Elaboration on the Available Daggerfall Unity Tools

[Magicono43]

While playing with Unity, I decided to look at some of the "Daggerfall Tools" that are available to be used a good few of them are pretty obvious in their function, such as "Mod Builder", "Career Viewer", and "Name Generator [Beta]". The thing I was curious about were the not so obvious (at least to me) ones, so i'll make a short list and see if anyone can take a crack at answering this query, i'll list them as they are displayed in the drop-down menu.

Source Compiler: So this allows you to add files and compile them, but what does that mean in this context exactly? Since the Mod Builder sort of does this when you create a .dfmod file with various added resource files for whatever mod you build, so what does this do differently?

Mod Builder: Fairly self explanatory when you read the modding tutorials that go through this in a decent amount of detail (even though the tutorial is slightly out-dated to the current builds implementation). Takes your files and packs them into a .dfmod file that can be used like any other mod, pretty to the point.

Mod Settings: Have not used this tool myself, but I would assume it just makes custom settings creation a bit easier for the modder. Once again, described fairly well by the name.

Atlas: This one is pretty interesting, from what it seems, it just has all of the Region information that Daggerfall has in its database for the entire world, such regions as Daggerfall, Anticlere, etc. and allows you to easily look at ALL of the various fast travel-able locations that are in said regions, towns, taverns, homes, cities, graveyards, and even dungeons that would normally be hidden from the player until discovered. This one is pretty handy, especially for those that may not have realized that all locations in the base game are already set in stone from the start and never change, they are all static in the base game, cool tool.

Career Viewer: Similar to the Atlas tool in that it is just a easily readable way to see all of the statistical details and various values that make up all of the non-custom base classes that Daggerfall allows you to create, like the Mage or the Knight, as well as ALL of the vanilla monsters in the game, which is very handy and fun to read through. (Grizzly Bears have a primary skill in Archery btw, so don't allow them to get a bow.)

Font Exporter: This seems to be a way to make your own custom fonts based off of the default fonts that the game already uses? I'm not really sure how this works, have not messed with fonts much, but also seems like a pretty handy tool in the right hands.

JSON Exporter: Not sure exactly what this does, since it only gives three options of various .txt files, and does not gives any thing very responsive when they are clicked, I would assume a JSON file is generated for whatever one is clicked, but not sure where it goes at that point. I would assume these are for files with a large data-base such as "Item-templates" that being turned into a .JSON makes it easier to be worked with, that's all I can assume about this one.

Name Generator [Beta]: This one is pretty cool. It just allows you to generate a list of various names with the main parameters being the Race, the Gender of said race, and an optional seed that can be inputted, as well as the number of names you want to be generated at a time. I would assume this is used constantly be the game to make all of the various random NPCs that you encounter, including if you give your character a random name at the start, very nifty tool and very simple to use.

Save Explorer [Beta]: I would call it more of an [Alpha] because it does not seem to work, I would assume its function when it does work is to make save editing a lot more easy to do, seems like quite the cool thing if and when it eventually works.

Text Record Viewer: I have no idea what this does, it allows you to enter in a "Record Index" number, which if you put in anything other than -1 it seems to give you a bunch of text that you would see in the game, such as the pop-up description text for all of your attributes and such, but with the numbers that would go through a formula being abstracted to what they would say in the original string they are written in. Also including various other things that are said by NPCs and such. Seems interesting, but not really sure how it works, or what exactly it is reading from.

Texture Array Creator: "Create a texture array from individual textures with the same size, format, and mipmaps state." I don't know what exactly a texture array is, probably what makes up all of the 3D models in the game? Not sure, but it's obviously a tool that is used to make some sort of graphical asset in the game. Once again, seems like a very handy tool to the right person, but not really sure what it does without that expertise.

That's all of the current tools in the list, so if anybody with more knowledge would like to elaborate more on what some of these tools do, that would be really cool, i'm sure somebody other than myself would find that information helpful or even interesting at the very least.

[TheLacus]

Source Compiler: So this allows you to add files and compile them, but what does that mean in this context exactly? Since the Mod Builder sort of does this when you create a .dfmod file with various added resource files for whatever mod you build, so what does this do differently?

This is a simple UI access to the C# compilation backend, which was made by one of the developers (Lypyl) when he worked on the mod system. It compiles C# scripts with the same portable compiler that is shipped with the game and is used for mods. I would consider it a test tool.

Mod Builder: Fairly self explanatory when you read the modding tutorials that go through this in a decent amount of detail (even though the tutorial is slightly out-dated to the current builds implementation). Takes your files and packs them into a .dfmod file that can be used like any other mod, pretty to the point.

Mod Settings: Have not used this tool myself, but I would assume it just makes custom settings creation a bit easier for the modder. Once again, described fairly well by the name.

This is correct. The documentation can be found here.

Texture Array Creator: "Create a texture array from individual textures with the same size, format, and mipmaps state." I don't know what exactly a texture array is, probably what makes up all of the 3D models in the game? Not sure, but it's obviously a tool that is used to make some sort of graphical asset in the game. Once again, seems like a very handy tool to the right person, but not really sure what it does without that expertise.

A texture array is a type of 2d texture; it's used for the terrain, which is composed of many tiles with the same resolution.

Save Explorer [Beta]: I would call it more of an [Alpha] because it does not seem to work, I would assume its function when it does work is to make save editing a lot more easy to do, seems like quite the cool thing if and when it eventually works.

You need to open DaggerfallUnityGame scene (this is a known issue).

[Magicono43]

Thanks for the answer Lacus. Maybe i'll have to try and use the compiler myself, if it would make it so you can troubleshoot scripts without having to launch the game every-time, that would probably save a decent amount of time. I'll also have to try out the Save Explorer as well now that i'm aware of the current bug.