Shields - Small, Medium, Large and Tower.

Changing to PLT Shields

The default shields are not awful but could be improved - there are 3 main item methods:

1. "Simple" - one model, one texture. Shields currently use this. It doesn't leave you with many actual colours though since it's time consuming to redo the colours again and again for hundreds of entries.
2. "Simple with PLT" - Change to Helm-like PLT texturing. This allows layered colours (6 choices, leather 1/2, metal 1/2, cloth 1/2) on the same model. Also allows DDS overrides which allows for heraldry (but acts like simple - so need to duplicate models).
3. Complex parts based - This is kind of better - you could have shield "parts" top, middle, bottom. However: it doesn't allow PLT, and therefore again limits colours dramatically. Usually used for weapons where it makes more sense - weapons are usually just metal, not wood or anything. There is also issues if you do want a single model, you start using lots of slots for just those variants.

Converting to option 2 is reasonably painless.

Method:

• Check every existing model and check which ones are "duplicates" - eg; ashto_011, ashto_012 and ashto_013 are the same model but reference different parts of the tower texture file.
• Using the silver / closest to grey DDS file we convert to PLT and divide up into layers:
  • Metal 1 - primary metal area
  • Metal 2 - any secondary metal areas
  • Cloth 1 - primary wood area (eg wooden shields wood)
  • Cloth 2 - secondary wood area
  • Leather 1 - primary leather area (eg straps)
  • Leather 2 - secondary leather area
• Rename model files - eg; to "tower" so "tower_001.mdl" - this means renaming the PLT files to match
  • For shields with specific heraldry - we just copy over the DDS file to the new naming convention so if it is tower_010.mdl which is the daggerford heraldry we use that file naming convention for the main DDS
• Add icon PLTs and, for some reason, the toolset needs TGA files as well. Can use a 1x1 tga for this to save space. Example name: itower_001.tga / plt

Now the existing models do have existing model names. Options for this:

• Keep the same model names, eg ashto - tower shields;
  • This is a bit dodgy - sure custom content that adds new shields technically will sorta load, but it will probably not work correctly since the "bitmap" field is ignored
  • It also assumes a clean namespace which isn't always the case due to Bioware testing models 001 with some stuff sometimes
• New model names - this is a "clean break" but breaks all compatibility, eg: "shtow_" or similar
  
  • Can copy ID's to retain the same blueprint compatibility - eg; 011 still is the silver shield variant, with DDS/TGA textures
  • This helps due to the dodgy thing with bitmap field essentially becoming ignored

However there are some bugs (to be reported to Beamdog):

• The toolset only checks for "iNAME_001.tga" - yes only TGA - to display it in the dropdown even if it then loads a PLT file. No idea why since helmets only have .PLT files. Likely as bug (ie helmets are treated as "special")
  • Since it expects a PLT icon however, if only TGA or DDS exist then...it just shows nothing! Weird, but acceptable...
• The game displays icons properly only in these cases:
  • PLT: No TGA or DDS file exists
  • DDS or TGA: These show in normal priority order

Solution to the above: Final client hakpacks have the PLT only or DDS only. For toolset use a developer has to use a Toolset Only hakpack/development folder set of TGA files to "impersonate" the appearances. These can be either simply 1x1 black TGA files, since they should never show in game, or better maybe even just have a pink X or other noticable iconography since the icon won't be really displayed in the toolset; example of one with DDS and TGA only:

We could technically include some kind of PLT icon, maybe impersonating the model, so it makes it easier to view, but again only for development purposes.