So, as i said on my intoducction, i been getting into respriting and i asked myself this:

"Is it possible to make an actor that could spawn with a randomized body?, Also, is it possible with limbs, heads, etc...?"

For example:
There's 3 body sprites on a mod, and the actor within the mod, will spawn with one of the 3 bodies.
Or
How do Ronin's spawn with different heads, every single time?

I don't know how to explain my question well, but this is mod down below is an example of what i'm looking for, but with actors.

viewtopic.php?f=61&t=45902

PS: I'm sorry if this is in the wrong section, i am new here.

Bodies, heads, and helmets, yes; easily. Limbs? I'm not so confident about doing it with those.

The trick for the former set is that they only need a single frame, so you can make an image that has multiple frames with no animation speed and attach a script to the component so that it picks a random frame. This allows you to give a faction a little extra flavour for very little extra work. I use it for my C&C mods to give the fanatics and shadow agents randomized heads, like these guys;



Alternately you can go a little more complex; I believe the Ronin use scripts on the head to spawn random helmets and scripts on the body to spawn random chestplates. It might be possible to do the same with limbs, but I'm not certain.

I see, yea i saw stuff like Head.lua on the ronins, but i don't know how to open or check those lua codes, or i don't know if it is possible.

Also, continuing my noobiness on randomized bodies.

So is like having, lets say, TorsoB000, TorsoB001, TorsoB002, and by the magic of lua, choose a random one for the actor?
And i think limbs would kinda work, except, the animations for the flexing would be all messed up and not fit with the actor at all, wouldn't they?
Or i am completely wrong and the randomized bodies could work without lua?

You can use something as simple as notepad - I personally use notepad++ whenever I'm doing script-tweaking.



Yep. You need to tell the object that it has however-many sprites/frames in the ini code, but other than that, don't set an animation type or speed. Then attach a script like so;



This tells it to pick a random frame between TorsoB000 and TorsoB007. If you only have/want 3 frames, set it t0 random(0,2) instead. Note that the main AI scripts are attached to the torso part as well, so random torso sprites are a tiny bit more complex than just that chunk in the codebox there.

You're right about the limbs thing - that was my point, as you'd get this weird random mess for stretching/retracting. You'd probably need a script on the body that adds seperate arm entities or something.

As far as I know random parts need scripts. The basic stuff is trivial to do, though.

Ohh ok, thanks!
But i'll need to practice this with an actor, yes i was just asking about this and had yet to test it.
But wait, where do i put the ScriptPath on? i have the lua code, and now i know that i have to add it to the ini of an actor so it reads it.

Aside form that, now that were talking about lua, shouldn't this be in the Lua Scripting section?

I usually place the ScriptPath near the top, under or near the PresetName, and you'd attach it to whatever you want randomized.

For example;



This kind of script wouldn't really work with weapons, as they're animated by the engine - it just happened to be the handiest example I could think of.

Ok, i did everything you said, i made the lua, i placed the script under and on top of the PresetName, but it still won't read it.
I don't know if it is because i copied and pasted the ronin's head.lua and replaced the codes with the ones you gave me.

function Create(self)
self.Frame = math.ceil(math.random(0,7))
end

But it still won't recognise it, the game and the actor load just fine, but it the lua won't work, i tried it with heads instead of bodies, for now.

I hate to doble post but please help, it just won't let me, both scripts don't work for me.

I can't tell where it's going wrong from just your description. You'll probably need to upload your progress somewhere so someone can look at the actual code side of things.

Oh ok, well here is the test i ran with some actor form some mod named Dermod.

Your issue has been staring you in the face the whole time; the FrameCount is 1. It should be 6.

Holy crap i never EVER saw that, i never knew that code even it existed!
Well, hey, isn't that how we learn stuff.
Anyways thanks for your help men!