Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

A refuge for those migrating from the fallen DXEditing.com and a place for general discussion relating to Deus Ex editing (coding, mapping, etc).
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G-Flex
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Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by G-Flex »

Hello, friends! I noticed that Deus Ex 2.0 seemed like it was fizzling out a bit, so I figured I'd download the source and see if I couldn't expand on it, if only as a personal project for my own needs. So I did, and at this point I've done what I feel comfortable doing, so why not share it with people?

I noticed a surprising number of things that could be fixed, both old and new. It's mostly bugfixing and balance-tweaking, without many major content changes at all; I was going more for a "patch" approach than a "mod" approach, despite the fact that a few bits of content notably have been changed. That said, I'm quite pleased with the changes I've made (except maybe the ones that still need some playtesting and balancing), so if anybody out there is actually reading this and cares to take a look, input would be greatly appreciated.

The downloadable mod, documentation (including a full list of changes), and source can be found at the Google Code project page.

There are some things I wish I could have implemented, but I haven't. For example, I didn't implement any of Deus Ex Enhanced's code for its own GUI scaling or new fonts, because I'm not sure how and because I'd rather not have this require DirectX 10 to function.

Copied from that page's description of the project:
Key Features
  • Implemented a vast number of bugfixes and other tweaks from Deus Ex 2.0 and Shifter, such as allowing unconscious NPCs to be killed, broken mission scripts, and a whole lot of other things.
  • Many more old and new bugs have been fixed: Firing spread is now circular instead of square, aspect ratio problems (e.g. widescreen displays) are a thing of the past, problems with some augmentations have been fixed, some more mission script bugs are fixed as well, and a host of other bugs, large and small, have been effectively taken care of.
  • Field of View angle is adjusted automatically for your aspect ratio, even for weapon scopes and binoculars (another previously unsolved problem). This should finally make the game fully widescreen-compatible.
  • Enemies now scale in difficulty and alertness as you increase the difficulty level, and NPCs are a bit more difficult in general, especially unique ones like the various augmented ones.
  • Some weapon balance and features have been improved (e.g. less powerful nanosword, better plasma weaponry, sabot slugs without pellet spread, and many other small changes).
  • "Swimming" skill is now "Athletics" and affects your speed, jumping, and falling damage as well as swimming speed and oxygen capacity.
  • A few augmentations have been rebalanced a bit, including a less-overpowered regeneration augmentation, speed aug that doesn't work as well when crouched, improved spy drone costs, an always-active EMP Shield, and slightly better Microfibral Muscle.
  • Better and more realistic bullet/projectile spread from weapons like the shotguns and plasma rifle.
  • New and better laser sight mechanic, improving upon Shifter's model.
  • HDTP compatibility.
  • Many other fixes and tweaks; see the readme file for more information, available as a standalone download, in the downloadable mod package, and in the source.
Last edited by G-Flex on Thu Feb 28, 2013 2:02 pm, edited 6 times in total.
nerdenstein
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by nerdenstein »

Woah, hold up.
Where did you get the Deus Ex 2.0 Source code?! I've been trying to get a hold of that but couldn't find it!

EDIT: Nevermind, I found it...
I didn't bother rechecking the v2.0 GoogleCode page because I couldn't find it last time. I just completely missed it. #-o

My stupidity aside, your mod sounds great! :mrgreen:
Post it with a Moddb page if you get the chance. You'll get more downloads that way. :smile:
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G-Flex
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by G-Flex »

The one thing I'd still really, really, really like to do is ensure compatibility with TNM and HDTP, as Shifter does.

Unfortunately, I have no frigging idea what would be involved, so unless I can get input from, say, Yuki (That's the Shifter guy, right?) I'm not sure that'll be easy, as I'd have to reverse-engineer his code, or at least very intelligently copy-and-paste.


