When testing the NWNCX open faced helmet feature I found an usage for custom head type of item. Without engine modifications that is.
Purpose? To spare a space in a helmet baseitem pool. Especially if one would going to introduce a complete set of head-based specific models.
Reason? Because engine doesn't support custom helm baseitem type. Toolset won't show up in list anything and the only thing you see is a helm001 model without texture because usage of PLT seems to be hardcoded into certain baseitem types.
However... engine will instead of helm render anything else. I tried to put into head slot boots and a bag appeared on a head. Not like this but still funny. Anyway so I was researching further and I found that engine will render any model instead of helm but as I said earlier, it won't be able to use PLT which is a killer (however VFX helm/head accessory shares the same issue).
Still, it is possible to reuse this. Monster heads like the ones the Carcerian made for CCC are a good example of a item that would be usable with basic TGA texture (variations can be made as a new model anyway). Just keep in mind you need an inventory icon too.
I've prepared a hak with modified baseitems for demonstration. The new baseitem on line 113 is called "Head" in toolset. Only one model is available now and its a wolf head from CEP1 in three copies to demonstrate that this is not limited to single piece. Excuse me for an inventory icon and texture, I made it from a screenshot from game since I havent found a way how to transform PLT into tga. As I said, just a demo.
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