Wondering if it's Possible to Make Goldfish for ZT2

[goldenpuon]

I want to make some goldfish from the koi file on MM2.  I was wondering if it's possible to make the goldfish have the behaviors off the blue marlin without making new animations myself to go along with the behaviors.  I also want to make the goldfish an adoptable animal. I know that some frogs have been made adoptable from ambients.  Is this possible?

[penguinman]

I know making a new koi is totally possible, so you could make a koi that looks like a goldfish.

However, making one adoptable would be tricky. I could try to do it myself, but I couldn't explain how as it really just depends

[goldenpuon]

Thanks penguinman,
I was wondering how to code its behaviors in the beh and tsk files.  If I copyed and pasted the beh and tsk files from the blue marlin, and gave it to the goldfish, would it actually have the behaviors of the blue marlin or would it need additional coding or  new animations?

[penguinman]

That wouldn't quite solve it... there's still entites/units/animals/ai files and such that you'd need to actually make an adoptable animal and such. Your best bet would be to code a marlin as normal, and then switch the marlin bfb/bfm files with goldfish ones.

[goldenpuon]

Ok, I know where the bfb and bfm files are.  There may just be a problem though.
I am also making other animals right now and for some reason when I replace the orginal animal's code name in entitles with the same amount of digits in the places I am told to do when coding my skins don't work (animal is white, or icon appears fine and animal is invisible but when placed the invisible animal crashes the game.) instead, I've found that not putting the orginal amount of digits in the places I hear you should place the correct # of digits makes the skins work! For example, this is the case with an animal named wolvez that I made.  I was wondering if its my computer that's causing this and how to get around this because it's getting in the way of coding a lot.
I'm making animals off downloads made from the Thomson's Gazelle, Common Zebra, and Koi.  I've been editing the orginal animal's codename to my animal's in the nif files in the entitles folder and in the folder entitles/units/animals/ai  (xml files ) where it says Example mustang____Adult_F.dds before the animals have been skinned.  I was wondering if I should have changed the codename in these places after they were skinned.

   Thanks!

[penguinman]

Hmm, I don't quite understand, but if it's crashing it's because you incorrectly edited the .bfb or .bfm file.

Sorry, I'm a wee bit confused at what the problem is

[goldenpuon]

I'm talking now other animals and goldfish I'm making because this problem involves both. I have checked and rechecked all the files and I have inserted the correct # of digits in all the dds files for the animal's codename (under entitles) where the # of characters must remain the same for the skin to work.  For example, Zebra_Adult_F.dds can't be changed to (if this was my animal's codename) WildHorse_Adult_F.dds, it would have to be changed to WildH_Adult_F.dds for the skin to work.  My problem is that I'm putting in the right # of digits for the dds file and also adjusting all the nif files and xml files under entitles/units/animals/ai to correspond to the dds files I renamed with the right amount of digits but the animal is still invisible.
Is there a problem with my game or computer?  Is there any place besides the nif under entitles/units/animals/(folder with animal's codename), and xml files under entitles/units/animals/ai where i must type in my animal's dds files?

Sorry about the trouble.

[penguinman]

Ok thanks! Now I understand!

The ONLY files which you should change the codename on are the .dds files. DO NOT shorten the names of any other files. That should solve most problems. If you have any more, tell me

[mikaboshi]

You can only change the "Zebra" in the file if its followed by .dds - if you are changing it anywhere else, it may be causing it to be invisible

[goldenpuon]

I do shorten or lengthen some of the dds files depending on the animal.  For example, on my impala (Thomson's Gazelle) I am making I only lenghtened the Adult_F.dds, Map.dds, and Young_F_.dds with extra "___" because my animal's codename didn't take up enough characters but not he dirty, sick etc. because that's what other people have not shortened when making an animal from a Thomson's Gazelle when I looked at my downloads for reference.

It seems that i'm making the right # of characters, i just checked again.  Is there anywhere besides the nif files and xml files that i should be enserting my dds files?  I noticed that Map.dds appears in one of the nif files but not he xml files.  Could the Map.dds file not appearing anywhere but the nif file have anything to do with my problem? Should I be even be changing the nif files before the animal is skinned?

I know that not every animal has a map.dds so you might want to take a look to see in the Thomson's entitles folder to see what I mean.

[penguinman]

The gazelle is just a bit weird because it has 2 main skins, but don't worry, it's ok.

That's weird... it's kinda hard to find the error... is the main problem that it crashes or that it's white? I may need to take a look.

[mikaboshi]

The nif is the model, and the dds is the skin; in order for the model to be skinned, the nif needs to be edited.

Make sure that you have

1. Spelled everything correctly
2. ONLY changed areas in the nif with .dds file after them
3. changed ALL of the xml files

Now as for map, yes, you need to copy that over (it IS in the file I just checked it) and rename that as well just like you did for everythign else

[goldenpuon]

Sorry, accidently hit post twice

[goldenpuon]

I checked everything again and
he xml, nif files under entiltes match the dds files exactly.  I did everything correctly when I compare what I did with other people who made animals from gazelle.  (I have many gazelle downloads) But, it still isn't working.
What's really weird is an animal named wolvez I made I accidently put 1 extra character in the dds files when I coded it a while ago and the skins still worked but the wolf is white before being placed but after the animal's skin works fine but for some reason it has an extra white skin that I don't think it is supposed to have.  Because it worked well enough , I tryed to do the same for the gazelle (impala) but with no luck.  i've tryed everything i can think of. Is it possible I could email the file to you so you can take a look to see what is going on?

[penguinman]

Ya, just PM me if you want to email it to me and I'll give you my email. Otherwise, I dunno...

[goldenpuon]

I was able to get all the animals onto the game.  The goldfish however, swims very fast, without moving its fins . It exhabits the correct behaviors but won't actually change its swimming pattern when it changes behaviors (example, it won't stop to eat food I put out but just keeps on swimming aimlessly when it does that),  I have to feed it arctic cod otherwise it cannot eat. It keeps on swimming when it runs into a corner of the tank.  I looked for koi files in the other marine mania files for more koi files but couldn't find any besides the ones I already had in the entities folder. ( I made the goldfish off the blue marlin using koi files for the images.) How do I make it swim slower, move its while moving its fins, actually look like it is doing the behaviors, and not swim aimlessly, is there a file I am missing?

Also, my wolvez's name won't appear in the adoption menu when I click on it and doesn't appear in messages either. The wolvez is just called 1, 2 ,etc.

Last, I wanted to know how to check to make sure the gifts for my animals are working but I don't know how to check that on the game because I don't normally keep my zoo open so guests can come in.

Sorry for so many questions.