ARD's Miscellaneous Mods

[ARD]

I've spent quite a lot of time screwing around with the N. Sane Trilogy now, but I haven't really turned much of that screwing around into actual mods that I've uploaded anywhere for other people to try. There are a few reasons for this - a lot of the stuff I've shown on twitter or youtube involves editing or replacing files from all over the game and there's no real way to tie that all up in an easily distributable package, and even if there is, it would often make most of the rest of the game unplayable. I have tried to make videos explaining how those kind of mods work (although given how much more I understand about the game's files now than I did when I last made a video like that I can confirm that almost everything I said in those videos was utter bollocks, sorry!) and the level editor that I'm making covers a lot of the other stuff that I've shown, but there's still some simple stuff that I could share pretty easily for anyone's who interested.

So that's what this thread is for, somewhere to dump any random, quick and dirty mods that I make that don't require a ton of jumping through hoops or hacking into the game while it's running. Working on the level editor is still my main priority with the Crash stuff so I'm trying not to get too distracted with the long list of things I want to try once that's finished but sometimes when I don't have the time or energy to commit to that properly (as I won't for at least the next few weeks) I still like to experiment a bit with other parts of the game and I'm gonna try to start sharing the results of those experiments.

I'm starting super simple so the first thing I'm posting here is a slightly tweaked version of one of the first NST mods I ever showed on youtube. If there's anything you've seen me do before that you want me to upload then please ask me in this thread and I'll either turn it into a proper mod or if it's more complicated I'll try to explain how to do it... unless it's related to level modding, in which case all I can really say is wait for the editor. Most of what I do is with the PC version of the N. Sane Trilogy but I do have a modded Switch as well so if anyone wants some Switch mods (for either the NST or CTR: Nitro Fueled) then I might be able to do something. If you want to do something with the PS4 version then I'll try my best to help but I don't own a hacked PS4 so I can't test anything.

Gonna use this post as an introduction and list of links to other posts where I've uploaded stuff... so here is the list:

• Crash & Coco "realistic" skeletons (NST PC)
  
• Fake Dark Coco (NST PC)
  
• Skylanders Crash (NST PC)
  
• CTR exotic skins (NST PC)
  
• Low poly Crash (NST PC)
  
• Crash 2 but every crate is a nitro (NST PC)
  
• Crash 3 but every crate is a nitro (NST PC)
  
• Crash 1 but almost every crate is a nitro (NST PC)
  

Pre-empting the inevitable "how do I undo this and make it normal again" questions: Steam has an option in the game properties to verify integrity of game files which will reset anything that's been modified back to its default state. If you don't want to make backups then this is the easiest way to undo stuff.

[ARD]

Crash & Coco "realistic" skeletons (NST PC)



Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BYAUjxq1n4

Downloads:
Crash.pak
Coco.pak
Crash.igz
Coco.igz

The normal Crash and Coco skeleton models are shrouded in black silhouettes, which makes perfect sense since this is supposed to be an X-ray view that you only see when the characters are electrocuted, but it looks a bit weird if you want to play as skeleton Crash or Coco all the time. These versions remove the silhouette so you can actually see between the bones now, it's more like Realistic Crash from CTTR. Except they both still have hair, if you don't like that I could do another mod without it. 

Easy version of the mod is just replace the existing Crash.pak or Coco.pak in the archives folder with the modified paks, or you can download the igz (actor) files instead if you want to do something else. Default Crash and Coco will still appear in some places because otherwise I'd be getting into the aforementioned "replacing files from all over the game" territory. Some death animations might do weird things too, I haven't really done much testing... I mean it's the same as any other character mod you might have tried for this game. Also Coco's laptop is gone because it's sort of connected to her ears in the skeleton model, which are no longer there. But when she sits down and starts typing on nothing I like to imagine that she's using some kind of ghost laptop, because Halloween or whatever.

[Ceruleancast]

From your Twitter thread I assume this is where I should ask this. For a while back in your earlier mods when you were messing a lot with other character imports and mentioned having fitting animations for walking, attacking and such helps with making them more stable, I was wondering how well that would go with the penguin enemies and if you have tried it with them? Given they have spinning, walking, somewhat of a sliding, running and jumping animations (At the end of the Dingodile boss fight).

