changing a custom charecter into a spawnable creature

[RedRock911]

Hi folks!
 
Well, for the mod I am working on, I am trying to add a unique creature to follow him around, sort of like a chester. 
Doing some research I found these posts, that are quite helpful
 

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/35578-how-to-get-custom-creature-to-follow-and-fight-for-you/?hl=brain
 
http://forums.kleientertainment.com/files/file/377-example-follow-the-leader/ (follow the leader tutorial)

 

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/27509-creature-mod-tutorials/?p=318407 (DanaAdams Snow Monster)

 
http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/38686-help-for-creating-a-custom-pet/?hl=brain

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=177281570 (creature tutorials 1- 7)
 
http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/50990-a-question-or-two-regarding-creature-behaviours/?hl=brain#entry613547

 

Mostly because I want this creature to have certain behaviors and components for a unique playthru. I figured 

 

since I am going to have multiples of each, I need to package everything into a custom brain.

 

BUT

 

I'm not there yet. I'm running through the creature tutorial, and I realized "I haven't even made him into a creature yet!

So is there an easy way to make a copied character file into a creature?  I am assuming I have to delete any

 

related player character files and associated LUA's maybe? And if so, would anyone know what lines I need to put

 

in their place for the game to recognize this new mod as a creature?

 

OR

 

Should I just start from ground 0? 

[Corrosive]

Ever tried c_spawn("wolfgang") ?

 

Players are "mostly" creatures that you just happen to control.  Naturally You need a functioning brain because the player brain is pretty limited (IIRC last time I checked all it had was a ChaseAndAttack node attached to the left mouse button).  You'll also need to customize an NPC version of the stategraph.

 

 

Naturally, if your character contains code like GetPlayer(), you'll need to refactor* that.

 

 

 

* Fancy programmer jargon intended to confuse people.  Just means "redo" or to "update code related to...".

[RedRock911]

Ever tried c_spawn("wolfgang") ?

 

Players are "mostly" creatures that you just happen to control.  Naturally You need a functioning brain because the player brain is pretty limited (IIRC last time I checked all it had was a ChaseAndAttack node attached to the left mouse button).  You'll also need to customize an NPC version of the stategraph.

 

 

Naturally, if your character contains code like GetPlayer(), you'll need to refactor* that.

 

 

 

* Fancy programmer jargon intended to confuse people.  Just means "redo" or to "update code related to...".

reworking: using Dana's snowman build as a reference point. right now the game can't find a "bank" file, because it doesn't exist. so I am trying to figure out how to make it, I got about 10 tabs open, looking at the creature tutorial, and am occasionally grabbing tuffs of hair off my head. I'm thinking, and correct me if i'm wrong, I need to copy my toons export folder, build a new spriter project and create the bank......I think.  

[Corrosive]

I'm not sure what Dana's snowman is, so I can't really see what's going on there.

 

I also don't know what you've tried to do specifically.

 

 

I CAN tell you this-- a bank is just a collection of builds and animations used to organize everything needed by a prefab/entity/whatever.  As such, the bank for any player-based entity will be "wilson".  The build is what contains your actual character sprites.

 

If you're in a game as wilson, you can do GetPlayer().AnimState:SetBuild("wickerbottom") to become a Wickerbottom (the beard is added via the beard component so you might get a bearded Wickerbottom <.<).

[RedRock911]

I'm not sure what Dana's snowman is, so I can't really see what's going on there.

 

I also don't know what you've tried to do specifically.

 

 

I CAN tell you this-- a bank is just a collection of builds and animations used to organize everything needed by a prefab/entity/whatever.  As such, the bank for any player-based entity will be "wilson".  The build is what contains your actual character sprites.

 

If you're in a game as wilson, you can do GetPlayer().AnimState:SetBuild("wickerbottom") to become a Wickerbottom (the beard is added via the beard component so you might get a bearded Wickerbottom <.<).

Well, since my last post I, i have been figuring out how not to use Spriter to build animations, by taking all my art and inserting it into another anime (walrus) looks terrible! 

 

That's what the error in the log  told me. I'm assuming because I hadn't built a Bank for my creature. It didn't exist anywhere. So the creature mod failed to load (no game crash)

What I tried to do, is use the walrus anime file, change out his parts, and try and move his pivot points. Did that, didn't work well for me..... 

I was refering to DanaAdams snowmonster found here  

 

http://forums.kleientertainment.com/topic/27471-attack-of-the-snowmonsters/

 

So, the game is looking for this creature of mines animation files, Am I going the wrong way with this?

Because I was really hoping the way I was going seemed to be working well. If train wrecks work well that is. And technically IT is working as intended, I swapped parts, animations run, but every part of the creature is scattered everywhere. 

And as I understand it, Spriter doesnt exactly allow you to move parts around. not easily anyhow.

I'm blind to the answer for this. I have to have a Bank file added to my creature, and I am not exactly sure where or how to do that. 

[RedRock911]

I might be mis explaining this.

What I am trying to do

I made a playable character, sometime ago using the extended character template. What I want to do is use that same character as a minion type creature. after deleting the player specific files, and adding a few of the spawn creature files, I received an error saying my creature had no bank.

so do I just add in a prefab info in scripts? Or what is needed to change a playable character into a spawned follower, and not just spawn code from console , what (and where) do I need to add in LUA files? Or do I?

(what I did do, that mostly didnt work)

so I redid some art this evening, trying to create my own BANK. Although it seemed to work in Spriter mechanically. It seemed ridiculously problematic artistically. After firing up Spriter,  I realized that I would have to realign all the parts of my toon in Spriter (they where in pieces, all over the place). I'm guessing the free version doesnt let you do that. 

 

So is there another way? If it's super easy, please rate how crazy I blew up a simple fix!

[RedRock911]

Well, the bank is fixed! Everything worked great! Then I decided to pile a bunch of Chinese fireworks underneath the mod,

and blow that sh** up! My log looks like a trainwreck. I basically tried to give him Chester follower attributes, as well as some attack scripts.

The good news is the game doesn't crash, only the mod, which could very well be because I have player animations still in the file structure. At least that's what I think is happening.

So I made a post in kleislist, looking for a mentor, or if someone wants to collab on this mod. ,most of it is completed, I just need a Jedi to take on a padawan for a week or so.