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Hi, everyone! I wanted to modify Arena so that my Sorceror could use Ebony Mail, but I haven't the first clue about using a hex editor. Can anyone help me? Is it at all possible?
Yeah, it's possible. Anything is possible. I made a version of the game just for you giving the Sorcerer proficiency with plate armor and tower shields. Have fun!
Oh, here's something I've noticed (this is unrelated to the modified .exe): when wearing an ebony amulet with Ring of Khajiit, the Ring bugs out. Normally ebony amulets give -6 AR, Ring of Khajiit also gives -6 AR, but when worn together, the Ring only gives -1 for some reason. When wearing the ring with an adamantium amulet (-5 AR), together they give -11, as they should. Additionally, when wearing an adamantium amulet with Ring of Khajiit, you can also equip a second amulet for no effect.
If Arena is the same as its successor Daggerfall, there will be an image file for the body of each race/sex combination, and these images could be edited directly. Though I assume there are already mods from the '90s to accomplish this.
From what I've read (on UESP, I think?), the different classes get different clothing, but there are only two or three sets of clothing, corresponding to the class archetypes. So, for example, a male of any magic class (including the mixed ones, such as Nightblade, Battlemage, Sorcerer) would get the jungle-green shirt with black trousers, and the female of any magic class would get a green dress with black trousers. Warrior and thief types (and their subtypes) would get a brown shirt + black trousers (male) or white shirt and black trousers (female). Outfits are dependent on class, so you'll get the same white shirt as a female warrior or thief regardless of your chosen race.
If Arena is the same as its successor Daggerfall, there will be an image file for the body of each race/sex combination, and these images could be edited directly. Though I assume there are already mods from the '90s to accomplish this.
Only Arena mods that I know of can be found here, or on UESP, or on the Arena Nexus. I doubt a lot of people bothered editing the clothes. As far as I know, there aren't even cosmetic mods for armour.
There are six clothes files, three for each sex. The pants are always the same. Two shirt types, which are assigned based on class.
FPANTS.IMG
FRSHIRT.IMG
FSSHIRT.IMG
MPANTS.IMG
MRSHIRT.IMG
MSSHIRT.IMG
These can be extracted from the BSA using ArenaToolBox, converted to PNG, edited, reconverted to IMG, and stuffed back in the archive. But anything in the root directory overrides what's in the archive, so that last part's not strictly necessary. That's if you want to use the existing clothes as a reference. You could draw an image from scratch, but you'll have to manually adjust the X and Y positions when converting. Oh, and of course color choices are limited by the 256-color inventory screen palette.
So guys please help me out how exactly do i edit .CIF files? There is a missing pixel in hair of first face of high elf woman when i open stats sheet and inventory i want to plug it by a single pixel its missing but dont know how to edit images in .CIF files to do it.
This missing pixel in top part of hair its part of head texture which is in .cif file other heads dont seem to miss any pixels for high elves
i think its contained in file FACESF14.CIF but i cant do anything with it.
Could be painting that pixel in background image also i guess but i want to find out a way to edit heads themselves too
This missing pixel in top part of hair its part of head texture which is in .cif file other heads dont seem to miss any pixels for high elves
i think its contained in file FACESF14.CIF but i cant do anything with it.
Could be painting that pixel in background image also i guess but i want to find out a way to edit heads themselves too
This missing pixel in top part of hair its part of head texture which is in .cif file other heads dont seem to miss any pixels for high elves
i think its contained in file FACESF14.CIF but i cant do anything with it.
How would one go about changing racial abilities? (Specifically, I want to swap the weapon damage bonuses of Wood Elf and Redguard so that they're accurate to the manual.)
I wonder if anyone can help with extracting weapons and armor with proper material palettes from the Arena. I've been using every extraction tool I found, but they either have standard palettes or don't use any.
Arena uses only two 256 color palettes, one for the character sheet, and one for everything else. On the character sheet palette you can see the ramps used for the plate armor grades. The colors are I'm pretty sure applied in-game to base sprites, so even if you could extract them it wouldn't do any good. But there is no tool to convert CIF files. That's why I made the mod for UESP editors or anybody to take clean screenshots of the character sheet. With it you can blank out the background and paper doll.
That's a shame. Thanks for the explanation! I wonder is there's a way to change character's race and face too. Out of all save editors I've found only one of them that offered a race change option, but the face seems to be chosen randomly.
Only I know this. I've kept the secrets hidden, but will reveal them to you my friend.
Find the SAVEENGN file you'd like to edit. Open the file in a hex editor and use the following values.
(Portraits are numbered as they appear in the character creator.)
To change race, go to offset 4: 60 Redguard
61 Breton
62 Dark Elf
63 Nord
64 Wood Elf
65 High Elf
66 Argonian
67 Khajiit
To change the portrait, go to offset 6b: de 1
df 2
dc 3
dd 4
da 5
db 6
d8 7
d9 8
d6 9
d7 10
Thank for all the help! The mod was extremely useful. I made some research myself and came up with a way to edit the properties of the first item in the inventory. Inventory is also stored in SAVEENGN.
