Drezz' Addons for DUMMIES
If you're new to importing addons, or just don't get it... I will try to help out as much as I can with most of the common errors most people get when they try to install things and it goes horribly wrong. I'll post the common "stupid questions" and follow up with a solution and an explanation as to why that happens.
I tried to run your update and all my stuff turned PINK! What happened?
SOLUTION: If you get PINK textures, run BHIMPORT.
EXPLANATION: Generally when your textures are missing or incompatible, you will have a swatch of pink show up in its place. Consider yourself lucky - back in the day, if you screwed up like that, you would get a texture that said "BAD ARTIST NO COOKIE" and you were ridiculed for your stupidity.
Now you get a lovely magenta shower.
Why does this happen? Well the textures now require a header file in order to display correctly. When you change the texture, you need to update the header information (those lovely .bh files). To fix that, you need to run a handy little program called BHIMPORT. This batch file recreates the header files by using another progam called genbhnhl which as the program suggests - generates a bh file for nhl. BHIMPORT generates bh files for all files that require a header, neatly repacks then in their proper archives, and your new update is ready to go.
Most addon artists now implore you to run BHIMPORT after their updates to ensure they work. Some include it in the installers of their own updates. Either way, it will eliminate the PINK textures from appearing ingame.
My goalies' mask doesn't show up ingame. I ran the installer and:
A) the default mask shows up
There's a few things you can do.
SOLUTION A1:
You can overwrite the default mask with that goalie's particular mask. The downside to that is everytime you start a different goalie, he will wear that mask.
SOLUTION A2:
You can start the backup for the night, and before the faceoff, switch to the goalie you want to start. Their mask will show up.
SOLUTION A3:
You can overwrite the stock masks provided by ITECH and assign one of them to your particular goalie through NHLVIEW (Change your mask type to an ITECH brand mask that you've overwritten). To do this, you need to import your mask file to replace the ITECH ones ingame. I'll post a detailed list of these numbers when I have the files available.
EXPLANATION: EA has created default mask graphics for 7 teams. Boston, Calgary, Colorado, Detroit, Montreal, New York Rangers and Toronto all have these masks. I'm assuming that because these are the most popular teams in terms of usage, they put this feature in, so if you trade for a goalie, he's already got a team specific paint job on his mask, rather than a white generic mask.
Its a severe annoyance for addon makers, since its difficult to work around. You now have to import 2 masks for starters - their own mask number, and one to overwrite the default. And if you decide to throw in your backup, you will end up with the starters mask unless you do the workaround posted above. Its a minor detail that can be rectified by overwriting the custom masks and assigning them to specific goalies, but its more work than it needs to be.
B) He still has white equipment/same old equipment
SOLUTION B:
Make sure the mask number corresponds to the proper goalie (you can see this in NHLVIEW by checking their FAC number. If your update isn't the same number as the FAC number, then the gear won't appear.
EXPLANATION: For some reason, EA likes to change entries in their database and reassign numbers to the players. This frustrates cyberface makers and goalie makers because they have to change their numbers for editing. So before you make an update, make sure you have the correct number set up.
I installed your ice update and it works in this arena, but everyone else is all screwed up.
What gives?
SOLUTION: Install an ice update with textures that update all the arenas. There are a few on the server.
EXPLANATION: When you install an ice update and the textures look huge, chances are you have textures that are incompatible with that model. Generally, ice updates require model edits because EA's format only allows you to have 3 sponsor ads by center ice, and most arenas have 4. Why the selected 3 is beyond comprehension, but it gives us something to do.
The reason this happens on all rinks is because the ice model is a shared file for all the rinks. You could potentially get away from that by installing models in each individual arena, but that is time consuming and could cause other problems. Your best bet is to wait for a full updated ice-pack, use an existing ice pack, or use only stock textures.
If the texture appears huge on the ice, its because you have the wrong texture for that model. If you see black and small rink surfaces, it is the opposite - you now have the wrong model for that texture.
I installed your boards, but now there's like 4 boards on every board and all the graphics are scattered about - what did I do?
SOLUTION: Install the board model.
EXPLANATION: This is an issue with the texture not being setup correctly for that specific model. If you have the stock EA model in there, you will have that problem if you install a 19 board format into your game. EA decided to give us only 8 boards to make graphics with, and repeats them all over the rink, in poorly mapped fashion. Why they veered from 19 separate files as in past years is odd to say the least, but its not our job to try and understand that logic.
There's a new model format that allows you to have 19 different ads which span the entire length of the boards. Use that if you're looking for accuracy. Again - there is a temporary texture file set up on the server. You can use that, or stand pat until a full pack is introduced if you do not want to update one team at a time.
I made a jersey/pads/boards/texture all by myself using your templates.
How do I get my stuff ingame?
SOLUTION: GO HERE
EXPLANATION: The process changes a bit every year. The first major jump was in 2003 when they didn't make things easy to import and it took quite a bit of tinkering to get things to work.
Be prepared for the jump again next year when the next gen engine rolls around. We may see a lot of talent disappear.
I'll update this with more common questions later.
This was posted before.
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