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[Girlinhat]

So, I'm poking around creature raws, and I can't wrap my head around this.  It doesn't help that the only scrap of information I could find isn't very descriptive at all, that being the wiki article for body detail plans.

I'd like to define what materials to use where, and I sorta figured out that the vertebrate body plan has some arguments that allow you to customize what order things appear in, but it's clearly not all.  Like, few, if any, of the entries under that plan include skin, yet creatures still have skin, and organs...  So, it bust be part of the ADD_TISSUE/MATERIAL where organs and skin are defined, but I cannot figure out HOW they do this...

Help?

[3]

I'll start basic as I don't know how much you know.

You've got tissue templates and material templates. All the tissue templates point to a default material and as such are automatically made out of that material unless you specifically tell the game not to do that.

This means that so long as the creature has the appropriate material templates imported, there needn't be any modifications of the tissue templates made for each creature.

Actually... just read this. The reason I wrote it down there was so I didn't have to repeat myself every time, after all.

[Girlinhat]

The raws for creatures do a lot of referencing, don't they?  There's referencing to detail plans, which references tissue types, which references material types, or, something...  That's what's confusing me most.  I can't figure out how to simply place a specific tissue somewhere because I don't know if I should begin in the creature file or the material file!

[Sutremaine]

Download Valdemar's mod manager. The different files are in tabs on the top, and every entry in a file is displayed by itself with a list of the file's entries off to the right.

This --

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

-- is much easier to flick through than the text files in the objects folder.

[Girlinhat]

Navigation isn't a problem, it's that I have no idea what I'm navigating towards...

[3]

The main thing that bothers me is that you can't create new materials per-creature, only new tissues. If you're planning on using a completely new material and tissue, you may as well make a template for both (as you're going to end up making one anyway). Obviously it's a different case if you're making a tissue out of an existing material (bronze colossus, etc.).

So, you can make a new material template (assuming you're going to be using a new material), import it to the creature, then either make a new tissue within the creature and reference the material derived from the template, or make a new tissue template and import that, or make both and use a detail plan.

If you're going to be making tissue layers for new bodyparts in the vein of the vanilla files (as I suspect you're probably doing), the absolute best thing to do is make a new body detail plan entry. It's much simpler than doing things manually.

In fact, you'll probably be better off doing that if you're going to be doing anything regarding layers at all, as otherwise it's likely everything will get confused and you'll end up with the muscle layer above the skin layer or somesuch.

tl;dr Easiest method is to make new material/tissue templates as necessary, make new tissue layers detail plan, import mats, import tissues, use plan.

[Girlinhat]

Hmm, I was kinda afraid of that.  Sometimes I much prefer to do things "the hard way" and make unique tissue definitions per use, but if that's not gonna work very well...

[Sutremaine]

Navigation isn't a problem, it's that I have no idea what I'm navigating towards...

Being able to flick between files at will does help with learning what you need to be looking for, because you can easily check bits of the raws against each other and follow creatures from their entry back to their templates.

Relevant files, from raw material to creature, are:
material_template_default, for the physical stuff the creature is made of.
tissue_template_default, for each tissue type the creature has.
b_detail_plan_default, for weaving the previous two items into templates that can be called on by any creature. Some of these take arguments from a creature entry instead of being complete when called. Since the file is a collection of commands instead of a collection of things, it's... I dunno, more varied at first appearance than the other creature-making files? I found it the hardest thing to grasp, anyway.
body_default, for the parts named in the [BODY:whatever] part of the creature.
creature_whatever, for assembling all the above stuff.

You don't necessarily need anything but the creature file for quite a lot of things (see iron men for an example), but it's easier to note what you want and then go back to the two template files to start making it. Plus, that way it can be used by another creature.

The main thing that bothers me is that you can't create new materials per-creature, only new tissues.

