New creatures (to improve) for DK-FX : Dark Knight and Gemstone Knight

[TazioFirelli]

Hi keepers,
A long awaited minion is maybe about to born : The dark knight is coming into your dungeon, beware!
Basically i used the knight resources to make a more "darky" one by working onto the png pictures colours, learning by mistakes.
I didn't forget the broken horn but i'm not an artist to do that really properly.
I wanted him to be easily recognised from the heroic one, I hope it's works.
But the colours are different ingame, due to the limited palette; but when I apply the palette within a picture program the result is more ugly than when the game do the same thing himself, so I lay this ones for now.
He comes with his lair (ugly, yes); a dark form of the heroic generic with war trophies took from other creatures (dragon skull, human skulls, gold bag, sword and helmet in a compostion. The perfect "y point" for the lair is to be found.
Finally, I purpose stats for the dark knight to make him a good warrior but not a tricky one, really weaker than the common knight but more resistant than an orc and reliable than a mistress for example.

To be more accurate, some extracts from the config files (quite different from the picture) :
Name=DARK_KNIGHT
Health=750
Strength=65
Armour=85
Dexterity=125
Defence=90
Luck=13
BaseSpeed=32
AttackPreference=MELEE
Pay=320

Attraction :
EntranceRoom=TRAINING BARRACKS TORTURE
RoomSlabsRequired=25 9 9
BaseEntranceScore=14
TortureTime=1500

Annoyance :
StandingOnDeadEnemy=-200
NoSalary=2500
Slapped=500
StandingOnDeadFriend=-50
InTorture=18
InTemple=-40
GotWage=-1000
WinBattle=-1000
Untrained=10000 250
LairEnemy=NULL
AngerJobs=KILL_CREATURES JOIN_ENEMY

Powers=SWING_WEAPON_SWORD NULL ARMOUR NULL SLOW NULL NULL SPEED GRENADE WORD_OF_POWER
PowersLevelRequired= 1 0 2 0 5 0 0 8 10 10

PrimaryJobs=TRAIN FIGHT BARRACK
SecondaryJobs=GUARD
TrainingValue=3
TrainingCost=30
ScavengeValue=3
ScavengerCost=45
ResearchValue=0
ManufactureValue=1
PartnerTraining=75

... => what do you think about this stats? Which adjustments must be done?

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By working on the dark knight, I made an other unit by remember the "stone knights" at the end of DK2 and I thought a "gemstone" knight covered by gems will be fancy...
So let me introduce the gemstone knight, a really hard to destroy alternative to the common knight to end a level with a spicy and long-resistant final boss.
He's slow but determinate, not really strong but enough resistant to need several attacks and a well thought path to dungeon heart to be defeated.
The ideas is a creature FULL of gold that come by script directed to dungeon heart with a dig capacity, who explode on death, without imprisonment or torture (but he comes with death and torture animations)
But if he is a keeper creature, I want him to be very greed and irrascible, week to slaps, always at work (train, manufacture) without rest except for (enormous) pay; going psycho on angry, with no way of healing.
The visuals are... shinny with A LOT of gems and quite uninvolved according to be a fancy work but i hope it will please.
For the stats I purpose (quite different from the picture) :

Name=GEMSTONE_KNIGHT
NameTextID=276
Health=4500
HealRequirement=0
HealThreshold=0
Strength=60
Armour=150
Dexterity=75
Defence=150
Luck=6
Recovery=0
HungerRate=0
HungerFill=0
HurtByLava=0
BaseSpeed=24
GoldHold=50000
Pay=1500
SlapsToKill=1
Properties=UNAFFECTED_BY_WIND IMMUNE_TO_GAS HUMANOID_SKELETON LORD IMMUNE_TO_BOULDER NO_IMPRISONMENT IMMUNE_TO_DISEASE TREMBLING_FAT ILLUMINATED

annoyance:
EatFood=0
WillNotDoJob=150
InHand=10
NoLair=0
NoHatchery=0
WokenUp=0
StandingOnDeadEnemy=-100
Sulking=4
NoSalary=4000
Slapped=2500
StandingOnDeadFriend=100
InTorture=25
InTemple=-75
Sleeping=0
GotWage=-1000
WinBattle=-150
AngerJobs=STEAL_GOLD MAD_PSYCHO

Powers=SWING_WEAPON_SWORD ARMOUR NULL SIGHT NULL WIND NULL REBOUND WORD_OF_POWER FIRST_PERSON_DIG
PowersLevelRequired= 1 1 0 4 0 6 0 8 10 1
LevelsTrainValues= 3500 5000 8500 12000 18000 25000 33000 45000 60000
SleepExperience=HEART_PEDESTAL 100
ExperienceForHitting=30

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But I don't only want to share but to learn and increase cause I have more projects : Can someone help me by answer?
I'm to tired tonight to think about everything :
- How to modify "gtext_eng" and the others properly to add the true name of the creature and remove the base unit name id? (I tried and failed, loosing all the texts ingame by adding a new entry...)
- How to use the palette properly? I discover gimp (and bimp) to follow other creature creators advices but I don't understand half of bimp use... more specifics questions will follow later.
- How (if possible) to config a creature to not sleep neither eat, and to not be allowed to be healed at all?
- How to create a now creature spell properly (to don't learn by to many tests and oversights)
- How to ... I forget my questions for tonight, more will come throught the following messages on the same theme of applicate creature making here and in other threads.

Thank you for reading, english is not my langage, and thanks for answers. I hope this stuff will enjoy someone, it's free to use and improve.

dark_knight.zipgemstone_knight.zipdark_knight.zipgemstone_knight.zip

[Spatulade]

These are quite cool. The idea of the Dark Knight is quite well-balanced, like you said, weaker than a hero Knight but more resistant than an Orc. I'd have to try ingame but it sounds well thought out. The room requirements and annoyance make sense too.

The Gemstone Knight sounds interesting and quite scary - a slow, very powerful knight that can tunnel toward you, that explodes once defeated. It's a cool boss idea. SlapsToKill = 1 seems a little cruel if a Keeper did own one though. Visually these look okay, but I'd have to play to see how they look.


To answer your questions:

- name:
1 - [how to?] modify the "gtext_eng.dat" file to add a new entry for the creature name "Dark_Knight"
2 - modify the others "gtext" files with the name in corresponding language (or just yours)
3 - in the "dark_knight.cfg" file, specify the new n°# index for the creature ingame name (in place of the normal knight n°#)

The best way I've found to edit the .dat file is to use the Dungeon Keeper String Editor, which will let you change the strings you want to change, and the number in the list is the ID for the ingame name (look at the ID from the normal Knight and see where that is in the list for reference). You can then bundle these modified .dat files for people to use.

- Visuals
1 - find the perfect "y" point for lair and indicate it in the "sprites.json' file in "dark_knight.zip"
2 - Rebalance colour to fit perfectly with the dk palette (but the result is more ugly)

The "x" and "y" offset point for most ingame sprites is usually the sprite's bottom middle, so for your sprite it should be (47,112). (the "y" should be around 112).
As for recolouring the sprites, you may already have it, but there is an ingame palette, and a palette file for use in GIMP, which you can turn on and it will match your images to the closest colour (but this often makes the images look bad). One other way of doing this that will look better but will take longer is to combine all the sprites into a single image and converting each colour one at a time to a new one.

[YourMaster]

The y offset should not be the very bottom of the image, but the location what's the bottom center of whatever item you see, counting for perspective.
So, if this is your sprite:


You want the location of spot A.

[ben_lp91]

Hi Tazio,

i like your creatures. would you mind to upload them on our Workshop on the Homepage? : https://keeperfx.net/

I would like to convert the Campagne from DK2 to DK1 and your creatures, especially the Gem Knight, would be overwhelming in the last Level Am i allowed to use them ?

[TazioFirelli]

These are quite cool. The idea of the Dark Knight is quite well-balanced, like you said, weaker than a hero Knight but more resistant than an Orc. I'd have to try ingame but it sounds well thought out. The room requirements and annoyance make sense too.

The Gemstone Knight sounds interesting and quite scary - a slow, very powerful knight that can tunnel toward you, that explodes once defeated. It's a cool boss idea. SlapsToKill = 1 seems a little cruel if a Keeper did own one though. Visually these look okay, but I'd have to play to see how they look.


To answer your questions:



The best way I've found to edit the .dat file is to use the Dungeon Keeper String Editor, which will let you change the strings you want to change, and the number in the list is the ID for the ingame name (look at the ID from the normal Knight and see where that is in the list for reference). You can then bundle these modified .dat files for people to use.


The "x" and "y" offset point for most ingame sprites is usually the sprite's bottom middle, so for your sprite it should be (47,112). (the "y" should be around 112).
As for recolouring the sprites, you may already have it, but there is an ingame palette, and a palette file for use in GIMP, which you can turn on and it will match your images to the closest colour (but this often makes the images look bad). One other way of doing this that will look better but will take longer is to combine all the sprites into a single image and converting each colour one at a time to a new one.

Thank you so much, I didn't answer immediatly cause i had enough job to do with that and infos from the other thread and I wanted to join the next version of the dark knight with my answer but i still don't have it at day.
About the lair, I used the center of the carpet gave from the original one, if I remember well, according to the plan, finally, so i'm almost good, isn't it? =)
About the string editing: so there is already a tool to do this thing easily... hum... so smart community! =) Thanks again. I didn't try yet, i will do with a clear head and more adds to make in the same time, it looks easier now.

Hi Tazio,

i like your creatures. would you mind to upload them on our Workshop on the Homepage? : https://keeperfx.net/

I would like to convert the Campagne from DK2 to DK1 and your creatures, especially the Gem Knight, would be overwhelming in the last Level Am i allowed to use them ?

Yep sure, you can use everything as you want, it's made to be used and the idea is to complete the dk1 bestiary almost with dk2's when it's easy... so it makes sense with your project.
And the gemstone knight is obviously a joke from the stoneknight, so it's works well!

But the dark knight have to be recolored according to the famous dk palette so this version won't be the last, I prefere to share on the workshop something more finished. But I obsess on imps for now so the dark knight is quite sleeping. You have the basic material here to use in mapping by adding him "by hands", until the final one shows off properly.

More projects I have in mind may be usefull for you at term : I began to work on a dark elf and my favorite is the rogue so i want to make one too; but with more physical differences from thief than from the knight and the archer, so i have the concept but it will take time to realise. If I effectively loose my job on september, i'll have a lot of time ^^"
The problem for now is to understand and use gimp, and above all... bimp(!) properly; I try to get it into one's head with the imp and the dragon experiences but i don't find all the orders I need to automate that I want.
If you want to work onto the casino and arena rooms to make your campaign i'm interested too ;-)

[ben_lp91]

i wrote you a PM.