[Obsolete] SS2 Vurt's Mods

[66483d9463ab1Kolya]

Except for Vurt's "Better Water" these mods are all compatible with SHTUP.
Except for "Better Water" and "Hi Res Space" they can be used with the mod manager.
Generally SHTUP will not take precedence but it depends on which mod we're talking about and how and when you activate it.
Since you seem to activate SHTUP via the mod manager, you should do so first before activating/installing these mods.

I wish Vurt had listened to me and created separate threads for these mods.

[66483d9463bcaMedevila]

@ Better Water, incompatible in the sense that it won't work at all if you have them both installed?

[66483d9463d09Kolya]

No. I think the incompatibility is that SHTUP extended the number of animation frames for water. Which is good, because it makes the animation smoother. But "Better Water" expects the original number of animation frames and hence lacks one or two frames. These then flicker in from SHTUP.
You could delete all files to do with water from SHTUP. Then it should work. They will have "water" in the filename.

[66483d9463fdaKolya]

btw, I think the Vurt's_Hi-Res_Space_v1.0_1024x1024.7z in the first post is actually the 2048*2048 version.

For whatever reason the files
skyb.tga
skye.tga
skyn.tga
are 1024x1024 while
skys.tga
skyt.tga
skyw.tga
are 2048x2048 in that archive.

Meanwhile in the archive "Vurt's Hi-Res Space_2048x2048.7z" all files are 2048x2048.

[66483d94640e5Medevila]

Ok then. :c

At least I'll have purdy lilly pads on the water.

Also if this is modifying the levels to add new plants, wouldn't it be incompatible with Secmod?

[66483d94641c8Kolya]

No, should be fine. The levels are not being modified. Only models and textures are replaced.

[66483d94642f9FlynnUOGM]

I tried applying your sky mods but they kept displaying purely black skies. I opened the pics in an image editor and they themselves are pure black. Not sure whats happening.. ALso I am running on a Win 7 64 bit laptop and I think ddfix is working but not sure - the GUI dont start so I used the SS2Tool app to apply all such patching, not sure if that is included.

Was wondering if all else fails if I could get a torrented copy of your install?

[66483d94643fcFlynnUOGM]

OK - its not your mod its DDFix does not work.. not sure what to do to get this thing working

[66483d94644ecKolya]

The black files you saw are a kind of redirect to the actual textures which are also in the archive. It should work with the latest DDFix which is included in SS2Tool 3.6.

[66483d94645cfFlynnUOGM]

Unfortunatly it doesnt.. I applied the tool and still only see the black backdrop.. not sure what i am doing wrong.

[66483d94646b0Kolya]

AFAIK you should simply extract the archive into the game folder. Is that what you did?
Also does the game work otherwise?

[66483d946478fFlynnUOGM]

Yeah I did - but it still does not use any of the ddraw enhancements for some reason such as the star backdrop and such.

[66483d946487cFironkkuify]

So I guess Vurt's mods don't work at all with mod manager?  Anytime I activate them all I see is a blank black area where the starry space used to be and the water turns invisible.

[66483d9464b39vurt]

Guess it depends on which mods you have active and in which order they're active. Mod managers just makes things a lot more problematic, that's why i never use them myself..

[66483d9464c80voodoo47]

for the hires space, permanent install is recommended - once you see the new space, you will never want to go back to the old one anyway.

[66483d9464dbbFironkkuify]

I would like to use all the mods here, though I guess I'd have to do a permanent install for all of them to work?

The thing is I like using mod manager cause its convienant for a commentator like me.  I also have other plans for SS2.  No doubt enabling certain mods will overwrite stuff for Vurt's mods so I guess one solution may be to copy Vurt's mods into their respective places in the SS2 folder after enabling everything else?

[66483d9464ee4voodoo47]

well I see the point of using a modmanager for gameplay mods such as secmod. but not for the graphics enhancements - you either like those, and in that case you would always want them to be active, or you don't, and in that case you leave them be.

[66483d9465523shug]

So for anyone installing manually, as it just flat out doesn't work with mod manager, since I installed shtup permanently, do this to make space and water mods work...
-Backup or delete the skyhw and waterhw folders inside the fam folder, which is inside DataPermMods.  (if you installed shtup permanently)
-Place the res folder in the root folder of sshock2. (make a res folder to put the ddfix folder inside of, if you are using older versions)
The pcx files in fam seem to pointing here to display the higher resolution files.

This helped a TON.  Thanks a bunch.  I suppose it should have been obvious, but I haven't installed mods for a game in forever.  Now I'm running Vurt's Water v2 and Vurt's Space 2048x2048 in conjunction with SHTUP beta 6 and Rebirth v2 with no problems yet.

But, I have a couple questions for anyone still actually watching this thread.  I ran through the entire thing before I decided to ask them, hopefully I didn't miss something obvious and silly.

1.

How in the world do  I get the plants mentioned here?
https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=3099.msg31179#msg31179

Are they part of " Vurt's SS2 Flora Overhaul v02.7z"?  If so, I already have them installed.

Or, are they part of "Low-poly plantbed.bin.rar"?  If so, I'll install them.

Or, are they unreleased?

2.
Where would I find the egg mentioned here, RocketMan's model + Vurt's skinning?  Because this is absolutely awesome.
https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=3099.msg31306#msg31306

I'm slowly putting together all of my favorite mods, so that if I ever need to reinstall SS2, all I have to do is copy from the iso, run SS2Tool, restart, update ddfix.cfg to remove black screen, configure binds, install MM, fix shoot/use mode, then unzip all the mods into the directory (the things you do for the old games you love).  I can't express enough how awesome this site and community is, a big thanks to everyone that's contributed so much to this game

[66483d9465632vurt]

Of those, just the hydro plants, they should be in the latest flora pack if i remember correctly.

[66483d946570dshug]

What about the egg?

[66483d94657f3vurt]

Nope. I'm sure i have all those things somewhere on my HDD's. It will be released eventually.

[66483d94659a3vurt]

I'll be releasing the egg + goo and some other stuff in a week or two hopefully.

More detailed hi-res space
"Garden" textures
Hi-res bench/chairs
Plants - now with cyber pots!
Goo and eggs!
Improved reeds and water lilys

+ some other stuff (new muzzle flashes, new laser beam, new explosions)

[66483d9465d7dRocketMan]

One guy's opinion:  Space games have a habit of putting things in space to make it prettier which make it less like space and more like a painting... nebulae everywhere, asteroids, whisps of blue and red gas, stellar halos, all sorts of stuff.  The art is phenomenal but I find it too busy and unrealistic when it gets out of hand.  My humble advice would be a) to create a mood or impression that is appropriate and b) not to create too much contrast with the surrounding architecture/environment since an uber-awesome set of objects in a relatively unimpressive room can be an immersion breaker.  I mean this in the best possible way of course since your work is superb

[66483d9465f7cvurt]

Yes, i should have stated that the image isn't very representative of how it looks from within the game under normal circumstances (i cheated myself through a window to be able to see the red nebula and all other stuff i've made). This is how it looks from one of the larger windows in the game:

Image: http://piclair.com/data/p2e37.jpg

Image: http://piclair.com/data/xkc8l.jpg

I'm not even sure that red nebula is visible from anywhere.. the idea was to make space "busy" enough to look interesting and different depending on which window you're looking from, so that it will always be nice to come to a room with a view It's still clearly a bit over-the-top maybe, i guess i could make a more "boring" version as an alternative