Give Feedback
0 of 0
About this mod
Makes the goblet behave correctly when wearing modded clothing or armour, puts gloves on the PC, allows replacement of Duncan's dagger, and fixes some other issues.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
The main function of this mod is to stop the chalice/goblet rotating weirdly when using some modded armour/clothing in the Joining cutscene in the base game. Vanilla and modded armour/clothing not affected by the issue will still behave correctly. It also fixes some other issues with the cutscene, and provides some options for replacement of Duncan's dagger.
It will not affect the language you play in, thanks to a little manual editing and a lot of this very handy file patching tool.
It will not affect the Joining cutscenes in Awakening (and please don't ask me to fix them -- the source files are not available).
It will not have any effect on the armour/clothing itself.
Outfits in screenshots:
Huge thanks to this set of savegames and this race/gender changing tutorial, which have made testing mods a whole lot easier.
Holding the goblet
The main reason you're here! Putting certain modded armour/clothing on characters who hold the chalice/goblet (including Daveth and Duncan) will no longer make it rotate weirdly. Vanilla armour/clothing will still behave correctly.
The PC's gloves
The player character will now wear gloves (if available) during the cutscene. This will also fix things like missing hands, or bare hands intersecting with gloves.
Duncan's dagger replaceability
It is now possible to replace Duncan's hidden dagger without affecting other elven daggers in the game.
Duncan's dagger appearance timing
Duncan's hidden dagger will no longer appear/disappear in his hand while in shot when he draws it and after he uses it. Mostly.
Jory's sword
Jory will have a greatsword instead of a longsword in the cutscene, though it still can't be tinted; his actual greatsword item has been made untinted to match.
DF cutscene split
Female dwarves now use their own individual cutscene file rather than the DM file.
Goblet continuity
The goblet will be on the table when Duncan puts it down for a bit.
Compatibility file for Grey Wardens of Ferelden
Required if you use Grey Wardens of Ferelden, as otherwise you will not be given your warden uniform at the Joining.
Compatibility file for Dall's Rescaled Weapons
Required if you use Dalls_Rescaled Weapons, as otherwise Duncan's hand won't be positioned correctly on his dagger. Not needed if you're using the "Duncan's warden dagger" file below, since it uses a dagger mesh not covered in Dall's mod.
Duncan's warden dagger
If you have tmp7704's Warden Armours mod or a mod that includes it, such as Grey Wardens of Ferelden, this file gives Duncan the Grey Warden dagger from it. It will be invisible if you don't have one of those mods, as it doesn't include any of the files other than the MMH/PHY.
Source files
I've provided source files for the cutscenes and scripts, in case anyone wants to take a look, or needs to make compatibility patches and I'm not around to assist. It is not needed to just use this mod, and should mostly not be put in your override.
Extract in the usual override folder (\Documents\Bioware\Dragon Age\packages\core\override).
To uninstall, delete the files at any time.
Optional files
When installing optional files, you can either place the folder in the zip inside the mod folder, or extract the files within it directly into the mod folder and overwrite the original main files. Either will work, as the game gives priority to files in subdirectories.
Compatibility files
Not compatible
This mod is not compatible with mods that directly edit the joining cutscene, but it may supersede them depending on what has been edited.
Hair show in screenshots:
Other mods in screenshots:
It will not affect the language you play in, thanks to a little manual editing and a lot of this very handy file patching tool.
It will not affect the Joining cutscenes in Awakening (and please don't ask me to fix them -- the source files are not available).
It will not have any effect on the armour/clothing itself.
Outfits in screenshots:
- Duncan: Duncan Outfit (medium version)
- Daveth: Witcher 3 Wardrobe (Lynx School) (with my skin fix)
- HM: Admiral's Coat
- HF: Back to Ferelden (Malcolm's Bequest)
- EF: Bethany Robe Replacer with Bethany Sleeve Retexture
- EM: Inquisition Mage Armour
- DF/DM: Fine Dwarven Threads (silk outfits)
Huge thanks to this set of savegames and this race/gender changing tutorial, which have made testing mods a whole lot easier.
About: Main file
Holding the goblet
The main reason you're here! Putting certain modded armour/clothing on characters who hold the chalice/goblet (including Daveth and Duncan) will no longer make it rotate weirdly. Vanilla armour/clothing will still behave correctly.
Spoiler:
Show
Files
All CUT/CUB files
Details
A lot of modded armour/clothing causes a bug in the joining cutscenes where the joining chalice/goblet is incorrectly positioned and oriented. This usually makes the player character look like they're pouring the contents over their shoulder, but it can also affect Daveth and Duncan if they're wearing modded armour.
