Enjoy customizing your character in games? Ever
wish there was more to it than just typing a name for your character
in your favorite game? If so then get ready how to do the next best
thing to actually putting yourself in the world of Fallout Tactics!
I will show you how to:
1.) Place your own custom character portrait
in the game.
2.) Create your character's own custom history within the game.
3.) Customize your character's stats.
4.) Choose ANY custom color combination you want.
5.) Then customize the rest of your party in exactly the same way!
Software used:
Fallout Tactics & v1.27 patch with editor
Microsoft Picture It! 2.0
Paintshop Pro 5 or better
Microsoft Word/Works
Hardware used:
Digital camera or scanner
The first step is of course getting your image
ready. If you only have a scanner you will probably have to make do
with what ever pictures you already have, on the other hand if you've
got yourself a digital camera get creative! I took pictures of myself,
and my friends/family wearing military BDU's, and gear for a really
cool look, if you don't have this improvise! When I did this for X-com
Apocalypse I didn't have any BDU's yet so I took a photo of a soldier
and cut out sections of his uniform with Picture It! To the shapes I
needed, fit the pieces in the right areas, and then blended them. Along
with a bit of soft airbrushes at a low translucancy setting here, and
there I got the same effect. (The pictures are small after all, and
black and white at that!)
Anyway no matter what you decide to use as your
picture, you'll know when you've gotten what you like together. If you
are also customizing the rest of your party (highly recommended) then
get those pictures together as well, and just do it all at once. Now
I used Microsoft's Picture It! 2.0 to do this first step since it has
got to be the most user friendly desktop publisher I have ever used,
even if it is a bit on the simple side in some areas. I am unsure if
Paintshop Pro can do this since the only thing I used it for was the
image format conversion.
Select "Get Picture", Picture It!
Will default to it's own image file. Since this is probably not where
your image is, just browse the proper file paths until you find the
folder your images are stored in. (Probably whatever your camera or
scanner uses as it's default image dump folder) Select "Pictures
& Cutouts", and then "Cut out of Picture" Picture
It! Will then walk you through what you need to do here, don't worry
the lines don't have to be exact the first time, because the next screen
will allow you to fine tune your cutout. For the fine tuning I recommendchanging
the correction size down to a smaller one, or Picture It! may confuse
lighter, or darker pixels as draw points, besdies it gives the lines
a "straighter" cut. Picture It! will then place it your cut
out head in it's own frame minus the original background. Do not confuse
all that white stuff around the cutout as bieng a new background! If
you try to use the picture as is it won't work, you must create a background
seperatley now. Take any picture you want, and open it up, rainbow,
frog whatever it doesn't matter, cuz we're gonna change it! With this
new picture selected choose "Paint & color effects" then
"Fill with gradient", make sure you select a top to bottom
gradient instead of a side to side, or one of the weird ones (unless
you want to, I guess) Choose one end as black, and the other as white,
or light grey. No color will show up in the image anyway when we are
done. Now click on the cutout of your head, and drag it onto the background
you have just created, you'll now have a stacked image. Time to save
it, when you save do it twice. Why? Well one image will be saved as
a Picture It! format file so that you can come back to it, and make
changes (size, lighten/darken, sharpen, whatever) without having to
do all that cutting out and background stuff all over again. The other
save will be as a standard .jpeg format that Paintshop Pro will be able
to recognize. Make sure you save to both types of file formats for each
party member you do, if you didn't and you find you want to make changes
you'll kick yourself for it!
Now on to Paintshop Pro, I know a lot of people
out there perfer Photoshop, and Corel Draw and applications like that,
but these programs can cost hundreds of dollars. To the people that
prefer these programs use it if you got it, but for us normal guys we
can download Paintshop Pro for free from www.jasc.com. Just so you know
it is a 30 day trial version, so don't take a month to do this. As a
note I understand a lot of people may not have Picture It! 2.0 either
but that application only costs $30.00 instead of $300.00, and as noted
Paintshop Pro may have been able to do cut outs as well, I don't know.
If you don't have Picture It! you should get it anyway it is the single
most user friendly photo app I have ever used even if it is simple.
