I don't mean the houses restocking supplies, I mean that the houses would be physically replaced - in their entirety - with different versions of the same lot size, when you restarted the map.

This would, at least, give you the same topgraphy but a different feel each time. The quantity of permutations based on just having a few different types within a small/medium/large setup would be great enough to supply you with a world that feels new.

And aye, citing back to the idea of sandbox; it is intended to roll on multiple times but the game won't be any different in the sense of the map, the zombies, the missions, so you would likely get bored semi-quickly.

The reason I brought up pathing is that I pitched this to the devs on the forum and it someone made a more basic version of what I said which was picked up by the devs in one of the Twitch sessions. The idea of modular housing was said to be an impossibility due to pathing issues for modular homes. I disagree and motion to my method, but acquiesce that they know far more about the engine capacities than I.

For one, I think you're targeting the torso model that handles the deformed zombie that has had its arms torn/shot off, no?

Regarding your color scheme matching, I think you've got something wrong somewhere. :)

I use this site (with it currently producing information for the color spectrum you were applying):
http://www.color-hex.com/color/82aa4a

Just put HSL in front of it, wrap it in parentheses, and round to the nearest 10th, since the input region can't handle it.

You'll see that your code of "hsl(85.1, 39.6, 47.8)" gets you a funky greenish brownish, slightly muted color.

This says to me that where you're putting the color is in a post-process region for the renderer that is giving it an over color of that funky greenish-brown, right?

If I understand things correctly, that's this bit at the end that handles the post processes:

You've actually got it plotted for the Diffuse and the specular in multiple regions as well, up there in your code. So, it's basically applying muck to the core as well as the rest since there are interpretation regions in the DDS which allow it to change the color via the XML data (If I understand things fully correctly).

Looks like you actually want (Per the HSL listing on that page I linked):
HSL 0.97 1.00 0.88

or, for our XML file's interpretation:
[Whichever value, presumably Diffuse in addition to Indirect/Specular color]="0.97, 1.00, 0.88"


One sec, I' get to doing some more testing here shortly - sadly I have 1 full-time job and 2 part-time so I have to make that free time work, haha.

Taking it in the way Alex and I have - it appears to be more of a blueprint than a process. So to say they contain the data, but the Engine is the one that builds it - possibly based on that XML representation. I submit that any accurate determinations will require investigation into how the Engine handles that information. I'll look into this later. I still have to write-up how to view your core character components in the Free SDK, for one :)

Brilliant! Would love to see what you come up with.

I do enjoy GIMP but it doesn't seem to do enough for me to move over to Linux as a platform since I use the Creative Suite for my web design (Move to Linux already, Adobe!)

Did you have to do anything special to open the DDS files with GIMP?

-----
Note to anyone else watching that isn't familiar: GIMP is a free program comparable to photoshop, though slightly unwieldy to most (not that Photoshop isn't ;) ). Generally for Linux-based systems but it looks like they offer Windows installers through others here if you need it - http://www.gimp.org/

XNView is platform agnostic and supports boatloads of formats and is also free, good call GameplayCrush :) - find that one here -
http://www.xnview.com/en/xnview/

Admittedly I should have spent more time providing solutions to cover all bases but it was more fun tampering with things than it was writing things out, haha.

Reworked for readability, also added screenshots & tips.

Absolutely, on both counts :)

I use a lot of XML codes in my web development since the core pages get ported to RSS-XML when I drop them live - I might as well be reading greek if it isn't color coded, haha.

I'm mainly a web developer and I often use XML files to lay out the structure of my data so I can show someone - or myself, since I have a terrible short-term memory :P - how I did, or will do, something. I'd expect it to be something similar, if I may guess; that would be why they don't affect the game when modified.

I think a core way of making it last forever would be modular housing - kind of like how Diablo levels were modulated to always be different (albeit a bit wonky) - but it was cited to be too complicated due to path restructuring. I think that using a node/lock system would solve that if it is possible to make the 3D layouts of structures modular and pair them with an internal pathing layout for the structure being modulated.

Exempli gratia - a Zombie near a house wants to get a player inside, the house is modular. It sets an AI path for the player and finds an area marked for modular housing. It goes in a straight line to the edge of the marked surface on the topography then searches for the nearest node. The node for State of Decay would be something climbable, or a breakable window, as the noclip/noclimb surfaces are irrelevant.

It finds the node, jumps in the window or climbs the surface, then checks the internal pathing for the modular structure and lays out a line from that point to the player. I'd think this works best for modulation because each structure would have an internal pathing layout that would go along with it's modulation and the zombies would, therefore, only have to network with the specific path node and then check the internal layout that comes with the structure once it hits it - no requirement for being able to always understand a full path immediately.

Not sure if this is possible in the engine, but it seems an effective method.