In the vanilla cutscene the goblet is linked to the characters' hands using the VFX (crust) nodes. I changed it to use the equivalent weapon nodes instead, which will fix the issue without causing issues with vanilla armour/clothing. I had to copy all of the original position/orientation keyframe values over after changing the node links in order for it to work, which is why I'm not editing the Awakening cutscenes: the DLCs don't have source files available unlike the base game, and just changing the node link in the exported cutscene files does not produce the correct result.
I don't know why using the VFX nodes causes the issue to happen in the first place; I am not a 3D modder. I know that armour/clothing mods made by tmp7704 and not further edited by someone else don't have the issue, and there are other mods that also don't have it.
There will be clipping between the goblet and the far hand on some PCs, notably the Elf Update proportions, since the shoulders are so narrow. I have tried to edit the animation to make the hands wider apart, and the edit itself worked fine, but no matter what I couldn't stop it exporting jittery. I suspect this is because it has keyframes on every frame, being an exported file format rather than the original animation file with smooth curves, and I can't bring myself to clean up every single bone's keyframes.
All CUT/CUB files
Details
A lot of modded armour/clothing causes a bug in the joining cutscenes where the joining chalice/goblet is incorrectly positioned and oriented. This usually makes the player character look like they're pouring the contents over their shoulder, but it can also affect Daveth and Duncan if they're wearing modded armour.
In the vanilla cutscene the goblet is linked to the characters' hands using the VFX (crust) nodes. I changed it to use the equivalent weapon nodes instead, which will fix the issue without causing issues with vanilla armour/clothing. I had to copy all of the original position/orientation keyframe values over after changing the node links in order for it to work, which is why I'm not editing the Awakening cutscenes: the DLCs don't have source files available unlike the base game, and just changing the node link in the exported cutscene files does not produce the correct result.
I don't know why using the VFX nodes causes the issue to happen in the first place; I am not a 3D modder. I know that armour/clothing mods made by tmp7704 and not further edited by someone else don't have the issue, and there are other mods that also don't have it.
There will be clipping between the goblet and the far hand on some PCs, notably the Elf Update proportions, since the shoulders are so narrow. I have tried to edit the animation to make the hands wider apart, and the edit itself worked fine, but no matter what I couldn't stop it exporting jittery. I suspect this is because it has keyframes on every frame, being an exported file format rather than the original animation file with smooth curves, and I can't bring myself to clean up every single bone's keyframes.
The PC's gloves
The player character will now wear gloves (if available) during the cutscene. This will also fix things like missing hands, or bare hands intersecting with gloves.
Spoiler:
Show
Files
All CUT/CUB files
Details
The vanilla cutscene turns off any gloves the player character is wearing. This looks fine on clothing (since it doesn't have gloves) and some armours, silly on a lot of armours (which generally expect to have gloves covering the end of the arm armour), and terrible on some modded armours (some of which result in no hands, some of which result in bare hands intersecting with the gloves (due to using a shortcut where the armour is a single mesh and the gloves/boots are empty meshes)).
I've turned on the gloves, since it solves these problems and doesn't cause new ones. If you want the original bare-handed look, you would have to take off your gloves before the cutscene.
All CUT/CUB files
Details
The vanilla cutscene turns off any gloves the player character is wearing. This looks fine on clothing (since it doesn't have gloves) and some armours, silly on a lot of armours (which generally expect to have gloves covering the end of the arm armour), and terrible on some modded armours (some of which result in no hands, some of which result in bare hands intersecting with the gloves (due to using a shortcut where the armour is a single mesh and the gloves/boots are empty meshes)).
I've turned on the gloves, since it solves these problems and doesn't cause new ones. If you want the original bare-handed look, you would have to take off your gloves before the cutscene.
Duncan's dagger replaceability
It is now possible to replace Duncan's hidden dagger without affecting other elven daggers in the game.
Spoiler:
Show
Files
All CUT/CUB files
w_dgr_dunstaba_0.mmh
w_dgr_dunstaba_0.phy
Details
In a cutscene, weapons in a character's inventory can only be in their hand or sheathed (typically on their back). They can be made invisible, but only for the entire cutscene. Items that need to appear and/or disappear within the scene or detach from the character are essentially treated as props and don't actually reference item (UTI) files: instead, they directly reference MMH (model mesh hierarchy) files. (They grab that reference from a UTI when created in the cutscene editor, but the model reference is what's actually kept. I don't know why it's done this way since it's then impossible to use material tints.)