Offset 7C is the general type of the item:
xA - Normal Armor
xB - Armor with Material
xC - Normal Weapon
xD - Enchanted Weapon?
xE - Normal Weapon?
xF - Weapon with Material
Offset 6E is the subtype of the item (depends on the value in 7C):
F0 - Cuirass / Staff
F1 - Gauntlets / Dagger
F2 - Greaves / Shortsword
F3 - Left Pauldron / Broadsword
F4 - Right Pauldron / Saber
F5 - Helm / Longsword
F6 - Boots / Claymore
F7 - Buckler / Tanto
F8 - Round Shield / Wakizashi
F9 - Kite Shield / Katana
FA - Tower Shield / Dai-Katana
FB - Chain Cuirass / Mace
FC - Chain Gauntlets / Flail
FD - Chain Greaves / War Hammer
FE - Chain Left Pauldron / War Axe
FF - Chain Right Pauldron / Battle Axe
E0 - Chain Helm / Short Bow
E1 - Chain Boots / Long Bow
E2 - Leather Cuirass
E3 - Leather Gauntlets
E4 - Leather Greaves
E5 - Leather Left Pauldron
E6 - Leather Right Pauldron
E7 - Leather Helm
E8 - Leather Boots
Offset 7E is the material type of the item:
E8 - Iron
E9 - Steel
EA - Silver
EB - Elven
EC - Dwarven
ED - Mithril
EE - Adamantium
EF - Ebony
I don't suggest using it in the actual game since it can break the other properties of the item, but it's useful if you need to check out the appearance of a specific item quickly.
What I found out is that the material type also applies to Leather (only for female Boots and Gauntlets) and Chain Armor. So I managed to produce all the possible variations of armors and materials. I also found out that Helms have variations for Argonian, Redguard, Dark Elf and High Elf characters. Nords, Bretons, Khajiit and Wood Elves use default human version. Default version is also used for all Helms made of non-standard materials. Despite what UESP says, both Kite and Tower Shields change their appearance depending on the material. With female Kite Shields it's barely visible, just a few pixels around the eyes. The shirt your character gets depends on the class - all the Mage subclasses and the Bard get the special "mage" shirt (RSHIRT, blue for males, green for females), other classes get the common shirt (SSHIRT, brown for males, white for females). There are no color variations for different materials of female Staves, Short and Long Bows (these bows also look nearly identical, with very minor differences). The priority of item layers applied is the following: Weapon -> Shield -> Boots -> Gauntlets -> Pauldrons -> Helm -> Cuirass -> Shirt -> Greaves -> Pants -> Face -> Background (Body). I made a basic character generator using GIMP layers, available for males and females. Simply turn on the layers you need starting from the bottom of the list and export the image.
I'm also a bit confused about the appearance of a non-standard female plate cuirass. The image on TES Wiki shows it looking properly, but in my version it seems to be glitchy (I also found other images looking like I have it in my game). I suppose it's either a different version of the game or a mod was applied.
I'm planning to create a similar generator for Daggerfall, so I'd appreciate any help I can get. Since there are proper images of Daggerfall armor and weapons made of different material types on TES Wiki, I guess there is already a way to do the same. I found a texture RIP from Daggerfall, but like in Arena, the armor there is uncolored. I'll check out the save editors, and if someone could link (or even make) a similar mod that removes certain elements of character sheet, it will be much appreciated.
Also a brief demonstration of characters I've made using GIMP, based on the characters from the Daggerfall book King Edward:
The book describes Aliera as a Breton having black hair. Her class is never mentioned, but she used the bow, sword and shield, and could use magic, so I went with Spellsword.
Aliera as she appears in one of the chapters.
He's a Wood Elf and a twin of Willow.
She's a Wood Elf and Beech's twin. The book mentions that she didn't have mana but could absorb it from other spells, so it fits with the Sorcerer class.
The High Elven Archmagister of Crystal Tower. He's described as having golden skin and golden eyes, but ironically there are no High Elf faces with golden eyes in Arena editor.
He's described as an ex-slave Nord fighting with a huge axe, so I picked a Barbarian class for him. He's kinda supposed to have silvery hair, being the descendant of Sai, but there are no appropriate portraits.
Red-haired Dark Elf wearing Leather Armor and a Saber who could use magic. It fits the description of Nightblade class.
Black-haired Dark Elf wearing dark Chain Mail and wielding an Ebony Katana called Dragon's Blade. Since he could used magic while wearing Chain Mail, he must be a Spellsword.
Khajiit woman who was an experienced fencing trainer. I picked an Assassin class for her.
Argonian mage who was proficient in healing spells, likely belonging to the Healer class.
Very nice work, VladonAbaddon. I threw together something similar to the Arena blank-out kit, but for Daggerfall.
It includes high contrast and near black backgrounds. If you need anything else, let me know.
i just tried arena forever and... alternative start, hilarious new classes etc actually makes one want to play it through so thanks for packing it all together
Does anyone know if Strength affects archery damage? I'm under the impression that it doesn't (because UESP claims it doesn't) and yet I'm not sure how to beat the game as an archer if that's true, since my damage output is comical. Even with Auriel's Bow and 100 Speed, I'm basically firing an MG42 at enemies but each arrow is still doing pissy damage.
Archery skill only increases chance to hit, but Backstabbing gives the usual 3x damage on a successful roll. If your class has the special advantage "expertise in: missile weapon" you get bonus damage equal to one-third of your character level, and Redguards and Wood Elves get the same bonus (Redguards' also applies to melee weapons), while Dark Elves get one-quarter of character level as bonus damage to all weapons. I don't know if the racial bonus stacks with the class bonus, though, and neither of these can be changed after character creation.
And, if you use the Critical Hits mod, the Critical Striking skill will increase damage with all weapons on a successful roll.
Bows are good for ranged attacks, especially if you prefer to be out of range of your enemy. Some things to consider when using bows:
Bows do not need arrows. They wear out eventually, though, which is in its way like running out of arrows.
The quality of the bow determines the damage done and the rate of attack by the arrows. The best bow in the game, the Artifact Auriel's Bow is almost like a machine gun, shooting off several arrows per second.
The arrows are aimed by the cursor; however, they tend to angle more towards the center of the screen. Most of the time it isn't an issue, but you might have to adjust your aim.
Bows are great for those enemies you can't easily reach, like when a few square tiles of water divide you (since most opponents you'll meet can't cross water).
