Rudimentary Model Editing to help with Arachnophobia

[665b16612d4ddPark Chan Poot]

Rudimentary Model Editing to help with Arachnophobia

Howdy gang,

I have just recently gotten into System Shock 2, and going into it, I knew about the spiders, and went in with the plan to just use Jocke's mod to delete them from the game.  What I was not anticipating was my adoration for the game, and the desire to try to be as true to the original as possible (not counting SCP and major fixes like that.) So I have come to a dilemma, I can play the game without feeling like I'm going to pass out, but I also feel like deleting 3 types of enemies really cripples the difficulty by a noticeable margin. I tried with the mod off, and I flat out couldn't do it. No matter how hard I tried to power through, the adults just flat out made me too sick to continue.


I was wondering, is there a way to edit the models in such a way that the spiders behave the same way 'stat' wise, poison damage, all that jazz, but the model itself is modded/hacked/edited to shit to such a degree that it is unrecognizable? I made my own sprite for Terraria to replace the spiders with MS Paint-grade circles, but I realize that a 2D sprite doesn't stack up to a 3D model.  It does not need to look good, as long as it is less spidery (a jumping cube would do the trick!) I was initially thinking of just pasting over the texture file with a photo or a meme or something to make it less 'cohesive,' but I have no earthly clue how to edit crf files and redistribute them back into the game. I opened up the mesh.crf file, and it's all greek to me, I'm afraid. I got a buddy who does a lot with Blender, so if we can somehow figure out the tech side of things, we got the model in the bag

At this point, I'm so addicted to the game that I would be willing to pay someone to make this a reality. System Shock is just too good. I apologize if a post of this caliber is kind of…I guess weak in the context of all the other posts here. I was just wanting to put out my feelers and see what I can dig up. If this belongs in a different thread, please let me know!

Thank you for reading, I greatly appreciate it! The talent of this modding scene never fails to amaze me.

[665b16612d6caPacmikey]

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[665b16612d883voodoo47]

there is a mod that replaces spiders with worms, not perfect, but that is probably as good of a SS2 experience an arachnophobiac can have.

[665b16612da29Park Chan Poot]

Wait, could it be possible to just use the invisible texture for the adults later on for the ones that appear on deck 4? Those still suck, but a little less than the visible ones.

[665b16612db3evoodoo47]

you can set any AI type to be completely invisible by simply assigning the prop via a dml (mod)file. a single snap of your fingers.

though I fail to see how that would help an arachnophobiac, if they are scared when a visible spider is attacking, then an invisible one would probably be a pure nightmare.

[665b16612dea1Park Chan Poot]

Pacmikey
Best I can do is $50 now, $50 when I finish the game 

I dig more digging, and found the files to mess with. I downloaded Dark Engine Viewer, and funnily enough, got jumpscared when the first model was the goddamn adult spider! Made me chuckle, after my pulse reached double digits again. So now that I found it, I just need to figure out how to mess with the model...

[665b16612e2fePark Chan Poot]

If you're going the model route, have your Blender Buddy install...

I added it in, and I am getting 'The Dark Engine AI mesh format is not supported' in the system console when trying to open a .bin file. Do you have any experience with the plugin?

[665b16612e5f2Park Chan Poot]

voodoo47I should clarify, I mean the semi-transparent ones you find later on when you get to the Rickenbacker. Their semi-transparancy makes their horrible legs and features easier to hide, thus not setting off the alarms in my monkey brain to panic. I just used summon_obj invisibile arachnid to see how I would fare with them, I haven't gotten past deck 3 personally yet.

If that effect is... I guess a layer or an overlay... that can be applied to existing models, then that would be a good solution if I can't find out how to fiddle around with the models in their entirety.

If that is indeed what you are referring to, then could you explain what you mean by the dml (mod)file is something to look at?

I appreciate your response, have a good one!

[665b16612e722voodoo47]

download gamesys.dml and place it into any modfolder to make all the spiders semi-transparent. if you want to try something more surreal, get the other download which will turn all spiders into cereal.

[665b16612ea6cPark Chan Poot]

voodoo47You are pretty damn amazing, Voodoo. It worked like an absolute charm, and the cereal boxes made me absolutely howl. Thank you for the laugh, but more importantly, thank you for allowing me to continue to play this wonderful game!

[665b16612ed69sarge945]

to me, being attacked by sentient cereal seems far more scary than spiders, somehow.

I guess I'm not an arachnophobe so I will never understand it.

[665b16612f000Park Chan Poot]

to me, being attacked by sentient cereal seems far more scary than spiders, somehow.

The frightening part is you only see the exterior of the cereal box, you never get to look inside at the spider presumably controlling the box. It’s truly horrific

[665b16612f13avoodoo47]

not sure whether I would call it that, but whatever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDPgfJMCu5U

[665b16612f3dbsarge945]

not sure whether I would call it that, but whatever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDPgfJMCu5U

A mod to surpass the likes of the Toothbrush hybrid and the Candy Cane wrench.

What would actually be nifty is if someone could model the Repair Bot from SS1, that looks spiderey but robotic enough to maybe not trigger arachnophobia, and would fit much better into the lore of the game than the cereal boxes.

Not sure why a repair bot would be vulnerable to anti-annelid damage, though. But then again, so is cereal...