Edmundo Animist model

[BathtubPirate]

@Grey Roger remember how I borrowed the AnimistEdmundo model recently and struggled with turning a character into it? Eventually,

SetModel(characterFromID("Rocoso Balboa"), "AnimistEdmundo", "man", "man", 1.8, false);

worked, while

SetModelfromID(CharacterFromID("Rocoso Balboa"), "AnimistEdmundo");

AND

SetModelfromArray(CharacterFromID("Rocoso Balboa"), GetModelIndex("AnimistEdmundo"));

both didn't.

I'm also replaying Ardent, once again as Helen, and the model seems to make more trouble. I tried to get Edmundo out of his bedroom using a rope shot by arrow. If I'm understanding correctly, that's where hes' supposed to wear the Animist model. Only problem, no Edmundo showed up outside.

Later, he should wear the same model for a ruse to the governor of Willemstad (Convoy Strike). This time he's around, but in his standard model. I only fully noticed it when Helen asked him to remove the cloak in the convoy ship's crew quarters, he wasn't wearing any the whole time.

I don't have much time now but I can upload save games for both scenes if it helps.

 

[Grey Roger]

Could you upload a savegame from before you go to the bedroom? I don't have a savegame for Helen at that point. (But I do have a savegame from a campaign as Charles, in which Lucia uses the same command to get her cloak, and that worked perfectly.)

As for "Convoy Strike", Edmundo successfully put on his cloak for me:


The only model-related weirdness I've seen was when I tried to modify "PROGRAM\LandEncounters\LEnc_monsters.c" as part of the brothel overhaul. There's a piece of code which checks if the brothel already has a mistress and if not, sets the first randomly spawned character to be one. I tried to change the model for the mistress to make her distinct from anyone else in there and she was invisible, though oddly she appeared after she had moved around for a while. This happened regardless of whether I used 'SetModelfromID', 'SetModelfromArray' or 'SetModel', and in the end the only way I could get a visibly identifiable mistress was to define a fixed character for each brothel.

 

[BathtubPirate]

I'll upload the savegame tonight. By the way, I just remember something else: When the player is sent to Guadeloupe to get a smuggler out of prison, you're encouraged to land at the beach instead of the port, as soon as you go ashore. But when I first went ashore at the port, I was set to actor type (I assume, didn't check) and not reset to player, so I couldn't continue unless I went straight to the beach instead of trying the port first.

How do you manage the quest without a jumpstart I wonder?

 

[Grey Roger]

Can you also upload a savegame from before you arrive at Guadeloupe? What is supposed to happen there is that, if you have an officer, he'll talk to you. (If you have several officers, one of them is picked to do the talking.) If you don't have any party officers then you have a self-dialog instead. Talking to an officer causes him to disappear from your party as he takes your ship round to the beach; talking to yourself encourages you to move the ship yourself.

The problem with jumpstarts for "Ardent" is that the story can go all sorts of different ways depending on what the player chooses to do, and anyway I figured it to be almost as hard to write a jumpstart to set everything up correctly as it was to simply replay the whole story. The exception is after "Convoy Strike" and before "Battle of Isla Mona", where all paths converge, so there's a jumpstart to that point. Enable cheatmode, start a new game, and the Inquisitor should have a new dialog option...

 

[BathtubPirate]

I have to see how close my best savegame is to Guadeloupe. Maybe it requires some replaying and creating a new save. From what I remember, I didn't have any officers with me, because I prefer to get them out when needed instead of always running around with a bunch of people following me. And I think there was no self-dialog, just a quest book entry.

 

[Grey Roger]

In that case, could you also upload your version of "PROGRAM\DIALOGS\blaze_dialog.c"?

 

[BathtubPirate]

The general one, not the one in the Ardent folder?

 

[Grey Roger]

There shouldn't be one in the "Ardent" folder! During the early days when I was developing the story, I was advised to not have storyline-specific versions of otherwise general dialog files, but instead to put storyline stuff into the general files. So the text and code for "Ardent" should be in the general file. The reason is that, if any other changes are made to the general file, they'll automatically work in the storyline as well.

If you still have obsolete versions of "blaze_dialog.c" and "blaze_dialog.h" in the "Ardent" folder, delete them. While you're at it, get rid of "Ardent" versions of "Charles Windem_dialog.c", "Pedro Fructoso_dialog.c" and "Santiago citizen_dialog.c", as well as their ".h" counterparts. They should not even exist in the January 2022 installer.

In the general version, check that case "abduction_move_ship" exists. If you have an obsolete version of the "Ardent" version, it probably doesn't have that case, and that would be why the quest broke when you were supposed to talk to yourself.

