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| Thread: when is a mod not a mod? | |
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SirJohn
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 17, 2008 11:10 PM |
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when is a mod not a mod?
I have followed the instructions in "modding for dummies" and corrected some of the imbalances in the Stronghold. I gave trappers the land mine spell and witch doctors got cleansing. I was considering anti-magic too but didn't want to get carried away. These spells seem to fit how these creatures were intended. I didn't even attempt any animation changes.
Anyway, after making a copy of my original data folder I inserted the changes and everything is working well. My question is, why are some mods I downloaded able to be placed in the "user mods" folder and work from there, while my little project has to overwrite the original game files? I would prefer keeping mods isolated if at all possible. Can someone answer this?
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Gnoll_Mage
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 17, 2008 11:47 PM |
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Your project should never need to overwrite the original data. An h5u file should work fine. I can't help much more than this really. Try it, and if it doesn't work maybe you could upload the file.
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Wulfstan8182
Famous Hero
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posted February 18, 2008 01:54 AM |
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i don't understand what you mean by overwriting. 90% of all mods are changed normal files from data.pak, which, sort of "overwrite" the normal files. the other 10% are additions which are based on the main files, but don't overwrite them, they are new stuff.
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SirJohn
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 18, 2008 05:55 AM |
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I took the advice here and restored my old data, even using the date tool to restore the old dates (as close as I could guess). But now when I put my mods in the usermads folder, I can't get them to work at all. I tried zipping with winrar and XP before renaming to .h5u but it just does not seem to notice them. I wish I had left things as they were, I was really enjoying playing with the mod, now I miss it.
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Gnoll_Mage
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 18, 2008 12:33 PM |
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I can't imagine why it wouldn't work. Upload your attempt to make a .h5u, and I'll see if it works for me - if it does, we'll know the problem lies with your game (in which case, a reinstall would be the solution I suppose)  .
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SirJohn
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 18, 2008 02:22 PM |
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Edited by SirJohn at 14:23, 18 Feb 2008.
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I tried reinstalling and still no good. Here is my file:
http://www.mediafire.com/?2dmishawpts
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SirJohn
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 18, 2008 05:26 PM |
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I found what the problem was... I zipped mymod\gamemechanics instead of zipping just "gamemechanics". I thought I could name my mod whatever I wanted but I guess not?
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Gnoll_Mage
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 18, 2008 08:32 PM |
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How do you mean? The h5u can be called what you like of course, but the folders inside the zip must be equivalent to those inside the main paks, so Effects, GameMechanics etc..
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SirJohn
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 18, 2008 10:51 PM |
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I dont really know what I mean. I had zipped "my mod" with winrar and assumed everything under it was zipped too. But when "mymod.h5u" was placed in usermods, it didnt work. Are you saying I must first zip the game file, i.e. "gamemechanics" and then zip the containing folder "mymod"(or whatever) and give it the h5u extension?
In any event I finally got it to work by just sticking "gamemechanics.h5u" in usermods and combining my mod and the first aid tent mod under it.
Sorry I am new at this thing. Thanks for your help.
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Gnoll_Mage
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 19, 2008 04:40 PM |
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data.pak contains
GameMechanics folder
Effects folder
etc.
SirJohnsMod.h5u / .pak / .h5m contains also
GameMechanics folder (if it mods files that are within the equivalent of this folder in data.pak)
Effects folder (ditto)
Well as long as you've got everything working that you wanted to, and can therefore make new mods, I guess I don't need to say any more.
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SirJohn
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 19, 2008 10:12 PM |
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Right, that's the problem, when I had gamemechs under mymodname it didn't work; only when I made gamemechanics a h5u did it take effect.
As you say I have it working now and don't reckon I'll do too much more modding to need to worry about it. Just wish I understood the process a little better as it got very frustrating for a while there.
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Wulfstan8182
Famous Hero
, eh?
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posted February 19, 2008 11:50 PM |
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Quote:
Right, that's the problem, when I had gamemechs under mymodname it didn't work; only when I made gamemechanics a h5u did it take effect.
thats weird, so when you renamed "mymod.h5u" to "gamemechanics.h5u" it worked? u must have done something to the folders inside that took effect. the name of the actual .h5u doesn't matter. only the names inside the zipped folder matter. and, what i usually do to save time, i make a copmpressed/zipped folder in the beggining, and then copy-paste the gamemechanics containing all the valid data.
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SirJohn
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 20, 2008 01:22 AM |
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Quote:
Quote:
Right, that's the problem, when I had gamemechs under mymodname it didn't work; only when I made gamemechanics a h5u did it take effect.
thats weird, so when you renamed "mymod.h5u" to "gamemechanics.h5u" it worked? u must have done something to the folders inside that took effect. the name of the actual .h5u doesn't matter. only the names inside the zipped folder matter. and, what i usually do to save time, i make a copmpressed/zipped folder in the beggining, and then copy-paste the gamemechanics containing all the valid data.
No I didn't rename anything, gamemechanics was under "mymod".h5u, so I just unzipped mymod, zipped gamemechanics, and then changed the extension of gamemechanics.zip to gamemechanics.h5u. Surely someone else has had issues with this?!?
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Wulfstan8182
Famous Hero
, eh?
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posted February 20, 2008 03:10 AM |
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wtf? do u have like a gamemechanics folder inside ur gamemechanics? 'cause i don't understand how this works!
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SirJohn
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 20, 2008 03:25 AM |
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I had a folder structure like this: mymod.h5u\gamemechanics\creature\creatures\orcs\[files for each]
That did not work.
So I changed "mymod" back to a zip, opened, clicked one level down, zipped gamemechanics. Changed gamemechanics.zip to h5u and stuck it in usermods, viola it worked.
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Gnoll_Mage
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted February 20, 2008 06:03 PM |
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No, that structure is correct. If I understand you correctly, you had a folder called MyMod, which you then zipped by right clicking on it or whatever. This gave MyMod.h5u\MyMod\GameMechanics\Stuff, which is wrong. When you zip a folder, it does not empty the contents of that folder into the zip. Instead, you need to do what you said and zip the GameMechanics folder. Then just drag other folders e.g. Effects onto the new .zip/.h5u file to add them. The h5u does not need to be called GameMechanics.h5u, it can be called whatever you like. Hope this clears things up.
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SirJohn
Adventuring Hero
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posted February 20, 2008 09:55 PM |
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Quote:
No, that structure is correct. If I understand you correctly, you had a folder called MyMod, which you then zipped by right clicking on it or whatever. This gave MyMod.h5u\MyMod\GameMechanics\Stuff, which is wrong. When you zip a folder, it does not empty the contents of that folder into the zip. Instead, you need to do what you said and zip the GameMechanics folder. Then just drag other folders e.g. Effects onto the new .zip/.h5u file to add them. The h5u does not need to be called GameMechanics.h5u, it can be called whatever you like. Hope this clears things up.
Yes, thank you for the information.
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