New SI Paperdoll for BG game question

[Dalian]

I want to make a new race that can join your party for a "BG-type" game. I see how you do this with the paperdol_info.txt file so that it uses the right shapes for a new NPC, but my question is: can I make new paperdoll shapes for SI's paperdol.vga file and use them with BG this way? Is it simply a matter of putting paperdol.vga into the BG game's patch folder, or is this method strictly "hard-coded" to look at the file in SI's STATIC folder?

TIA

[marzo]

The BG paperdolls accept patches; however, the patches must (for now) have all the new paperdolls added to BG. In your data dir, there should be a bg_paperdol.vga file; copy it to your patch dir (or to your mod's patch dir) as 'paperdol.vga' and add any new shapes you want to it.

[Dalian]

Ah I see, thanks. The main thing I'd need to add is the new chest, arms and head shapes. But I guess doing it this way means I'll need to add all of the armor and weapon pd shapes from SI that aren't already there as well.

[Dalian]

I'm puzzled as to why bg_paperdol.vga doesn't already contain the main pd parts - chest/legs and arms. I suppose it'll be necessary to redo the entire paperdol_info.txt to reflect all the differences. *starting to think that maybe SI is a better way to go afterall* hehe

[marzo]

You would not need to do this for the arms/chest/head shapes of the creature itself; all you need is to point Exult to the correct paperdoll shapes given the race/NPC shape. But for the paperdoll for the armor/helms/etc, you are stuck with the standard shapes; there is currently no way to have NPC-or shape-dependant paperdolls for equiped items. Thus, you'd better make sure that the proportions do not differ too much from the standard paperdolls.

[Dalian]

I was just thinking that paperdol_info.txt must be an all-or-nothing patch, so I will need to add back in the human arms/chest for the default avatars, as well as the new creature shapes. I just need to get home so I can actually mess around with it.

And yeah, I had a feeling that was the case and I plan on making something that is humanoid, so it will not be any different as far as proportions go. Just a lot more hair

[marzo]

I was just thinking that paperdol_info.txt must be an all-or-nothing patch

It was, until recently. It now accepts partial patches.

[Dalian]

Ah, good news! That leads me to another question. How will changing other things like shapes.vga to accept partial patches affect mods that are already started using full patches? Will it just be a matter of resaving everything?

[marzo]

vga files already accept partial patches, it is just ES which only saves them in full. If you are refering instead to the dat files (which also accept only full patches), there will likely be more than just re-saving; likely, re-saving them and editing the result in a text editor to avoid including data from the original games.