CK3 Dev Diary #37 - Making Mods

[blackninja9939]

Thanks for diary. Has a question about the calendar.
How much is it moddable? Can i change names of [days] into [hours], change number of months? in other words, for example make 30 days into 24 hours, and 12 months into 365 days. So every year would x24 times slower. If yes, then it could be possible to make calendar like in hoi4, so all modders could make deep role play game of some interesting historical period. Just curious, thanks for any answer.

You can relocalise them but other than that they are hardcoded, changing the time scale would need more support on the game end to do and I'd argue its a fairly niche modding need.

I have no idea what most of this is, but I like it. Seems strange to me that the fix for that one issue is being pushed back to the 1.1 release if it's already done, though. Is that a "We don't have time to implement this because we're in hardcore crunch time" thing, or is it just a game dev thing?

As @ShadyGuy_SuspiciousGoal said, the 1.0 version is frozen from any changes unless they are of the severest impact and very critical as we do not want to risk introducing other issues into the build that could be worse than the one we fix.
So for something low impact and that does not effect the vanilla game like this issue it is not considered a worthwhile risk to take.

This one seems to have got lost and I'm curious as to the answer. Are cultural landed title name changes handled like CK2, like EU4 or in some other way?

To extend that question, how about titles themselves? e.g. CK2's "city_empire_of_basque;...;", "tribal_duke_female_bohemian;...;" system or something more like EU4's system?

I answered in response to someone else, its handled by our "flavorization" system which deals with both the names of titles and the styling of character names as Count or Earl etc.

I can see how that would be a concern for multiplayer, but on the other hand I am annoyed how in Stellaris for example something like a ship name list mod makes my game ineligible for gaining achievements.

Any chance the game might calculate two checksums? One for the purpose of playing multiplayer and another for the purpose of achievement eligibility that will ignore anything that doesn't actually affect game mechanics?

It is something I have thought of, splitting into a hard and soft checksum but I've not had time to do this as its not really a high priority compared to features, bugs or performance work. It is one of the things on my list of things to investigate during our personal development time but that list of things to look at is pretty massive so no promises.

 

[TheProf]

Is there a reason why you're avoiding answering any questions about modding character models?

 

[blackninja9939]

Is there a reason why you're avoiding answering any questions about modding character models?

Mainly cause I don't know the system too much in depth and our artists are busy so we covered other things in the dev diary. I know it is possible to mod the models, we use the same basic system as Imperator and they have multiple fantasy mods so I know its definitely feasible to do a variety of stuff there.

But I do not know enough of the syntax or files needed to change to do much of those things.

 

[NoobLord]

2 questions:
- How much of this is already on the CK3 wiki? Will it all be there too on release or will I have to wait until smarter people than me have figured out how stuff works?
- Do you happen to know how education traits are assigned in CK3? I've been toying with making a CK2 education trait overhaul to introduce some hybrid educations but I never quite figured out how to get it working nicely.

 

[mauzel]

So, anything done to combat the issue with savefile bloating by mid-late game?

 

[mteir]

Is there a reason why you're avoiding answering any questions about modding character models?

After digging around i have found some information, but it is not directly related to CK3...
Paradox seem to use Maya for 3d modelling. There is an extractor form game files to Maya, people have used this to create unit models. There seems to be some issues at times, and the extractor is a Maya product so Paradox does not provide support for it. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forums/clausewitz-maya-exporter-modding-tool.935/
Someone has created an extractor for blender, but there seems to be some differences between Maya and blenders coordinate systems that create "wonkyness".

While the tool has been used to create unit models in HOI4 and ship models in Stellaris, it might not work for larger 3d models as the ck3 character models.

 

[tyelcur]

Is there any way to dynamically create events?

edit: It seems that it's possible according to the Jomini Modding Information article! It seems very tedious to implement a seq2seq algorithm though.

 

[Kaiji]

I'm very glad to hear that the sound and music will be moddable but if CK3 uses FMOD like Imperator does will an easy method be provided to edit the bank files? I find FMOD to be annoyingly inaccessible.

