How to change the original world without cooking
This is "How To Insert A Chest Into The Original Game" (means making a small mod)..
So no creation of usercontent is required/wanted.
Up to now you would have to upload a 1 GB sized usercontent folder
to distribute a small mod which for example would introduce an additional chest only.
(As you might know Codeprojekt is working on a solution allowing small mods without cooking a whole game level.)
Meanwhile you might use this workaround where I'll explain
how to insert a chest into the original game.
As a warning: as this is experimental so far you should NOT create savegames with this modified environment.
You have been warned so don't blame me!
From the screenshot
you can see it's working for me but because I didn't understand all
the dependencies (see mystic part) I'm not sure whether it will work for you, too.
Also you should NOT try this if you didn't cook your own small world so far
(although cooking does not seem to be required; this will just prove your level of understanding being sufficient).
Basically this is all being required: a new bridge.w2l
in [TheWitcher2_install_dir]:\The Witcher 2\CookedPC\levels\l02-port\troll_bridge
How to create this layer file? So, here we go:
------------------------------
create your own small level as shown in Klabautermann's tut for example.
Then copy the folder troll_bridge from [Witcher2]:\The Witcher 2\data\levels\l02-port
to your folder MyLevel. (You might have noticed some files changing when copying them via AssetBrowser.
For some intuitive reason I wanted to have a 1:1 copy so I think I copied it in the explorer.)
(And yes, there are several objects floating and some path areas are missing but -
well, want a quick solution?
Or want to blame me? Then try it on your own way - see remarks below.)
Load your level (load all) select layer bridge (in group troll_bridge) and add a chest to your level.
(I used a low_quality_big_chest. You don't need to modify its inventory as I did.)
Then save the world (harhar, "SAVE THE WORLD, spiderman") and "Play Game on current layers"
just to assure the chest is in and can be opened.
At last create the folder
[TheWitcher2_install_dir]:\The Witcher 2\CookedPC\levels\l02-port\troll_bridge
and copy the bridge.w2l (from \data\levels\MyLevel\troll_bridge) into it.
Close REDkit (this is save; if you only "Close World" you'll get a final blackscreen ingame.)
Start the game, load a savegame which brings you near troll_bridge and hopefully
you'll find your chest near the troll.
> I couldn't believe this being so easy!
(With the chest having a collision shape applied the creation of a Nav mesh is not required.
Geralt will simply jump onto the chest when it blocks his way.)
--------------------
If it's not working:
well, there might be different reasons.
First of all: you didn't follow the steps exactly. Your bad.
But the true reasons might be some actions done by me not explained here. My bad.
I added a Start quest and a staring point to MyLevel, cooked and played it.
I unpacked pack0.dzip, overwrote the bridge.w2l with the new one and so on.
Renamed pack0 to dxzip.
None of these actions seemed to be required to make the chest appear ingame.
But in this process some file(s) might have been changed unnoticed by me.
To get it working you might create a partitions file (see picture below), then save the world
and look whether the bridge.w2l file has changed. If so copy it to CookedPC\levels... and try again.
----------------------------------------------
This is what I call the "mystic part":
I erased the MyLevel folder in data\levels including my inv_armors_leather template
and the chest nevertheless had the inventory containing the items defined by this template.
But I don't have a clue where the engine gets the chest inventory items data from. Maybe from the bridge.w2l file?
This has to be investigated - sadly you can't edit w2l files in REDkit.
It's even getting stranger: I added more armors to the template. Playing the level in REDkit
the chests contain all the armors. But on a "save World" the bridge.w2l doesn't change (same bytes contained).
So it's not this file where the inventory data is being stored.
(I think I'll have to start from cratch with different items in my inv_armors template to see them appear in the original game.
Also it might be a good idea directly adding the items to the chest template instead to the referenced inv_armors template.)
This is "How To Insert A Chest Into The Original Game" (means making a small mod)..
So no creation of usercontent is required/wanted.
Up to now you would have to upload a 1 GB sized usercontent folder
to distribute a small mod which for example would introduce an additional chest only.
(As you might know Codeprojekt is working on a solution allowing small mods without cooking a whole game level.)
Meanwhile you might use this workaround where I'll explain
how to insert a chest into the original game.
As a warning: as this is experimental so far you should NOT create savegames with this modified environment.
You have been warned so don't blame me!
From the screenshot
you can see it's working for me but because I didn't understand all the dependencies (see mystic part) I'm not sure whether it will work for you, too.
Also you should NOT try this if you didn't cook your own small world so far
(although cooking does not seem to be required; this will just prove your level of understanding being sufficient).
Basically this is all being required: a new bridge.w2l
in [TheWitcher2_install_dir]:\The Witcher 2\CookedPC\levels\l02-port\troll_bridge
How to create this layer file? So, here we go:
------------------------------
create your own small level as shown in Klabautermann's tut for example.
Then copy the folder troll_bridge from [Witcher2]:\The Witcher 2\data\levels\l02-port
to your folder MyLevel. (You might have noticed some files changing when copying them via AssetBrowser.
For some intuitive reason I wanted to have a 1:1 copy so I think I copied it in the explorer.)
(And yes, there are several objects floating and some path areas are missing but -
well, want a quick solution?
Or want to blame me? Then try it on your own way - see remarks below.)
Load your level (load all) select layer bridge (in group troll_bridge) and add a chest to your level.
(I used a low_quality_big_chest. You don't need to modify its inventory as I did.)
Then save the world (harhar, "SAVE THE WORLD, spiderman") and "Play Game on current layers"
just to assure the chest is in and can be opened.
At last create the folder
[TheWitcher2_install_dir]:\The Witcher 2\CookedPC\levels\l02-port\troll_bridge
and copy the bridge.w2l (from \data\levels\MyLevel\troll_bridge) into it.
Close REDkit (this is save; if you only "Close World" you'll get a final blackscreen ingame.)
Start the game, load a savegame which brings you near troll_bridge and hopefully
you'll find your chest near the troll.
> I couldn't believe this being so easy!
(With the chest having a collision shape applied the creation of a Nav mesh is not required.
Geralt will simply jump onto the chest when it blocks his way.)
--------------------
If it's not working:
well, there might be different reasons.
First of all: you didn't follow the steps exactly. Your bad.
But the true reasons might be some actions done by me not explained here. My bad.
I added a Start quest and a staring point to MyLevel, cooked and played it.
I unpacked pack0.dzip, overwrote the bridge.w2l with the new one and so on.
Renamed pack0 to dxzip.
None of these actions seemed to be required to make the chest appear ingame.
But in this process some file(s) might have been changed unnoticed by me.
To get it working you might create a partitions file (see picture below), then save the world
and look whether the bridge.w2l file has changed. If so copy it to CookedPC\levels... and try again.
----------------------------------------------
This is what I call the "mystic part":
I erased the MyLevel folder in data\levels including my inv_armors_leather template
and the chest nevertheless had the inventory containing the items defined by this template.
But I don't have a clue where the engine gets the chest inventory items data from. Maybe from the bridge.w2l file?
This has to be investigated - sadly you can't edit w2l files in REDkit.
It's even getting stranger: I added more armors to the template. Playing the level in REDkit
the chests contain all the armors. But on a "save World" the bridge.w2l doesn't change (same bytes contained).
So it's not this file where the inventory data is being stored.
(I think I'll have to start from cratch with different items in my inv_armors template to see them appear in the original game.
Also it might be a good idea directly adding the items to the chest template instead to the referenced inv_armors template.)
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