Custom Dungeon Blocks

Show off your mod creations or just a work in progress.
Al-Khwarizmi
Posts: 177
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2015 9:52 am

Re: Custom Dungeon Blocks

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

More varied dungeon blocks would be a dream come true.

Don't get me wrong, dungeon blocks in the original DF already provided quite a lot of variety, but when you have played hundreds of dungeons, they do eventually get repetitive.

DeltaOfPie

Re: Custom Dungeon Blocks

Post by DeltaOfPie »

Wait... I thought dungeon blocks where connections of room units...

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BadLuckBurt
Posts: 948
Joined: Sun Nov 05, 2017 8:30 pm

Re: Custom Dungeon Blocks

Post by BadLuckBurt »

DeltaOfPie wrote: Thu Oct 17, 2019 4:48 pm Wait... I thought dungeon blocks where connections of room units...
The dungeon blocks are more like prefabs with different room layouts. Creating new prefabs would be a major step towards dungeons that keep feeling fresh, the possibilities with all those dungeon models are endless
DFU on UESP: https://en.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=T ... fall_Unity
DFU Nexus Mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity
My github repositories with mostly DFU related stuff: https://github.com/BadLuckBurt

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Hazelnut
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Re: Custom Dungeon Blocks

Post by Hazelnut »

Just to show off the custom block I made to test the upcoming RDB replacement system. It's basically one of the classic crypts, but this room has a few extras:
  • A third coffin - the centre one.
  • A fiery birdbath (or whatever you would call it) in the corridor outside the door.
  • A floating green pot which you can just see behind, a bit further down the corridor.
  • An Archaeologists sign! I needed to test new models would work, so just used the one provided by my guild mod.
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CustomDungeon.jpg
CustomDungeon.jpg (396.36 KiB) Viewed 2264 times
See my mod code for examples of how to change various aspects of DFU: https://github.com/ajrb/dfunity-mods

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Jay_H
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Re: Custom Dungeon Blocks

Post by Jay_H »

Hazelnut, if it's okay, I'd like to call you awesome at this point. I feel it's appropriate.

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Hazelnut
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Re: Custom Dungeon Blocks

Post by Hazelnut »

Jay_H wrote: Fri Oct 18, 2019 7:44 pm Hazelnut, if it's okay, I'd like to call you awesome at this point. I feel it's appropriate.
:lol: Thanks. It's nice to be appreciated.

However, maybe the adulation should be reserved for the first person to use the system to actually stitch models together into a useful new RDB though! :ugeek:
See my mod code for examples of how to change various aspects of DFU: https://github.com/ajrb/dfunity-mods

Diema
Posts: 3
Joined: Sun Oct 13, 2019 2:07 am

Re: Custom Dungeon Blocks

Post by Diema »

Please let us know as soon as there's some decent documentation. I'm dying to get to work and you have no idea how thankful I am for your work Hazelnut.

Some more of what's in store:
Image

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Hazelnut
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Re: Custom Dungeon Blocks

Post by Hazelnut »

Well I had hoped my documentation would qualify as decent this time round, but it's hard for me to judge. Take a read: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=2857&p=32885#p32885

Honestly I think we're going to need Uncanny Valley's 3D block editor before doing anything significant, but it should be possible to use an existing model for entrance and connect it with a new model for demo purposes and to see how it looks in game etc.
See my mod code for examples of how to change various aspects of DFU: https://github.com/ajrb/dfunity-mods

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BadLuckBurt
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Re: Custom Dungeon Blocks

Post by BadLuckBurt »

Diema wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2019 4:56 am Please let us know as soon as there's some decent documentation. I'm dying to get to work and you have no idea how thankful I am for your work Hazelnut.

Some more of what's in store:
- snipped awesome dungeon image
The documentation Hazelnut made was good enough for me to start work on a tool that lets you change the layout and blocks used to form a dungeon (https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Daggerfall:Dun ... ck_Details).

However, creating new blocks with custom models (which is what you want to do) is quite tricky as it needs to be done by editing text at the moment and that's not very feasable. Even looking at the structure for a very tiny 1-story house is pretty intimidating :D The 3D block editor is much needed to do any meaningful work on this.

One thing I think that can be done:

1. Export one of your creations as a single mesh / model
2. Import that model into DFU and add it to the models list
3. Create a new block that uses that model
4. Create a dungeon or alter an existing one so that it loads the new block.

Sadly, I have no idea how to tackle 1 and 2. I'm not a modeler and I have no clue what the correct format / setup is for DFU. I also don't know if it's possible to add new models.

I'm quite sure I can handle steps 3 and 4 once the model is in DFU. Your model wouldn't have any doors, quest markers, etc. but it would work to demonstrate the possibilities.

@Anyone, if I said anything that's wrong or not possible at the moment, please say so. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up with this post but seeing Diema's work, I'd love to see it in-game.
DFU on UESP: https://en.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=T ... fall_Unity
DFU Nexus Mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity
My github repositories with mostly DFU related stuff: https://github.com/BadLuckBurt

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pango
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Re: Custom Dungeon Blocks

Post by pango »

I'd like to mention something I noticed in existing blocks and that I didn't see mentioned (at least in this thread): for any block design, they're usually 3 or 4 variant blocks in the library, extra rooms, one more turn to a corridor, or one half of the block untouched the other half redone, etc.
While it could be seen as a cheap trick to increase the number of blocks (and it certainly is, too), I think this has the benefit that even when the player recognizes part of a design, (s)he cannot immediately be 100% sure of what the current block will look like; Which in turn blurs the dungeon modularity frontiers and helps hide the blocks in players mind.

So if you make new designs, think about adding along several variants to help conceal the blocs structure of dungeons...
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When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
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