Author Topic: Weapon Effects - How do I add these to my own custom weapons?  (Read 11369 times)

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Offline Prosoro

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Hey all,

Am frustratingly stuck with this so have made this thread as a plea for benevolent wisdom! 

I am making a sword set, one being fire themed and the other lighting.  It's all well and good adding the appropriate stats etc, no problem there of course but my attention turns to adding some of those sweet effects; but how??

I've copied my chosen swords into my custom directory in the Art Manager.  Clicking into them brings up the usual variables but I can't see any designated space to enter or attach effects.. as an example take Pagos.  I can see the ice sword itself in the database, and can find the separate ambient effect that it has but cannot find how these are linked anywhere in the AM variables - looking in the wrong place or wut?

Thanks in advance for any insightful help!  :D









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Offline WNG

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Re: Weapon Effects - How do I add these to my own custom weapons?
« Reply #1 on: 28 December 2018, 14:29:03 »
Those effects are bound to mesh files. What you want to do can be acheived, and I'll show you how I've been thought to do it. You will need two tools :

Mesh View Tool : https://www.kirmiziperfect.com/titan-quest-immortal-throne-mesh-view-tool/
ARC Encryptor : https://titanquestfans.net/index.php?topic=320.0

First, extract the mesh of your choice to open it with the Mesh View Tool. Click on '0 Meshes' then press Load Mesh. When it's loaded, look for a field called 'Textdata'. It contains references for attach points but also for special effects. The latter is usually at the end. It looks like this :

Code: [Select]
CreateEntity
{
    attach = "Anchor3"
    entity = "mod\effects\clubparticle_polarenergy.dbr"
}

'entity' refers to a dbr that is used as special effect.
'attach' refers to a set of coordinates that has been defined above with an ID. For example, in my Textdata, the Anchor3 looks like this :

Code: [Select]
AttachPoint
{
    name   = "Anchor3"
    origin = (-0.007907, 0.000000, -0.554227)
    xAxis  = (1.000000, 0.000000, 0.000000)
    yAxis  = (0.000000, 1.000000, 0.000000)
    zAxis  = (0.000000, 0.000000, 1.000000)
}

Modify those parameters at will, then press on the tab just under your mesh count (should be '1 Mesh') and click on save to save your new mesh.

Now that this is done, open ARC Encryptor. It allows you to create arc files for the game to use. Create a folder where to put your meshes (make sure it only contains those), and select it in the field 'Folder to pack from'. Enter the name you wish to give to your arc file,; for sake of simplicity, let's call it 'meshes'. 'Folder to pack to' is to wich location you want your arc file to be deposited. I leave it somewhere safe in case I need a backup (you might want to do just the same, you'll see why.) When all is set, press 'Encrypt'.

For the next step, you will need to slide in your meshes.arc here :

C:\Users\xxxxxx\Documents\My Games\Titan Quest - Immortal Throne\custommaps\nameOfYourMod-probablyHamunaptra\resources

Leave your meshes.arc here, and open your ArtManager. Look for the weapon you want to modify, go in its Actor Variables tab, and replace its mesh with yours.

Now, whenever you build for the first time in your current session of the ArtManager, it WILL delete unassociated ressources (including meshes.arc), and unlike other dbrs, you will not be prompted to refuse. To work around that, slide meshes.arc on your desktop, build your mod, then put it back where it used to be.

And that should make it work.

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Re: Weapon Effects - How do I add these to my own custom weapons?
« Reply #2 on: 28 December 2018, 21:04:01 »
Awesome guide WNG  ;) thanks man!

Appreciate the detailed explanations and provided links too.  I'm going away to the beach for a few days (last night made the swords and hero who will weild them) and when I return I'll be into this.

Will post progress/success on here once done  :D
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Offline WNG

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Re: Weapon Effects - How do I add these to my own custom weapons?
« Reply #3 on: 28 December 2018, 21:23:43 »
Sounds cool. Let me know if any more issues show up when you get to try it.

