DS2 Modding Tutorial Compilation
| Submitted by iryan on Fri, 2014-02-21 18:39 | ||
Dungeon Siege 2 is one of the most moddeable games ever made and even today, over 8 years since it was first released, the graphics and gameplay still hold up very well. Yet despite this and the release of a fully featured Map Editor, Dungeon Siege 2 never even remotely approached the popularity and amount of user created content of it's 3 year older sibling. Certainly the delayed release of Siege Editor 2 didn't help, especially as GPG built up such high expectations and anticipation of the game before release. We certainly can't be too hard on them as they had other commitments and obligations they needed to deal with and they also wanted to release an Editor with as much polish, user friendliness and stability as possible. 4 months after the release of the game, GPG began releasing a series of tutorials for Dungeon Siege 2 in a similar vein to what was done for the original game with Siege University. However Dungeon Siege 2 had a lot more competition for gamer's attention than did DS1 with the ever increasing popularity of MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft and game consoles such as the Xbox 360 and Playstation 2. So once the Editor was finally released many gamers had either played DS2 and moved on or never even tried it in the first place. Certainly by the time Broken World, the expansion to Dungeon Siege 2, was released a year later, GPG had themselves seemed to have given up on the series and didn't even attempt to support the features of the expansion in an update to the Editor as was done with the original game and Legends of Aranna expansion. They then turned back to their roots with Supreme Commander and the rest is history. The last game in the series, Dungeon Siege III wasn't made by GPG and had little in common with its forebears. Still despite the missed opportunities with DS2 modding, there still are sporadic inquiries about modding the game with the main problem new players have little idea where to go for modding resources or help with modding. While Siege University 2 still exists thanks to the way-back machine after nearly disappearing a year or so ago, a lot of information has been truncated and images lost. Some tutorials from Siege University 1 are still relevant to the game while others have been superseded by new features or made obsolete. Finally while this site holds some third party tutorials about modding DS2, others are located in rarely visited archive sites like Siegenetwork or Ghastley.org or have simply been lost in the black ether of the Net. So to try to rectify the current state of affairs, even though years way too late, I have started compiling the remaining tutorial resources into one easily accessed and portable resource. I was hoping to compile it into something like the downloadable version of Siege University 1 but didn't like the results so left it as a conglomeration of html files with frames for quick navigation between the various tutorials. So it can be opened in a window on your desktop and resized to suit while you work in SE2 or one of the other modding tools. Siege University 2.html is meant to be the portal but opening any of the files directly will work. Composed with Kompozer v. 0.7.10. http://www.siegetheday.org/~iryan/files/ds2_modding_resources.zip All links to net based images have been directed to the enclosed images folder so save unwanted bandwidth downloads from such places as Ghastley.org, as I'm sure he wouldn't be too pleased to have this resource linking directly to his site, and to guard against breakages to links. If anyone who has tutorials included in this pack who doesn't want them there, Ghastley for instance, please let me know and I'll remove them asap. Conversely if you know of any tutorials that can be included please let me know about them or send them to me and I'll include them in the next update. I know many of the links within the tutorials are broken, especially the flick tutorial and I'm working on them. Please let me know of any comments or suggestions. forums: |
||
|
» |
||
I have had only a short time to look at the documents you compiled but it looks very useful. Thank You
The biggest issue with the Siege University 2 tutorials is that a lot of the linked images are gone. If anyone wants to help with this project they could go through the tutorials and take new pictures and send them to me or alternatively if they were really keen, load the html in a html editor like KompoZer http://www.kompozer.net/ and edit the link to the image there. The version you can download there is an older one but works better than the latest version and even though it says its win32 works very well in Win 7 64bit as well. It also doesn't install onto your PC so instead you unzip the download and run the KompoZer exe directly.
One method to take images in SE2 is to simply hit PrtScn to take a screenshot of the scene in SE2. Then load Paint and paste the screenshot into the current window, followed by clicking Select and selecting the part of the image you want to save. Click copy and then create a new file from the menu (choosing not to save the original screenshot image). Then paste the copied selection into the current window followed by opening the menu and choosing to Save As a JPEG picture. You can save the image into the images folder in the modding resources pack or a sub-folder under that, since it is becoming congested.