 

[gamerk2]

On the other hand, each override will (hopefully) be far smaller, and can maybe be collated together into a single override file.

Depends on implementation; the easiest way is to load the main files, then load each override in order. You could combine them into one file at the start of loading (which also works as a good validation method), but that also takes time (at least the first time you do it). either way, initial load times will be slightly longer.

 

[SaMajesté]

Hey! First of all, very interesting dev diary even if my question isn't related precicely to it. Indeed, I noticed in the screenshots of the game that the flag of my region, Brittany, is not accurate. The true coat of arms of Brittany at this time is the one in ck2, with plain hermine on the shield. The blue and yellow squares added in ck3 are from the dreux family, that added it when they arrived to power in the 12th century, way after the start of ck3. This is a small issue of course and I understand if it is not worth fixing it but as a breton it was important to me. Thank you and good work!!

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

Hey! First of all, very interesting dev diary even if my question isn't related precicely to it. Indeed, I noticed in the screenshots of the game that the flag of my region, Brittany, is not accurate. The true coat of arms of Brittany at this time is the one in ck2, with plain hermine on the shield. The blue and yellow squares added in ck3 are from the dreux family, that added it when they arrived to power in the 12th century, way after the start of ck3. This is a small issue of course and I understand if it is not worth fixing it but as a breton it was important to me. Thank you and good work!!

I've heard suggestions that the ermine field of Brittany is actually derived from the canton carried by Pierre I, with it being a difference to the Dreux arms, and that it's unrelated to anything the Bretons had used before.

It also has legendary adoptions from mid-late game period, with it being suggested that it was adopted when one of the Dukes saw an ermine turn and attack a fox.

Either way, the Dreux + ermine canton coat of arms is inappropriate.

 

[OwIcohoIic]

Is there a reason why you're avoiding answering any questions about modding character models?

Hey, I've done a bit of everything 3D wise in Imperator and it seems like CK3 will be using a similar system (just expanded with full bodies instead of busts). If you have any specific questions about the 3D side of things I'd be happy to answer. I only worked on limited map models. However I did a lot of unit models, but the main area I worked on was in the 3D portraits, creating custom blendshapes for things like elf ears or orc faces, to new outfits that are tied to specific gameplay situations (such as for a king, making a separate outfit if he's leading an army, things like that)

 

[tilly]

yo can we get just, like, a single screenshot of literally any character history file, just so i know what that looks like now? i dont know how to use a computer and i can barely read under most circumstances, but i did spend a lot of time modding the history files in ck2 since its relatively easy. if im modding anything its probably going to be that

if i gotta learn how to actually code now thats gonna suck for me, a man who doesnt know math, but i guess thems the breaks

 

[Marmelado]

I hope it would be possible for mod to hide some information from the player: how easy it would be for a plot to succeed, for example. CK2 did not have an option

 

[SaMajesté]

I've heard suggestions that the ermine field of Brittany is actually derived from the canton carried by Pierre I, with it being a difference to the Dreux arms, and that it's unrelated to anything the Bretons had used before.

It also has legendary adoptions from mid-late game period, with it being suggested that it was adopted when one of the Dukes saw an ermine turn and attack a fox.

Either way, the Dreux + ermine canton coat of arms is inappropriate.

I agree That either way it is unaccurate but i would prefer plain ermine because it represents Brittany itself when the one in ck3 represents not really the duchy, but more the Dreux family itself.

 

[Dark_wing]

Thanks for the Dev diary!

Do custom elective voting rules support variable voting strength, similar to Imperial Elective in CK2?

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

I agree That either way it is unaccurate but i would prefer plain ermine because it represents Brittany itself when the one in ck3 represents not really the duchy, but more the Dreux family itself.

What would you think to the "black cross" flag for Brittany? (Either at Duchy or Kingdom level)

 

[wickermoon]

Ohhh I hope I'm not too late, but I have two questions:

1. Is it possible for a mod to add an option to adopt any character? Like, as long as that character and the pope agree to this, and as long as you are childless, you may adopt a courtier.
2. Is it possible to add another variant of "Gavelkind", where you could open a new window in which to decide which heir gets what titles?

