OpenXcom Forum
Modding => Work In Progress => Topic started by: perpetual on February 01, 2016, 12:34:09 am
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Hey community, I'm interested in creating mods that enhance the soldier personalization / rpg elements of Xcom.
To start I've created a small code modification to display soldier portraits in place of rank images on the basescape soldier info screen and in the battlescape. They are simply based on race/gender at the moment. See the attached pictures.
I put an abbreviated rank string in the battlescape name for now. Not a satisfying solution, but one without a UI redesign.
My next goal is to have individual portraits for soldiers picked from a pool for each race/gender combo.
So my questions are:
- Is there interest in these type of features? Maybe not this specific implementation, but along the same lines.
- Have any modders created more faces in the style of the default inventory graphics? Im not much of a pixel artist.
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Totally! I'd love to see a mod like this come to completion, it'd help me a lot in picking new names for my soldiers.
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Yeah, it's very interesting.
I've added many new faces to the game (OXCE allows for up to 128 faces), but haven't released it yet. See this post (https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,2961.msg57352.html#msg57352).
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@Solarius:
The issue is that the two screenshots above are using different palette (basescape and battlescape).
So you would have to provide all the pictures twice!
Just like vanilla has rank icons twice:
1. https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=BASEBITS.PCK
2. https://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=SMOKE.PCK
But if you'd like to see the avatar on the battlescape GUI only, I can do that as optional feature in OXCE+.
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@Solarius:
The issue is that the two screenshots above are using different palette (basescape and battlescape).
So you would have to provide all the pictures twice!
It's not very comfortable, but I don't think it's a problem at all. One entry doesn't make much difference since we won't have too many pics (128 at most, though I doubt we'll get there soon).
But if you'd like to see the avatar on the battlescape GUI only, I can do that as optional feature in OXCE+.
I think it's worth considering, though I lack the technical knowledge to say how hard it'll be, and I haven't really given it any thought yet.
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It's not a lot of work, took me 10-15 minutes to have a first prototype.
There are however questions like:
1. what background to use?
a/ default brown-ish?
b/ plain solid black? maybe with a border?
c/ custom? (26x23 pixels)
2. which avatar to use?
a/ avatar with the corresponding armor?
b/ or take fixed armor (e.g. NONE)?
3. where/how to display rank?
a/ don't display?
b/ display as text before the name?
c/ display on the same place and allow toggle between avatar and rank by right-click? (+maybe have a user option what should be displayed by default?)
Attached is prototype with: 1a, 2a and 3a ... this one looks quite nice, but many look really bad with this background
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It's not a lot of work, took me 10-15 minutes to have a first prototype.
There are however questions like:
1. what background to use?
a/ default brown-ish?
b/ plain solid black? maybe with a border?
c/ custom? (26x23 pixels)
2. which avatar to use?
a/ avatar with the corresponding armor?
b/ or take fixed armor (e.g. NONE)?
3. where/how to display rank?
a/ don't display?
b/ display as text before the name?
c/ display on the same place and allow toggle between avatar and rank by right-click? (+maybe have a user option what should be displayed by default?)
Attached is prototype with: 1a, 2a and 3a ... this one looks quite nice, but many look really bad with this background
1 b
2 a or b
3 b or c.
^^ My votes. Looks Awesome! Love this!
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Have you considered making a smaller sized rank insignia and putting that next to the name? Like Perpetual's idea, but tiny pixel art picture instead of name.
Or even take that tiny rank and put it in the top left corner of the portrait.
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i wanted to do the exact same thing using apocalypse's portraits (which are too large by default, you need to resize then but they still look good enough).
i never spent time on it because i just deemed it impossible (and it was also lower-ish priority, compared to some other thing is still have to finish).
very cool idea.
ideally people should be enabled to add portraits packs***: anime characters, famous people (actors, politicians, singers), your friends-relatives (your grandma killing sectoids), avatars from the community in which you're making a let's play, or whatever the modders come up with.
*** but to check if the feature makes sense, some testing portraits should be made, to see if they still look good when resized that small. apocalypse's portraits are ok because they're black and white; random photos or images (and colored too) might look like shit.
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It's not a lot of work, took me 10-15 minutes to have a first prototype.
Wow.
There are however questions like:
1. what background to use?
a/ default brown-ish?
b/ plain solid black? maybe with a border?
c/ custom? (26x23 pixels)
I'd say some sort of gradient would fit best. Not sure about the specifics though, requires testing.