To link the image in KompoZer, open the html file and select the place the image should be. Right Click and select Image Properties. In the dialog box that pops up, click on the open folder icon next to Image Location and navigate to where you placed the image you made and select it. Click the "Don't use alternate text" checkbox and then OK. Save the html file and your image should appear when you open it from Explorer.
Eventually I plan on uploading the tutorial compilation together with SE2 and a modding tools pack to Mod DB, where it may prove useful in promoting modding of the game, and possibly GameFront as well though the SE2 can already be found there so wouldn't need to be uploaded again. Mod DB though has no entries at all for DS2! Only Broken World is listed there and the only files found in that section is the ones I've uploaded. I think this is a sad state of affairs considering they hold mods and tools for nearly every other games ever made.
I also plan on uploading the finished tutorials to the DS Modding Wiki http://www.dsmods.info/doku.php?id=start . I notice that nothing else has been added there yet so maybe this will get the ball rolling as we need to support Techiem2 with this site which he has so graciously set up for us. Maybe if an admin could also create a link to there from here so people can actually find it, that would be good also.
As far as I have seen, very nice work!
I'm not seeing any good RPGs to mod (modding seems to be dead all around though), so I'm quite happy you want to promote DS2. I was going to create a compilation of all the tutorials in a chm help file (the SE2 has help button that will pop this open), but I gave up due to the lack of interest in modding the game.
keke... not even the great skyrim has enuff moddability to please dulac for him to deem it worthy of modding. :mrgreen:
It's good to have all my DS 2 stuff backed up somewhere off-site at last!
I haven't accessed this to see if you got everything, and you've probably spent more time than I did in putting everything into the right category. The objective for my site was just to get all that recorded while it still made sense to me! At the time it was written, I was answering a lot of questions on the various forums, and having a web page to link instead of pasting the same answers saved me time.
My DS 1 tutorial on making a new head was so plagiarized that I was accused at one stage of copying it from Planet Dungeon Siege, who at that time were linking to my site for the images! I gave up worrying about it way back then.
The only thing that I do require is that anything that's active be referred to the original source, so that nobody gets stale mods that are missing the upgrades and fixes, or information that can be out-of-date. Since DS2 itself won't change, I don't think there's any risk there, and I've moved on to the Elder Scrolls for mod-making, so I'm unlikely to change any of my stuff. Still, a link to any sources would tip off the users to go check for themselves. I might go crazy and do something more to the Dungeon Raider map, and discover some new neat trick in the process - like swimming and blowing bubbles were at the time.
Nope, that script language was handicapped(I was spoiled by DS1). At least years back when it came out. It also reminded me too much of delphi. I like c like syntax. I modded it as soon as it came out. I lost an entire map due to the tools corrupting the data. That's when I gave up on it, lol. I'm sure they fixed that problem by now. Is modding that game popular? I had a lot of fun with textures and shaders modding that game. I'm going to mod Minecraft as soon as they update tools, but I love the rpg genre! Has anyone modded Minecraft? That game has modability! Sorry to go off topic a bit here.
All my stuff is open-source (mods/tutorials). All I ask for is credit for whatever I did. Some of my mods were meant to be examples of what we can do in DS2. Tutorials for the seasoned mod makers. I think there are some posts I made on here that teach people certain aspects of modding. I lost quite a bit on my site, but I think there is stuff on STD. I'll have to dig for them. All the content I've created for DS2 is free to distribute and improve on. No limitations!
Edit:
Here is a link to video node making tutorials by Macros:
http://siegetheday.org/?q=node/534
I haven't seen them in a long time. I think the nodes were constructed well, but I'm sure they are helpful in some way.
Here is a discussion about how to get textures shiny. We were figuring it out in the process, so it's not a well written tutorial but informative:
http://siegetheday.org/?q=node/195
I actually went and learnt how to use a chm creation software but wasn't happy with the results, probably because I'm not skilled enough with it.
Thanks for the links you provided as well. I'm aware of the tutorials here but haven't linked to the videos though I included a couple of text tutorials in the compilation.