Edit: Looking at Shifter's code, it seems like it's mostly just a primary function shoved into DeusExPlayer that runs an HDTP texture-facelift function on everything else. Merging that into my mod might be surprisingly easy, if exceedingly tedious and irritating.
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by nerdenstein »

Would you mind applying the same fixes to the 2.0 Patch once you've figured it out? I haven't got a clue how to do it myself but the patch would greatly appricate it. The way the patch is now is great, other than the HDTP thing and Yuki's (Yes, the Shifter guy) permission, I think we can release it.
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G-Flex
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by G-Flex »

Well, I don't have permission to do anything with Deus Ex 2.0; it's hardly my project. I'd gladly share any of my own fixes with them though if asked (or if they just want to copy-paste from my source), and explain anything about them that demands explanation. I think at least implementing some of my bugfixes into Deus Ex 2.0 would be a good idea, since at least a decent proportion of them should be noncontroversial.
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by nerdenstein »

Yuki did say he wanted help with it.
I'll e-mail him asking for permission and we can discuss further changes (including implimenting HDTP support) at a later date.
When I message him, I'll ask him about the HDTP thing.
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G-Flex
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by G-Flex »

Well, let me know if you hear anything.

Speaking of which v1.1 is up. Nothing worth writing home about; I was bored so I implemented a few ridiculous cheat codes for my own amusement. I think "abomb" is my favorite.
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by nerdenstein »

I will keep you informed. You know alot more about DX Coding than myself so I suspect that together, we can get the Patch finalised and released along with your own mod; which, btw, is great and I think should be posted elsewhere, Moddb for example. Once you're happy with it, make a profile for it and stick it up on the Deus Ex moddb profile for a few more downloads. :)
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by G-Flex »

Maintaining both the Deus Ex 2.0 patch and my mod would be a little bit of a hassle considering that mine is mostly intended to be a patch to begin with... but it deviates enough from being one that I can understand why both might be valuable. Sort of like the "minus" and "plus" versions of the unofficial patch for Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines.

I'm trying to think of what else I want to do with this mod. So far, all I can think of is:
  1. HDTP support. I honestly don't even like the HDTP character models that much (they're technically much better than the defaults, but something about them just looks wrong/off to me), but people like it and I see no reason not to support it if it doesn't take much effort and people like it. Honestly, it's a little annoying that implementing specific support for this in a mod is even necessary, but I guess they have their reasons for that.
  2. Checking to see if I need to adjust the player's FoV to account for aspect ratio when using scopes (or anything else that affects FoV). If you're using Kentie's fix then the FoV angle can be properly adjusted for non-4:3 aspect ratio, but I'm not sure that it corrects anything but the default player FoV.
  3. Balance some of the stuff I needed feedback about. Unfortunately, getting feedback requires getting people to play it and comment on it, which makes that more of a long-term goal.
  4. Figure out why on Earth the inventory still doesn't get properly cleared sometimes when starting a new game. I think I might have missed some of the Shifter fixes to this.
  5. Implement Shifter's inventory-overlap fix.
I'm moving in a couple days, which is making things a bit hectic, and I won't working on it much until then, especially since I don't even have access to a monitor here that can display multiple aspect ratios (so I can't work on the FoV thing). I'll probably be able to start work around Sunday, and I should be done that list a few days from then, maybe... aside from the balance portion, obviously.

I'm bored tonight, so I implemented those last two fixes listed. It was just a bit of copying from Shifter's DeusExPlayer class to mine. I should stress that I deserve pretty none of the credit for that stuff, or anything else where I'm using someone else's code. So yeah, all I can think of for the time being is the HDTP and FoV things.

If I didn't want to keep this DirectX 9 (and earlier, I guess) compatible, I would try to figure out Deus Ex Enhanced's GUI-scaling feature and dialogue cut-off fix, but I have no idea where to even start with that, and I'm not confident that those features work perfectly or that I'd have a damn clue what I'm doing.
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Neveos
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by Neveos »

What we need is a solid DX 2.0 before DX:HR comes out. We'll have a lot of people in the upcoming generation wanting to play the first game if the prequel catches their attention, and we're gonna want the community to point them to a DX 2.0. HDTP, and you're right about not being fond of the new models, is not really all that much of a graphics upgrade (no offense to that valiant effort)... but the ENB series, however, is. So I don't know how much longer until DX:HR comes out, but definitely making DX 2.0 a solid patch is going to strengthen a fan base. I wouldn't worry too much about making a 2.0 compatible with HDTP. I would worry about making, like, the Dragon's Tooth take up one slot (and maybe even turning off the blade in the object-model). Balance issues aside, that is the most irking thing playing the original for me. Why would JC leave the blade 'on' in his inventory?
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by nerdenstein »

@Neveos
Sorry dude but I'm gonna have to disagree with pretty much everything you just said. The ENB series isn't a Graphics upgrade; It's more like a graphics coating at best. HDTP is a graphics upgrade (whether you like it or not) because it is 'upgrading' the models with higher res textures and way more polys.
And actually, I would worry about making 2.0 compatible with HDTP because once 2.0 is released, most people will want to use it (2.0 I mean). Especially new comers.

