Making a creature is easy, making several is excruciating! This guide is to make creature creating easier (at least I hope it will make it easier). Now, if you don’t know what you need for the basics, get the following things:
Infinity Explorer -
http://infexp.sourceforge.net/Near Infinity -
http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~joh/ni/IE Creature Maker -
http://www.teambg.com/?page=tools/basiccustomizingSo, first of all, let me explain how to make simple and basic creatures, such as a commoner that I made on a little MOD of mine. This is a VERY simple creature, the only problem is that I needed to make several of them.
The first step is, obviously, start IE Creature Maker. The next thing to do is to extract a creature from a game, since that will make it much easier than making one from scratch. For some reason, I always use Aerie. To do this, go into file, and then extract creature. Choose the file that says AERIE, it will go into the override, so go back to file, and then open. The AERIE file should be there.
I will explain the following, and ONLY the stuff that matters for making a basic creature.
General page:Name: Change the name of your creature to however you want it. Then click ‘Update dialog.tlk’. I just used Citizen.
Max HP: Change this to however many HP you think the civilian should have, normally it’s only 5
Act. HP: Keep this the exact same as Max HP, it only determines how much HP the creature actuality has (so if he’s damaged, his Act. HP would be lower)
AC: Armor Class (obviously), I just kept it at 10
Class: If you want the PC to actually lose reputation points for killing the civilian, or injuring him, switch the class to INNOCENT. There are so many possibilities, because if you plan to make a spider, but only make the animation that of a spider, and not the class, then rangers who have spiders as a racial enemy will not consider it to be a spider. Items like Spidersbane will not do extra damage.
Graphics page:State: Ok, this is rather obvious, but I put it as STATE_NORMAL.
Animation: This would decide the animation of your civilian (yes, you can make the civilian look like I bloody dragon if you want), I recommend that you use PEASANT_MAN, or PEASANT_WOMAN. However, watch out for some animations, because there are those like Volo’s that doesn’t have an attack animation, therefore, this character can never attack you. And some animations don’t have a death animation, so if they die, the game will crash apparently.
Colors: This must be (in my opinion) the most irritating part of creature making, deciding the colors. Always, always, after finishing the colors of a creature, check it in the game with CLUAConsole:CreateCreature(“What Ever You Named It In The Override Folder”), just to make sure it looks right.
Other Attributes page:Well, since this is a copy of the AERIE creature, you may as well keep everything the same except for a couple of things.
Scripts: Well, in my opinion, you should make your own scripts, but if you don’t feel like learning scripting, you should take a look at the SHOUT script, and the WT… scripts.
Dialog file: You obviously need to know how to make dialogs! If someone already made you one, then just apply it.
Death Variable: In scripts, the file name of the creature, or the name you gave it will mean nothing; it only looks at the death variable, which is a special name for scripts. Let me give you an example: There are several AERIE files, and some of them have numbers at the end. But all their death variables are the same, so the scripts will recognise each creature as the same character. Switch the death variable to ‘CITIZEN’ or something like that.
Inventory page:In this case, save your creature, and exit the program. It’s far easier using the creature editor in Shadow Keeper (or Gate Keeper).
Sounds page:Since this is based on Aerie’s file, REMOVE ALL THE SOUNDS (you click the remove sound button. Gasp)! I don’t think I need to explain why.
The rest of the pages are useless for such a simple creature, so, in the end, you should have some thing like this:
Name: Citizen
Class: Innocent
Graphics: Peasant_male
Dialog: CITIZEN (assuming citizen.dlg is in your override folder)
Death Variable: Citizen1 (Any scripts looking for “Citizen1” will target this CRE)
This could vary by what you made your creature for. Was it for a cutscene, to add to a certain area, to deliver a message and so on and so forth? The citizen described above would be one used in a cutscene, since he will disappear afterwards.
Also, remember to change the file name of the creature, you wouldn’t want your citizen to be confused with Aerie now would you?
To make even better creatures, you should learn scripting and dialog editing, and then you can make very interesting creatures.
Now I’ll explain some of the common scripts used so you don’t actually have to learn scripting (But you should learn it anyway! It’s not hard!). I’ll be explaining:
SHOUT
SHOUT06
SHOUT12
SHOUT12O
SHOUT12H
SHOUTDL2
SHOUTDL3
SHOUTDLG
SHOUTINV
SHOUTPRO
SHTDLGH
SHTDLGNE
WTARSGT
WTASIGHT
WTATROLL
WTATTKBE
WTATTWAT
WTHOLDBE
WTHSTLBE
WTRUNBE
WTRUNSGT
WTRUNWAT
Damn, those are so many scripts, but nonetheless, I’ll explain them all, whether you fall asleep or not. Don’t even think about pressing the page down key!
SHOUT: If the person is attacked by one of you, he will turn red. If you attack another person, then he will turn hostile as well. It’s a VERY simple script!
SHOUT06: This means that if you’re near by, and this creature hasn’t talked to you before, the creature will talk to you.
SHOUT12: Same thing as SHOUT06, just that you can be twice as far away.
SHOUT12H: Same as SHOUT12, but the creature must be neutral.
SHOUT12O: Why am I doing this? It’s the exact same as SHOUT12, there is no difference what so ever!
SHOUTDL2, SHOUTDL3: Pretty much the same thing as SHOUT12
SHOUTDLG: Same as SHOUTDL2, but their must be no fighting going on.
SHOUTINV: Same as SHOUTDL2.
SHOUTPRO: Same as above, but it has to be Player 1.
SHTDLGH: Same as SHOUT12H.
SHTDLGNE: Same as SHOUT12H, but you can be an ally as well.
WTARSGT: If you attack him, he’ll attack you back!
WTASIGHT: A simpler less elaborate version of WTARSGT.
WTATROLL: Much simpler version of WTARSGT (In my opinion, forget about this one and the above and just stick with WTARSGT).
WTATTKBE: The creature will attack you if attacked, and will try to make other neutral creatures around you become hostile towards you.
WTATTWAT: A simpler version of WTATTKBE.
WTHOLDBE: The creature will try to make others hostile towards you if attacked, and will cast hold person on your group.
WTHSTLBE: Will simply try to make others hostile towards you if attacked.
WTRUNBE: Will try to make other hostile towards you if attacked, and run away from you.
WTRUNSGT: Same as above, but won’t make others hostile towards you.
WTRUNWAT: Same as above.
Phew, well that's done! If you have any comments what so ever, please e-mail them to
thanatos@entechtaiwan.com.
