Making Monsters

by BuggsBunny964

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This tutorial is part of the “A Blank Mod” project which can be downloaded in it’s entirety here:

This tutorial will take a myconid and make it bigger and stronger and a different color. It consists of 3 parts, the basic monster code, what it all means, and what you absolutely have to change for a new monster.

I. Getting Started

You start by finding the Monster file in the game, inside is a list of all the beasts. Strangely, Myconids are found in the Mushroomman file. Copy and paste all the files in there, EXCEPT .DDS files and mushroomman_blue.png, into your own Monsters file.

You need to re-color the mushroomman.png, but remember to leave the name the same. Once all that is done, you start a monster.dat file, which is pretty much like an items.dat, only this one tells the game what the monsters are.

Now you go back to the Monsters file in the game, and at the bottom of the page with all the individual mosters on it, is a monsters.dat file. Open it. Find Myconid.

Copy and paste that section of code onto a separate file. This is where you make most of your changes.

A basic monster code section (ie. a template) looks like this:

[MONSTER]
<FAMILY>:
<NAME>:
<RARITY>:
<ALIGNMENT>:
<BRAVERY>:
<BASE_LEVEL>:
<MINIMUM_DEPTH>:
<MAXIMUM_DEPTH>:
<MODEL>:
<COLLISION_MODEL>:
<SCALE>:
<WALKING_SPEED>:
<RUNNING_SPEED>:
<TURN_RATE>:
<VIEW_RADIUS>:
<MOTION_RADIUS>:
<ATTENTION_RADIUS>:
<FOLLOW_RADIUS>:
<HP>:
<NATURAL_ARMOR>:
<TOHIT>:
<STRENGTH>:
<DEXTERITY>:
<VITALITY>:
<MAGIC>:
<EXPERIENCE>:
<DEATH_SOUND>
<IDLE_SOUND>:
<ROAR_SOUND>:
<STEP_SOUND>:
<STRIKE_SOUND>:
<ATTACK_SOUND>:
<ARMED_ATTACK_SOUND>:
<BLOOD_PARTICLE>:
<SOUND_RADIUS>:
<CAN_EQUIP>:
<PREFERRED_WEAPON>:

[UNARMED_ATTACK]
<ANIMATION>:
<RANGE>:
<DAMAGE>:
<DAMAGE_TYPE>:
[/UNARMED_ATTACK]

[/MONSTER]

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II. Definitions

But what does all that mean? Keep reading.

2.1: The Monster tag.

[MONSTER]

This tells the game it's starting a new monster.

2.2: The Family tag.

<FAMILY>:

This is the family the monster is in. The myconid is a Fungus.

2.3: The Name tag.

<NAME>:

Make up a name for your new monster. Anything goes.

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2.4: The Rarity tag.

<RARITY>:

A number from 1 to 1000. Rarity 1 makes the monster very common, 1000 means the monster needs to be summoned ( I think ).

2.5: The Alignment tag.

<ALIGNMENT>:

Evil ( This is what makes it a monster and not a pet ).

2.6: The Bravery tag.

<BRAVERY>:

0 is a wimp and 1 is as high as it gets. Use .1, .2, .3 etc.

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2.7: The Base Level tag.

<BASE_LEVEL>:

The lowest experience level the monster will ever have. You want this to start at 1 or 2 if your monsters minimum depth will be level 1. ( Only monsters with base level 25 or higher can be main quest bosses ).

2.8: The Minimum Depth tag.

<MINIMUM_DEPTH>:

This is the lowest dungeon level you want the monster on.

2.9: The Maximum Depth tag.

<MAXIMUM_DEPTH>:

This is the highest. Some people leave this off and their monster will continue to appear in the game, becoming stronger as you work your way deeper into the dungeon.

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2.10: The Model tag.

<MODEL>:

This is the .sms or .mdl file that defines the structure.

When you write the code, you have to tell the game where to find the mdl file, so you put in directions, first to look in mods, next to look in your mod, next in monsters, last with the mdl file name. It looks like this:

<MODEL>:MODS/your mod's name/MONSTERS/model name.sms or mdl

2.11: The Collision Model tag.

<COLLISION_MODEL>:

MODS/your mod's name/MONSTERS/collision.mdl

This is the collision file that you will find in the file of the monster you are copying. You will have to move it to your monsters file and again tell the game where to find it.

( Keep the file name the same. )

2.12: The Scale tag.

<SCALE>:

Defines how big the monster is. It appears like this: #:# the first number is the size of the original character in the mdl file. Never change that.

The second number tells the game how much to increase or decrease the size. You can make changes in increments as small as 0.1 ( Which is 1 tenth of the original size, or, too little to see ).

Don't go lower than .5, which is half size. 1.0 is the same size as original, 2.0 is twice the size, and so on. In the case of the myconid, I found 1.5 to be plenty big enough for a good fight.