Anyhoo, find your new jpeg image and open it up. First thing we'll need
to do is convert your color image over to "greyscale", you'll
find that listed under the "color" tab at the top, just drag
down to it. Presto! You are now black, and white. Now we need to resize
your image to the proper size for Fallout to use it. On the left side
is a toolbar, select the "crop" tool, if you are unsure which
one it is just let the pointer sit on each one for a second and the
tool tip will tell you the name of the tool. Now select a point in the
image off to the side, and drag out a boxed outline around your character.
Once you let go form dragging the bounding box may be resized by dragging
on it's borders, and moved by clicking, and the dragging inside the
box. IMPORTANT- Only what is inside of this box is what will be in your
portrait in Fallout! Once you have a vaguely rectangular box (lengthwise)
around your head double click in the middle of the box to set it, you
will now notice these criss crossing lines outside of your box where
the rest of the image was. Now select the "Image" tab, and
drag down to resize, and a popup menu will appear. Okay now this is
where things get a bit tricky. The "width" of your picture
should be around "75", and the "height" around "100".
Depending on how you drew the bounding box things could get frustrating
here. In order to maintaim aspect ratio if you didn't draw the bounding
box to just about the right size when you type a width of 75 your height
might drop to 88, or jump up to 120, it just depends on the dimensions
you dragged out, and obviously if you try to type 100 in the height
the same weird things happen the in the width box. How do you fix this?
Well you just have to reopen your picture, redo the greyscale, and draw
the bounding box just slightly differently until you get the right proportion.
Nailing it right on the head of 75 to100 is to much crap to go through
so as long as you are plus or minus 5 on each number it will be close
enough for the game to use. Now select "Save As", and for
the format type scroll down to "Portable Network Graphic .PNG"
so when you save your image it will have a .PNG format instead of the.JPEG
for the file name type in the following "CORE_prefab1". Now
to get your character to be one of the five selectable prefabs in the
beginning (this step is only for your main character in the party) repeat
this process, and resize a second picture to go along with this smaller
one. The larger dimensions will be "width of 290" by "height
of 300" before you save it though go where you saved your smaller
picture and create a new folder within that folder right next to it,
name this folder "big" minus the quotation marks, but make
sur that all three letters are lower case (yes this is actaully important)
Now go back into Paintshop Pro and "Save As" into the new
folder you created, you must also save this as "CORE_prefab1".
They are two differantly sized pictures, but they must both retain the
SAME file name, that is why we created the "big" folder to
differentiate between the two. Reapete the first part of this process
for your other party members so that every one in your group has a 75
by 100 (roughly) picture, and remember only your primary character will
have a big portrait as well. When I created my squad I had a female,
and two other males so I saved the female photo as "CORE_rec_hf06",
and each male at "CORE_rec_hm06", and "CORE_rec_hm11"
respectively.
The rec means that the game will recognize them
as B.O.S. recruits, and that they are human female(hf), or human male
(hm), the numbers denote which portrait number they overwrite in the
file directory. These three file numbers almost always seem to be available
as immediate selectable recruits from the recruit master at the B.O.S.
bunker, other numbered pictures seem to come later, though there does
appear to be a slight randomization here, if your character does not
appear initially, you may have to play the first level over again from
a new game, I do not know what determines this random factor, but those
three seem to be there right away 99% of the time. Unfortunatley due
to an unkown entity, I do not know where to find Stitch, and Farsight's
entity info, so in order to do custom colors, and what not we must stick
with the recruits for the rest of the team. To view other portraits
for replacement you must use a "graphics resource viewer"
so you know what portraits you can overwrite. In order for the GRV to
read the pictures you will need to make a copy of your "gui_0.bos"
file within the "core" folder, take that copy, right click
on it, selcet properties, and then change the ".bos" in the
file name to".zip". The file will change to a zip file, unzip
it, and you may the view all the files using the "GRV" so
that you know from the faces that are avaiable which ones to replace
in the game. The only place I know where you can get one of those is
at www.freelancer.ag.ru in the files section, just click on the "switch
to english" link at the top of the page so you can understand it.
There is also another custom character tutorial there, but that one
doesn't detail character history, custom stats, entities, and custom
colors. Once all of your portraits have been saved under the desired
CORE_rec_xx## you will need to copy these into your game folders so
that the editor can use them.