As for Skyrim modding there's 32,139 files listed at NexusMods. They also have a large assortment of games they support, Dungeon Siege isn't one of them. I've been playing a little bit of Oblivion on and off for the past week and can't help wondering what a truly open world in Dungeon Siege would have been like. I know it's impossible the way the engine works but still.....
Thanks for your support.
There's a link included for your site on the main page but one could easily be added to each of the individual tutorials as well, when I get around to that part. All pictures from your site are accessed from an images folder in the compilation rather than directly from your site, which is the default behaviour of KompoZer when I copied and pasted the information.
No links are provided to mods but maybe when I get to uploading everything in the compilation to the site Techiem set up, links could be provided there.
It took me awhile to find a CHM tool I liked. I had found one, but I forget what it was.
lol
i think u were trying to make a huge mmorpg map and it cudnt take it so it overflowed and got corrupted kekeke~
I mixed it up with Oblivion, lol. I disliked it being single player in a fast world with little action, so I didn't give Skyrim a try. That game's map feels like an MMORPG without the players doesn't it? The editor made a duplicate ID in the map. I couldn't open it via editor or another means to fix it, lol. The problem I had with NWN was the pseudo 3d. I also didn't appreciate DnD's spell and combat system at that time. That's odd because I loved Baldur's Gate and the monstrosity that was Pool of Radiance 2 (loved the turn based dnd combat). It's because I moved from modding Diablo II (before that Diablo I!) to DS1. The main reason at the time was frustration with DII's limited color palette. Back then I could hex edit and didn't know any other way to mod, lol. We were able to get Baldur's Gate monsters in DII! Diablo 3 completely let me down.
Edit: I'd appreciate if a mod split our side convo up into another thread starting with Femme's post before this one. I apologize for going off topic.
This thread that talks about how breathing mist works might be of interest. I came across it while viewing Siegecore on the wayback machine. It was discussed there and at STD.
Here is the STD link:
http://siegetheday.org/?q=node/1079
Edit:
Ghastly also has a nice tutorial on ornaments.
Here is a link to his tut:
http://ghastley.org/DS/ornaments.html
He's still around, so permission to use it shouldn't be hard to ask.
Edit again: He has a good number of tutorials on his site. I'd talk to him about tutorials.
PS: This is a copy from a response that I've sent to a specific thread for a specific problem, but I think it should be put here as well.
After a lot of trial and error, I've finally found out how to start the game with 5 customly made characters in the tutorial, and add another 7 characters shortly after the tutorial (to have a total of 12 custom characters in a party). The game actually takes it as a start of a new game, so the intro and cutscenes will play when selecting the party for the map (tested on vanilla).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCZDStHPr3g
At the start of the video there is a showcase of the results for the 5 or 6 party members (5 in the tutorial, adding a sixth one afterwards, due to Drevin being essentially hardcoded), and / or 12 party members after the tutorial.
The other 6 characters (from the 12 member party group) run on a different client, follow the first party, and battle automatically (without player's direct input, except for powers). You just need to alt-tab to it to do: Inventory management, Power and skills management, and getting 12 characters into an elevator is hard as nails.
This walkthrough also has a way to convert singleplayer saves to multiplayer saves and vice-versa (including the whole world, as in quests and everything, if you wish).
If the Succubus mod is used, then the game balances itself for 12 characters, so you don't have to worry about challenge.
Using the broken world expansion, newest patch, and a quite few mods. I recommend spell mods for more automatic spells and automatic potion usage if you are going to use the 12-characters variant.
I've decided to also rebuild this. I've been working on Siege University I since I didn't like its readability. This is a bit worse and needs to be put together. I was going to make an SPA(I'm used to SPA designs), but I think I will make it multipage to distribute and decide from there. It would be cool to have it hosted here. I cannot promise fixing all the images. For the time being I will use placeholder images.
Here is what I got so far. I borrowed most of the html/css from the Siege University I remaster I'm working on. I think I'll make the sidebar an accordion with javaScript.
https://rjdulac.github.io/Siege-University-II-Remastered/