Custom player weapons

[RPGista]

I thought of a project I would like to work on next (in the future...), not exactly a traditional mission but much more of a proof of concept. For it to make sense, I would need to give the player new, custom weapons, at least one, but more would be desirable. I'm not starting a discussion on wether the TDM thief should carry more/different weapons. What I really wanted to know is, inside a single mission environment, how difficult (art aside) would it be to make custom models "wearable" so that the player could fence with them, using the same animations as the ones already in place for the sword? That means, basicly replacing the sword model with one or more custom ones, placing them on the HUD hands, using the same animations, and changing only a couple of stats like damage level or hand speed. That would include things you can pick up (enemies' weapons too, weapons that need particular animations like spears and big axes would not be included in the map), and also weapons the player would have from the start, in his inventory.

 

One initial idea was to have a throwing axe you could pick up again everytime you threw it (picture below), but that seems like a lot of coding work on top of that... So now I've changed the setting somewhat to allow for simple sword substitutes, with no new mechanics, it could even be this particular axe, or some other custom weapon I might create.

 

 

Again, this is supposed to be an experiment in a parallel universe (= single fan mission) where the player is not reeeeeally the TDM thief, but rather a lone hero/adventurer.

Edited January 16, 2013 by RPGista

[SeriousToni]

Why has it a blue glow?

[Springheel]

IIRC, the player model just has a regular sword def_attached for the attack animations, so replacing that once wouldn't be terribly difficult. Replacing them on the fly is another matter.

[RPGista]

ST - Thats just a render type inside the modeler, allows you to spot tangency and smoothing group problems on the model.

 

Springheel - thats good to hear. I guess it wouldnt be hard to change the concept a bit more and make the player rely on a single new weapon, a fixed melee one replacing just the sword and nothing else (actually I already know what it would be). If I were to make a test using my warhammer model, could you give me some pointers as to how I would go about doing it? I remember trying to get a player sword enity, change the model, and trying to edit possibly that def file you mentioned, trying to point it to the warhammer model, but my crude hack attempt didnt work.

[Springheel]

Take a look at def/tdm_weapon_shortsword.def. At its most basic, you should be able to just replace the model spawnarg with your own model. Changing the name, icon, etc, also shouldn't be too hard.

[SeriousToni]

Ah, and I thought it was a magical axe!

[Obsttorte]

I have a question that goes in the general direction of this topic, so I thought I post it here.

 

I would like to replace the blackjack by a torch. So basically it would be a light source for the player (in replacement for the lantern). It should not really work as a weapon, but it would be nice if the players 'attacks' with it, that it causes a fire stim in front of the player (to relight torches for example).

 

Do you think this is possible without having to change things in the code (scripting would not be a problem though)? The guards are already able to carry a torch, although the don't do this in replacement for their weapon.

 

Thanks in advice.

[Springheel]

I would like to replace the blackjack by a torch.

 

I can't think of a reason why that wouldn't work.

 

I guess it wouldnt be hard to change the concept a bit more and make the player rely on a single new weapon,

 

Actually, come to think of it, there's no reason why you couldn't overload numerous weapons--replace the sword with an axe, the blackjack with a dagger, etc. Then just set it so the player doesn't start with those weapons, and they have to find them in the map. Creating specific behaviours for each weapon that are different from the original (specific animations, etc) would be more challenging.