Exult Forum

Hello again!

I've finally gotten all of the big buggies worked out in the whole clothing/ipack deal so I've started making actual items of clothing. I made a very wee webpage documenting my work so far:

The Fashionable Avatar

I hope the code worked! If not, or if you just like to copy/paste, you can visit it at http://www.fortunecity.com/rivendell/xe ... vatar.html (times like this, I really appreciate "Preview" options on message boards!). There are pop-up ads , so you might want to look out for those.

I'd be pleased if even just *one* person out there finds this at least a tiny bit interesting. The site itself is really more like an enhanced message board post, with text and pictures (and a table). I didn't link to it from my index page- this is just for the folks at this board and various others ^_^.

I enjoyed making this stuff so far, and I'm looking foward to making more in the future.

he he, I enjoyed reading and seeing this!

wohooo more of this
really cool written and pixeled XD
yeah, i want more^^

give me fashionable SPARKyboy

Thanks, guys! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

One of my goals is not just to make fun clothes but to make a lot more heads and different size bodies so one could switch up the face portraits and make whoever they want to be the "Avatar" and his/her companions. I'd like to set up some sort of "catalog" so people can download what they want and of course, I'd give instructions and coordinates, etc.

I guess that includes making child-sized clothing and a body for Spark or any other child who you'd want in your party ^^;. The problem with that isn't making the items or even fitting them correctly, but setting up a place for them in paperdol.vga, and altering the weapons accordingly. I'll probably make an experimental Spark (and a female counterpart- Cantra perhaps?) anyway and see what I can do.

I will say that my next piece will be the male companion to the blue dress, a wonderful shirt with matching vest. The magic leggings (this "blue 70's variety show" set is replacing the magic armor set, BTW) will become his trousers and I plan on turning a cloak into matching jackets for both sexes. I don't know what to do with the trousers for the lady, since blue trousers under the dress would look rather silly. I suppose since no modest lady would neglect to wear bloomers under her dance dress, I'll make a pair of those.

Haha, that's great.

Very nice! Have you thought of making game mods, perhaps? You could have a prom or fashion show.

Haha! A fashion show in Ultima VII...perhaps Carlyn or Gaye would be responsible for that one? That would be funny.

I think about doing mods all the time, but I don't really know how to get past the graphics and into seriously editing text and the like. I've edited USECODE before but mostly for fake screenshots (for example, there's a fanfiction I did with a few Ultima characters and there's a screenshot of one character saying something that's in the story) and personal amusement. I sort of know how to change the portraits around but that's about it.

Though, I am looking forward to doing some shape editing and making new furniture, walls and floors. This should be interesting .

I did update the webpage a bit- the men's outfit is basically complete now. Needless to say, it has sparklies.

Excellent!

Every pic is a fortune city logo

Works for me.

Very interesting! Nice work.

I highly approve of the flashy new disco pants

Which also reminds me, I once turned Columna and Melino's home into a disco, with the flashy floor and everything.

I guess the next logical step would be to combine the two. I've been making a new furniture set that has modern metal chairs and an awesome glass-top table.

It was originally part of this series I might actually finish soon, where Ultima VII NPCs wander around and redo other NPCs homes- sort of like a how-to series where I give directions on how to do certain things like chunk editing, building and the like. In the first installment, the group renovates Polly's tavern into a swank hotspot (I made juju beads to replace curtains, pink carpet and I'm working on a new bar). It was a narrative, I even made cute little speech portraits to replace the old ones.

Ahh, so many unfinished projects...^^;

Cool. Sounds a little like "Ultima Sims". Are you using ExultStudio for this, or U7wizard?

I used U7Wizard for all editing, Paint Shop Pro for the other graphics and I laid out the documents in plain HTML. I have an XP now that won't run U7Wizard...though I do have another computer that runs it. I've been transferring my work to this computer so I can keep working on it. I started it with U7Wizard, I may as well finish with U7Wizard ^_^.

Yes new clothes for the Avatar

I'm now wondering if anyone knows how to assign shapes from shapes.vga to paperdoll cels...

I'm also wondering how the paperdoll heads get assigned by NPC#. It would be nice to make more heads for more NPCs.

I'm now working on some casual clothes for a day of shopping, picnicking or generally whooping butt. After this set is done, I'll try to offer some stuff to download so you can put the new clothes into your own paperdol.vga and tinker around a bit.

I'm sorry, but I have to say it - it's been bugging me for days:

Am I the *ONLY* one who wants to have completely naked Avatar and Party skins when they strip? (ok, maybe not Iolo & Gwenno

I feel so sleazy, but when I saw the colored undies it got me thinking, and that in and of itself is dangerous...

In Exult we 'can' modify the sources to assign shapes to paperdoll numbers, but it would require a modified Exult. Eventually we 'should' probably change how it works, so it wont be hardcoded.

For the original game doesn't look like it can be done.

Patrick: Yes, you're the only one:-)

Sissy: As Colourless said, the shape #'s are currently hard-coded. Even when we make it possible to change the #'s (which wouldn't be all that hard), there's another problem with modding the original games: Only 1024 shapes are allowed in shapes.vga, and they're all used.

Is it possible to change that 1024 limit? Or maybe allow a secondary shapes file to be used in addition to shapes.vga?

It's possible, but the problem isn't with shapes.vga. It's that the savefile format only has 10 bits available for shape #'s. And that would be a fair bit of work to change.

Just wanted to let you know that the page has been updated!

I made a new gump-type thing for Mariah from scratch and it was an enjoyable experience. I missed Mariah so I felt it was necessary...^^;

Nice job! I wonder who the portrait of Mariah really is. It looks like the sort of photograph you'd see in a high-school yearbook.

