Hey all, I'm looking to make my first mod and I thought I'd start with something simple. I wanted to make a simple clear/smoked taillight mod for the ETK I. To understand the process I tried reverse-engineering dreaM^_'s mod for the bastion that has the look I'm trying to get but I'm still having trouble understanding what files I need to edit, and what programs to edit them with Any help is appreciated!! Also, since I'm new to all of this, I'm not sure if it's considered acceptable to look through someone's modfiles to understand their work. I'm not stealing any assets, but if that isn't kosher here just say so.
Yes it is completely ok to look at other people's mods in order to learn stuff since the official documentation is a bit lacking. Just make sure you get the mod maker's permission if you use anything from their mod. Anyways, on to the actual question here lol WARNING! I did not make this mod. I just explored files and stuff, and because of this I may have missed something. If you try it and it doesn't work blame me being lazy lol. Also let me know and I can help figure out what went wrong. After looking into the files myself and comparing them to the vanilla bastion, there seems to be a few different files you need to make. #1: A new DAE file that includes only the taillight model of the car in question, but with a new material for your new texture. You can accomplish this by opening the model from the game files, deleting everything but the taillights, renaming the model of the taillights so they don't conflict, renaming the materials so you can map the new texture on them, and exporting that as a new .DAE. Usually for modding this game people use Blender, a free modelling program. For your taillights, they have separate materials for the different kinds of light, so just rename them all (including etki_lights and etki_signal_R, which isn't pictured) #2: Looking at the bastion mod's files, there seem to be two edited texture files, [texturename]_b.color.DDS and [texturename]_dmg_b.color.DDS. These two textures also exist for the etki, however there are alt versions for different markets. I will just be using the main ones because that means I have to type less. Now I'm weird when it comes to texture making so my process is probably more complicated than what other people do, but it works. First, I take etki_lights_b.color.DDS and put it into Photopea, which is basically free browser photoshop, and make the color black and white, adjusting the values until it all looks pretty uniform. Then I export it as a png. This is my result, keep in mind you will need to do these steps for the broken light texture too. Next I open the new image I made in Paint.Net, and save the image as a .DDS file with the setting BC7 (sRGB, DX 11+). This is important, if this isn't done right the texture will look washed out in game. I also rename the new textures to avoid conflictions, I named my example here etki_lights_clear_b.color.DDS #3: Now onto the fun part, code!/s Create a folder in your mods folder called "unpacked", this is how we make edits to the mod while also having it appear ingame. For some people when they make edits like this the game updates it automatically, but for me I have to restart the game to see my changes. anyways our file needs to be structured in a specific way for it to even show up. First, the mod folder. That should be something like "etki_clearlights" or whatever. Next, you need a "vehicles" folder inside of that, and an "etki" folder inside of the "vehicles" folder. It should go like mods/unpacked/etki_clearlights/vehicles/etki. Now put your new DDS files and DAE file inside of that etki folder. Open up the ETK I's folder from the game files and copy main.materials.JSON and etki_taillight.JBEAM to your new etki folder. I usually edit these files with Notepad++. I'll split this next section into two parts, the JBEAM and the materials file. Materials: First and foremost, rename main.materials to something like etkiclear.materials to avoid conflicts. Now I hate working with materials, so this may not work straight away and may need some experimentation on your part, or someone else better at this to help you. See how the bastion mod's material file cleartails.materials.json has a bunch of materials, but the textures mapped to them are all the same? That's what we are going to do. I've attached a quick example here using the names I've been using. This does not have all the materials, you'll have to add in the rest for learning purposes, definitely not because I don't feel like it. JBeam: Remember that etki_taillight.JBEAM file I had you copy over to your mod a while ago? Rename it so it doesn't conflict, mine is etki_taillight_clear.jbeam. Inside of this file there is a lot of stuff, but don't panic! I'll go over this step by step. On line 2, there is a name in quotes. this is the internal name of the part, so it must be changed in order to not conflict with the vanilla taillights. I just simply changed it to etki_taillight_clear. On line 5 there is a "name" section. I changed "Taillights" to "Clear Taillights". Now, from line 9 to 17 you will see the "flexbodies" section, this is the 3d model of the part. See on line 14 and 16 how it says "etki_taillight_R" and "etki_taillight_L" right at the beginning? Rename those to the new names you gave your part in the DAE from step 1. Mine were "etki_taillight_R_clear" and "etki_taillight_L_clear". Aaaaaand that is it I think! If you load up the game and pick the ETK I, when you try to change the taillight you should see a "Clear Taillights" option that, when selected, actually loads and works! However, it probably doesn't work because modding like this never works first try. Unless you are super lucky and/or skilled lol. If that's the case, ask away! Or try and figure it out yourself, whatever you feel like doing. Clearly I've spent wayyyyyy longer typing this than I should have so I'll stop now. Good luck!
Getting Thank you so much for the massive write up, it's been immensely helpful. Only catch I have so far is figuring out these .materials files, they're a pain but hopefully I'll have everything sorted soon If you have any posts you could link me to that talk about creating materials files that would be amazing, but seriously don't feel like you need to do anything else to help me more
Can i just say a massive fucking thank you for somehow managing to convey the way to do this in a way i can actually understand, as so far nothing has worked and ive tried many many times to make little mods like this. You're a legend
Hey! It seems you guys figured it out a while ago and I’m just seeing this now for the first time but I wanted to say thank you it means a lot to even see my name mentioned somewhere. If you need anymore help or get stuck somewhere let me know and I’ll try my best