[ARD]

From your Twitter thread I assume this is where I should ask this. For a while back in your earlier mods when you were messing a lot with other character imports and mentioned having fitting animations for walking, attacking and such helps with making them more stable, I was wondering how well that would go with the penguin enemies and if you have tried it with them? Given they have spinning, walking, somewhat of a sliding, running and jumping animations (At the end of the Dingodile boss fight).

I don't think I ever did get round to trying the penguins actually. Most standard enemies don't actually contain the necessary files to make any kind of animations display properly on a playable character, and that includes the penguin enemies, but the penguin in the Dingodile fight that you mentioned does have those files so we can use them. For some reason I'm still just getting a lot of T-posing but the animations are still running underneath and this guy does have the same problem as most bosses, the walking animations aren't the "right" kind of walking animations so even if I can get them to look the way they're supposed to there still won't be any proper movement.




This is one of the things I want to investigate more in the future though, there have been some recent developments with people figuring out how the animations work and I have a few of my own ideas of stuff to experiment with so hopefully we will be able to do something about it. In the meantime, after all the experience I've had with modding NST and CTR on Switch (where there are a lot more restrictions with file swapping etc) I can make the characters who do work properly playable now - Skylanders Crash, Papu Papu etc - without doing any of that crazy extracting all the archives stuff I was doing in the video I made about that. So I'll definitely get those mods posted some time.

[ARD]

Fake Dark Coco (NST PC)



Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6-nlIVE3I8

Download:
Coco.pak

I really like the Dark Coco skin from the latest CTRNF grand prix and I'd love to be able to play as her in the N. Sane Trilogy, but since I haven't managed to completely successfully swap models between the two games yet (another one of the things I want to spend more time with once the level editor is done, unless someone else figures it out), I came up with this texture mod as a compromise. It's not perfect and as with the skeletons this won't replace her everywhere but I still think it's cool.

[JGamezOfElzam]

Fake Dark Coco (NST PC)



Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6-nlIVE3I8

Download:
Coco.pak

I really like the Dark Coco skin from the latest CTRNF grand prix and I'd love to be able to play as her in the N. Sane Trilogy, but since I haven't managed to completely successfully swap models between the two games yet (another one of the things I want to spend more time with once the level editor is done, unless someone else figures it out), I came up with this texture mod as a compromise. It's not perfect and as with the skeletons this won't replace her everywhere but I still think it's cool.

This looks really awesome! If you do find a way to add the costumes it'd be absolutely amazing if you modded the Princess Coco and Beach Coco skins from Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled into the N Sane Trilogy. 

[Erdrick The Hero]

So, you're having trouble importing CTR:NF assets to the PC version of NST, right? What about Switch NST=>PC NST? I'm curious to see if using the Switch assets in the PC version might lead to a performance increase. (While my desktop can maintain 1080p60 and usually hit 4K30, my laptop struggles to run the game at 480p30. Also, I'm curious if it could make my desktop run the game at 4K60.)

[ARD]

Skylanders Crash (NST PC)



Preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbLn1miE6z8

Download:
Crash.pak

I'm not the biggest fan of the NST/CTRNF version of Crash and I much prefer his appearance in Skylanders Imaginators. Luckily, Skylanders Crash actually exists in the files for the N. Sane Trilogy as an unused playable character, although he's a bit broken and can't jump or even die properly (the video I made talking about that is one of the ones I mentioned in the OP which is abundant with incorrect information, oops). This mod does not use that separate character, but is actually just a model swap like the skeleton thing, replacing Crash's normal model with the Skylanders one. This guy has some animations that are never used in Imaginators which do suggest that he was at some point used as a placeholder character in this game, but there's still a lot of stuff missing and so a lot of levels won't really work. I've tried to match up the animations as well as I can and at least for the simple platforming levels without too many gimmicks it should be alright. I think, apart from the hog levels, he's good with Crash 1 anyway. I mean it's hard to tell because my level editing shenanigans mean that half of the levels in my copy of the game are currently either inaccessible or a completely different level to the one they're supposed to be. But playing as other characters is always a popular request and until someone figures out the animations properly this is the only one that's really viable so here you go!