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Re: Weapon Effects - How do I add these to my own custom weapons?
« Reply #4 on: 02 January 2019, 20:50:31 »

Having some issue with KirmiziPerfect website.. seems it isn't loading for me at all.  Signed up and cannot log in either, so is there somewhere else I can find Mesh View Tool?
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Re: Weapon Effects - How do I add these to my own custom weapons?
« Reply #6 on: 02 January 2019, 21:11:52 »
Awesome! Thank you  8)

Now to figure this out..
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Re: Weapon Effects - How do I add these to my own custom weapons?
« Reply #7 on: 02 January 2019, 22:13:44 »

Having some issue with KirmiziPerfect website.. seems it isn't loading for me at all.  Signed up and cannot log in either, so is there somewhere else I can find Mesh View Tool?
Works fine for me, at 1st was some loading page for about 20 seconds, but after that its working like it should.
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Re: Weapon Effects - How do I add these to my own custom weapons?
« Reply #8 on: 03 January 2019, 09:38:00 »

Before the beginning of today I didn't know how to do this - now with a bit of trial and error and much help and patience from WNG I have successfully added effects to a custom sword for my mod! Yes, perhaps childsplay to many veteran modders here, but I'm pretty happy atm with this achievement  8)

For the sake of keeping records for those who follow and may wish to do this in the future ill explain what I did:

Firstly, in addition to the ARC Encryptor and Mesh View Tool that WNG mentioned, you also need to have the ARC Explorer tool as well.

~Includes Trial and Error explanation as I experienced it~

1-  Using the ARC Explorer I opened the Items.arc file and then scrolled down to my desired item mesh; in this case it was 'spathalongbronze01'.
2-  I then extracted selected file to a folder I had previously named "MY CUSTOM MESHES".  I have a mod folder named Project Hamunaptra which has all my mod related stuff so for tidy safekeeping I created my custom mesh folder there.
3-  Now I have my sword mesh I then opened up Mesh View and following WNG's instructions loaded in the sword mesh by navigating to the aforementioned custom meshes folder.  In the Mesh View program under the 'Textdata' category, I added a new "CreateEntity" and "Anchor 3" line of code and added my chosen effect.  I knew the path to this from the TQ Editor database which in this case was 'effects\weaponenchantments\rclub07b_ambientfx'

This I all manually typed in... which is partly where I went wrong I believe.

4-  Saving and closing Mesh View I opened ARC Encryptor, and then the AM and followed WNG's guide for these last steps (especially taking care with the sliding of my Mesh.arc file to the desktop before building in Art Manager to avoid losing anything!)  Works a treat  ;)
5-  Loading up the TQ Editor I excitedly located my sword, clicked on it and the Editor froze and crashed! lol Obviously something wasn't right.

~The Fix!~

A) - Damn, Alright.  Went back into Mesh View but this time loaded in Pagos - A sword mesh I know already has effects attached to it.  Looking at the Textdata code for this sword I saw it had this:

CreateEntity
{
    attach = "SpeacialHit03"
    entity = "Records\Effects\WeaponEnchantments\SwordIce_AmbientFX.dbr"
}

So here were two things I noticed; One the entity text was typed out in full starting from 'Records' and using capital lettering etc.  And two, it wasn't using and 'Anchor' attach point.  However, instead of using "SpeacialHit03" for my sword, I saw there were other attach lines with one called "Upper Body".

Figured that this meant an attach point roughly in the middle of the blade (which is what I wanted) so used that instead.  So to clarify; all I did was added the 'CreateEntity' code lines as above but changed the 'attach' and 'entity' lines to "Upper Body" and my chosen effect  :D

Once again followed WNG's final steps, hit build in the AM and opened the Editor .....to find my glorious flaming sword!



Once again, thank you and credit to WNG for the help and insight into achieving this  ^-^


P.s - there will be a twin sword accompanying this one which will be lightning themed  8)
 






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