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Submitted by iryan on Mon, 2015-04-06 18:40

Dulac wrote:

I think for a complete beginner it would be best to start by working with templates (gas files). I'll try to find a tutorial that explains this sort of stuff (headed to bed atm). We've lost a lot of links to modding information, but I think there might be good ones at STD. If not, I'll try to guide you through this process. Editing templates won't take up a lot of resources like SE2 does on a lower end computer.


From my experience, its extremely handy to extract the whole of Logic.ds2res to a reference folder that is easily reached on your PC. Here you can refer to how things were done in the game and many changes can be made by simply making minor changes to 1 or 2 files.

Objects.ds2res is another important reference file if you want to make graphical changes to the game. For instance you can retexture one of the existing armors and then clone one of the original files from Logic.ds2res and you have a new armor to play with in the game. I have the entire DS1, DSLOA, DS2 and Broken World files all extracted to a reference folder for easy viewing and access but that's only necessary if you like to dabble in everything like I tend to do.

Using Siege Editor 2 you can extract the maps as well and use the Editor to view them and even make changes to them. Go to the File Menu at the top left and select the convert .ds2map to Files option. Browse for the location of the maps an then they'll be extracted to My Documents\My Games\Dungeon Siege 2 Mod\Bits\World\Maps folder. The name of the DS2 map I simply ds2_world. To open one of the regions in DS2 use the Open option in the File Menu and a dialog box will open where you can select a region from DS2 to open in the Editor. The regions are all set out in order and are fairly easy to pick out as they have descriptive suffixes like a1_01_06_jngtown which is Eirulan.

Dulac wrote:
What shys me away from creating from scratch for the millionth time is all the map work on top of quests (I still need to learn how that's done). The big problem with it being a lot of work is getting burned out from slow progress.

That's why I was going to use the concept of reusing existing regions, all retextured differently and arranged differently. They don't even have to come from the same map as this demo which I released last year shows;
http://www.siegetheday.org/~iryan/files/Dungeon_Siege_Origins_Test.ds2res

Its an amalgamation of 7 regions from DS2, Kingdom of Ehb and the Utraean Peninsula so the Legendary Mod is required to play it. Its been stripped of objects ready for re-editing and has an alternative to the town portal.

Its quite easy to rapidly change the look of a region by changing the texsetabbr value in the nodes.gas file from the terrain_nodes folder in the map's region. Using the search and replace function of notepad will quickly change the value but unfortunately some nodes will probably look bizarre as they'll only work properly with a preset texsetabbr value so some trial and error will be needed.

Quests are a lot easier to do in DS2 than in DS1. They use flicks to function and can be started by triggers or conversations. If you want to learn how to implement them I can make a small demo map to show how the basics work.
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