by making it greyscale, turning it back into an RGB image, and then shifting the hue of the greyscale image to orange/red. This is what it looks like. Still makes a pretty sad looking crab but be patient.
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14. Back through the same routine. Load the new 2da file, model, and texture into your hak pak.
15. Load up your module in the Aurora Toolset.
16. Point it at your hakpak. Save, close and reopen your module.
17. Now you can create a new crab using the Creature Wizard. You no longer have to create a vermin.
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It looks a bit like a horseshoe crab now although it still has a spider’s portrait. We will tackle the portrait next and then we will get to actually turning our orange spider into a crab.
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Let’s make the creature portrait. There really isn’t anything new to show you here. The format for creature portraits is the same format as PC and NPC portraits. Go back and review that section if you cannot remember it. Even the naming standards are the same. In our case, our portrait files are po_crab_<size flag> where <size flag> is h, l, m, s and t.
I am not a big graphic artist with 2D images. But I can use Picture Publisher fairly well. Here is a trick you might find useful (at least if you are modelling real-life animals). Find a photo that works well for you. Rotate, crop and resize it as I showed you earlier to the Huge size. Don’t forget to leave the blank space at the bottom (the Huge portrait is 256 x 400 with another 112 pixels at the bottom). Now, the problem is, the standard Bioware portraits are drawings. A photograph looks out of place. But all is not lost. Many good drawing programs have filters. I applied a watercolor filter to my photograph, play with the controls a bit, and it gives me something that looks like a drawing. Here is mine:
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Now create 4 more versions of this in different sizes. Edit portraits.2da to make the new portrait available and appearance.2da (the PORTRAIT column I indicate above) to tie it to your new creature. Then add all six files to your hak pak and bring it up in your module. Now you can change the portrait for your creature to this one.
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Seems like a lot of work just so I can call an orange spider a crab (don’t make me have to tell you to be patient again).
So why did I go through and show you all of this as a starting point? Because the steps I have just gone through are what you need to do to retexture an existing model. Using this process, I can create variations on the existing orc, kobold or minotaur models to make Saruman’s Orcs of the White Hand, to make Kobolds dressed in princely garments, or Minotaurs with chain mail.
With good 2D texturing skills, you can make some very unique monsters without having to know 3D modeling. Maybe not the best approach for making a crab but it works well to create variations on an existing monster.
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While you can create a lot of different models with the basic steps in Parts 2 and 3 of this tutorial, this isn’t enough if you want an entirely new creature that does not have the same shape as an existing creature. I want a real crab, not an orange spider. So now we have to tackle our model.
To do this, you need to know the basics of 3D modeling, including a basic understanding of animation. If you don’t have that yet, go get it – I’ll explain what NWN needs in terms of animation and nodes but you won’t learn animation, keyframes, and Inverse Kinematics here.
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Creature models for NWN are meshes, like other NWN models. However, they are segmented:
1. Load the crab model into gmax by opening the Import