Now that I understand how you create an override compilation of heads for player characters to choose from, I’m wondering, is adding new clothes/robes for cosmetic purposes just as simple? I suspect it needs some additional steps, like editing .2da files or something? I skimmed the CC guide, but it seems to say more about creating CC for your module rather than using existing CC via override.
You have to edit the parts_### 2da for each body part, then follow the part naming convention given in the Custom Content Guide.
Robes are a quick win, in the sense that they can give total body cover without fiddling with all the other parts.
The biggest bugbear is that the toolset sorts body parts by AC, so part 111 in the toolset might use model number 036. Behind the scenes, in the GFF file, the part is stored as 36, which refers to line 36 of the 2da and model 036.
If you compare the CEP2 2da files with the official ones, you will see a partial workaround - new parts are give AC values like 8.001, 8.002 etc so that the new parts are sorted to the end of the list and can be found easily in the toolset.
For all parts except Torso (Chest), the AC has no effect in game. For Torso, you have to use the correct AC, hence 5.001 or whatever.
What tool would you recommend for editing 2da files?
Textpad for general edits. Excimer2da Combinulator or NWN2daTool for comparison, adding or replacing columns, etc.
Hm, okay, that looks to be a bit more complicated than I was hoping for.
Looking at the parts_robes.2da from Eurgiga’s Robe-based Armors, I see the lines where entries were made correspond with the slot where new robes are in-game, and I see that they chose a high AC number like Proleric said, but I still don’t really know what that means, when e.g. it says in slot/line 232 “ACBONUS: 13:33” and in slot/line 235 “ACBONUS: 13:18” …
And so far, I only knew e.g. pfh0 (normal) or pfh2 (large), but these robe models now have names like pfh18 etc, too. What does that mean?
The naming is explained in the CC guide. pfh18 refers to female human phenotype 18, for example.
The AC for all parts except chest is in effect a sort sequence that determines the part number in the toolset.
I understand pfh meaning “female human phenotype”, just not the number behind it.
So 232 -> 13:33, 235 -> 13:18 would mean that in-game the second robe comes after the first one (232<235), but in the toolset it’s the other way around (13:33>13:18)? If so, where’s the benefit for the module author in doing that, instead of 232 -> 13:18, 235 -> 13:33?
Anyway, if I just want to assemble robes from different hakpaks, it seems I have to name the mdl/plt files according to the in-game slots I want them in, just like with the heads, but I also need to make AC entries in the .2da, just so that the game knows in this particular slot there is something that’s supposed to be treated like armor?
I may be misunderstanding what is being asked for here but my go to for changing the look of outfits is always Lisa.
Dead easy and can make a huge difference.
Yes, those clothes are great, but I’m particularly fond of Eurgiga’s Robe-based Armor and the follow-up, so my interest is in learning to combine those two robe packs as a patch hak, and possibly also combine both of them with Lisa’s or other clothes on the Vault that I like.
Merging haks is really just a matter of renumbering the models if there are duplicates.
If what I said about AC is hard to understand, you can ignore it. Just add your model - number 36 in my example. In the toolset, cycle through all models until you see the one you just added to the hak. Simple.
As an aside, if I were starting again, I’d keep a better record of which parts fit together to make a costume. If the original source has an erf, for example, that’s perfect.
Okay, I’ll try to figure it out, thanks for your help! 