Duncan's vanilla dagger is the Dagger 3 mesh, which is used for daggers like Dar'Misu etc. I've replaced the generic reference with a uniquely-named MMH reference that's a copy of Dagger 3. This means that anyone wanting to replace just Duncan's dagger can do so without replacing every single Dagger 3 dagger in the game, but it also means that any mods that edit vanilla daggers will not affect Duncan's dagger without extra work.
All CUT/CUB files
w_dgr_dunstaba_0.mmh
w_dgr_dunstaba_0.phy
Details
In a cutscene, weapons in a character's inventory can only be in their hand or sheathed (typically on their back). They can be made invisible, but only for the entire cutscene. Items that need to appear and/or disappear within the scene or detach from the character are essentially treated as props and don't actually reference item (UTI) files: instead, they directly reference MMH (model mesh hierarchy) files. (They grab that reference from a UTI when created in the cutscene editor, but the model reference is what's actually kept. I don't know why it's done this way since it's then impossible to use material tints.)
Duncan's vanilla dagger is the Dagger 3 mesh, which is used for daggers like Dar'Misu etc. I've replaced the generic reference with a uniquely-named MMH reference that's a copy of Dagger 3. This means that anyone wanting to replace just Duncan's dagger can do so without replacing every single Dagger 3 dagger in the game, but it also means that any mods that edit vanilla daggers will not affect Duncan's dagger without extra work.
Duncan's dagger appearance timing
Duncan's hidden dagger will no longer appear/disappear in his hand while in shot when he draws it and after he uses it. Mostly.
Spoiler:
Show
Files
All CUT/CUB files
Details
When Duncan draws his dagger, it appears in his hand slightly later than he would grab it. Mostly it's not a problem for the vanilla dagger, but if you replace it with a bigger one the pop-in is a lot more noticeable because the hilt is longer and so extends into frame. I've changed the timing so that it appears earlier (but not so early that it's in his hand before he would grab it, since that would also be visible). It's not perfect (since his animation is premade and I'd rather not change the camera angle) but it reduces the potential pop-in a lot.
After he's finished using his dagger, there's a shot where the lower half of him is in the background holding it before we cut to the player looking horrified. In the vanilla cutscene, the dagger disappears almost a full second (29 frames) before the camera actually cuts away (it's right near the top of the screen, but not quite out of frame). I've kept it visible until the camera cuts away.
All CUT/CUB files
Details
When Duncan draws his dagger, it appears in his hand slightly later than he would grab it. Mostly it's not a problem for the vanilla dagger, but if you replace it with a bigger one the pop-in is a lot more noticeable because the hilt is longer and so extends into frame. I've changed the timing so that it appears earlier (but not so early that it's in his hand before he would grab it, since that would also be visible). It's not perfect (since his animation is premade and I'd rather not change the camera angle) but it reduces the potential pop-in a lot.
After he's finished using his dagger, there's a shot where the lower half of him is in the background holding it before we cut to the player looking horrified. In the vanilla cutscene, the dagger disappears almost a full second (29 frames) before the camera actually cuts away (it's right near the top of the screen, but not quite out of frame). I've kept it visible until the camera cuts away.
Jory's sword
Jory will have a greatsword instead of a longsword in the cutscene, though it still can't be tinted; his actual greatsword item has been made untinted to match.
Spoiler:
Show
Files
All CUT/CUB files
pre100pt_ritual.ncs
gen_im_wep_mel_gsw_jor.uti
"Plain tint" folder
Details
Jory is a two-handed warrior and joins your party with a unique greatsword. When it comes to the vanilla joining cutscene however, he suddenly has a generic little longsword. This is what the vanilla pre-cutscene script gives him if he's had all melee weapons stolen from him, but if you don't steal his greatsword then the change is a little jarring. And while it makes more sense to fight one-handed and in such close quarters with a longsword, I think we can safely say Jory wasn't planning to.
I have switched the longsword out for the same greatsword model as his greatsword item, the Balanced Greatsword. Thankfully it doesn't clip with anything.
I also edited the joining script to change the weapon he's given if he doesn't have any melee weapons to be the greatsword as well.
Because of how cutscenes work, the Balanced Greatsword item itself isn't referenced by the cutscene -- only the model -- so the greatsword in the cutscene won't be tinted with its usual material (iron). I've included a file that makes the Balanced Greatsword item untinted too for better continuity, but you can remove that if you want. The item itself is gen_im_wep_mel_gsw_jor.uti, and the "Plain tint" folder contains the files that are needed to make it untinted (but which have no effect on their own). I used the files from Improved Atmosphere for maximum compatibility, so if you have that mod you can delete the "Plain tint" folder without effect.
