OOTP 14 - The Road To Release, Part 2
MODDING: BASEBALL DREAMS COME TRUE
Written by OOTP community member "DCHepler25"
Five days ago we sent the first Road to Release mailing in which our community member "ootpFox07" described the new player origin features. Today we'll present the new modding features.
Remember the first time someone showed you how to play dice baseball? How you were fascinated and hooked from the first roll? Do you remember playing out all of your favorite team's games that season? Or maybe every team's games that season? Or maybe, for you, the game quickly became a way to live out your baseball dreams by creating a complete fictional universe played via paper, pencil, and those beautiful dice.
Fast-forward to today and many of us are still playing out the games of our dreams. Some have held on to the paper and pencil. Others have replaced them with a computer and word processing software. But all of us have replaced those beautiful dice with the equally beautiful Out of the Park Baseball series, which lets us play out our baseball dreams the way we like - one roll at a time.
The newest edition in the series, Out of the Park Baseball 14, offers dreamers even more ability to mod their baseball universe. While OOTP 14 continues the tradition of improving many aspects of the AI, this version also includes several new features aimed at the modding community. As a self-labeled modder, I'm most interested in those - so let's see if we can mod that baseball dream.
> > > Click to Pre-Order OOTP 14 for PC Windows and Mac OS X < < <
I Need More FaceGen
There is no better way to fulfill one's baseball dream than to see your players wearing your team's uniforms. So now you're saying, "Hey, OOTP already has caps and jerseys," and you're right. But we aren't going to be satisfied with just one uniform. We want, no, we demand more, and OOTP 14 delivers by giving us the ability to set both home and away uniforms, along with new jersey templates and several baseball cap templates that work the same as jersey templates.
The Team Colors, Logos & Uniforms screen will now have a button for switching between home and away uniforms, along with an additional color selection line for away jerseys.
Presently, away uniforms are available on baseball cards, the in-game screen, and the league schedule screen. In addition, new person pictures (90x135 pixels) with away uniforms will be created, but new player profile pictures will not. OOTP 14 will automatically load away uniforms if the option is enabled and it detects properly named textures, i.e. caps/jerseys_cityname_nickname_away.png. After we announced this feature, modders started working on away uniforms for all the major league teams, so we expect them to be included in the always-popular All-in-One Mod.
The FaceGen feature has also received enhancements, including more FaceGen beards and improved rendering of FaceGen pictures to remove artifacts and eliminate the "see-through" bug and left shoulder bug. FaceGen now uses less memory, which is important when big leagues are updating a lot of player pictures at the same time.
I Gotta Have More FaceGen
Are you the type of player that has multiple logos and uniforms for your favorite team? Do you update your team's look by manually changing the files in-game? If you're like me, you also wish the game would do all the work for you. Stop rubbing that old lamp, my modder friend! OOTP 14 now offers dynamic logos, caps, and jerseys that update automatically as your dream universe progresses. All you need to do is rename your custom files so the game knows when to make the changes, and, like magic, the OOTP genie grants your wish.
OOTP 14 accomplishes this feat through the addition of usage years in the file names. If you want to use a specific logo/cap/jersey during a single year or over a period of years, simply add them to the file name. Want an example? No problem. For my favorite team I want to use logo #1 from 1933 through 1945, then change to logo #2 from 1946 through 1980, and finish with logo #3 from 1981 through the end of time. The following table shows the changes I need to make:
| Original File Name | Years in Use | New File Name |
| favorite_team_#1 | 1933 - 1945 | favorite_team_1933-1945 |
| favorite_team_#2 | 1946 - 1980 | favorite_team_1946-1980 |
| favorite_team_#3 | 1981 on | favorite_team_1981 |
With my logo files updated, the magic begins as OOTP 14 checks each year to ensure the correct logo is being used. The magic works the same if you have custom caps and jerseys for different time periods. Remember to follow the correct naming procedure described above. If you use color codes or notes in your file names, just append those after the last year like so: favorite_team_1946-1980_fefefe_000000_optional-comment.png.
When you're done with all those uniforms and logos, you'll probably want to make sure they're correct. There's a handy new report function that shows the logos and home and away uniforms for all the teams in your league on one HTML page.
And if you want to recreate those annual team pictures, now you can: OOTP 14 lets you generate a single picture with the complete active roster's names and pictures.
Databases Where You Want Them, When You Want Them
Now that you have the away jerseys you always wanted and no longer need to manually update your favorite team's look, I suppose you're going to tell me you have more than one baseball dream? I suppose you want to be able to switch between them at will and not have to worry about remembering to change the custom ethnicities, financials, and names files you painstakingly modified to your liking. Since OOTP 14 seems to be granting an infinite number of wishes, what's one more, right?
On the advanced setup screen, you'll find the new Source Databases tab, which allows you to select custom source folders for the database files, logos, caps, jerseys and player photos. (Note: this should be done prior to adding any league to the universe.) After making these selections, OOTP 14 will search the specified folders first. The game will only use the default location if a specific file is not found in the custom location.
"Can I use custom database folders for the league I imported from OOTP 13?" you ask. Sure. All of the options are available on the Database Info screen found on the Game dropdown menu.
The ability to have multiple custom database folders is a game-changer for those who want run their Middle Earth league of hobbits one day and effortlessly switch to their A League of Their Own all-female universe the next. And your saved games will be saved in the custom folder too, so you can install multiple isolated copies of OOTP 14 in parallel for testing or easier modding.
Text-to-Speech (TTS) Improvements
We're approaching the day when OOTP can sound as natural as the announcers on your TV when it's reading the play-by-play. We're not quite there yet, but OOTP 14 makes some strides in that area, including a new pronunciation file, "tts_pronunciation," located in the "misc" folder. Using the SAPI 5 phonetic system, you can edit that file to tell the text-to-speech narrator how to pronounce names. All of the first and last names in the Lahman database are already there!
To enable text-to-speech, go into the Game Preferences before playing out a game. Choose the "Game sound + text-to-speech" option in the "Misc" pane. It works okay in Windows 7, but it's even better in Windows 8, which has seen a lot of TTS improvements. Open the Windows system settings and select a TTS voice to your liking. Mac and Linux users will need to wait a while before they can start using TTS in OOTP.
Additional Enhancements
In addition to the exciting new features above, here are some of the other great new additions and improvements in OOTP 14:
Many additions to the storyline creation system, including player suspensions, team winning and losing streaks, main actors, and more
Revamped fielding development and pitching staff usage.
Recoded Player Creation model, resulting in more realistic players.
Multiple new screens providing easier access and deepened immersion.
Lots of changes to the data export system to give better support to 3rd party tools.
Bug fixes and more!
OOTP 14 puts a host of new tools, a redesigned and improved user interface and countless functional improvements all under your control so you can mold your mega million dollar major league franchise, shape your small market independent start-up, or mod your baseball dream to its maximum potential.
The game is truly yours for the taking, so play it your way!
Out of the Park Baseball 14 - The Grand Slam of Baseball Sims! Pre-order your copy today and download it on April 12, 2013, three days before the official release on April 15!
The OOTP Developments Team
> > > Click to Pre-Order OOTP 14 for PC Windows and Mac OS X < < <
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