Game Designer / Sr. Software Engineer / Writer . Also the creator of award winning White Night.

Post tutorial Report RSS How to Create a Total Conversion Mod without Changing Original Game Files

In this tutorial, I will explain how to create a total conversion mod for Amnesia: The Dark Descent without changing original game files, especially for Flashlight.

Posted by on - Intermediate Starting a mod

Hi all;
In this tutorial, I'll explain how to create a total conversion without changing any original game files, especially for flashlight.

First of all, if you do not know how to create a full conversion, check this.

Now that you have a total conversion, you can specify a custom resources.cfg file for your game.

xml code:
<ConfigFiles
  Resources = "wn_config/resources.cfg"
  Materials = "materials.cfg"

In this example, I have a custom resources.cfg under a folder called wn_config. WN stands for abbreviation of White Night. You can specify other folders, or no folder at all.

After specifying a custom resources.cfg for your total conversion, everything is under your hand.

Now, create a new folder for flashlight, which will be imitated by original models folder. In this case, I created a folder named wn_models. It should have two subfolder in it, hand_objects and player folders.


Your flashlight will be under lantern folder, you can install it easily by readme files from flashlight mod.

Now, specify this wn_models, or what you named it, in your resources.cfg folder. Originally, resources.cfg contains this:

xml code:
<Resources>
...
  <Directory Path="/textures" AddSubDirs="true" />
  <Directory Path="/models" AddSubDirs="true" />
  <Directory Path="/gui" AddSubDirs="true" />
...
</Resources>

However, we will change this. Originally, resources.cfg points the lantern. We will make it point flashlight by changing models folder to wn_models folder:

xml code:
<Resources>
...
  <Directory Path="/textures" AddSubDirs="true" />
  <Directory Path="/wn_models" AddSubDirs="true" />
  <Directory Path="/gui" AddSubDirs="true" />
...
</Resources>

Voilà! You have a full conversion which replaces lantern with flashlight like White Night, and you don't have to change original game files!

However, you might want to change HUD images or so, too, like I did in White Night. For this, you will either have to change original game files, or create a new folder with all other subfolders including rest of the files. Not anymore! There is a simple trick to overcome this.

Now, follow the same steps for flashlight, and put your custom files in this folder. When it comes to edit resources.cfg, do NOT replace respected line, but add a new line.
In original resources.cfg, sounds folder is specified like this:

xml code:
<Resources>
...
  <Directory Path="/static_objects" AddSubDirs="true" />
  <Directory Path="/sounds" AddSubDirs="true" />
  <Directory Path="/main_menu" AddSubDirs="true" />
...
</Resources>

In this case, you might want to change some of the sounds which does not have any pointer in configuration files, like Tinderbox using sounds. I changed it for light bulb sound. For this, you would have to copy all of the files in sounds folder, which is a total mess. However, if you create another folder, like I created a folder named wn_sounds, you can put your custom files in it. Now, add a new line to your resources.cfg:

xml code:
<Resources>
...
  <Directory Path="/static_objects" AddSubDirs="true" />
  <Directory Path="/wn_sounds" AddSubDirs="true" />
  <Directory Path="/sounds" AddSubDirs="true" />
  <Directory Path="/main_menu" AddSubDirs="true" />
...
</Resources>

You can see the new line with wn_sounds in it, and what you need to be careful about is that putting your custom folder just the line before original folder. With this, game will first read your custom files instead of original files, and will use custom content instead of original content without changing one single original game file.

For White Night, I created different custom content and you won't have to change one single original game content in order to play it.

Post comment Comments
Firespray31
Firespray31

Good Tutorial man! Thanks. *thumbs-up*

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palistov
palistov

Never noticed this....I'll make sure I bookmark this for easy referral to anyone looking to make a FC mod in the future.

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jens01325
jens01325

Well the model work not the sound :S -.-

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Woensel
Woensel

Great!

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FüjiTiribacon
FüjiTiribacon

can someone please make a video about this?
PLEASE i am a complete idiot at those things

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
Mudbill
Mudbill

I was just scrolling through things as I was uploading such a video and since your comment was somewhat recent, I thought I might as well link it. I hope that helps you out!

Reply Good karma Bad karma+1 vote
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