This will allow you to develop a character skin for the flesh, to include the raw form of the body - head hands, feet, torso; no clothing yet - that's the next tutorial (I have 3 jobs so that may take a moment if noone else gets to it :) )




Start with getting the pak extractor here, I'll host it on my mod's BitBucket since the forums keep getting hit:
https://bitbucket.org/Eocryphops/fortitude-state-of-decay-base-stabilization/downloads/Extraction_Method.zip

Extract that - as seems easiest for me - into your game folder.

Then you open quickbms_4gb_files.exe,
Target zip2.bms when it asks (this is the script that tells it how to handle decompressing the file, where to put the folders, and how to further build the files into them)
Then the pak - all of them if you want, they all have different bits of the whole, for characters do the characters pak,
Then tell it to unload it in the game folder.



And pick up the Free SDK for CryEngine here:

http://www.crydev.net/dm_eds/download_detail.php?id=4

Register for a FREE account for it here:
http://www.crydev.net/ucp.php?mode=register&sid=1c5b7f33617c199fc3609f2b238b4a9a

You can then place the character folder from

State of Decay\game

and put it in

CryEngine\GameSDK\objects\

You can then open up your Free SDK program (editor.exe) and then click either the character viewer or the assets viewer to find your files.


Character Viewer
Default button location is top middle, one bar down - to the right of where you see the Terrain/Texture/Time buttons - it's the icon with the person, of course :). Just open that, then click open in the top left and navigate to the proper folder.

Scary Note: I haven't figured out precisely which files make it stop crashing when you try to open the components from State of Decay - if that is even possible between the free version and the real version of CryEngine that State of Decay used. So just view it in your little window or use the asset viewer.


Assets Viewer
Default button location is top middle, one bar down - to the right of where you see the Terrain/Texture/Time buttons - it's the icon with 9 squares in rows and the top left one is filled in.

Just click the tiles to have a look, you can scale it down to just materials or skins, etc. You can even view entire build models, including your safehouses :)

Much faster than having to reboot your game every time you want to see a change, right? :)




Read about how to open the DDS/MTL/CDF files:
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/stateofdecaymodding/discussions/0/864980277775384300/

And here's how those file-types are handled:

The top to bottom-level heirarchy goes like this -

.CDF > .MTL & .CHR with the .MTL > .TIF
(You just write in the name of your custom .DDS and change it to .TIF instead, same thing)

.DDS files are the skin,
.MTL files are material files to be interpreted by the rendering engine and call out the actual skin image,
.CDF files call out which .mtl & .chr files to use
.CHR files appear to house all the component data, I can't seem to edit those yet so I suppose higher level mods are off limits right now.




Get your bearings. :)

Let's start with Maya as an example because she was easy for all of us to find due to being labelled a story character and therefore getting exclusive treatment in the file folders.

Find her main targeting file ( maya_torres.cdf ) located here:
~[Whereever you put steam]\Steam\steamapps\common\State of Decay\Game\characters\female\human\story_characters\

Unlike the Free CryEngine 3 SDK, it looks like the components are all spread out, both in pointers to the files as well as the component files themselves. So, you'll find her clothing and core skin in the general folders in the \female\human\ sections for each part (Legs, body, parts, skin) because they aren't all, apparently, unique to her.

Head
\characters\female\human\heads\maya_torres

Hair
\characters\female\human\hair\hair06\

Torso (Game Nomenclature is "Body," though)
\characters\female\human\body\leatherjacket_leggings

Legs
\characters\female\human\legs\leggings

Skin
\characters\female\human\skin\medsleeves


Or, more specifically:

Head
\characters\female\human\heads\maya_torres\head_d.dds (This is the basic skinning layer, the diffuse map, other layers handle alpha\bumps for the renderer)
&&
\characters\female\human\heads\maya_torres\head_ddn.dds

Hair
\characters\female\human\hair\hair06\hair_n.dds

Torso (Game Nomenclature is "Body," though)
\characters\female\human\body\leatherjacket_leggings\shirt_d.dds (This is the basic skinning layer, other layers handle alpha\bumps for the renderer)
&&
\characters\female\human\body\leatherjacket_leggings\shirt_ddn.dds
&&
\characters\female\human\body\leatherjacket_leggings\shirt_m.dds

Legs
\characters\female\human\legs\leggings\pants_d.dds (This is the basic skinning layer, other layers handle alpha\bumps for the renderer)
&&
\characters\female\human\legs\leggings\pants_ddn.dds
&&
\characters\female\human\legs\leggings\pants_m.dds

Skin
\characters\female\human\skin\skin_d.dds
(Technically, \characters\female\human\skin\medsleeves\, with the .chr and .mtl files because it is a variant)


Break it down.

Now then, let's open up that CDF file and see how I got those file locations.

Here's the torso, for example (including the surrounding code):



With the component parts in a self closing XML tag being:


Alrighty - now we know how the game knows which pieces to compile onto our lovely Frankenstein at build time (Yes, I know the doctor was Frankenstein and the monster was just Frankenstein's Monster; but Mary Shelley isn't here to stop me)


Next up, the .MTL file which was pointed to by our .CDF file:

In here, we find more of the same as we saw - just XML targeting. This time the file points to our specific image of the skin we want to use, a .DDS file, though you just change it to say .TIF instead. That means "skin_d_zombie_variant.dds" becomes "skin_d_zombie_variant.tif"

That's just a quirk of the system, same file but a different label, like how the .xml files we're editing are labeled .mtl and .cdf, for example.