And why would we worry about the Dragons Tooth taking up so much space? The reason it does take up so much space is because it's so powerful. Making it one space would make the combat knife obsolete.
I think it would break parts of Deus Ex's balence system touching something like that.
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Neveos
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by Neveos »

Hmm, I guess I do agree with you on the Dragon's Tooth, but ugh. Ita maka no sense!

And to be honest, I've been playing whatever version of HDTP I have now and I can't notice anything looking differently/better. In fact, I miss the old Gunther model/crate models etc. I can imagine how frustrating that may sound to someone enthusiastic/working on it, and maybe die hard fans see a big difference, but I can't, unf. Maybe when it is done (with all the newest models), sure, but right now, you check a before and after on standard wall textures, and I'm like "What's different". I turn on the ENB overlay, however, and I'm like 'whoa'.
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by nerdenstein »

I love the new models! Some of the smaller models look so nice! As strange as it sounds; The keypads and Alarm units are probably my favourite updated models. Have no idea why. :mrgreen:

As for ENB, I totally agree that in some places, it does look kinda nice but, for me, other places it looks bloody aweful. It's too hacked together for my liking. But... I do like that it works with everything simply because it doesn't overwrite anything (HDTP) or cause file mismatches (New Vision) so it does have it's plus points. Which is why, if HDTP was made to work correctly with 2.0 patch, it'd be great and ready for release on Moddb for example. Still need to email Yuki thinking about it. I'm too tired to do it right now; Gotta get up early for a blood donation so I'll do it tomorrow.
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Neveos
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by Neveos »

Yeah I feel really bad saying that. All the power to the HDTP crew. I'm sure it will look good when everything has been remodeled/retextured.
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Re: Deus Ex: Human Renovation (fan patch/mod)

Post by nerdenstein »

Don't feel bad. Sorry for drilling you about it. :oops:
It's all a matter of opinion at the end of the day. :P

All I meant too say was that we need to make all mods as accessible and workable with each other as possible whilst making them easy to install to users. It's all well and good us all knowing how to install them and getting a few guys pop into these forums or commenting on Moddb asking how to get these mods working together when really, If a solution worked out that simply let the users tick a box (in kentie's launcher for example. Already spoken to him about it) and the mod 'activated'* in that particular .exe/.ini set up, it'd be much easier.

*When I say activated in the launcher, all it would need to do it add, for example, the Paths=..\NVTextures\*.utx line to the .ini.
Then it would be up to the user to extract it correctly or for someone in a later version of NV to make an installer that placed the textures in that location.
Same goes for HDTP though that could cause an issue with the 2.0 patch if we don't include the HDTPfix from Shifter. If we do include it, then users wouldn't be able to turn the new models off if they wanted too. I think, I'll need to check how that all works and see if removing the line from the .ini stops Shifter finding the models. So therefore requiring HDTP to be activated to allow Shifter/2.0 to use it. Both Shifter, this mod in this thread and probably BioMod could also be included into this Kentie launcher idea (if the idea doesn't go ahead in Kentie's fix, we'd have to make an external 'mod loader' so to speak.

The other issue I've thought about is that 2.0 will cause mismatches in multiplayer. This can easily be fix by not having the 2.0 patch overwrite the original deusex.u and make it have it's own .exe. That is how I'll probably release the patch if Yuki lets me; in a separate .exe with NV, Revision and HDTP activated so, should the user have them installed, they will run with the 2.0.exe.

Final point: This mod loader idea (built into Kentie's launcher or not) would also be useful for getting such mods working with TNM, Zodiac etc. If it was in the launcher, the users would just have to overwrite the TNM.exe with the launcher. I'm wondering, will the 2.0 patch work with TNM and other total conversions? I mean, it'll launch but will in have many bugs like Shifter did? Another think to ask Yuki I guess.
The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music.
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