[carpetdiem]

From your Twitter thread I assume this is where I should ask this. For a while back in your earlier mods when you were messing a lot with other character imports and mentioned having fitting animations for walking, attacking and such helps with making them more stable, I was wondering how well that would go with the penguin enemies and if you have tried it with them? Given they have spinning, walking, somewhat of a sliding, running and jumping animations (At the end of the Dingodile boss fight).

I don't think I ever did get round to trying the penguins actually. Most standard enemies don't actually contain the necessary files to make any kind of animations display properly on a playable character, and that includes the penguin enemies, but the penguin in the Dingodile fight that you mentioned does have those files so we can use them. For some reason I'm still just getting a lot of T-posing but the animations are still running underneath and this guy does have the same problem as most bosses, the walking animations aren't the "right" kind of walking animations so even if I can get them to look the way they're supposed to there still won't be any proper movement.




This is one of the things I want to investigate more in the future though, there have been some recent developments with people figuring out how the animations work and I have a few of my own ideas of stuff to experiment with so hopefully we will be able to do something about it. In the meantime, after all the experience I've had with modding NST and CTR on Switch (where there are a lot more restrictions with file swapping etc) I can make the characters who do work properly playable now - Skylanders Crash, Papu Papu etc - without doing any of that crazy extracting all the archives stuff I was doing in the video I made about that. So I'll definitely get those mods posted some time.

I have been following your channel for a while and I really enjoy your mods and videos 
Do you think you could release mods like playing as fake crash (there is one on Nexus but it doesn't use your method so it's lacking stuff like aku-aku working correctly) or maybe even playing as Tawna? I don't know if she has enough animations to make it possible?

[ARD]

This looks really awesome! If you do find a way to add the costumes it'd be absolutely amazing if you modded the Princess Coco and Beach Coco skins from Crash Team Racing Nitro Fueled into the N Sane Trilogy. 

I think even if we can get model swapping between the games to work, the skeletons are too different for animations to work properly. Animations and skeletons are interchangeable but the CTR versions of Crash and Coco do not contain the animations needed to actually make them playable in the N Sane Trilogy. I can post some pictures some time to demonstrate what I mean if you want because I'm not really sure how to explain the problem.

So, you're having trouble importing CTR:NF assets to the PC version of NST, right? What about Switch NST=>PC NST? I'm curious to see if using the Switch assets in the PC version might lead to a performance increase. (While my desktop can maintain 1080p60 and usually hit 4K30, my laptop struggles to run the game at 480p30. Also, I'm curious if it could make my desktop run the game at 4K60.)

NST on PC, NST on Switch, NST on PS4, CTR on Switch and presumably all other versions of both games each use a slightly different format for the models and I'm not sure anyone understands them well enough yet to be able to convert properly so at the moment even swapping between two versions of the same game isn't possible. Some things like the motorbike are identical between NST and CTR when you look at the actual model data but there's a lot of other stuff in the files that complicates things. I'm not sure using Switch models on PC would make any difference anyway, using lower res textures and disabling fur etc might give more of a performance boost, or removing a lot of background stuff from levels... I mean you'd have to ask someone who knows something about PC gaming and specs etc.

I have been following your channel for a while and I really enjoy your mods and videos 
Do you think you could release mods like playing as fake crash (there is one on Nexus but it doesn't use your method so it's lacking stuff like aku-aku working correctly) or maybe even playing as Tawna? I don't know if she has enough animations to make it possible?

Fake Crash, Biker Crash, Scuba Crash and all those other mods that remove Aku Aku, yes I can definitely make my own versions of those which don't do that so I'll add those to my to do list. I did once experiment with the idea of making a playable Tawna that used her animation from the Crash 1 intro as a spin attack but she doesn't really have any other animations so she wouldn't be able to walk around or do anything really, like most characters.

As I said before, people have figured out the format of animations so it's not out of the question that someone might be able to create custom animations at some point, and if that happens then stuff like Princess Coco in the N Sane Trilogy or a playable Tawna are more likely to happen. But for now the best I can do is probably Papu Papu...