 

[Riamus]

Ohhh I hope I'm not too late, but I have two questions:

1. Is it possible for a mod to add an option to adopt any character? Like, as long as that character and the pope agree to this, and as long as you are childless, you may adopt a courtier.
2. Is it possible to add another variant of "Gavelkind", where you could open a new window in which to decide which heir gets what titles?

Not sure about #1, but probably not. For #2, see:

You can mod in new ones but they will need to pick a specific rule to use which does have a hardcoded number, you can make your own partition law with extra requirements or fancy names but you cannot make a new type of succession as that is in code.

 

[NilsW]

This isn't directly linked to the content of either this dev diary or #30, but it's a question about modding, so...

Perhaps my favorite mod for Crusader Kings 2 is the Game of Thrones mod, which (among other features) has dragons. As many of you on the forum likely know, the mod tracks dragons like characters—just like Chancellor Glitterhoof, Spymaster Mittens, and Sir Bearington. All of these nonhuman characters were possible with 2D portraits because you can just draw an animal or dragon and stick that in the project folder.

However, CK3's portraits are human-shaped character models, and while there are many ways to alter proportions, facial structure, texture, etc, there's no indication that you can simply replace that model with another one (not that modeling and rigging a dragon model is a trivial task in the first place!) How do you see mods with nonhuman characters as a central feature, whether they be rulers' accessories (as with the GoT mod) or rulers in their own right (as with the Faerun mod and Pope Glitterhoof) faring in Crusader Kings 3?

I had hopes the DD would feature character model modding. Will there be possibilities to add/change textures, meshes and morphs (assuming morphs are used)? And the format/tools used.

I see that there's a dna_data directory in the database. Will that let us mod the character meshes and textures? If so to what extent? Could we mod in playable Orks and Elves? What about horses and bears?

What about modding character models, either introducing new variables for existing models (pointy ears, etc.) or adding new models of nonhumans altogether?

Hi Matthew another question, hopefully this one is good enough: Can you mod animation? Can we add new animations ourselves? How complicated is it?

how moddable are character models? will it be possible to replace the character models with something entirely different or are they required to be humanoid?

How user-friendly is editing character models/portraits, or is that hard-coded?

So a lot of questions about 3D character modding (understandably!). I'll try to explain a little bit more about it here.

The good news is that most aspects of the portraits should be moddable. The easiest to change are things related to genes and ethnicities. Quite a lot can be done without editing any meshes or textures at all. Adding a new ethnicity is actually very simple. The same goes for historical and custom characters. You can use the portrait editor available from the console to design a DNA, add it to dna_data script files and then just add a reference to it in the history entry for that character. Making everyone look like monstrous caricatures is also very easy by just ramping up the values for extremes in the ethnicity script files.

Now for more ambitious modding projects, like adding new races and species. I know there is a tool to import .mesh files from the game (by ross-g somewhere on these forums). So what you would need to do to create elves or orcs or any other humanoid is to import the male and female head models and rigs into Maya and do whatever changes to them by adding blend shapes and then export it using our Maya exporter tool that we have released publicly. If you make bigger changes you're likely going to have to edit the rig as well. And this is where things become tricky. While it should be perfectly possible to change the rig the game uses predefined portrait types for male, female, boy and girl. It isn't really built around the concept of several different species. But it might still be possible with some creative modding. I could imagine implementing dragons for example as an "attachment". Essentially a dragon suit (It would not have to match human proportions or anything). It may or may not be possible to give it it's own rig and animations, I'd have to look into that to be sure. But a static dragon should at least be doable as an attachment.

Smaller things, like adding new clothing and headgear (for humans), is much more straight forward and is essentially following the procedure outlined above.

All textures are very easy to edit. And it's easy to add new ones as well. They're all in .dds format which is possible to edit in Photoshop with the free plugin from NVIDIA. The same goes for the color palettes we use. So adding outlandish skin colors and hair colors for example is again very easy.