Just remember, the larger the monster is to start with, the less of an increase you should make. You still want him to fit on the screen.

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I recommend leaving these next 7 as they are, until you become more experienced.

2.13: The Walking Speed tag.

<WALKING_SPEED>:

How fast the creature walks.

2.14: The Running Speed tag.

<RUNNING_SPEED>:

How fast the creature runs.

2.15: The Turn Rate tag.

<TURN_RATE>:

How fast the creature turns.

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2.16: The View Radius tag.

<VIEW_RADIUS>:

How far the creature can see.

2.17: The Motion Radius tag.

<MOTION_RADIUS>:

2.18: The Attention Radius tag.

<ATTENTION_RADIUS>:

How close an enemy has to be for the monster to run to attack it.

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2.19: The Follow Radius tag.

<FOLLOW_RADIUS>:

How far away an enemy has to get for the creature to stop following it.

2.20: The HP tag.

<HP>:

The min and max health points this monster has, layed out like this: min:max. Defines how quickly he dies. the lower the number, the easier the kill.

2.21: The Natural Armor tag.

<NATURAL_ARMOR>:

How much natural armor the monster has. They don't wear removable armor so you have to specify how much shielding you want there to be.

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2.22: The To Hit tag.

<TOHIT>:

1-100, How often the monster gets you, instead of missing you. If you want him to get you half the time, use 50. Don't go too high, it'll ruin the fun of the battle.

These next 4 are the same type of character stats that your player has in the game, and the game will raise them as the monster rises in levels.

2.23: The Strength tag.

<STRENGTH>:

How much strength it has.

2.24: The Dexterity tag.

<DEXTERITY>:

How much dexterity it has.

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2.25: The Vitality tag.

<VITALITY>:

How much vitality it has.

2.26: The Magic tag.

<MAGIC>:

How much magic it has.

2.27: The Experience tag.

<EXPERIENCE>:

The base experience you get when you kill it.

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The following SOUNDS should be kept the same.

2.28: The Death Sound tag.

<DEATH_SOUND>:

Sound it makes when it dies.

2.29: The Idle Sound tag.

<IDLE_SOUND>:

Sound it makes when it's not doing anything.

2.30: The Roar Sound tag.

<ROAR_SOUND>:

Sound it makes when it roars.

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2.31: The Step Sound tag.

<STEP_SOUND>:

Sound it maked when it steps.

2.32: The Strike Sound tag.

<STRIKE_SOUND>:

Sound it makes when it strikes.

2.33: The Attack Sound tag.

<ATTACK_SOUND>:

Sound it makes when it attacks.

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2.34: The Armed Attack Sound tag.

<ARMED_ATTACK_SOUND>:

Sound it makes when it attacks armed.

2.35: The Blood Particle tag.

<BLOOD_PARTICLE>:

What color it's blood is, if your game is set to see blood. This one is PURPLEBLOOD.

2.36: The Sound Radius tag.

<SOUND_RADIUS>:

How close you have to be to hear it's various noises

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2.37: The Can Equip tag.

<CAN_EQUIP>:

What weapons it can equip The original monsters file will have a list of weapons. You can take away weapon types, but you cannot add weapon types to this.

2.38: The Preferred Weapon tag.

<PREFERRED_WEAPON>:

What weapons it is most likely to appear with. This tells the game what animation files to use when the monster attacts.

This next block needs to be in this same format. It tells the game what kind of damage to do, and how much.

2.39: The Unarmed Attack Block

[UNARMED_ATTACK]
<ANIMATION>:ATTACK1
<RANGE>:10:14 (the monster's reach)
<DAMAGE>:12:25 (the min and max damage when unarmed)
<DAMAGE_TYPE>:CRUSHING (the unarmed damage type)
[/UNARMED_ATTACK]

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2.40: The Monster tag.

[/MONSTER]

This is the end of the monster file. ( The / is a stop sign for the game ).

III. Making Changes

Now you are ready to change your myconid code into a bigger, stronger, monster. You've copied the myconid code, so which parts do you absolutely have to change?

You always have to rename the new monster, so <NAME>

To get bigger, change <SCALE>

To get stronger, change <STRENGTH>, <HP> and <DAMAGE>

To make it a different color, change ‘mushroomman.png’

To keep it from having an ugly pink shadow on it's head, copy the recolored ‘mushroomman.png’ and name it ‘mushroomman_glow.png’

Those are the bottom line necessities, but you are free to change almost anything. What should you absoluely not change? Don't change any of these: SOUNDS, ANIMATION, FAMILY, the words in [these] codes, the ORDER in which everything is arranged in the original file, and whether or not something is in CAPS.

When you have finished making your changes, save your code in your monster.dat file. Double check it to make sure there are no spaces at the end of each line of code, all the [brackets] are there, the CAPS were used properly, and your speling is perfect. The .dat is already inside your MONSTERS file, so you are ready to go.

Happy Modding!