All CUT/CUB files
pre100pt_ritual.ncs
gen_im_wep_mel_gsw_jor.uti
"Plain tint" folder
Details
Jory is a two-handed warrior and joins your party with a unique greatsword. When it comes to the vanilla joining cutscene however, he suddenly has a generic little longsword. This is what the vanilla pre-cutscene script gives him if he's had all melee weapons stolen from him, but if you don't steal his greatsword then the change is a little jarring. And while it makes more sense to fight one-handed and in such close quarters with a longsword, I think we can safely say Jory wasn't planning to.
I have switched the longsword out for the same greatsword model as his greatsword item, the Balanced Greatsword. Thankfully it doesn't clip with anything.
I also edited the joining script to change the weapon he's given if he doesn't have any melee weapons to be the greatsword as well.
Because of how cutscenes work, the Balanced Greatsword item itself isn't referenced by the cutscene -- only the model -- so the greatsword in the cutscene won't be tinted with its usual material (iron). I've included a file that makes the Balanced Greatsword item untinted too for better continuity, but you can remove that if you want. The item itself is gen_im_wep_mel_gsw_jor.uti, and the "Plain tint" folder contains the files that are needed to make it untinted (but which have no effect on their own). I used the files from Improved Atmosphere for maximum compatibility, so if you have that mod you can delete the "Plain tint" folder without effect.
DF cutscene split
Female dwarves now use their own individual cutscene file rather than the DM file.
Spoiler:
Show
Files
All CUT/CUB files
pre100pt_ritual.ncs
Details
If you've looked in the cutscene erf or the toolset, you will have seen that there is a cutscene for each race/gender combo and a suffixless cutscene. The vanilla script that runs the cutscene actually uses the DM cutscene for both male and female dwarves, and the generic cutscene has been commented out so that it is not used.
The vanilla DF cutscene file is actually pretty much identical to the DM cutscene since DF and DM are the same height, except that it has worse goblet positioning that will clip way into your forehead if you have tmp7704's dwarf proportions fix installed. (I normally hesitate to say anyone should have any mod, but it really does look nicer than the vanilla DF spider arms, so do check it out if you don't have it.) Therefore I've made it a duplicate of the DM cutscene. What's the point then? Well, not much. But I was editing the script anyway, and it means that if anyone wants to make edits to just one of the two in the future, they can do that.
The suffixless cutscene, on the other hand, I have not included. It is substantially different from any of the others: some sort of smoke/particle effect pours out of the eyeballs of anyone who drinks from the goblet. It's clearly an early discarded version. (I've uploaded a video of it on my modding tumblr here.)
All CUT/CUB files
pre100pt_ritual.ncs
Details
If you've looked in the cutscene erf or the toolset, you will have seen that there is a cutscene for each race/gender combo and a suffixless cutscene. The vanilla script that runs the cutscene actually uses the DM cutscene for both male and female dwarves, and the generic cutscene has been commented out so that it is not used.
The vanilla DF cutscene file is actually pretty much identical to the DM cutscene since DF and DM are the same height, except that it has worse goblet positioning that will clip way into your forehead if you have tmp7704's dwarf proportions fix installed. (I normally hesitate to say anyone should have any mod, but it really does look nicer than the vanilla DF spider arms, so do check it out if you don't have it.) Therefore I've made it a duplicate of the DM cutscene. What's the point then? Well, not much. But I was editing the script anyway, and it means that if anyone wants to make edits to just one of the two in the future, they can do that.
The suffixless cutscene, on the other hand, I have not included. It is substantially different from any of the others: some sort of smoke/particle effect pours out of the eyeballs of anyone who drinks from the goblet. It's clearly an early discarded version. (I've uploaded a video of it on my modding tumblr here.)
Goblet continuity
The goblet will be on the table when Duncan puts it down for a bit.
Spoiler:
Show
Files
All CUT/CUB files
Details
I have spent too much time looking at this cutscene by now, and noticed that when Duncan puts the goblet down in order to draw his dagger, it's just made invisible in the scene (positioned below the floor) rather than put on the table as is presumably intended to be implied from the "clunk" sound effect. I put it on the table.
