[LVL ED] Black&White screen effect possible?

[DeAngelo]

I know I'm the village idiot running into the city hall meeting naked screaming "I GOT AN IDEA!", but couldn't you just make custom versions of a bunch of objects, edit the mat or dds or whatever files to be b&w and pop that into the game? I did that once to give a grunt clown makeup. Obviously things like the inventory screen or damage would still have color, but it would theoretically accomplish the effect on a smaller scale if the bigger stuff doesn't work out.

[Romulator]

I know I'm the village idiot running into the city hall meeting naked screaming "I GOT AN IDEA!", but couldn't you just make custom versions of a bunch of objects, edit the mat or dds or whatever files to be b&w and pop that into the game? I did that once to give a grunt clown makeup. Obviously things like the inventory screen or damage would still have color, but it would theoretically accomplish the effect on a smaller scale if the bigger stuff doesn't work out.

It becomes extremely repetitive, let alone, requires a full edit of practically every .dds file

I have done this before. It is accomplishable simply by following the instructions. The core part about it though makes it tough - by changing stuff in there, you are hoping the user does not mind with the Vanilla Amnesia becoming not so Vanilla anymore. Editting core files is never a good idea unless you know what you are doing.

[daortir]

There's no editing of core files with what DeAngelo suggested u_u. You just recolor the assets to be black and white, you can save them under different names. Basically the player thinks the screen has a B&W effect while actually it's the assets that are black and white ^^.

No need to mess around with anything else than dds and dae files if I'm not mistaken.

The only problem I cna see is that it makes a lot of models to recolor though, even for a basic room with a little bit of detailing it might be a lot of work.

[Romulator]

There's no editing of core files with what DeAngelo suggested u_u.

Ahh, I meant the instructions on doing this as suggested with using screen effects and not texture recoloring - sorry if that wasn't clear

I'm sorry for constantly ninja'ing you Mudbill

[Mudbill]

There's no editing of core files with what DeAngelo suggested u_u. You just recolor the assets to be black and white, you can save them under different names. Basically the player thinks the screen has a B&W effect while actually it's the assets that are black and white ^^.

No need to mess around with anything else than dds and dae files if I'm not mistaken.

The only problem I cna see is that it makes a lot of models to recolor though, even for a basic room with a little bit of detailing it might be a lot of work.

He was talking about the "core" method here, which involves editing these shaders in the game. I don't think those can be overridden by a FC mod, but it would be great if they could. Would make a lot of possibilities available for modders.

Edit: THROW A SMOKE AND GO FOR THE NINJA DEFUSE!

[Romulator]

He was talking about the "core" method here, which involves editing these shaders in the game. I don't think those can be overridden by a FC mod, but it would be great if they could. Would make a lot of possibilities available for modders.

I'll just clarify this with what I said to DnALANGE:

"The ONLY way [I am aware of] to get around that is to pretty much make your own [standalone] Amnesia ... dunno how "legal" it is though. ... Think of it like AAMFP - it's a piggyback (no pun intended) of Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

FC's therefore should be able to get around it if they are COMPLETELY isolated from the original Amnesia.

The only workaround would be to replace core files and then reinstall them once the mod has been uninstalled or the user requests it. A simple few batch commands may do the trick:

Code: (Select All)

1.    Run batch file
  2.    Open core folder and replace stuff
  3.    Replace any other stuff to correspond to core changes.
  4.    Run Amnesia.exe with Full Conversion's main_init.

Do While Amnesia.exe is not running
  5.1   Replace replaced files with old files.
  5.2   Close batch.
Loop

^Probably would or would not work. But is an idea.

But that's off topic.

[Mudbill]

How about writing the custom file, starting the mod, then destroying the file and place the original back in place as soon as the game has loaded it into its memory? Of course Windows might not allow you to do this if a program is using it, but it has to be possible in some ways, because I know files CAN be modified while running, therefore I think it's just an automated restriction to prevent corruption within Windows.

I kinda get the impression that restoring the file afterwards can fail in many cases if the task is shut down unexpectedly.

[Acies]

Hmm.. I have been thinking about this issue - since I intend to change around some shaders. Would be nifty to have a launcher which has buttons for;

Button A. Launch the mod

Button B. Change filenames to fit mod:
Shaderfile1.glsl --> Shaderfile1_Original.glsl
Shaderfile2.glsl --> Shaderfile2_Original.glsl
Shaderfile1_Modname.glsl --> Shaderfile1.glsl
Shaderfile2_Modname.glsl --> Shaderfile2.glsl

Button C. Change filenames to original:
Shaderfile1.glsl --> Shaderfile1_Modname.glsl
Shaderfile2.glsl --> Shaderfile2_Modname.glsl
Shaderfile1_Original.glsl --> Shaderfile1.glsl
Shaderfile2_Original.glsl --> Shaderfile2.glsl

The user would have to manually swap between 'Mod-mode' and 'Original content' through the launcher, basically renaming a lot of files quickly.

Could possibly be made customizable by having a separate textfile which specifies which files to rename, so that each user may go and specify what sort of core files they want to swap.

[DnALANGE]

Then Button 3 for WHAT mod the want to launch?
Would be an amazing idea!!
I should do it ;
Button : A = What mod you want to play?
Button : B = Choose between : Original and Advanced\Custom shaders\core files.
Button : C = Play
---
Could someone give this a try?
TO add a small simple version with a TXT how to do this..?

[Mudbill]

Maybe I could try incorporating something like this in my mod loader. Using settings like "CustomShaders=true" to allow it to copy over files from mod_folder/shaders. Would be interesting, but first I'd need to dig deeper into this to fully understand it myself.

Alteratively I could try making just a small, separate "patcher" sort of app.

If I am to just quickly think of how it could work within the app, how about this:

1. Check if folder "shaders_original" exists.
2. If not, rename "shaders" to "shaders_original." If it does exist, delete /shaders (because they're probably already modded ones).
3. After that, copy /shaders from the mod into original Amnesia root.

1. To unpatch, check if "shaders_original" exists.
2. If not, error (something manual has been done to interupt it and the original files may be gone).
3. If it exists, delete /shaders and rename "shaders_original" back to "shaders."