2. which avatar to use?
a/ avatar with the corresponding armor?
b/ or take fixed armor (e.g. NONE)?
I'd say NONE, otherwise the face would often be obscured by the helmet, and I assume we're going towards a "personal files" effect, with a recognizable photo.
3. where/how to display rank?
a/ don't display?
b/ display as text before the name?
c/ display on the same place and allow toggle between avatar and rank by right-click? (+maybe have a user option what should be displayed by default?)
Attached is prototype with: 1a, 2a and 3a ... this one looks quite nice, but many look really bad with this background
After all I think the picture should only be seen in geoscape, not in battlescape, where it gets a bit tricky.
Have you considered making a smaller sized rank insignia and putting that next to the name? Like Perpetual's idea, but tiny pixel art picture instead of name.
Or even take that tiny rank and put it in the top left corner of the portrait.
Yeah, that last one seems best.
i wanted to do the exact same thing using apocalypse's portraits (which are too large by default, you need to resize then but they still look good enough).
i never spent time on it because i just deemed it impossible (and it was also lower-ish priority, compared to some other thing is still have to finish).
very cool idea.
ideally people should be enabled to add portraits packs***: anime characters, famous people (actors, politicians, singers), your friends-relatives (your grandma killing sectoids), avatars from the community in which you're making a let's play, or whatever the modders come up with.
*** but to check if the feature makes sense, some testing portraits should be made, to see if they still look good when resized that small. apocalypse's portraits are ok because they're black and white; random photos or images (and colored too) might look like shit.
And how would it correspond to the inventory pics? It'd work in Apocalypse, where there are no inventory pics, but not X-Com 1/2. We can't have different portraits for the same person. Unless I misunderstood you somehow?
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It would be pretty hilarious if the mugshots had damage states like the HUD face in Doom;
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/63152810/b.png)
even more so if morale had an effect, too.
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I can just now see someone who cross-pollinates over at Zandronum trying to make a FPS out of X-com in the Doom Engine.
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It'd work in Apocalypse, where there are no inventory pics, but
do you mean the fact that apocalypse only has that one face for the paperdoll?
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1 b
2 a or b
3 b or c.
^^ My votes. Looks Awesome! Love this!
I did 1c, 2b and 3b.
More info here: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.msg58662.html#msg58662
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Inventory graphics are a concern, ideally the face in the paper doll would match the portrait.
However, making a sprite for each face/armor combo is a lot of work and isn’t too mod friendly, however. Perhaps a system with separate armor and head sprites could be devised?
@Solarius
Those faces you linked looks great, they have a lot of variety on such a small scale! I’d be very interested in those files if/when you see fit to release them.
@Meridian
I was going to say it would be great to include the battlescape feature in OXCE+, but it looks like you've already done it! Now more people can be exposed to the idea. Can that codebase be used for standard XCOM as well?
@robin
Definitely, I envision this feature to be friendly to custom portrait packs.
I personally wish there was more space for portraits, but I don’t see it happening without a serious interface redesign.
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Inventory graphics are a concern, ideally the face in the paper doll would match the portrait.
However, making a sprite for each face/armor combo is a lot of work and isn’t too mod friendly, however. Perhaps a system with separate armor and head sprites could be devised?
I currently take the faces from the armors themselves, so no work for modders.
Actually I changed it and take it only from the "NONE" armor... because other armors may have helmets and you wouldn't see the face.
@Meridian
I was going to say it would be great to include the battlescape feature in OXCE+, but it looks like you've already done it! Now more people can be exposed to the idea. Can that codebase be used for standard XCOM as well?
Not sure what the question is, so I will answer both interpretations I can think of.
1/ Yes, OXCE+ can be used to play normal vanilla XCOM.
2/ You cannot take my commit and apply it onto vanilla codebase (easily), because it considers already other features introduced in OXCE. But you can definitely look at it and do it similarly in OXC... it should be even easier, probably removing some parts of the code will make it compatible with OXC.
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You should perhaps take a look at this thread:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,834.msg7994.html#msg7994
Many UI redesigns were discussed here, and I can say this is something it has some sort of general interest going for it. More interestingly, I would like to ask you how did you manage to load battlescape palettes on the soldier stat screen, considering SupSuper once mentioned that would be a bit of a hurdle.
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More interestingly, I would like to ask you how did you manage to load battlescape palettes on the soldier stat screen, considering SupSuper once mentioned that would be a bit of a hurdle.
