Adding new creatures to MM8?

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Ser Ironfist
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Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby Ser Ironfist » 07 Jan 2016, 17:29

Hi guys,

Is there a way of doing so? Could I just add a line in the monsters.txt and then link it somehow to the bmp files in my sprites.lod? I'm wondering, since you can easily manipulate everything in the monsters.txt

What I did in the past was replacing MM8 creatures by MM7 ones. It works except from the fact that I couldn't figure out how to adjust the size of a creature. So replacing ravens by titans brought me titans in the size of a raven.

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby Baronus » 07 Jan 2016, 18:34

You can try. I think that creatures are coded in exe file. Size to is generated from code. Not only txt tables and sprites, but who knows? Maybe it will work...
First step. Extract creature from MMVII or MMVI plus palletes! Add to MMVIII and replace sprite name existing eg. pirat. And see in isle. If it will works it means it is possible add only sprites and txt.

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby Ser Ironfist » 09 Jan 2016, 22:04

Alright, I tried a few things. Adding new creatures wont be possible for me that's for sure. What I did was replacing some creatures. First I replaced wasps by mm7 liches but the liches were too small. My idea now is to replace skeletons by liches and then replace the wasps by skeletons. We then have big cool looking liches, a bit smaller skeletons than ususal and no more wasps. :-D Place light elementals into the wasp nest, call it abandoned wasp nest and place centaurs outside. That was my great idea.
The breaking problem is, in hardware 3D I see no changes at all. The wasps are still wasps. It only works when I'm in software 3D. So this way you would be forced to play in software 3D. Anyone having an idea about that?

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby GreatEmerald » 10 Jan 2016, 22:36

There's a separate file where all the sprites are compiled to for use in hardware accelerated mode. Grayface did manage to fix a bug in it (palette swapping not working), so it's probably possible to edit too, though I wouldn't know how.

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby Baronus » 11 Jan 2016, 09:32

What about BigDaddy mod and Chaos Conspiracy? Maybe those will be useful?

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby Ser Ironfist » 12 Jan 2016, 17:41

GreatEmerald wrote:There's a separate file where all the sprites are compiled to for use in hardware accelerated mode. Grayface did manage to fix a bug in it (palette swapping not working), so it's probably possible to edit too, though I wouldn't know how.
I did find nothing, any idea where it would be?


I tried some things with Monlist.txt but nothing I edit in this file seems to change anything. I added the creature Lich in monsters.txt and monlist.txt, copied .bmp files into the sprites.lod.

Image

Entering the game I get an error message and there is no monsters spawning in Dagger Wound.

Image

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby Baronus » 12 Jan 2016, 21:40

Mapstats is ONLY to respawning. Not to replace monster. You must paste lich in pirates lines in tables. And then see how it works. And tell us about result. Then we can think what to do next to ad new monster. I think that you must add frames too. Only pictures? Computer dont knows how to move it. But try. Maybe frames are for all creatures. See all txt tables maybe there are monster animations. You must add Liches there too.

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby Ser Ironfist » 12 Jan 2016, 22:44

Baronus wrote:Mapstats is ONLY to respawning. Not to replace monster. You must paste lich in pirates lines in tables. And then see how it works. And tell us about result. Then we can think what to do next to ad new monster. I think that you must add frames too. Only pictures? Computer dont knows how to move it. But try. Maybe frames are for all creatures. See all txt tables maybe there are monster animations. You must add Liches there too.
I know, I added the line for liches in monsters and in monlist, which has to be the one that is responsible for creating the animations out of the bmps.
In monlist you type in of which bmps the creatures consist. As you see in the picture the Human Mercenary (line 196) consists of the m659-s, f, a, n, d, x pictures - for example the s in m659s stands for "Stand", so this is the standing animation. In this case there are 5 bmps which make the standing animations. All together every creature has around 150 bmps.
In the end the animations indeed seem to be created by the pictures. Replacing the images by MM7 ones gives me a nicely animated MM7 creature.

I think the m757 was the next free number, so I called all the lich bmps. after this number in the same manner as all the other bmps are named.

It's getting too late now to think any longer about this. ^^

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby Baronus » 13 Jan 2016, 09:01

Aha. There is one frame for all. Good news! Better check all tables maybe is needed add new creature there too. And insert lich in pirate row. How it work?

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby Ser Ironfist » 17 Jan 2016, 09:53

Alright in between I am convinced that this has to be coded somewhere so that I don't have the possiblity to do it.
Monsters.txt, Monlist.txt, hostile.txt and sounds.txt seem to be all the txt files that have to do something with monsters. In each of these files I added the lich just in the way all the other monsters are. I checked very carefully if I made mistakes somewhere and I am now absolutley sure that everything is the way it needs to be. But I'm still getting the very same message.
Seems like replacing creatures will be my only possible way to have new creatures in the game. For example I could change wasps for liches, maybe mercenaries for mm7 crusaders, boulders for sth else etc.

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby GreatEmerald » 17 Jan 2016, 17:22

It's not in the text files, it's not even in the regular package files. They're some supplementary DirectDraw-specific files that are loaded separately, with a different extension.

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby Baronus » 18 Jan 2016, 09:49

It is the same message if you insert you new liches in pirates row? And pirates in 199 - 201 places? And rename pirates to liches in mapstats?

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby Ser Ironfist » 18 Jan 2016, 16:38

Baronus wrote:It is the same message if you insert you new liches in pirates row? And pirates in 199 - 201 places? And rename pirates to liches in mapstats?
Yes I get the same message.

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby Baronus » 18 Jan 2016, 18:13

It means that units are coded in exe file. Eg. NPC you can add in 2DEvents and NPC txt and add face and it works. Eg. new skillteachers.
You can replace unused units eg. pirate women. Maybe there are another unused?

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby jeff » 18 Jan 2016, 19:16

When we worked on Chaos Conspiracy most of the creature were changed. That ended up being Vladmir's job and he created several new creatures pretty much from scratch. BDJ did the importing and also imported creatures from MM7 and 8 into the mod. Unfortunately neither is active and BDJ has pretty much retired and rarely responses to emails. My job was strictly story line and side quest writing.
Mala Ipsa Nova :bugsquash:

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby Baronus » 18 Jan 2016, 20:14

I think he want easy way. Hard programing is for proffesionals. Someone must do creature adding port for all ordinary modders.
I thik there maybe is easy way... All creatures are in 3 colors. Red, green and blue. You can delete 2 colors... And you have 67% free space. You can add new. Is it possible? Or not?
If it work you can multiply creatures 3x...

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Re: Adding new creatures to MM8?

Unread postby GreatEmerald » 28 Jan 2016, 16:10

There is only one sprite per creature. The colours are just different palettes.


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