That captain looks so good, Petros, I'm going to eventually have to breakdown and follow Pieter's advice and load another version of POTC so I can check out the updates. I'd be loath to lose my Build 12 version, but this way I can have my cake and eat it too! Has anyone put a captain on the mysterious black ship that kidnaps children? See below to see why I ask.
Petros, also, I put the Beltrop tga's on the ftp, try saying that three times fast! I also set up a file for Sea Dog Ship tga's, but there is nothing in it at this point. Sea Dogs tf files are, unfortunately, not like POTC files, which are broken up between characters and ships, so I may add more of the files at a later date, but I have to go thru them first and break them up.
<i>Queen: More matter, with less art.
Polonius: Madam, I swear I use no art at all.
That he is mad, ’tis true; ’tis true ’tis pity;
And pity ’tis ’tis true: a foolish figure;
But farewell it, for I will use no art.</i>
<b>Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Act II, Sc. II</b>
Well, on to round two. I'll try to actually demonstrate more of what I'm doing so others like myself, but less willing to take the plunge on modifying tga files, will be encouraged to try it. Keep in mind that as long as you make backups of any files that you are attempting to edit, there's only a limited amount of damage you can do. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/boom.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":boom" border="0" alt="boom.gif" />
Not satisfied with the prospects yielded by the Corsair 1 model I determined to try the searcher model instead. I copied the searcher .gm model, renamed it Beltrop1.gm, hexedited the file so it points to the tx file, yet to be made, of Beltrop1.tx. I like this model because it looks close enough to the Sea Dogs Beltrop model, and I think I can get by without having to do a head swap. (And thereby avoid both work and complication... <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/beer2.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":beer" border="0" alt="beer2.gif" /> )
Here is the tga for the searcher model:
<img src="http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/332ZK34H/811227.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
Slapping Beltrop's coat on the model yields what I feel is a promising result:
<img src="http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/332ZK34H/811217.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
I have to point out here that I had to lighten the pictures that I'm posting here. The models can be pretty dark in the game, and I'm thinking I may have to do some serious brightening to make an even darker Sea Dogs model look right in a POTC world. Also, I'm not working especially carefully at this point, this is basically cut and paste fast and loose because I don't want to put a lot of careful effort into something that I may not even use, I just want to see how it looks.
I'm also learning things as I go, you'll notice that in the second picture Beltrop's shirt collar is black. This is because the collar on the original tga is located in the area below where the belt would go (go figure..) and pasting the coat over the original coat covered it up. This is why I'm getting to like Sea Dogs, and also Voyage Century, tga's over POTC tga's; because they are often cut up into specific body areas, and it can be sometimes difficult on POTC tga's to identify what you are actually changing.
Encouraged by the results with the coat I decided to mess with Beltrop's head.
<img src="http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/332ZK34H/811229.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
This serves as a sort of before/after picture for the tga file. Comparing this picture to the first one you can see where I have pasted the Beltrop tga's onto the searcher tga.
Here is the searcher tga with Beltrop's coat and head. Interestingly, both Sea Dogs and Voyage Century use half head and face tga's, where with POTC you get a complete face. It is a simple matter to copy the one side and flip it to get a complete face, but you have to be careful when you are lining up the eyes to make sure that they are in the right place or you'll cover the eyeholes. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":blink:" border="0" alt="blink.gif" />
<img src="http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/332ZK34H/811226.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
<!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->Look out Oxbay! Desmond Ray Beltrop is in the archipelago! <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
(I used paintshop pro to darken the pants and smooth out the line down the middle of Beltrop's face. I also adjusted the color on his hands so it was closer to the color of his face.)
<img src="http://www.pix8.net/pro/pic/332ZK34H/811225.jpg" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
<!--sizeo:3--><span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->"Dang! that Snakebite is good stuff!"<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc--><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
Looking at this I'm thinking that with the available POTC models this is about the best adjustment that I'm going to get, and so I may focus on fixing the details that will eventually finish the model. I'm not sure that this will create a model that anyone will want to use as a character model, but with his current undead pallor, he strikes me as a good figure to use as the captain of the dark ship that kidnaps children for the Animist cult. He might be a fun opponent to encounter if you try to take the black frigate after dealing with the head of the cult. Either that or this model could be used to replace the head of the cult, who knows? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" />
One of the things that I will definitely attempt is to lighten up his complexion to something closer to human, and also tailor the coat to make it fit the model better.
Let me know what you think!
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" border="0" alt="yes.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
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" border="0" alt="danse1.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/buds.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="buds.gif" /> <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
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" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> also it made me get POTC and made me start my mod packs <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
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" border="0" alt="me.gif" /> brings back some fond memories mate,probably pick up the game fer around $15.00 for those who don't 'ave it. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/buds.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
" border="0" alt="w00t.gif" /> if this can be figured out,add'n new characters to POTC would be awsome <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/yes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="
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" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" /> ) and then use the transparency feature in photo shop to make sure that all of the features from the new image line up with the old one.
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