CUSTOM texture variants of PLC possible?

[Jorak Uln 458]

Regarding the numerous PLC files, e.g. the Panels, Desks, one thought crossed my mind since a while:

 

when you roam across the planets,  especially these ones you see at every corner:

 

PLC_Desk1

PLC_CompPnl

PLC_CompPnl2

PLC_FootLker

 

and its always the same texture regardless if its on the Star Forge or at Dantooine.

 

What id like to do is to assign different custom texture variants for  them planetwise or even better area-wise.

e.g. 1 texture for Bek Base, 3 variants for Upper City etc.

 

I know that this is possible for textures like floors, walls via hex editing but ive no idea about placeables.

 

I would be glad of any help on that!

[Sithspecter 909]

That's a pretty tall order, you'd have to add additional lines in placeables.2da, then change every single placeable .utp in those modules to use the new placeables.2da lines. It's doable if you're up for the work.

[Jorak Uln 458]

That's a pretty tall order, you'd have to add additional lines in placeables.2da, then change every single placeable .utp in those modules to use the new placeables.2da lines. It's doable if you're up for the work.

hm, i have no idea/experience how that works exactly, and it might be an overwhelming amount of work to do these edits and making multiple animations...

 

But if some guys could help me on the edits i could concentrate making Panels in Sith/Republic/Czerka etc. style and im quite sure that would add much immersion to the planets... 

[Sithspecter 909]

Based on a quick look through the modules, there are around anywhere between 0-12 instances of these different placeables per module. Assuming an average of 6 (could be high, could be low), multiplied by the ~120 modules, you're looking at roughly 720 or so individual placeable edits. That's a huge number of files to edit, especially files dealing with necessary content to the game.

 

I understand that the immersion would undoubtedly increase by use of different looking computer panels and chairs across the different planets, and that's tough to weigh against editing all those files. Not to mention the modding implications it would have.

 

An alternative that you might consider is making all the reskins as you suggested, and putting them in different folders when you release the mod, along with a generic one-size-fits-all folder. This way if the player is traveling to say Manaan, they put the Manaan textures in their override and so on. If they're not into that much immersion, they install the generic one.

 

Another hypothetical option that would have a number of modding related repercussions would be to hex edit the placeable models to refer to a different texture name, and then include texture files of that name in all the different .rims for the module. I'm not even sure that would work though, but it might.

[Logan23 205]

Your better off just changing the ones that you don't feel like they fit the actual module,..ex if module is all rusted and beat up and you have some shinny metal computer panel,...then that might be one to change to a more beat up look.
But for ones that fit their present module- i would leave them be

[Jorak Uln 458]

Your better off just changing the ones that you don't feel like they fit the actual module,..ex if module is all rusted and beat up and you have some shinny metal computer panel,...then that might be one to change to a more beat up look.

But for ones that fit their present module- i would leave them be

That sounds solid. And how could that be done? Via hex editing?

 

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@Sithspecter: Yeah, 700+ Variations would be absolutely insane. I think realistically i can do about ~7-8 each max. Thats still up to 24 variations in total.

                       And i really wish this project could be happen, because when doing the variants below the impact on the overall mood ingame was dramatic!

 

i did some quick variations themed SITH, CZERKA and GENERIC - note, that changes to the display size and overall design should affect atmosphere even more: