Adding New Content to Haks
ADDING NEW CONTENT TO THE ALFA NWN2 HAKS
9/2020 by ARRI
STEP 1 - YOU WILL NEED THE FOLLOWING TOOLS:
A COPY OF GIT EXTENSIONS http://gitextensions.github.io/ FOR MANAGING UPLOADS/DOWNLOADS TO THE MASTER ABR ON GITHUB.
A COPY OF WinSCP https://winscp.net/eng/download.php FOR MANAGING THE HAK LZMAS.
IF YOU ARE THE TA YOU WILL ALSO NEED A COPY OF MYSQL WORKBENCH https://www.mysql.com/products/workbench/
AND
AZURE STORAGE EXPLORER https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/features/storage-explorer/.
YOU WILL ALSO NEED MICROSOFT VISUAL https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/
NWN2packer FOR OPENING HAKS /ERFS https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/other/tool/nwn2packer-v19
TlkEdit2 FOR EDITING THE TLK AND 2DA FILES https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/other/tool/tlkedit2-2datlkgfferf-editor
I RECOMMEND SUBLIME TEXT FOR BASIC 2DA EDITING https://www.sublimetext.com/3 YOU CAN ALSO GET A PLUG IN FOR IT THAT ALLOWS YOU TO COMPILE SCRIPTS FOR NWN2 https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/other/tool/sublimetext-neverwinterscript THIS WORKS WELL IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE TlkEditor2 WHICH I USE TO DOUBLE CHECK THE INTEGRITY OF MY 2DA.
OPTIONAL TOOLS DEPENDING ON YOUR TECH LEVEL AND ABILITY TO MODIFY THINGS:
https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/other/tool/mdb-cloner FOR RENAMING MODELS WITH THEIR ATTACHED TEXTURES WHEN IT WOULD OTHERWISE OVERRIDE AN EXISTING MODEL. VERY IMPORTANT IF YOU ARE ADDING CLOTHING/ARMOR BECAUSE RARELY DO THESE COME NUMBERED IN A WAY COMPATABLE WITH OUR LIST.
https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/other/tool/mdb-model-viewer THIS ALLOWS YOU TO VIEW A MODEL EASILY. ESPECIALLY HELPFUL WHEN REVIEWING ITEMS.
https://www.gimp.org/downloads/ GIMP WITH A DDS PLUG IN https://code.google.com/archive/p/gimp-dds/downloads USEFUL IF YOU WANT TO ADD A TINT FILE TO A MODEL IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE MDB CLONER.
STEP 2 - IF YOU DO NOT ALREADY HAVE ONE, DOWNLOAD THE ABR FOLDER FROM OUR GITHUB RESOURCE PAGE AT https://github.com/ALandFarAway/ALFA-Base-Resources . THIS WILL LIVE IN YOUR NWN2 FOLDER IN THE DOCUMENTS FOLDER . IF YOU HAVE THE SPACE KEEP A ZIPPED BACK UP COPY SOMEWHERE IN CASE OF A SCREW UP. THE ABR FOLDER HAS A FOLDER WITH THE CONTENTS OF EACH HAK AS WELL AS A NUMBER OF OTHER SCRIPTS AND THINGS USED FOR ALFA MODS.
STEP 3- DOWN LOAD THE DESIRED CONTENT FROM NWNVAULT OR NEXUS OR WHAT EVER SITE YOU FIND TO GET IT FROM. I SUGGEST HAVING A SPECIAL FOLDER SOMEWHERE DEDICATED TO YOUR HAK CONTENT DOWNLOADS. I ORGANIZED MINE BY TYPE AS WELL.
STEP 4 - UNZIP YOUR SELECTED CONTENT INTO A LABELED WORKING FOLDER. CONTENT USUALLY COMES IN ONE OF TWO WAYS EITHER A HAK OR A OVERRIDE FOLDER.
STEP 5- CHECK THE CONTENTS OF THE LAST HAK FOR THE TYPE OF CONTENT YOU WANT TO ADD. FOR INSTANCE YOU WANT TO ADD SOME NEW PLACEABLES . . . OPEN THE HIGHEST NUMBERED PLACEABLES HAK AND SELECT ALL TO FIND OUT THE SIZE OF THE FOLDER CONTENTS. IF ITS AT OR GREATER THAN 1.5gb OF STUFF OR HAS MORE THAN 15000 FILES . . . START A NEW HAK. IF ITS GOT SPACE TAKE A COPY OF THE FOLDER AND MOVE IT TO YOUR WORKING FOLDER FOR USE DURING TESTING. I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH NOT TO USE THE ACTUAL ABR FILES UNTIL EVERYTHING IS TESTED.
(WORK IN PROGRESS)