I've been fooling around with special templates that have no tags to tell the game what to do with them, only the information about strength and identification. This -

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

[CREATURE:INORGANIC]
[DESCRIPTION:Abomination!]
[NAME:crime against nature:crimes against nature:travesty of]

[DOES_NOT_EXIST]
[FANCIFUL]

[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:AMMONIUM_CHLORIDE:INORGANIC_BLANK_TEMPLATE_STR]
[STATE_COLOR:ALL:WHITE]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:ammonium chloride]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:LIQUID:melted ammonium chloride]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:GAS:boiling ammonium chloride]
[DISPLAY_COLOR:7:0:0]
[MATERIAL_VALUE:1]
[SPEC_HEAT:50]
[IGNITE_POINT:NONE]
[MELTING_POINT:NONE]
[BOILING_POINT:10608]
[SOLID_DENSITY:200]
[LIQUID_DENSITY:200]
[PREFIX:NONE]

[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:BENZENE:INORGANIC_BLANK_TEMPLATE_STR]
[STATE_COLOR:ALL:WHITE]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:frozen benzene]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:LIQUID:benzene]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:GAS:boiling benzene]
[DISPLAY_COLOR:7:0:0]
[MATERIAL_VALUE:1]
[SPEC_HEAT:50]
[IGNITE_POINT:11008]
[MELTING_POINT:10009]
[BOILING_POINT:10144]
[SOLID_DENSITY:200]
[LIQUID_DENSITY:200]
[PREFIX:NONE]

and so on


- doesn't produce any errors on opening Arena mode. Material reaction products can be left off a template and added directly to a creature entry. Removing [IS_METAL] from the metal template and adding it only to steel resulted in an embark with only steel anvils, picks, and axes available, so I'm guessing that anything in a material template is fair game in a creature entry calling that material template.

So even if you can't technically create new materials, you can alter an existing template to be several totally different things.

[3]

Yes, you can, and I suggest making one so you can do so, but the game doesn't come with any such functionality. One has to do it oneself.

[Sutremaine]

Okay then. I was going to say that it doesn't make any practical difference, but it would matter if you were copying numerous creature+blank templates into your raws.

[Grimlocke]

I found making changes to the default vertebrate or chitin bodypart plans for a single creature fairly simple actualy. Most you only need the creature raws for. Skin, muscle, fat, cartilage and bone can be replaced the easiest by replacing their tissue layer plan arguments (or leave them out by inputting NONE), more complex stuff is possible by editing materials, or replacing the tissue layer material afterwards with the SET_LAYER_TISSUE tag.

For instance, to replace the skull tissue and skin tissue with an iron tissue,
   [SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER:BONE:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD]
    [PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER:SKIN:BY_CATEGORY:ALL]
      [SET_LAYER_TISSUE:IRON]

The main thing that bothers me is that you can't create new materials per-creature, only new tissues. If you're planning on using a completely new material and tissue, you may as well make a template for both (as you're going to end up making one anyway). Obviously it's a different case if you're making a tissue out of an existing material (bronze colossus, etc.).

I might be misunderstanding you, but [MATERIAL:NAME] (material tokens) works just fine, though its usualy easier to work from a template.

[3]

The problem with approaching things that way is that every standard material template has at least one extraneous tag (excluding the flame template) and there's no way of getting rid of those within the creature. So you'll be better off using a dummy template regardless.

I might be misunderstanding you, but [MATERIAL:NAME] (material tokens) works just fine, though its usualy easier to work from a template.

This I didn't know. I didn't think anything of the sort was mentioned anywhere, but now I see it's on the wiki. In that case, this entire thing is mostly a non-issue.

[Girlinhat]

For instance, to replace the skull tissue and skin tissue with an iron tissue,
   [SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER:BONE:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD]
    [PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER:SKIN:BY_CATEGORY:ALL]
      [SET_LAYER_TISSUE:IRON]

See, this is one of the awesome things that isn't mentioned anywhere.  THAT helps!

[Sutremaine]

[MATERIAL:NAME] (material tokens) works just fine

Neat. I'll have to go back to the wiki and do some revision...

[Grimlocke]

For instance, to replace the skull tissue and skin tissue with an iron tissue,
   [SELECT_TISSUE_LAYER:BONE:BY_CATEGORY:HEAD]
    [PLUS_TISSUE_LAYER:SKIN:BY_CATEGORY:ALL]
      [SET_LAYER_TISSUE:IRON]

See, this is one of the awesome things that isn't mentioned anywhere.  THAT helps!

Found it in the string dump.

Apparentelly Toady made this but never got around to using it. I havnt found it anywhere in the raws at least.