I didn't, the avatar is displayed only in the battlescape UI, not in the solder stat UI.
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I meant the 1st pic posted by Perpetual, not yours.
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It would be pretty hilarious if the mugshots had damage states like the HUD face in Doom;
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/63152810/b.png)
even more so if morale had an effect, too.
This is worth upvoting - plain mugshot is fine and would do in Basescape, but in the Battlescape, it would only use up the space (in that role, the rank is marginally better). Bloax's idea would allow for the portrait to have a real informational value (damage level, morale level).
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This is worth upvoting - plain mugshot is fine and would do in Basescape, but in the Battlescape, it would only use up the space (in that role, the rank is marginally better). Bloax's idea would allow for the portrait to have a real informational value (damage level, morale level).
But then the idea of using a part of the unarmoured inventory picture goes out the window, since you'd have to create all these files by yourself.
Sure, it's a very cool feature, but also very time consuming... Maybe we can have it as an additional option? I mean, it would use these custom expressions only when the modder was insane enough to make them, and otherwise inventory picture would be used?
Also I would like to bring up the idea of having a tiny rank sign in the corner of the portrait box. Can this happen?
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But then the idea of using a part of the unarmoured inventory picture goes out the window, since you'd have to create all these files by yourself.
As you say below, we can display inventory picture, if no morale/health-specific pictures are available.
Sure, it's a very cool feature, but also very time consuming... Maybe we can have it as an additional option? I mean, it would use these custom expressions only when the modder was insane enough to make them, and otherwise inventory picture would be used?
I estimate it would take me 2-4 hours to implement, nothing complicated.
But it would take ages to draw all the pictures... I'm hesitating investing even those 2 hours without knowing somebody will actually use it.
Also I would like to bring up the idea of having a tiny rank sign in the corner of the portrait box. Can this happen?
Tiny rank (7x7 pixels) can already be displayed after the soldier name.
Moving it to the corner of portrait box will take me 5 minutes... but again I need some graphics to see how will it look like... btw. if it will be moved there, we can make it also a bit bigger (e.g. 8x8 or 9x9 or 8x10 or anything reasonably small).
So, if anyone will create the graphics, I will do the rest.
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But it would take ages to draw all the pictures...
Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. :D
I'm hesitating investing even those 2 hours without knowing somebody will actually use it.
I don't know... On one hand, I like the idea a lot, it's worth doing, but on the other, I'd rather spend time on something more substantial than bloodied portraits. It's a time issue, and I have little time.
I'm also unsure it it would feel right to have an unarmoured portrait when you're wearing some other uniform. I mean it's OK for a static picture, but if you make it linked to the soldier's current state, then the immersion starts falling apart.
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YOU DOUBT MY MADNESS???
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Would love to have the soldier portrait available on the stat screen and the battlescape. Having more faces available would be awesome as well. 128 would be insane, but even upping it to 16 from the current 8 would be huge progress.
Have you considered making a smaller sized rank insignia and putting that next to the name? Like Perpetual's idea, but tiny pixel art picture instead of name.
Or even take that tiny rank and put it in the top left corner of the portrait.
I think it's important rank still be there and preferably as an icon rather than text. Meridian I liked the way you did it with the example you linked to having the rank icon to the right. I think it would work just as well if not better in the corner of the portrait, but it could be a fine line between being small enough not to look crowded, but big enough that it is easily distinguishable.
2. which avatar to use?
a/ avatar with the corresponding armor?
b/ or take fixed armor (e.g. NONE)?
100% you had to go with no armor. That's the whole point, to get some extra personality and armor kills that already. Currently the most frustrating thing for me is all my soldiers are in flying suits and it takes me clicking 10 of them before I find the one I'm looking for.
But if you'd like to see the avatar on the battlescape GUI only, I can do that as optional feature in OXCE+.
Sorry, I'm pretty new here, what exactly is OXCE Plus? I was using the OXC 1.0 version and I've only just started playing around with OXCE (2.9 version) and figuring out what that is all about . So what is the +, how is it different than the normal extended and how do you implement it? Is it an only for X-PirateZ thing?
Thanks for any info, I tried searching for the answer and I find lots of references to OXCE+, but not any how to for dummies.
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what exactly is OXCE Plus? I was using the OXC 1.0 version and I've only just started playing around with OXCE (2.9 version) and figuring out what that is all about . So what is the +, how is it different than the normal extended and how do you implement it? Is it an only for X-PirateZ thing?