All CUT/CUB files
Details
I have spent too much time looking at this cutscene by now, and noticed that when Duncan puts the goblet down in order to draw his dagger, it's just made invisible in the scene (positioned below the floor) rather than put on the table as is presumably intended to be implied from the "clunk" sound effect. I put it on the table.
About: Optional files
Compatibility file for Grey Wardens of Ferelden
Required if you use Grey Wardens of Ferelden, as otherwise you will not be given your warden uniform at the Joining.
Compatibility file for Dall's Rescaled Weapons
Required if you use Dalls_Rescaled Weapons, as otherwise Duncan's hand won't be positioned correctly on his dagger. Not needed if you're using the "Duncan's warden dagger" file below, since it uses a dagger mesh not covered in Dall's mod.
Duncan's warden dagger
If you have tmp7704's Warden Armours mod or a mod that includes it, such as Grey Wardens of Ferelden, this file gives Duncan the Grey Warden dagger from it. It will be invisible if you don't have one of those mods, as it doesn't include any of the files other than the MMH/PHY.
About: Miscellaneous files
Source files
I've provided source files for the cutscenes and scripts, in case anyone wants to take a look, or needs to make compatibility patches and I'm not around to assist. It is not needed to just use this mod, and should mostly not be put in your override.
Spoiler:
Show
The DADBDATA file contains the cutscenes and Duncan's new dagger item; it can be imported into your toolset database using Tools -> Builder -> Builder to Builder Load.
The GDA for Duncan's dagger may conflict as it only uses dagger variation 8. You can safely edit this since the exported cutscene only references a model and neither the GDA or a UTI are actually used outside the Toolset.
The cutscenes have different names to the vanilla cutscenes: they have a 1 on the end. I didn't want to directly edit the vanilla cutscenes and I didn't know how to make a copy while retaining the original filenames, so here we are. It means that the exported files have to be renamed internally and externally, and their references to each other fixed too. I only fixed the top-level references of mine; there are CUB references under every single animation listing in the CUT, but I left them "broken" and thankfully it doesn't seem to have affected anything.
The GDA for Duncan's dagger may conflict as it only uses dagger variation 8. You can safely edit this since the exported cutscene only references a model and neither the GDA or a UTI are actually used outside the Toolset.
The cutscenes have different names to the vanilla cutscenes: they have a 1 on the end. I didn't want to directly edit the vanilla cutscenes and I didn't know how to make a copy while retaining the original filenames, so here we are. It means that the exported files have to be renamed internally and externally, and their references to each other fixed too. I only fixed the top-level references of mine; there are CUB references under every single animation listing in the CUT, but I left them "broken" and thankfully it doesn't seem to have affected anything.
Installation
Extract in the usual override folder (\Documents\Bioware\Dragon Age\packages\core\override).
To uninstall, delete the files at any time.
Optional files
When installing optional files, you can either place the folder in the zip inside the mod folder, or extract the files within it directly into the mod folder and overwrite the original main files. Either will work, as the game gives priority to files in subdirectories.
Compatibility
Compatibility files
- Grey Wardens of Ferelden: you must get the compatibility file for it in Optional Files, otherwise you won't be given your Grey Warden armour at the Joining.
- Dall's Rescaled Weapons: get the compatibility file for it in Optional Files, otherwise Duncan's hand won't be positioned correctly on his dagger.
Not compatible
This mod is not compatible with mods that directly edit the joining cutscene, but it may supersede them depending on what has been edited.
- Gloves During the Joining is superseded: this mod also puts gloves (if available) on the player character.
- Witcher 2 DAO's "sword sheaths cutscene glitches fixed" optional file (to be used with its "Sheath Swords On Hips" file) edits several cutscenes. However, all it appears to do to the Joining cutscenes is hide Duncan and Alistair's main hand weapons (though Duncan's is hidden by the pre-cutscene script anyway, and Alistair's isn't drawn on-screen, meaning there's no problem with hip-sheathing). You should be able to safely delete the joining cutscene files from that mod. The other cutscenes in the file will not clash with this mod.
Hair show in screenshots:
- HM and EM: Additional Hairs for DA by boodrl (afro hair and mhair 1) (extra images here)
- HF: Raptures Witcher (Triss)
- EF: NewSea's Desperate port by Risibisi
- DF: NewSea's Frizzy port by Risibisi, Fine Dwarven Beards
- DM: Cazy's Flames port by Risibisi, Schwarzalbenheim
Other mods in screenshots:
- My skin tint and eyebrow/facial hair mods
- WIPs of my hair texture and goblet texture mods
- Some miscellaneous texture editing by me