More savable survivors!

[dengarde]

Sup all?

I've been messing around with the missions.txt file for a while now, and there is A LOT of potential here!

For one thing, You can add or edit survivors in into an existing mission!

SPOILER: Click to show

(Fun fact: According to the coding in Missions.txt, Lulu was going to be Randy's survivor. Maybe thats why she has some text here)

It's also possible to replace some survivors with others within the Missions.txt.

SPOILER: Click to show

Yep. Those are the Case Zero survivors. They're all in the game and they all work perfectly...as well as a few other survivors who never made the cut.


So here's what I'm trying to do: Make new missions entirely. It's more then possible in theory, but theres a few things I can't figure out, and some problems to overcome:

SPOILER: Click to show

1) The dialog files. They're all located in Frontend/str_(language).bcs The problem is, I can't figure out how mission.txt pulls what dialog from where. The coding for that is:

Dialogue0 = "65266" (Dialog)
and
SpeakerID0 = "65167" (Speaker name)

Theres also some values on where to pull mission/discription names as well. But I can't figure out what those numbers mean. At all. Even looking at the str files I can't seem to find those values, and editing what does exist always ends up in half the game text becoming garbled and unreadable.

2) Time. Like with dialog, the time which each mission activates is a number value which I can't figure out. For example, Lushious Lady starts at 3PM Day 1. Yet in the coding:

StartTime = "50400"

Again, can't figure out the relevence.

3) Notebook entries. Adding survivors with notebook entries is no problem at all. Case Zero and Beta survivors will work fine without them too, until you reach the safe house. Then, they dissapear. They will NEVER show up in the safe house unless put there manually. If I could even find where the notebook is stored then i may be able to fix this.

And 4) Survivor atributes, such as Health. Some survivors would die in two hits unless I could find their values. But I can't, for some reason.

So there you have it. My current project.

Feel free to help in any way you can (I'll probably need beta testers too. My computer doesn't run the game very well), and I'll keep you updated on progress regarding it.

[anu]

Nov 16, 2010 11:12:12 GMT -5 dengarde said:

Sup all?

hello man and welcome .

Nov 16, 2010 11:12:12 GMT -5 dengarde said:

I've been messing around with the missions.txt file for a while now, and there is A LOT of potential here!

ah finally someone that shows interest in the mission file ,
i agree ,the potential is indeed huge ,and we didn't even
scratched the surface with all it's possibilities .

i tried to interest the community with this topic at the time :

deadrising2mods.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=dr2general&thread=199&page=1#1753

Nov 16, 2010 11:12:12 GMT -5 dengarde said:

Yep. Those are the Case Zero survivors. They're all in the game and they all work perfectly...as well as a few other survivors who never made the cut.

Good find !!

Nov 16, 2010 11:12:12 GMT -5 dengarde said:

1) The dialog files. They're all located in Frontend/str_(language).bcs

once again ,Good find !!

Nov 16, 2010 11:12:12 GMT -5 dengarde said:

The problem is, I can't figure out how mission.txt pulls what dialog from where. The coding for that is:

Dialogue0 = "65266" (Dialog)
and
SpeakerID0 = "65167" (Speaker name)

Theres also some values on where to pull mission/discription names as well. But I can't figure out what those numbers mean. At all. Even looking at the str files I can't seem to find those values, and editing what does exist always ends up in half the game text becoming garbled and unreadable.

well,using the original values is not a problem , for example if you
use a certain NPC you just copy the original values from the dialogue and speaker ID's and you can rearrange all available text in the game that way.

to know who's who you just need to do the mission see who talks
first and then match it to the mission file ,basically by doing that
it's possible to make a list of ID's numbers and the name it correspond to,but it's a tedious work .

about adding new text we will probably need a tool for that ,that's
DR2 modding community weak point ,we don't have enough tools .

Nov 16, 2010 11:12:12 GMT -5 dengarde said:

2) Time. Like with dialog, the time which each mission activates is a number value which I can't figure out. For example, Lushious Lady starts at 3PM Day 1. Yet in the coding:

StartTime = "50400"

Again, can't figure out the relevence.

don't know where these values coming from but time is not a problem,the mission file specify the beginning time ,which is 10800 ,

and you can look at the zombiesets.txt ,
Most entries even say
start = "162000" //Day 2 at 21:0
end = "259200" //Day 4 at 0:0

so manipulating time should not be a problem .

