I''m not interesting in MAKING my own games - yet. Nor am I interested in learning a programming langauge, unless it''s REALLY easy to learn. I want to put my own characters into existing games that I rightfully bought (not an emulator, not a burned CD), but to start off since I am a beginner, I first want to use existing characters, edit them to the game''s requirements, and add them to a game. I don''t have the right software of knowledge to create 3D models, so I''m talking about 2D games and characters. For example, I would like to take the animtions of Jazz Jackrabbit from Jazz Jackrabbit 2, edit them, and put that character into Hunter Hunted. I also want to put Sonic in Jazz 2, and Jazz Jackrabbit (from the 3D bonus stages of Jazz 1) in Duke Nukem 3D. So my first question is: Is there any way to make new characters for games that don''t have an editor that lets you do that? I''m betting that if the answer is YES, than it''s still not something a newbie like myself can possibly do. You must need to hack the code or something like that. Next question: Is there a program that allows you to get the animations from a character from a game, and allow you to view them (frame by frame and moving) and edit them? So, can I be helped? I do love to draw and I want to learn animation and game dev courses at college, but until then I would love to be creative and play my favourite 2D PC games with new characters. Thanks for reading.

[this would be best posted in the "mod dev" forum]

Hey Nadine,

What your talking about is game modding, or game modification. Big hit games (such as starcraft, tiberian sun, freespace, etc) have large fan bases. Usually, some of these fans find ways to crack n'' patch new sounds/graphics/etc into the game. I would really recommend buying starcraft (from blizzard,) because www.camsys.org is a website totally devoted to modding blizzard games (mainly starcraft, though.) Anyway, these are the basic steps to modding a game:

1) Find game data file (most of the time, game data is compressed - zipped - into a file, though usually not just a "zip" file. blizzard uses the "mpq" file.)

2) Find a way to look inside that file

3) Extract any data you want to replace

4) Edit the data

5) Pack the data back up (or create a patch) and load the game using the new pack (or the new patch.)

6) Watch your game either load the new data, or, crash. If it crashes, repeat from step 1


Hope this helps some!

¬_¬

You are at the wrong site. This is a game development site. Here's what you're looking for: www.HackGraphicsFromGamesAndGetGameDevelopersAngryAtYou.com

Oh, maybe there is something here...but check that site out anyways.

[edited by - breakscience on April 30, 2002 11:09:06 AM]

[edited by - breakscience on April 30, 2002 11:10:20 AM]

Maybe someone can move this to the Mod Dev forum. It makes sense here too, I am new to this. But, maybe I''ll get more help there.

You understand, doing this may lead to making my own games, and needing programs to makes sprite animations or look at existing ones is what game makers need also. But I won''t do the hacking games part. I don''t know how to do that at all. I will just do the animating/editing characters. In other words I need someone to work on this with me, or I can hope that a game already allows me to mod it easily. I know this is the case for really popular games, but games like Hunter Hunted and Jazz Jackrabbit 2 I don''t think anyone knows how to mod it. There is a level editor for both games, and that''s about it.

This isn''t something that you are going to be able to do "on a weekend", BTW.

If the game in question is a 2D game and it uses sprites, i would think that you should just be able to view the spirtes and figure out which frame of the sprite does what,(because to the game it knows that if the player wants to jump it should show the jumping animation), which is just a series of sprites. You could easily REPLACE an existing character in a game like this, (provided that the sprite package is easily viewed and modified), but you can not ADD one using this quick little work around.

If you wanted to ADD a character to the game and have this character actually do something native to the original game but exist in the target game, then you will need to learn to code, and obtain the source code to modify it. There really isn''t any other way. You will need for this a compiler (probably c or c++) and an image editor which can save in the native games format.

Good luck.

heh, your going to need to know how to hack your games in order to replace the spirits. Many popular games don''t come with programs that help you hack and replace their characters. sorry. As I say, starcraft is a good place to start because there are lots of tutorials and programs made that can help you. After that, you''ll have more of an idea of how to mod games and may be able to hack those games your talking about.

Hope this helps,
Fuzztrek

¬_¬

trying to replace sprites for a game thats not designed to be modified, is probably gonna be more work then writing your own game. unless of course you can find tools for this, search google. if you find stuff great, but i think you should look into modding games like doom or duke3d (both use only 2d sprites) which have much information on how to change sprites.

Thanks a lot for your help guys. That''s a good idea - to start with games that help you mod the game to maybe understand how to mod games that don''t normally allow you to. I think Duke Nukem 3D is a good start because I love that game, and have ideas for new characters. However, I really hate Starcraft types of games. Okay, I never tried it, but you know when you watch someone play a game you quickly know whether you''d enjoy it or not.

Anyway, are all games equally "moddable"? Like, if I learn how to mod Duke 3D than do I automatically know how to mod another sprite-based game? Games have their own engines, so I don''t know if they are different to mod. Like I said, I''m new to this, and I am afraid that this is a harder thing to do than make my own game. But I guess at the time I have the animations ready (that will take a long time) then I can worry about learning how to put the character in a game, right?

My suggestion:
Since duke nukem 3d and doom are based on an engine too old,you shall move on to real 3d games(i.e.quake,halflife,unreal),and there''re plenty of information(and tools) about modding them on the net(Much mre than duke3d,I think).
Hope this helps...

My suggestion:
Since duke nukem 3d and doom are based on an engine too old,you shall move on to real 3d games(i.e.quake,halflife,unreal),and there''re plenty of information(and tools) about modding them on the net(Much mre than duke3d,I think).
Hope this helps...