Open up the "14 Degrees East" folder,
then open "Fallout Tactics", then open the "core"
folder. Now we may have to create a few folders here for the game directory
to follow. Once you are within the "core" folder it is important
to note that all folder name are to bee entirley in lower case, or the
game will not register them. First make sure you have a folder within
"core" that is labeled "gui", if you don't see it,
then create it. Open that folder, within "gui" you should
see a "char" folder, if not then create it also. Place all
of your "CORE_rec_xx##.png" and your smaller "CORE_prefab1.png"
75 by 100 portraits into this folder. Now open the "char"
folder next to the various portarit files should be a solitary folder
labeled "big" this is where you will place that larger "CORE_prefab1.png"
290 by 300 portrait. If you don't see this folder in here drag the one
you made when you saved it the first time into here to create it. Back
up copies of the file names that you will be writing over if you want
to recover them in a separate folder of your choosing.
Now open your Fallout Tactics Editor v1.27 (if
you don't know most Fallout sites have it in the download, or files
section) it will self extract to your 14 Degrees East folder, open folder
therin until you see FT Tools, click it. Once past the disclaimer click
the tab labeled PNG to ZAR. It will the pull up a list of your Fallout
folders within your "core" folder select "gui",
then "char" you will notice your "CORE_prefab1.png",
and "CORE_rec_xx##.png files here click on the first one, you will
see the file name now appear in the open pathway box at the bottom,
just click the open button next to it. Nothing may appear to have just
happened, but trust me it did, now repeat this process for each of the
other listed files. Once all those are converted open the "big"
folder, doing the same to the larger .png file there. Once done exit
the editor.
Okay now go back into the "char",
and "big" folders, and remove all your .png files, they should
now have each over written their .zar counterparts. Find each of those
now converted files, and click to highlite each one individually, and
press and hold Ctrl + C to copy it,then by pressing Ctrl + V past it
out to your desktop. Do not open up the "big" folder to copy
the .zar portrait, since it has the same file name as the other one
it will overwrite it, rather just copy the actual "big" folder
instead. We now have the original .zar files where thet belong, and
each copy on the desktop, right? Right. Now go back until you are in
the "core" folder again, and select the "user" folder,
it should be there, but if not, then create it. Within this folder should
be the following folders, if they are not there, then create them: "$$current$$"
"char" "save" and "big". Place into the"char"
folder each of the .zar files along with your "big" folder.
Go back, and now place a copy of your larger portrait from within the
other "big" folder in this one as well. Why all the redundency?
Actually I'm not sure, but unless it is set up like this it does seem
to work properly. Photos are done!
Okay, now for the custom story for each character.
This part is actually short, easy, and pretty fun too. Remember that
little trick mentioned earlier with changing the "gui_0.bos"
to "gui_0.zip" so that you could unzip it? Well guess what,
now we need to find the "locale_0.bos" and do the same thing.
Again just copy it, move it, right click on it, drag down to properties,
and in the upper display box retype it as "locale_0.zip".
Extract the "characters" text file from ther when it's unzipped,
and using any text editor open it up. Scroll down until you see:
DO NOT alter anything EXCEPT what is WITHIN
those brackets! Delete Mick's name, and replace with your own, then
delet his description, and type in whatever you want if you go longer
than 3 or 4 sentences though you won't be able to fit it all on the
game screen at once. Remember leave those brackets alone, ONLY change
what is in between them, or this won't work. Now scroll down unti you
see:
Where xx and ## denote your matching character
file for the picture type in that person's name, and description just
like how you did for your own character above. Make sure it is a match
with the correct file names from your portraits, or you won't see it.
When everyone is done click on "save". Now within your "core"
folder create, or open the "locale" folder, then create, or
open the "game" folder, place your modified "character"
text in here. Done.
Finally customizing the entity. This is pretty
much complex, so only do what is written, if you monkey with other things
I don't know what will happen. Make a copy of the "entities_0.bos"
file, and relocate it, do the adjustment to make it into a zip file
just like the other two. When you unzip it don't let it zip to an unzip
folder. Instead select different folder, and browse until you get back
into Program files, then 14 degrees east, Fallout Tactics, then core,
then unzip it into the exsisting entities folder. Once done this will
create more entities for the editor to read rather than just the few
that are there by default. Start up your FT tools editor again, and
this time select the entity editor. Choose "OPEN", then "SPECIAL",
then "prefab", then select "prefab1.ent", or for
the other party members choose "OPEN", then "RECRUITS",
then find the recruit's exact file .ent.