Nov 16, 2010 11:12:12 GMT -5 dengarde said:

3) Notebook entries. Adding survivors with notebook entries is no problem at all. Case Zero and Beta survivors will work fine without them too, until you reach the safe house. Then, they dissapear. They will NEVER show up in the safe house unless put there manually. If I could even find where the notebook is stored then i may be able to fix this.

check the safehouse file, there are specifications of spawning points
in the safe house for the survivors, bet if you add entry for the
extra survivors in that file they will show up in the safe house .

Nov 16, 2010 11:12:12 GMT -5 dengarde said:

And 4) Survivor atributes, such as Health. Some survivors would die in two hits unless I could find their values. But I can't, for some reason.

items file have all NPC's setting .

Nov 16, 2010 11:12:12 GMT -5 dengarde said:

So there you have it. My current project.

Feel free to help in any way you can (I'll probably need beta testers too. My computer doesn't run the game very well), and I'll keep you updated on progress regarding it.

thanks for sharing and keep with the updates .

[dengarde]

Nov 17, 2010 8:39:54 GMT -5 anu said:

well,using the original values is not a problem , for example if you
use a certain NPC you just copy the original values from the dialogue and speaker ID's and you can rearrange all available text in the game that way.

to know who's who you just need to do the mission see who talks
first and then match it to the mission file ,basically by doing that
it's possible to make a list of ID's numbers and the name it correspond to,but it's a tedious work .

True, but what if you want to add new dialof entirely? There are a bunch of blank spots in the str file that can be used (about a thousand or so NUL's if you're looking in Notepad++), but I don't know which value would go to which dialog. If we knew that, then we could add the dialog manually and wouldn't need any tools.

Nov 17, 2010 8:39:54 GMT -5 anu said:

don't know where these values coming from but time is not a problem,the mission file specify the beginning time ,which is 10800 ,

and you can look at the zombiesets.txt ,
Most entries even say
start = "162000" //Day 2 at 21:0
end = "259200" //Day 4 at 0:0

so manipulating time should not be a problem .

I'm still not sure which what the time/value ratio is, though. Any help on that?

Nov 17, 2010 8:39:54 GMT -5 anu said:

items file have all NPC's setting .

...I think I love you.

Not only was that right, but there's a value in each survivors entry that determines whether or not they appear in the notebook, and we need to do is set that to "true". And it turns out, THAT is what determines if a survivor appears in the safehouse or not. That little bit alone helps me TREMENDOUSLY. Thank you sooo much!

Okay, off to work!

[dengarde]

Bit of an update.

Thanks to Anu, I now know how to get the extra survivors into the notebook. Also thanks to that, They appear in the safehouse as well. See me video of a modded "Lush-ious Lady" mission as an example. (And excuse the bad framerate)



I also discovered that using the items.txt, it's possible to add new survivors entirely, which is something I'm experimenting with now. The only problem I'm having at the moment is the dialog files.

I found out how to add and edit them, as I said earlier, but the values which determine which dialog is pulled from str_en.bcs are still confusing the hell out of me, and I can't figure out the correct values for any of the added dialog. They've all been placed at the end, where the large amount of "NUL" characters start, but it's impossible to figure out the values. Any help on that would be appreciated.

[dengarde]

Triple post!

Here is another vid with a new survivor. He's not one of the beta survivors, just one that I edited, but a new survivor none-the-less.

[truentity]

any downloads available yet?

[dengarde]

Not yet. Still trying to figure out the freaking dialog values >_<

[Deleted]

Nov 16, 2010 21:08:11 GMT -5 truentity said:

im supporting this.... make survivors recruitable in the safehouse

That would be cool. But I'm surprised that they included the Case Zero survivors. Does that mean the exclusive in-game clothes that are only on 360 if you import a CZ save are in there too?...

[dengarde]

No. Looking through the models, the outfits are gone completely.

[Deleted]

Nov 20, 2010 14:50:47 GMT -5 dengarde said:

No. Looking through the models, the outfits are gone completely.

