Who would imagine that it took eight solid years for FromSoftware to work on importing custom geographic maps for the Dark Souls game? The RPG game was released in 2011 and encountered some problems with getting custom maps to run in the game.
Until now, FromSoftware has worked tirelessly to transfer their created worlds for the game. Only with the recent technology was the development team able to circumvent the issues that have been plaguing them for years.
Though modders were able to incorporate the custom maps into several FromSoftware titles, including rigging the Dark Souls game with worlds from Demon’s Soul, it proved to be hard running custom maps within the game.
Recently, some modders were able to crack the code and overcome the technical difficulties presented after the game was released eight years ago.
Tech and gaming news agency, Eurogamer, also reported the news indicating that modder Zullie was able to overcome the hurdles previously faced by the game. The modder mentioned that the effort was a collaboration between several game modders who worked to break the technical barrier.
Major barriers in custom level design have been broken in Dark Souls 1. @meowmaritus's tools can import models, but without collision. Horkrux developed a way to create collision maps, and so now, Dropoff has imported the first ever new map into the game:https://t.co/51xWoCAFqz
— Zullie (@ZullieTheWitch) November 4, 2019
Another modder, Meowmaritus, created a tool that was used to import the maps and models. Likewise, the tweet admitted that the GUI fix did not include solid-map retention or what is known as collision detection.
Also included in the team was a modder by the name of Horkrux, who found the right way of crafting collision maps. The custom map, ‘Crossfire from Half-life,’ was successfully rendered by the game and is now working. Such feat proved to be workable despite the game’s initial problems with the loading of custom maps.
These pros speculate that the problem with Dark Soul’s custom map problems might have originated from the game’s saved file format. The topic was brought up in the modding community with one Katalash explaining the game used an engine that avoided collision detection and physics behind the map’s readability.
Though the Havok engine might have been proprietary, there were also several customizations from the developers which added into the game’s format. Besides, the modder stated that stored data and the system file formatting changed from each game.
Furthermore, he disclosed that the problem got solved by using the old Havok Content tools version, which only released for a short period. It was before the modification tool stopped releasing newer versions.