Thanks for any info, I tried searching for the answer and I find lots of references to OXCE+, but not any how to for dummies.
OXCE is Yankes' OpenXcom Extended version. It opens up alot of features and customization for modders.
OXCE+ is Meridian's Branch of the above, that he coded for use with PirateZ, but it can run without PirateZ, though other mods may not take advantage of its capabilities. You can download it from the first post here: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,4187.0.html
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Biggest difference between branches is that I prefer avoiding changing UI and Meridian focus on UI changes.
No-UI changes from Meridian 's branch in long run will be ported back to my branch.
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is any of it ever going to be pushed upstream?
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Thanks for the replies. So it sounds like OXCE+ has everything OXCE has, but adds extra UI changes like the currently discussed portrait mod?
And I'm reading the list of changes in the OXCE thread: https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,2915.0.html
Are all these changes mandatory and automatically implemented, or do you just have the option to change them in the rulesets? Is it possible to play the vanilla game with OXCE/OXCE+, but only makes the changes you want?
Examples from the top of the thread:
-Psi-Amp can now deal direct damage using special attack type in popup menu.
-Throwing now requires a healthy arm to do it (if the item is two-handed, then it requires both).
-Rewriten handling of alien psi attacks to handle new features of Psi-Amp.
-You can train your solders basic skills.
Implemented automatically or just the option to implement? Mostly I wanted to use OXCE to change psi balance in the game (requiring health and energy costs for XCOM soldiers, decreasing range, etc), but am a bit overwhelmed trying to take in and understand all the other changes/options listed there. As a beginner, I'm not even sure what a few of them mean.
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Almost everything in OXCE is optional as in "If you don't use it in a mod, it's not going to affect the game". Take psi-amps, they can deal direct damage, but unless you mod a psi-amp into the game to deal damage, it won't.
There are a few gameplay things that are there no matter what though. Like shooting at tiles with an unconscious soldier being able to kill them (and conversely, explosions needing to kill a soldier to destroy them, instead of just outright destroying the corpse). Yankes should have a list somewhere of what the "hardwired" changes are.
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Here's the list of all hardwired changes in OXCE, which I think all are improvements.
Explosions don't remove unconscious unit if they can't kill them first.
Craft weapon equip screen is a bit rearranged.
Psi-Amp use 3d range, not 2d.
Fixed ammo are added after weapons in armor and unit (armor items are before unit items).
Corpses, items and Chryssalids are not spawned when unit is killed by weapons with overkill.
Stunned units can be hited by bullets and fire.
Big groups of aliens (20+) get less morale losses from casualties.
While loading and unloading weapons you must pay the cost of moving the item to hand.
You can unprime granade for half of prime TUs cost.
Throwing now requires a healthy arm to do it (if the item is two-handed, then it requires both).
Rewriten handling of alien psi attacks to handle new features of Psi-Amp.
Throwing and hitting using two-handed weapons have the same penalty as with shooting.
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is any of it ever going to be pushed upstream?
+1
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Almost everything in OXCE is optional as in "If you don't use it in a mod, it's not going to affect the game". Take psi-amps, they can deal direct damage, but unless you mod a psi-amp into the game to deal damage, it won't.
There are a few gameplay things that are there no matter what though. Like shooting at tiles with an unconscious soldier being able to kill them (and conversely, explosions needing to kill a soldier to destroy them, instead of just outright destroying the corpse). Yankes should have a list somewhere of what the "hardwired" changes are.
Thanks, that's exactly what I was hoping to hear. Being able to shoot unconscious aliens/soldiers sounds like an awesome added feature, but I wasn't keen on the psi-amp dealing damage since I was trying to make it less powerful.
Here's the list of all hardwired changes in OXCE, which I think all are improvements.
Explosions don't remove unconscious unit if they can't kill them first.
Craft weapon equip screen is a bit rearranged.
Psi-Amp use 3d range, not 2d.
Fixed ammo are added after weapons in armor and unit (armor items are before unit items).
Corpses, items and Chryssalids are not spawned when unit is killed by weapons with overkill.
Stunned units can be hited by bullets and fire.
Big groups of aliens (20+) get less morale losses from casualties.
While loading and unloading weapons you must pay the cost of moving the item to hand.
You can unprime granade for half of prime TUs cost.
