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Beta elements
03-29-2014, 04:09 PM
Post: #1
Beta elements
Every game has some beta elements left in their data, and Death to Spies: Moment of Truth is no exception. I'll share these beta elements on this thread. I reimplemented some of these in my MoTmod Addon.

Unused NPC skins

GermanFrau and GermanCaptain have unused second head textures. There is also an unused head texture meant for Soviet officers that was never mapped to the model (rusofficer_head2.dds). Nikolayev and Shestakov both have an unused body texture that is set as the default skin for their respective models. These textures don't have the backpack straps seen in the final game. Some Soviet officers also have an unused armband mesh. The Cyrillic text on the armband means "Komendatura". Only the "Patrol" armband mesh on one officer skin is used in the final game.

Unused voice clips

There are plenty of unused voice clips in MoT's data (Germans and Americans asking for ID papers, and female Germans shouting "Heil Hitler!" are notable examples), but the most notable of them all are found in an unused folder called "panic_ded" in the Russian voice clips folder (ded means grandfather or old man in Russian, and this designation is used for male Soviet peasants). They are basically slowed down versions of those seen in the standard folder (most of which are equally unused). In the final game, however, all peasants don't speak very much (the only time peasants speak are if you choose to kill Shestakov by having a suspended boat fall on him and the peasant taking a smoke near the windmill occasionally mutters to himself).

Unused elements in White Head

Of all missions in both games, White Head seems to be the one with the most pieces of unused content. The first is an unused voice clip which seems to indicate that the informer was originally going to speak German to Strogov (script_36_05_ser.wav). In the final version, however, the informer speaks Russian (I intend to make him speak French in a future release of my MoTmod Addon, but right now it's impossible because I can't read the script in under 15 seconds).

The second piece of cut content for White Head is an unused model present in the game's files that was originally intended for Ivan Melnik. He can be seen briefly in MoT's trailer. In the final version, however, his model was replaced with a reskinned model previously used for both Volkov and the traitor in Hotel (was this done as a joke?). The early Melnik's hat, however, does appear in the final game. It is worn by a man standing on the street holding a bouquet of flowers in the opening cinematic for Polish Surprise.

The final piece of cut content is an unused script in the level's jobs.shadvs file labelled "porno" meant to be used for some officers and hookers on the first floor (second floor in some parts of the world). Was this job not implemented for fear of public outrage?

Other oddities

The models and textures for the cryptographers in Dora are labelled "BritishOfficer2" and they are all referred to as GermanYellow in the SWD file (GermanYellow is the name given to the model used for the warden in Stronghold, instructors in Die Spies!, and radio operators in Polish Surprise).

American NPCs use British voice clips in many of their battle dialogue, leaving the American voice clips for them unused. It's very simple to change this, just view the ai.shadvs folder with a hex editor, search for the templates "male_usa" and "male_usa_civ" and replace "eng" with "usa" in all stuff related to these templates.

Post here if you find any more leftover components worth mentioning.
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11-26-2019, 02:32 PM
Post: #2
RE: Beta elements
Sorry for the several years old necro but where is the ai.shadvs folder?
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11-26-2019, 02:36 PM
Post: #3
RE: Beta elements
(11-26-2019 02:32 PM)Samz707 Wrote:  Sorry for the several years old necro but where is the ai.shadvs folder?

It's in the Scripts folder.
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11-26-2019, 08:41 PM
Post: #4
RE: Beta elements
(11-26-2019 02:36 PM)Liz Shaw Wrote:  
(11-26-2019 02:32 PM)Samz707 Wrote:  Sorry for the several years old necro but where is the ai.shadvs folder?

It's in the Scripts folder.

So I unpack it then Hexedit it?
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11-27-2019, 02:24 AM
Post: #5
RE: Beta elements
(11-26-2019 08:41 PM)Samz707 Wrote:  So I unpack it then Hexedit it?

In this case, yes, because all you have to do is to change three bytes. I think this was how I was able to do it before I got my hands on the shadvs2txt and txt2shadvs programs.
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09-09-2022, 07:10 AM
Post: #6
RE: Beta elements
I found a relic in Shefferd which causes a bug to occur if you poison Ivan Melnik's wine in White Head and then play Shefferd in the same game session. Apparently, you were originally able to poison the drinks used by one of the FBI agents in the main entrance of Tsavalov's house and the policeman guarding the cordoned room in the main entrance of the house with the hidden explosive briefcase. It's likely that they were ultimately deemed unnecessary and all references to poisoning removed from Shefferd's LUA, but the triggers are still present in the SWD.

However, there's a bug present as a result, and it can only be seen if you poison Ivan Melnik's wine in White Head - playing Shefferd at any time afterwards during the same game session will cause this FBI agent to mysteriously drop dead as if you have poisoned him, even though there's no way to poison the drink normally. I noticed this years ago, but because I didn't have the advanced hex editing knowledge that I do now, I wouldn't have known how to fix it. I now know the exact cause of this bug.

White Head and Shefferd are the only missions in MoT which use unique scripted anchors labelled "VineAnchor.lua" - White Head has its own variation of the script in its Levels folder, while Shefferd uses the main Scripts folder version of it. The only difference between the two LUAs is the way the kill command is written.

These anchors were designed to make an NPC physically use the assigned wine glass while performing the animation. However, you can attach a trigger and a timer to these anchors which will make an NPC die after using them if you use said trigger. The triggers registered to Melnik's wine and the wine of the FBI agent in Tsavalov's house are both labelled "VineTrigger_01". The anchor LUAs were designed in such a way as to be indiscriminate with regards to which NPC uses them. All I have to do is remove the relevant entries from "AIAnchor_A121" and hopefully the bug will be fixed. Amazing what you discover after all this time, I haven't touched Shefferd in 11 years.Rolleyes
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09-13-2022, 05:29 AM
Post: #7
RE: Beta elements
UPDATE: I was wrong about the anchor in question, "AIAnchor_A121" is the anchor used for the policeman, while "AIAnchor_A175" is the one used for the FBI agent. Both anchors have the SAME trigger registered!Huh
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10-03-2022, 11:28 AM
Post: #8
RE: Beta elements
Hey Liz, are you still doing your mod? Incredible.
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10-03-2022, 03:34 PM
Post: #9
RE: Beta elements
(10-03-2022 11:28 AM)adolf Wrote:  Hey Liz, are you still doing your mod? Incredible.

Yes, I will be posting updates on the Death to Spies Discord server. If I continue doing it, I may be able to finish the next release in the middle of next year.
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