 

[BathtubPirate]

There shouldn't be one in the "Ardent" folder! During the early days when I was developing the story, I was advised to not have storyline-specific versions of otherwise general dialog files, but instead to put storyline stuff into the general files. So the text and code for "Ardent" should be in the general file.

Well I don't think anybody advised me. Thus Devlin Opera uses its own "blaze_dialog" (and there's a fair amount of self-talking) as well as a few minor cases like the Martinica priest and once again Pedro Fructoso.

But I don't understand why changes in the general file should affect the storyline file. Doesn't the storyline file, in this case "blaze_dialog", overwrite the general one as long as you're in that storyline?

 

[Grey Roger]

But I don't understand why changes in the general file should affect the storyline file. Doesn't the storyline file, in this case "blaze_dialog", overwrite the general one as long as you're in that storyline?

Yes, and that's the problem. The storyline version of "blaze_dialog" is ancient and does not have everything, in particular case "abduction_move_ship". The general version should have that. Delete the obsolete storyline version of "blaze_dialog", and for that matter the other obsolete storyline dialog files listed in post #8, otherwise you're liable to run into more trouble.

What eventually convinced me of the merits of putting storyline material into general files rather than into storyline-specific versions was when someone reported a problem with a sidequest involving the governor of Kralendijk - I can't remember off-hand now whether it was "Toff Oreman's Daughter" or "Strange Things Going On in the Archipelago". The point was, this player was playing the "Assassin" storyline which had its own version of "Reynard Grueneveldt_dialog", which didn't contain the sidequest stuff. Not wanting to fall into the same trap, I moved all my storyline stuff into the general dialog files, and the January 2022 installer has deleted the obsolete storyline versions. The one exception was "Javier Balboa_dialog", and that's because the governor of Santiago is so crucial to the story that if anyone ever writes a sidequest involving him, it will probably need to be disabled in "Ardent".

This, of course, does not apply to characters who only exist in the storyline. Their dialogs, and their character definitions, do belong in the storyline folders!

 

[BathtubPirate]

Deleting obsolete dialog files in Ardent - if they even exist in my version - is not the problem. I was rather wondering if my extensive "blaze_dialog" in Devlin Opera (storyline folder) causes any trouble.

 

[Grey Roger]

It won't cause any trouble to "Ardent", or to any other storyline, as they won't find the "Devlin Opera" version. It shouldn't cause any problem to general gameplay - yet. If anyone later writes another sidequest which involves a self-dialog, you'll need to add it to your version (or disable the sidequest in "Devlin Opera") otherwise that sidequest will break if anyone plays it during "Devlin Opera".

There's also the minor matter that you've left the second comment "// Hitman Easter Egg" at the end of the file. It should go straight after case "Sparrow_steals_ship" because that's the Hitman Easter Egg. (You probably know that you meet Captain Jack Sparrow at the end of "Hard Labours of an Assassin", unless you're playing "Hoist the Colours". Be in possession of a "Black Pearl" when you do - either capture it at the end of "Tales of a Sea Hawk" or buy it from Vanderdecken. Sparrow has a little surprise for you...) Having a comment in the wrong place won't break dialog but it does indicate to anyone who reads comments that all the "Devlin Opera" stuff is part of the Easter Egg.

 

[BathtubPirate]

Santiago save: Talk to the servant, talk to Edmundo at his room, say you'll come back at night, go to the left wall at night, automatically shoot arrow, talk to Edmundo in his room, transported outside, but I don't find Animist Edmundo

Cartagena save: Sail to Willemstad, follow the quest there, Edmundo wears his normal outfit for the ruse

There's no convenient save for Guadeloupe I can upload right now, you'd have to play through there from the Santiago save, but "abduction_move_ship" exists in the general self dialog file. Also there's no obsolete version of the self dialog file in the Ardent folder. I only kept asking about that, because I use a quest-specific self dialog file in Devlin.

 

[Grey Roger]

Thanks! I'll have a look at those later. But I have my own save at Cartagena already, so I already tried going to Willemstad. Depending on what you've been doing before this, Edmundo may very well start by using his normal outfit, then tell you to get back to the ship for an alternative ruse, and then he switches to "AnimistEdmundo". Like this:


While I don't have a suitable savegame for Helen before the bedroom scene, I do have one for Charles. If you're using the bow and arrow, Lucia's rescue plays out exactly the same - shoot an arrow, teleport to bedroom, talk to Lucia, teleport outside, then 'SetModelfromArray' puts Lucia into her "Animist" variant just as it does for Edmundo. And that one certainly worked for me.