Throwing now requires a healthy arm to do it (if the item is two-handed, then it requires both).
Rewriten handling of alien psi attacks to handle new features of Psi-Amp.
Throwing and hitting using two-handed weapons have the same penalty as with shooting.
Thank you for making that list, I agree what I understand there sounds pretty great. I have a few questions though.
1) Psi-Amp use 3d range, not 2d.
-I assume this means before the psi attack/defense formula didn't take into account if you were on different floors/levels, only horizontal distance. Any idea how many "tiles" this adds to the distance in the formula? If you are directly below someone does that count as "1" tile?
2) Fixed ammo are added after weapons in armor and unit (armor items are before unit items).
-I have absolutely no idea what this means. Not even an educated guess, haha.
3) Corpses, items and Chryssalids are not spawned when unit is killed by weapons with overkill.
-I assume this means big explosions will blow up bodies/items/Chryssalids rather than leave a corpse or zombie. Makes sense. What vanilla weapons would have overkill? I assume blaster bombs, alien grenades, heavy explosives and tank rockets/fusion bombs?
4) While loading and unloading weapons you must pay the cost of moving the item to hand
-Is this just the 4 TUs it costs to switch hands?
5) Rewriten handling of alien psi attacks to handle new features of Psi-Amp.
-What does this mean? How are alien psi attacks different? If you don't use the damage dealing feature of the Psi-Amp, what changes?
Sorry for all the questions. I appreciate the help.
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Thanks for the replies. So it sounds like OXCE+ has everything OXCE has, but adds extra UI changes like the currently discussed portrait mod?
Some changes aren't added in current version of OXCE but will be in next. This is primary because OXCE+ is more often updated.
is any of it ever going to be pushed upstream?
My changes or Meridian's changes? For my part, I think that better would be not merging. I didn't write code with other programs in mind. And now forcing ways I like on others will not be good thing. e.g. I switch to C++11 because I dislike lack of features in old standard. Is this right thing for upstream?
Thanks, that's exactly what I was hoping to hear. Being able to shoot unconscious aliens/soldiers sounds like an awesome added feature, but I wasn't keen on the psi-amp dealing damage since I was trying to make it less powerful.
Thank you for making that list, I agree what I understand there sounds pretty great. I have a few questions though.
1) Psi-Amp use 3d range, not 2d.
-I assume this means before the psi attack/defense formula didn't take into account if you were on different floors/levels, only horizontal distance. Any idea how many "tiles" this adds to the distance in the formula? If you are directly below someone does that count as "1" tile?
Distance is count in voxels. tile have 16x16x24 of them. This mean level lower will have distance around 1.5.
2) Fixed ammo are added after weapons in armor and unit (armor items are before unit items).
-I have absolutely no idea what this means. Not even an educated guess, haha.
This is how items are handled when game create new units, in ruleset you define items that unit will get. If you list them in wrong order, ammo will not load to weapon.
3) Corpses, items and Chryssalids are not spawned when unit is killed by weapons with overkill.
-I assume this means big explosions will blow up bodies/items/Chryssalids rather than leave a corpse or zombie. Makes sense. What vanilla weapons would have overkill? I assume blaster bombs, alien grenades, heavy explosives and tank rockets/fusion bombs?
This was changed back to original behavior for default. It was too big change that was easy to turn off (and on) to leave that way.
4) While loading and unloading weapons you must pay the cost of moving the item to hand
-Is this just the 4 TUs it costs to switch hands?
If items are in hands then you don't pay any thing over load/unload cost. If not then you need pay cost of moving item to hands too.
5) Rewriten handling of alien psi attacks to handle new features of Psi-Amp.
-What does this mean? How are alien psi attacks different? If you don't use the damage dealing feature of the Psi-Amp, what changes?
I try made it work similar to original but I don't give guaranties that it will always work same. This is primary info for veterans that know exactly how it should work.
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is any of it ever going to be pushed upstream?
I certainly hope so.
Definitely don't want to force anything on vanilla, but having more options for modding and (optional) GUI enhancements sounds too good. I would say about 50% of OXCE and 50% of OXCE+ could be merged without much hassle... the rest, we'll see.
I have only a few more features on my list... after they are done (working prototypes stage), I'd like to discuss with SupSuper, Warboy and Yankes what could go upstream from OXCE+ to OXCE and even to OXC. Timewise, Q1 or Q2 2016.
Also, it may be a good idea to release 2.0 before the merging.