I know! I always thought she was very pretty.

If you notice in one of the guidebook PDFs that came with Underworld II, for Miranda's profile, it looks exactly like Mariah's U7 picture. Whoopsie. I think they also swapped Nelson and Alagner perhaps.

Isn't that the picture of the woman outside of Empath Abbey who sells flowers and mourns her dead mother?

Looks nice!

I've always wondered, how do you change the face of your character when talking to people?

I think they also swapped Nelson and Alagner perhaps.

The U7 characters? I don't see how that's possible, they look completely different and Nelson looks just like his brother. (they are the guys in Moonglow right?)

Precisely, which is why it's so weird- I noticed that right away- perhaps it's not Alagner, but it's definitely not Nelson! Check out the UW2 manual sometime if you can. If you can't, I'll try and get a picture so you can see the wackiness.

I changed the Avatar's face by altering faces.vga directly with ipack, but you can change some other faces in the game by messing with the USECODE. Not that I'd recommend that, but...

It's definitely Mariah in my game, but Reyna and Mariah do look alike. Perhaps they used the same model? *LOL*

Okay, I'm late with comments, but...
...that's a great page!

Let us know when you update it more (and please do update)!

"Nice job! I wonder who the portrait of Mariah really is. It looks like the sort of photograph you'd see in a high-school yearbook."

Just about everyone in Ultima 7 BG look like they were taken out of a photo shot. Driver's license-quality photo shots, I might add...

I'd like to apologize in advance for raising the dead topic. ^^; Oops, my finger slipped?

You won't believe it, but the site has been updated! It's been like, 6 months, but it's updated! The new stuff is experimental, all new art that I'm currently working on, and hopefully will finish fully now that the semester is over! ^-^

Currently, I'm exploring the boundaries of doll design to see what can and can't be done- to be very broad. Already I'm finding limitations and requirements- but at the same time, I'm trying to find an easier way to make stuff (in terms of art anyway).

It goes without saying that the new dolls are...cute -_-;;... (supress that gag reflex, you!).

I've got loads of pics and the same silly stuff you've seen on the Fashionable Avatar, so if you've been following my progress (or...if you were at some point), take a look. The new stuff is just under the old (Mariah's doll, Sethys etc.).

OMG

interesting and very funny mod. Makes you wonder how to make a new game look ...

Perhaps the next step is to draw some character shapes... The biggest challenge for those of us who'd like to make an original game is our lack of artwork (and ability to create art).

And the laziness of those of us who can create art

- Wizardry Dragon

One thing I'm trying to do is relieve some of the tedium that goes into making art, especially in placing the items. With the new things I've created, I designed them carefully so all similar items (all heads, all arms, all shirts, etc.) would have the same origin points. That way, if I want to make a new head, I won't have to waste all of that time trying to figure out what coordinates to put in- I know it will be the same as the heads before it. So far, it's working...

I'd like to create original character art for all 255+ characters in Black Gate and then do the rest in Serpent Isle! Wouldn't it be a hoot if EVERYBODY had the option of joining the party? (Shades of Suikoden...I know I had a hard time keeping track of all of them!) I know this is impossible, but it'd still be funny. I guess I'll just have to stick with good ol' Sethys and his amazing hair *_*...I can't wait to draw him. XD

Cool. It is possible to have other NPC's join the party. One way is just to use the cheat menu. But another, more interesting way, is to write new usecode for an NPC, and use the "fun.original" feature to call the NPC's original function.

Im intrigued. How we do that?

yeah, another undocumented feature? Dr.Code spill the beans...

Wizardry: I assume you know that, but nonetheless, stuff in the patch Dir takes precedence over the stuff in Static. So if the Static-usecode of an NPC says "do that" and the Patch-usecode says "do this", the NPC will do "this". (AFAIK at least)

Yeah, tell us everything you know and Dom doesn't get hurt

Dom: I figured as much

- Wizardry Dragon

mmmmm, more usecode info

It would look something like this (since I'm not home, I'm guessing a bit):

iolo_fun 0x401()
{
if (something)
blah...
else // Call original function.
{
iolo_fun.original();
return;
}
}

As Dominus said, if you put the compiled version of this in the 'patch' directory, it will get called when you talk to NPC #1 (which I'm assuming is Iolo). But you can call the original function (in 'static/usecode') by appending ".original" to the function name.

There's an example of this that cures Cantra in "content/si/usecode.uc" in our source: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/e ... ontent/si/

Ahh, thanks for that bit of code.

I'll have to try it for the next update! ^______^ This is going to be fun!

There's something to add into my docs for sure

A handy trick, that is.

- Wizardry Dragon

Here's another code sample in "content/bg/patch.uc", which lets you get LB to join your party.

Notice how you can use an existing Usecode function (0x90a) by declaring it "extern".

DrCode,

Suddently I realise something wrt si-french:
Assuming this function contains text, it will override the translation right? You mention "if you compile that code". Does this compilation create a file "usecode" or "usecode.uc" or "usecode.0401"? It's quite important to know, because there is already a "usecode" in the patch directory when you use si-french.

Thx for clarifying,

Artaxerxes

It'll create usecode.uco by default. Of course to actually use this file you'll have to name it usecode. (Or merge it with an existing usecode file.)

I see. Then for me to integrate this usecode.uco into si-french, what part of the code should I alter?
I can see the file for http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/* ... 's%20cure), but it's written for ucc, while I usually make the changes on the raw, wud'd usecode function.

thx
Artaxerxes

It >might< work if you add the new function to the end of the French usecode source.

Might being the operative word.

- Wizardry Dragon