Let's start by noting that Maya's original .mtl contents for the skin map looked like this as a file target:


There we go! Now we know what points to what for the basics and we can start making our own files to point at, instead.




Let's fiddle!

So let's go down the heirarchy starting with the CDF file which tells us where all the roads lead (Hint: It's not Rome)

Let's make it simple and keep the same name for everything but the file that handles the skin of the body minus the neck and head, since that's a shared resource so we don't want all of our female characters to be zombies (unless we do ;) ).

Opening the CDF file you'll find this section for Maya:

Which we will change to anything we want to name the file in the variants folder, though we'll call v06.mtl to follow the numbered system already in place, which will let us keep insight on how the system works.

So it'll look like this:

We'll then go to that folder (characters/female/human/skin/variant/) and copy the v04.mtl, paste it down and change the name to v06.mtl

Open that up and hey; remember that bit in the .mtl file that looked like this?:

Let's changed it to:

Because we're modding her into a brainsmunchingarmyveteranwithabolt-actionrifleandanexceptionalhaircutkindofzombie; Surprise!

Okay okay, it's probably expected, but hey it's the best demonstration that keeps us more in line with the game without getting too far out of character.

And remember these will actually be .DDS files we're pointing at, we're just changing the target to be listed as .TIF, little confusing I know.




So we know our file structure, we created our own file and will be creating one more shortly, the .DDS file. We've changed the .CDF (at characters\female\human\story_characters) to point to our custom .MTL (v06.mtl) and placed it in the correct folder (at characters\female\human\skin\variant) then modified our .MTL to point to our - soon to be in existence, ex nihilo - .DDS file (characters/female/human/skin/skin_d_zombie_variant.tif).

So we now know the core setup for modding all char files, even though we'll only be tampering with the epidermis (Please leave the rest to a qualified physician).




In this Step, I'll be covering the photoshop component and the exporting process, which is simple. The hard part is designing your skin and making sure you color inside the lines set by your .CDF/.CHR files.

(The eye is the only thing really set within the CDF and that's just to locate the eye and then duplicate it for both eyes since it only has one. If you modify the x/y coordinates then you can presumably have two different colored eyes)


So - make sure you have your NVIDIA DDS plugin for Photoshop that you gleaned from the file opening tutorial at the top and let's open Photoshop.

When opening you can just tell it to load it using the default sizes as it'll give you a popup from the plugin. You can load MIP maps if you want, it'll just cascade smaller and smaller versions of the same image in a row - like when you aim your medicine cabinet mirror at your main mirror in the bathroom then stand between them and utter the holy words of Keanu: "Whoa" - so it's not enormously useful for the basic editing unless you're curious.

Note that Maya's head seems to have a unique configuration for the location of all the parts when compared to the other head sets, just be cognisant of what pieces you put with what and know that you may have to do some touch ups for getting the blending between skin sets just right. It should also be said that the rendering engine seems to make things lighter and slightly more of a creme color, presumably from the bloom/ambient light mechanics; plan your design accordingly.

Also, you can only see Maya's head, neck, hands, and clavicle region so fiddling with the rest of the skin isn't a bother unless you'd also like to play dress-up - I'll play that game later :)

See here for a before and after of the skin components in Photoshop, as well a calibration mechanic:
http://precambriandesigns.com/drupal/Images/Maya%20Needs%20a%20Mercy%20Shot-2.png

Here it is on the model (Version prior to adding the body skin - at a lower res, sorry):
http://precambriandesigns.com/drupal/Images/Maya%20Needs%20a%20Mercy%20Shot.png

And one more with a slightly more advanced version and a the body skin applied to the line between them is less perceptible; needs some veining applied to the body region and a little more yellow/purple mixture, for that truly rotten flavor, haha:
http://precambriandesigns.com/drupal/Images/Maya%20Needs%20a%20Mercy%20Shot-3.png

Save your files (head_d.dds and skin_d_zombie_variant.dds if you followed me),
You'll get another popup from the NVIDIA Plugin here. I'm still tampering with the settings, but it looks like the best bet right now is to change the dropdown to DXT3 ARGB (That's Alpha/Red/Green/Blue) 8 bpp | explicit alpha with a 2D Texture and Generate MIP maps selected in the radio button set.

You can click the 2D Preview button to see what is getting rendered though, again, it'll differ slightly from what the game gives you.

Click Save, and you're set!

If you've done it all right then you should see Maya as needing a "Mercy Shot" on your next load :)

I tried to find that but it seems like that's part of the engine settings rather than the basic file editing that we seem to be able to do right now. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course - after all, you could easily modify scripts in L4D to make those kinds of things happen.