Hint: To export characters you need to import and bind the games actual IK skeleton and bone grouping/naming/structure/tree, in GR2 SDK this is very very easy, it's actually the only reason anyone ever uses GR2 far as I know) without that SDK plugin it's a manual job, that means 8+ hours per (new) character mesh you wanna convert to D:OS 2, new weapons and especially hair meshes are a nightmare within nightmares. Since those bind to specific bones, arm skeleton was imported with them (it's done automatically in the GR2 SDK I think) this however means if you change the skeleton you literally have to remake all the weapons yourself..... and since you don't have the GR2 SDK within MAX you can not easily do it automatically
Anyhow... just having a GR2 exporter is entirely useless for character additions, new enemies, weapons, body and hair styles etc. Anything where you need to adhere to IK and bone regulations you are gonna suffer hard from GR2 inflicted issues.
I guess that when you say "new weapons" you mean new TYPES of weapons, that require new animations, like a pair of nunchakus or a pistol. But creating a new sword, or a new axe shouldn't be that troubling as long as you respect the proportions and size because animation will be absolutely the same.
but at that point maybe you should be making your own game in Unity instead, not just is it infinitely EASIER it's also much quicker. And those are 2 words I should never have to write in relation to modding a game.
Modding a game should be easy, that's what keeps it alive and relevant, we already gave Skyrim as an example, but you can think of any source engine game, tabletop simulator, original deus ex, or, closer to our goals, the first Neverwinter Nights or the first Vampire the Masquerade (Redemption, though bloodlines also had lots of mods that helped it to have a very active fanbase)
I have a hardcore "meh" feeling about modding D:OS 2 visually to be honest. I hope the editor for editing campaign and scripts won't be basically like creating an entirely new game... That Bard mod gives me great hope that we will see more skills and more perks at least, without haxing the entire base game.
Well I can't be the only one that wants it, some of us have campaigns based in entirely different worlds and I (f. ex, amongst other things) need to have werewolves, or a giant starfish, or a nasty imp (familiar of a powerful lich mage) , just to name a few. So creating a system like this, saying that "you can do your own D&D campaigns in the divinity engine" and not giving tools to create a comfortable pipeline is just a bad move. Granny3d may make rigging and animation way easier but since most people won't have it, it's logical to think that you have to make a way for people create their animations in Maya/Max and import them to the game. Yes, rigging and animating is a slow process, I am aware of that, but that's an unskippable obstacle even making a game from scratch so, it's logical to at least provide a way to not making even more difficult to put those models and animations in the game. If you make and animate...i don't know, a kickass new golem design but putting it into the game is another task almost as difficult as making that golem itself...that would be a little discouraging, right? Most people won't even bother to create anything.