ONLY CHANGE THESE VALUES
Click the Name tab, the "display name"
MUST be the same as the file name for your character, it shouldn't need
to be changed though. "Custom name", "tag name",
and "broken" must be left blank and "player index"
be a 0. If this is tampered with your character history will not show
up. Once you are done reclick the name tab to close it.
Image tab: Click on the longer colored
bar to bring up a windows style color graph, choose any color you want,
and adjust the slider bar for darker, or lighter colors. The "Base"
and, "Team" tabs affect the character's clothing/armor coloring.
The "Hair and, "Skin" tabs are pretty self explanitory.
You can play with the slider bars under the color bar a little for some
different tones. Unfortunatley I know of no way to change the figure's
facing. Reclick Image tab to close.
Stats tab: just enter whatever you want
here, but remember that a person's limit is 10 taking stats higher than
that may cause errors in the game. Besides it's more fun to be balance
in these areas, how much fun is it to simply max everything out and
be god? Where would the challenge be?
Traits: Adjust the age, and sex to your
liking everything else should be at 0
Skills: any values here are added to your
starting skills. i.e. if you start at 35 in repair then placing 10 under
repair would make you start at 45 instead. DO what you want here too,
but it's more fun to be reasonable here than to just go bonkers, and
max it all out. Advice though give yourself a good 20-25 in the throwing
area, there is no way anyone in real life throws as bad as these guys
start out. But this way if you have a medic you can emphasize healing,
a thief could get an extra few points to lockpicking. Depending on what
portrait you assigned your character you may have wanted that person
to be a sniper, but their entity started as a medic so your guns, and
sneak skill really suck. This is the place to balance that back out.
Tag: Mark your 3 tag skills. Going beyond
your limit of three may cause game errors.
Optional Traits: Mark your 2 traits. See
above for limit reasoning.
Don't mess with anything else, most of the other
parameters can really screw up the game in ways you won't realize be
it from gameplay, to actual errors in the game. Make sure you save each
entity before moving on to the next, and when you modify the other party
members that you have double checked they are the right ones. When done
select'Quit", and then exit the editor all the appropriate .ent
files should simply have been overwritten.
A few things:
You cannot do this to a current game, this will
only work when you start a new game. Photos, and text can be changed
on the fly, but for any entity info to take effect it seems the game
must be restarted.
There is a way to change armor, weapon, and inventory
values. You may wonder why I haven't included this. A couple of reasons.
First it unbalances gameplay, a game ceases to be fun as soon as you
start punching in unlimited ammo, all weapons, and the like. Secondly
it would be silly for a lot of the stuff anyway, you can't even get
the right ammo for most of the weapons early in the game anyway, so
unless you gave yourself unlimited rounds you'd be out of a gun as soon
as you expended your clip anyway.
There is nothing that I know how to do about
replacing Farsight, and Stitch, although I can change the photos for
them, their entity information does not match their portrait information,
and this leads me to believe that it is superceded by another part of
the game I don't know of. I just treat taking those two along with me
on the first mission as General Barneky sending me with guides on my
training mission, and then I join my pals after level 1.
There may be other methods of achieving what
I've described, but this is what I have found to work, so I've stuck
with it. The tutorial is also on the long side the reasoning behind
this is that it is a bit of a complicated procedure so it takes a while
to explain, but also it was hard for me to figure out how to do all
this on my own because the one or two tutorials that even brushed across
any one of these topics was so vague that I still had to figure it all
out by myself, they just pointed the right way. I share my hard earned
knowledge now, freely withh the Fallout Community so that others don't
have to rip their hair out trying to figure this out, and even the most
confused person behind a keyboard can take it step by step, and get
it. Besides having this level of customization just plain rocks!
Final word of advice, now that you are done save
a copy of each of those converted .zar files, each of the .ent files,
and save the zipped versions of the locale_0, gui_0, and the entities_0,
as well as the modified character text. This way if your computer crashes,
or you have to reinstall you don't have to do all this over again.
Have fun, I hoped you enjoyed the end result
of my first tutorial.