[Warhammer Dark Omen Forum]

Warhammer Dark Omen Forum

So, I've started working on something to fill a notable gap in the Skaven bestiary, now that we have SOTHR sprites:



here's a rough gif of its rotation:


I want to get a smoke effect coming off the green warpstone brazier. I was thinking I'd just animate it in (maybe as an idle animation, like with the skull catapult), but the smoke from the steam engine might work too. Does anyone know if there's a way to change the position of the steam particles? (or apply the particle effect to other sprite types? (probably a long shot)

What I've recently been discussing with fellow modders, is to hopefully amend our Dark Omen to Blender Import/Export tool that successfully loads terrain maps (.m3d) but sadly can't load Dark Omen Portrait Heads (also .m3d), as I'm guessing it just expects a map information etc..

Well, don't go to too much effort just yet! Rob's .m3d import tool seems to load them just fine, so long as the TEXTURE folder is a subdirectory of the MESHES folder (as it is in the 1pbat/B*_0* folders). Some of the texture names are incorrect/using the wrong format (e.g, 25.m3d expects VC_HEAD.tga as a texture, which doesn't exist, but saving VA_HEAD.bmp as a tga and changing the name gets it loading. You can check which texture is required in the header for the respective .m3d), but most of them seem to import/export without any issue as long as you move the TEXTURE folder. Gunther loads the correct texture without issue:

 

I've been messing around with the orc head mesh, and it seems to load back into DO without issue. Hoping to get a skaven head/texture thrown together, but for now here's a horrible distended Boar Boy!

Before I rifle through the game files in vain, I thought I had better check: Has anyone compiled a list of which PORTRAIT\*.M3D files are used for each unit? I couldn't see anything on the wiki.

Does Ere-we-go give some initiative and armour bonus as well? I always found that Regiments with Ere-we-go survived longer and had waaaaaaay less casualties even when engaged with two regiments. In fact, I use it on my Mages all the time to help them survive battles and gain XP faster since their attack spells suck. Could it be that the extra strength with possible extra initiative helps them kill units before they ever deal damage?

I can't comment on the internal workings of DO, but in 4th edition WHFB, 'Ere-We-Go gives +1 Toughness and makes the unit always strike first.

Speaking of lava...


I was thinking it would be fun to do alternate night/day versions of maps; arriving at Helmgart late could use night textures instead, for example.
I'm a bit suprised there haven't been many mods that messed around with the map textures, considering how straight-forward it seems to be. Some textures don't seem to respond well to being edited, though; I haven't been able to figure out how to edit the colours of the treetrunk texture without it messing up.

Amazing find, aqrit! The fixed sprite-types have been one of the most annoying limitations in modding DO, now I can give pistols to whoever I want!!

I've gotten the mounted wizard (slightly modified) from SOTHR working ingame as ST_ZZNewPlyr3 using the value used for the BRIGHT sprite (a800), haven't played around with it extensively but everything seems to work fine!

(bonus gyrocopter shot included)

To make it a little easier to figure out the values, I sorted them (in little-endian, so 7e00 becomes 007e) by the sprites associated with them, I might have made some mistakes, though:

0000 = VOIDTYPE/XST_ZNewMisc5/XST_ZNewMisc6/XST_LastSprite
000e = BtlSprit/flags
001c = missiles
002a = mi
0038 = SPL_ITEM
0046 = SPL_BRI
0054 = SPL_BRI
0062 = SPL_BRI
0070 = SPL_DARK
007e = GRUINF/GRUXBW/OUTINF/IMPGRT/ARTILL/NGOB/NGARCH/ORCBOY/BIGUNS/MUMMY/SKELWR/WIGHT/BANSWD
008c = GRAILK/KREALM/BERNHD/GRUCAV/CARLSS/OUTPIST
009a = CANNON/MORTAR
00a8 = BRIGHT
00b6 = ICEMAG
00c4 = NGSHAM
00d2 = ORCSHM
00e0 = NECRO
00ee = CARST
00fc = IMPHAL/GLADE
010a = DWARF/GHOUL
0118 = PEASMN/PEASBY/PEASWM
0126 = ZOMBIE
0134 = ELFARC/ARRERB
0142 = BOAR
0150 = CHARIOT/NAGASH
015e = SKELHS
016c = SPIDER/SCORPN
017a = TROLL/WRAITH
0188 = FLAGEL
0196 = OGRE/TREEMN
01a4 = STMTNK
01b2 = FANATIC
01c0 = RAGNAR
01ce = DREAD
01dc = SKELCV/UNKNIG
01ea = BOLT
01f8 = ROCKLB
0206 = SSKULL
0214 = DUMMY
0222 = IMPBOW/SKELBW/BANARC
0230 = VAMP
023e = Unused sprites (ST_*)

It's a bit weird that Ice Mage and Bright Wizard have different values, or that Wood Elf Archers and Arrer Boyz use the same value (or Troll/Wraith, or Halberdiers and Glade Guard).

Thanks again, aqrit! You've really breathed new life into DO modding with the discoveries you've made over the past year!

First of all, aqrit, I don't think enough thanks can be given for figuring this one out. Working 3D mode in DO is the realisation of a decade-long dream for me and many, I think.

However, I'm having some issues getting this working under WinXP and I wonder if anyone can point me in the right direction. For some reason, Setup.exe wouldn't launch for me (I remember having this problem with XP years ago and I suspect it has something to do with ntvdm not being able to deal with 16-bit installshield files), so I've had to use a pre-packaged install that came with the intro crash fixes.
I've edited EngRel to use windowed mode, and that all works fine, but 3D mode isn't selectable (greyed-out). I can force it using tshoot.exe but that just results in none of the 3D elements rendering (everything but UI is black).

This is particularly frustrating me because I had just installed WinXP on an old laptop a few weeks ago and had gotten the game installed and working in 3D mode with no problems, but my housemate's cat has just rendered that laptop unusable!

Thanks in advance for any assistance!