RELEASED A.V.I.A.N. Avian Core

I'd be happy to help you figure out race mod compatibilities, Cgeta.

 

Oh that would be very nice!

I'm going to look some more into it tomorrow.
I still have the feeling the metadata isn't working properly. But it could be something else.
All there really needs to be done is add/replace one of those paragraphs at the bottom of the aiconfig file

"avali" : {
"aiFrames" : "AVIAN.png",
"portraitFrames" : "portraits/avianmodportrait.png",
"staticFrames" : "staticHuman.png"
},

that's all there is for race support, as far as I know so far. But it doesn'T seem to replace those for the custom races.

Hmm, if a custom race has a .patch file for aiconfig, and I use the entire aiconfig file, will the .patch file actually patch my version of it? Or will it first patch the vanilla file, and then it will be replaced by my file anyways?

 

Spent a couple of hours on this, but I regret nothing.
Made an AVIAN holo dancer, one regular, and one with tail feathers, along with a tail feathered version of the poster.



What do you think?

 

I still think the metadata isn't working properly. I entered a "required" mod, without putting the actual mod into my mod folder, and it still worked.
Somehow it must be ignored.

Something must be affecting the default.frames file in the portrait folder. Either overwriting it, or changing it so that my frames are gone.
I dunno which mod would do that. Your log lists quite a lot of mods. Some might not even be active, but I dunno. The orcana mod definitely replaces the default.frames file with its own. Which is just the normal one again

Ooh, I've always wished that avians had tails. And wing hands, like http://fav.me/d73ioj3.
Though, I'll try to stick to what the game defines. But it's very nice looking!
Also that holo dancer, is it a modified version of the holo dancer mod?

 

Heavily reverse engineered and modified, but yes. I literally had to learn how to do gradient transparencies in GIMP just to replicate the mod's effect.

That's why I was going to make the tail feathers versions optional (for those of us that have been using tail feather mods ever since Ryuujin first made it and simply can't have Avians without it). Speaking of which, would it be okay with you If I upload these as addons for the main AVIAN mod?

 

Oh, and this is the metadata I used for the AVIAN FW version for Avali, and it properly overrides the Avali assets just fine.

Code:

{
  "author" : "Leinglo",
  "description" : "A basic AVIAN reskin for SAIL, with tech stations and racial colors.",
  "friendlyName" : "A.V.I.A.N. FreeWare Edition Avali",
  "includes" : [],
  "name" : "avianfw avali",
  "requires" : ["Avali"],
  "version" : "Cheap Birdy.2"
}

I don't think priority is required, as simply making the other mod "required" or "included" will give your mod priority. But, the big issue might not be what's in the metadata itself and rather what the metadata is saved as. Your metadata is saved as AVIAN.modinfo. Try saving it specifically as just ".metadata", and see if that works. Steam should also accept it that way as well. I don't know, but that's worked for me without any trouble so far.

 

For the holodancer I would need the approval of the original creator though.
And I'm not too sure as I prefer to create everything from scratch

Yus, in the current version it's still a modinfo.
When I was trying to get it onto steam I learned that they're called metadata now. Yet, it still doesn't work for me. Maybe I forgot about something else. I will try to turn the aiconfig file into a .patch file, maybe that's what made it not work out. Because even when the avali mod loads before the avian mod, it still replaces the files somehow

One thing I learned from a friend just earlier is that the reason why the steam version didn't work for me was because I have to upload it as a folder, not as a pak file.

 

I checked that. The old mod was posted mostly as just a resource and doesn't have any permissions stated one way or the other. It was someone else that independently updated and expanded the mod over on the workshop and he apparently didn't permission to do it. It's actually from their version that I got the assets I worked with.

Were you interested in actually incorporating the default holo or something? I figured I'd just be making both versions as separate addons.

 

Just thought I'd throw this out there - I finally remembered to put in the mod, and, going to test a mod I was working on, went into my ship. A.V.I.A.N. almost fully works for the Lopunny race, but the art assets aren't there.

 

Yeah, if I added it, I would probably have it as a seperate mod. Actually, it's also possible that you make the mod, and I link to yours!




And I finally figured out custom races!


I turned the ai.config file into a patch, and now it patches over whatever other mods do with it!
It could break other mods too though <_<

Anyway, I need a list of custom races that I should add!
Preferably the internal name, so I can simply add it. But I don't think I will test every single one of them

Now that I figured out how to get it to steam too, I will update it, and then also do the steam version

 

That would work perfectly. In fact, it's kinda what I had in mind. The addons are mostly done, I just wanted the go-ahead before I uploaded anything.

 

Perfect!

I've been thinking about linking to your simple avian aswell, in case people ask if I can make my AI only replace one single race's AI, which is not possible with my complex version

 

Only races I can think of would be the Ponex, Lopunny, Argonian and Sergal.

 

Yeah...that reminds me, I need go back and get back to work on it. Been so busy with my other mods, I kiiinda forgot that I promised more custom race support and then never got around to delivering (got hung up on Felins, as Kawa uses a non-standard AI structure for it, just enough to make me go "was else is there to do?").

 

Hah, kawa's mod threw me off a bit too when I first added support for them
Yeah, he did a little more with the AI than what most other race mods do

 

I'm working on finding these race IDs for ya.

 

I also figured I will need the names of their techstations if they use any custom ones, and questoportraits
Though, by default I just name them things like avalitechstation and avaliquestportrait

I imagine it'll work out most of the time

EDIT:
Seems like the location of the tech station is also important.
Actually, it's quite a lot of work to play around with the tech stations
For some mods it works, for others it doesn't.
And in the end the only thing it reaclly changes is the initial text bubbles when you wake up in the ship

EDIT2:

So far I briefly tested it for the avali, argonian, orcana, and felin
For the felin I had to put the tech station into a seperate folder.
And for the sergal I have no idea what the tech station could be named, or where it could be located.
I also added the ponex and lopunny, but I couldn't find them on steam, so they're not tested.

So, when I add custom races, I will probably end up having to add a lot of custom races, which means that I won't be able to test them all properly, nor will I probably focus too much on getting each individual one to work.
In general, their internal IDs are usually guessable by me, and 99% of the mod works 99% of the time

However, when you wake up in your ship, and the tech station has the AI's chat bubble above itself, telling you to reboot and stuff, this dialogue and portrait might be from the race mod, not AVIAN.
This is because all of that is handled by the tech station object file. And some race mods add their own, and often they have their own unique names, or locations.

So, I don't think I'd want to spend much time unpacking each race mod and looking where their tech stations are and what they are named. But if people can tell me, it'll be much easier to add that in

 

I can't find the most up-to-date "Ponix" mod. Link me up lol

Lets see... Lopunny, being the "Lopunny Improvements" mod is simply "lopunny". Don't see any techstation or questportrait files.

Argonian race mod is just "argonian". They have a custom line they say when scanning a techstation, its just called techstation.object.patch and techstationtier0.object.patch. No questportraits.

And Sergal is just "sergal". Like Argonians, they have a custom line they say when scanning a techstation. Its also just called techstation.object.patch

so it was pretty much just the names. but good to check.

Also theres the playable Fenerox, but thats a .pak file. idk what the race ID is. Probly just "fenerox", but I'm not sure.

 

Also, have you considered replacing the ship's techstation with a standing hologram of AVIAN? Similar to leinglo's dancing hologram, only like a non-dancing one you interact with as a tech station.

 

Ooh, neat
So, the sergal tech station is just named "techstation"?
And is it located in the ship folder or somewhere else?