Damn . Ah well. Could you show us some pics of the 'scrapped' Survivors that didn't make the cut?

[Deleted]

Here you go:
deadrising.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Dengarde/The_survivors_who_never_were!

[Deleted]

Nov 20, 2010 23:59:28 GMT -5 @sumtaedium said:

Here you go:
deadrising.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Dengarde/The_survivors_who_never_were!

Thanks. Why the cops weren't included, I'll never know. They would've added to the backstory as the only 'Cop' is the deranged South Plaza Rent-A-Cop.

[dengarde]

Update: It seems that it's possible to create survivors using models that only appear in cinematics.

SPOILER: Click to show

Also: It's possible to switch models in the cinematics with normal models as well. Sweet.

[Deleted]

Cool. Can you make a survivor pack?

[dengarde]

Thats exactly what I'm doing, I'm editing the missions to include more survivors.

[Deleted]

Do you think you could replace Sullivan's Cutscene model and put Chuck there instead?

[dengarde]

Well, it's possible to replace the cutscene models, but I'm not sure if it's possible to use Chuck, since his model always uses at least five parts.

[dengarde]

As I thought. For anyone who isn't Chuck, only one model can be loaded at a time. And Chuck is always in five pieces minimum.

[Deleted]

Damn. Ah well. But what about the cutscenes? Same thing?

[brucelee00088]

edit: found the answer to my question.

[dengarde]

Nov 23, 2010 22:40:15 GMT -5 @maddacheeb said:

Damn. Ah well. But what about the cutscenes? Same thing?

Yep. Sorry.

Any luck with fixing the dialouge ?-

Not at all, I'm afraid. I just can't seem to figure out the values.

Plus, one of the custom missions won't activate the dialog at all and I can't figure out why =\

[sudget]

Could you not just use other survivors dialouge as a placeholder until you figure it out ?

[dengarde]

Nov 28, 2010 22:19:29 GMT -5 sudget said:

Could you not just use other survivors dialouge as a placeholder until you figure it out ?

Yep, though it'll drive me absolutely insane doing that, heh.

[dengarde]

It'll be done when it'll be done. I still have some problems to work out (aside from dialog) and also have real life issues to deal with as well.

[thommoboy]

how do you get that position thing in the top left

[Deleted]

Nov 22, 2010 12:39:34 GMT -5 dengarde said:

Update: It seems that it's possible to create survivors using models that only appear in cinematics.

SPOILER: Click to show

Also: It's possible to switch models in the cinematics with normal models as well. Sweet.

Say if I'm wrong, but Flynn looks an awful lot like Kirby's model ,a Survivor that appears during the initial outbreak and in the safehouse occasionally. Any updates?

[sabi]

Nov 22, 2010 12:39:34 GMT -5 dengarde said:

Update: It seems that it's possible to create survivors using models that only appear in cinematics.

...

Also: It's possible to switch models in the cinematics with normal models as well. Sweet.

Please, can you explain how you get these survivors, and how you switch models in the cinematics, as you say?

[dengarde]

Dec 18, 2010 14:08:57 GMT -5 sabi said:

Please, can you explain how you get these survivors, and how you switch models in the cinematics, as you say?

Certainly. You see, these survivors don't actually exist within unmodded game code, they're completely new survivors. The game is so simply coded that you can just copy and paste the old code, and as long as they're labeled differently, the game will read it as completely new code.

The information on survivors are located in Datafile.big > Items.txt. Here some example code, this one is for Archie, from Case Zero:

cSurvivorItem srv_archie
{
   Age = "28"
   AssetFilename = "data/models/npcs/srv_archie"
   AttackZombiesAndBosses = "true"
   AudioShoeType = "0"
   CanDefect = "true"
   CanFollow = "true"
   CinematicSkeletonSlotName = "SkeletonCinematicPlayer"
   ClearPrejoinWhenHitByPlayer = "false"
   DefectsCowardly = "false"
   Description = "77660"
   DisplayName = "85290"
   DR2PRO = "true"
   FullName = "85291"
   HealthAmount = "1000"
   HealthState = "0"
   InitialMoraleScore = "100"
   InteractDistance = "1.5"
   IsNotAutoFacing = "false"
   IsZombifiable = "true"
   KnockedDownByGuns = "false"
   LocatedPrestigePoints = "1500"
   Nature = "2"
   NPCAnimationChooser = "0"
   NPCType = "0"
   PickupOffset = "-0.0977, 0.8128, 0.9583"
   PortraitTextureName = "portrait_archie.bct"
   PreJoinAnimLoopTimerMax = ""
   PreJoinAnimLoopTimerMin = ""
   RescueQuote = "77659"
   SafeHouseRoom = "1"
   SavedPrestigePoints = "3500"
   ShowUpInNoteBook = "true"
   ShowUpInPrologueNoteBook = "true"
   SkeletonSlotName = "SkeletonPlayer"
   StaysOnlyOnThisLevel = "false"
   StaysPutOnIdle = "false"
   SubmitsSurvivorCall = "true"
   SubmitsSurvivorHelp = "false"
   Tier = "2"
   UseInvertedMeleeLogicWithGuns = "false"
   VoiceType = "106"
   cGunAttackBehaviour x29
         {
         }

         cMeleeAttackBehaviour TedMelee1
         {
         }

         cFriendBehaviour LikesJason
         {
             AttackfriendsAttacker = "false"
             DefectWhenFriendDefects = "true"
             DefectWhenFriendKilled = "true"
             DontReunite = "true"
             Friend = "srv_jason"
             IsDominant = "false"
             MournDeadFriend = "0"
         }

     }

There is also another veriant called "cNPCItems" used for cutscene characters, like the average citizens.

Just copy and paste data from a survivor who acts similar to who you want to create right above the old one, and bam. New survivors. As for customizing them, here are some noteworthy variables:

Age = "28"
Survivors Age, as listed in the notebook

AssetFilename = "data/models/npcs/srv_archie"
The model the survivor uses. It can be any file in the NPCs.bi file. Just be sure it's name correctly, because otherwise, you'd just get a big "Missing Prop" box when it's used in game.

AudioShoeType = "0"
Dettermines the footprint sound effects.

CanDefect = "true"
CanFollow = "true"
Self Explanitory

Description = "77660"
The text that appears in the characters notebook description.

DisplayName = "85290"
The text that appears over the characters health bar.

FullName = "85291"
The text that appears as the characters full name in the notebook

HealthAmount = "1000"
Self explanitory. Just about every character initially has 1000 health, save tutorial survivors (40) and bosses (varies)

IsZombifiable = "true"
Determines of the survivor can become a zombie after death. ONLY USE THIS IF THE SURVIVOR HAS A ZOMBIE MODEL. The game switches the used model to filename_zombie if this happens.

LocatedPrestigePoints = "1500"
Amount of PP awarded upon recruitment.

PortraitTextureName = "portrait_archie.bct"
Portrait used in the notebook entry

RescueQuote = "77659"
What is said upon rescue

ShowUpInNoteBook = "true"
Self explanitory

SubmitsSurvivorCall = "true"
Detemines whether or not the survivor emits "Is someone there" sound files on the feild before recruitment

SubmitsSurvivorHelp = "false"
Detemines whether or not the survivor emits "HELP!!!" sound files on the feild before recruitment

VoiceType = "106"
Determines the voice files used.

cFriendBehaviour LikesJason
AttackfriendsAttacker = "false"
DefectWhenFriendDefects = "true"
DefectWhenFriendKilled = "true"
DontReunite = "true"
Friend = "srv_jason"
IsDominant = "false"
MournDeadFriend = "0"

Determines behavior when a certain other survivor is in the party.

There's plenty more variables but those are the ones I understand.

BE SURE to use the {} tags correctly, otherwise half your game can become completely unreadable.

And there you have it.




As for updates, don't worry, I'm still working on this, but real life takes priotiry at the moment so it's going a bit slow. In the meantime, take this!:

SPOILER: Click to show

[sabi]

Thanks, this is very interesting, by the way, where is the data of this girl called "Karin" that appears in your capture? I can't find her in the file Items.txt

[dengarde]

She's one 0f the ones I created. And Vic and Flynn.

The model is cine_leah though, if that helps.