Initial Adventures in Dragonbreath

So begins the preliminary work to figure out the inner workings of dragonbreath; how does it work, what kinds of textures do what, and getting the right one for a desired effect.

First up however, and most important of all: which file is it? After poking around I think I might have found the firebreath agh file, but we shall see if it is correct with a simple test that involves kittens. Why kittens? Because they are soft, fluffy, and oh so random. Random picture of kitten used for testing purposes only.

First attempt, the kitten breath failed meaning there is something else at work. I didn't find any other agh files, so I cheated a bit and peeked at someone else's breath mod just to grab the filenames and inner workings of it all to start (T'was the bubblebreath). Turns out that indeed, there are no agh type things, just some new kinds that I have not yet played with.

Upon further investigation, the def files that these other ones run off of are exceptionally complex. With this, the only logical way to continue is to try to break down what the heck is going on in these huge files of script, which at current is leaving me in the twilight zone. I'm thinking of using a mod for further study into their mechanics, but possibly also to base new breaths off of due to the complexity of the def files, until I can grasp on my own how they work.

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After a good bit of playing around, I've found the game won't let you do anything with custom def files, so it may be that unique breaths are out of the question, unless someone comes along and explains a process as they have done it.

Sadly for now the breaths are shelved.