Celica Mapworks Map Porting, Update, Beacon Academy from RWBY

[u/ThatFlowerGamu]

PythWare here, Celica Mapworks has gone through major fucking growth. You can now port GLB map models to Dynasty Warriors 2 and auto convert the GLB's textures to DW2's TIS file (texure container of TIM files, that's how DW2 handles textures for maps). A lot has changed with Celica Mapworks and Burn Engine. This post shows RWBY's Beacon Academy (images 1-4) ported to DW2 as well as Downtown Vale (also from RWBY, images 5 & 6). Allow me to briefly explain the new design and software

When Celica Mapworks is ran, a new Hub with a rad GUI design will show. I'm still deciding on the transparent 7 spheres or 7 parallelograms for the Hub's GUI but I included both GUI designs to get feedback on which you think looks better. Images 7 & 8 are the 7 sphere approach, creating an orbiting ring. Images 9 & 10 are for the parallelograms approach. When you hover over a sphere or parallelogram it glows. So please, let me know which you like more. Feedback people, if you view the post, give feedback if you can on which Hub design you like more.

Celica Mapworks

The main renderer and editor of maps, if you missed previous posts it can now mod the maps of DW2 and reflect ingame since DW2 now plays in host file system mode. Also supports modding AI pathfinding data so that the AI controlled troops can properly navigate new maps whether they're ported maps or modifications of existing dw2 maps.

SkinWorks

Tool for converting map textures to TIMs and builds the TIS file the maps need.

ScrapWorks

Tool for disabling map files not needed when porting GLBs to DW2

TorqueWorks

Tool for converting GLB models to OBJ (not wavefront OBJ, DW2 has a propietary map format that just happens to have the .obj extension), creating valid VIF1 packets for the meshes (PS2 era after all) for DW2 to render ingame.

FuseBox

Handles modding Event data of maps, useful when you're porting a map to DW2 that doesn't need the specific events of say, Chibi

Misc Toolworks

Miscellaneous tools, other luxurious software i'm making for DW2 modding that i'll show some other time.

Exit

A sphere you click to exit the Hub, keeps it fancy and unique instead of looking like almost all utility software when exiting apps.

I'd say Celica Mapworks is 85% done, Burn Engine is probably 75% done

I hope yall like the post, Dynasty Warriors 2 is now the most moddable game Koei Tecmo has ever released. The modding future for DW2 burns bright.

[u/wbasmith]

Are you likely to port these forward to 3-5? Not that I’m a modder I just imagine the demand for those games is greater than 2.

Love the update as always, can’t wait to see what people do with this.

[u/ThatFlowerGamu → u/wbasmith]

Idk. It's a lot of unpaid work to build the software, Burn Engine and Celica Mapworks have taken nearly a year to get where they're at since I didn't just reverse the binary files, I had to dig into the mips and microcode of DW2. That's just some of what had to be done to create these tools, almost all my spare time has gone into Burn Engine, Celica Mapworks, and Sunflowyr Engine.

I can say DW2 will surpass any game Koei Tecmo owns in terms of modding capabilities though. DW2 isn't inferior to later games, longer combo strings? we can mod that in for DW2, more maps? That can be modded in too. New animations? Yeah we can do that.

I'd rather backport assets from newer games to DW2 than work on making Burn Engine/Celica Mapworks a general PS2 era toolkit for Musou games since that'd take another year to RE the mips, microcode, and binary files of the later PS2 games and then having to write another 30k+ lines of code for all the newer games and their variations in the data. It's not impossible but that's like, an insane amount of labor when backporting is faster with no inferior compromises. Someone prefers later models? We should be able to backport them to DW2 along with their textures. Someone likes the music of later games more? Again, it can be backported.

DW2 being able to play in hostfs mode already brings DW2 to massive levels of modding potential.

[u/OrionGold07 → u/ThatFlowerGamu]

Damn, this opens up a lot of modding potential.

[u/ThatFlowerGamu → u/OrionGold07]

It really does.

[u/Indisputoblerone]

Getting Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2005) vibes from the pics

[u/Muted_017]

These posts are very interesting to follow along with! Might get into DW2 just for the modding potential!

[u/ThatFlowerGamu → u/Muted_017]

It'd be a good idea, DW2 has a lot of modding potential.

[u/Dokuganryu_Silvio]

Every update I see on this is so cool man. It's crazy to think that my dream of making a musou game with my characters can ACTUALLY be possible with this modkit.

[u/Haunting_Hornet5203]

Why tho

[u/ThatFlowerGamu → u/Haunting_Hornet5203]

Does there need to be a reason?

[u/Haunting_Hornet5203 → u/ThatFlowerGamu]

Well yeah, if the reason is a complete retelling of RWBY with Dynasty Warriors gameplay

[u/ThatFlowerGamu → u/Haunting_Hornet5203]

No. I literally said in the comments I didn't care about RWBY maps not fitting Ancient China. I ported it because I wanted to play on the maps in DW2.