BGII Creature creation info, please

[ericp07]

Hello,

 

I've been looking around for tutorials and info on the essentials of creature creation, and it appears to be a similar process to the .cre file portion of NPC creation, but I'm sure there are some critical aspects that escape me *L* So, if anyone can point me in the direction of excellent info on how to do this, I'm a beginner who's eager to learn!

 

I want to create a "monster" that's vaguely based on the wild tiger (I picked that just to have something to start with, rather than writing everything from scratch), but will be more powerful, yet with no spell-like abilities or other supernatural powers...just a vicious and highly efficient predator.

 

I made some modifications to the wild tiger's .cre file, and exported it with a different name, but I'm pretty sure I forgot to create a needed script file, and there are bound to be more details I need to include to make this creature. The tiger's animation will do, but I need the body to be black, with blood-red highlights.

 

TIA for nudging me in the right direction here!

 

Happy modding,

Eric

[Demivrgvs]

Which editor are you using? I find NI more than enough to create custom .CREs but there could be better editors by now. Anyway you can assign a script via WeiDU code or directly from the editor (for a tiger a wtasight.bcs will pratically cover everything).

[ericp07]

Which editor are you using? I find NI more than enough to create custom .CREs but there could be better editors by now. Anyway you can assign a script via WeiDU code or directly from the editor (for a tiger a wtasight.bcs will pratically cover everything).

 

Oh, I should have mentioned the editor. I use NI on a Mac running OS X (10.4.11, the latest version of Tiger). I'll look for the .bcs you mentioned...would that be assigned to the Default Script, or to the Override Script, or to a different one?

 

Thanks,

Eric

[ericp07]

OK, I think I've sorted out about the wtasight.bcs issue, and I changed the animation to the panther, because that looks closer to my creature's form. Also, I changed the Death Variable to agree with the name of the .cre file. Changed the General category from cat to monster, but I'm not sure if that will cause problems yet.

 

I don't see how to change (don't know how) the Name and Apparent Name using NI. I'd like to use the proper name I have for the creature, so if anyone can help me there, I'd appreciate it.

 

Thanks again,

Eric

[Bookwyrme]

When you add it to your tp2 it will look something like this:

 

~mainmodfolder/creatures/creaturename.cre~ ~override/creaturename.cre~

SAY NAME1 ~Blood Tiger~

SAY NAME2 ~Blood Tiger~

 

The NAME1 & NAME2 will display in game--everyone will see Blood Tiger (or whatever).

[ericp07]

When you add it to your tp2 it will look something like this:

 

~mainmodfolder/creatures/creaturename.cre~ ~override/creaturename.cre~

SAY NAME1 ~Blood Tiger~

SAY NAME2 ~Blood Tiger~

 

The NAME1 & NAME2 will display in game--everyone will see Blood Tiger (or whatever).

 

OK, so that's for when I prepare it as part of my mod, hence tp2. However, because the .cre file I pull up in NI shows the Name and Apparent Name as something different, when the creature appears in the game, acts, and is killed, the text uses the different name that I don't want.

 

This particular creature shall be called Beast of Malar. I'm toying with the idea of allowing it to take either of two fighting forms, as it does in PnP D&D (the third form isn't meaningful for BGII purposes). For now, the form I'm using is its hunting form. I'm guessing I'll eventually need to have separate .cre files to represent each of the forms. The think would hunt and find its prey, then change to a "claw slayer" form (think of a panther-sized badger).

 

I just want to make sure I'm doing everything correctly here...guess I should have started with something simpler first *L*

 

Thanks very much for this! I'll know, when the time comes, to use the beast's proper name in the .tp2.

 

- E

[ericp07]

Oops! I forgot to ask this: what determines how much damage a creature's attacks do? I saw the number of attacks when viewing and editing the .cre with NI, but I didn't see an entry for damage. If possible, I'd like to reflect the damage my creature is supposed to do.

 

Also found how to set skin color, and as it's an animal, I see that the other color settings are irrelevant. I end up with a black panther, but I want to use a modified version of the animation, so I can paint a little blood-red color on the paws and face. I stumbled across a tutorial on how to do that once, but have long since lost the link.

 

Thanks again,

Eric

[WizWom]

creatures typically get a claw or hand weapon, which is undroppable, which does their damage.

 

For instance, the Wild Tiger (CATTIG01) has in Weapon1 P1-10.ITM

 

If you want the beast to have a claw/claw/bite attack (typical for D&D creatures) you'd need to make sure it gets 2 attacks and has the Bite in the off-hand (Shield slot). Don't forget 3 stars in two-weapon proficiency, or you'll mess up your creature's THAC0.

[Bookwyrme]

When you add it to your tp2 it will look something like this:

 

~mainmodfolder/creatures/creaturename.cre~ ~override/creaturename.cre~

SAY NAME1 ~Blood Tiger~

SAY NAME2 ~Blood Tiger~

 

The NAME1 & NAME2 will display in game--everyone will see Blood Tiger (or whatever).

 

OK, so that's for when I prepare it as part of my mod, hence tp2. However, because the .cre file I pull up in NI shows the Name and Apparent Name as something different, when the creature appears in the game, acts, and is killed, the text uses the different name that I don't want.

 

I'd suggest not worrying about it--you know that this mis-naming is temporary. The tp2 is how you change the name

[ericp07]

When you add it to your tp2 it will look something like this:

 

~mainmodfolder/creatures/creaturename.cre~ ~override/creaturename.cre~

SAY NAME1 ~Blood Tiger~

SAY NAME2 ~Blood Tiger~

 

The NAME1 & NAME2 will display in game--everyone will see Blood Tiger (or whatever).

 

OK, so that's for when I prepare it as part of my mod, hence tp2. However, because the .cre file I pull up in NI shows the Name and Apparent Name as something different, when the creature appears in the game, acts, and is killed, the text uses the different name that I don't want.

 

I'd suggest not worrying about it--you know that this mis-naming is temporary. The tp2 is how you change the name

 

Wonderful! That's the sense I got...nice to have some validation

 

Thanks yet again!

Eric

[ericp07]

creatures typically get a claw or hand weapon, which is undroppable, which does their damage.

 

For instance, the Wild Tiger (CATTIG01) has in Weapon1 P1-10.ITM

 

If you want the beast to have a claw/claw/bite attack (typical for D&D creatures) you'd need to make sure it gets 2 attacks and has the Bite in the off-hand (Shield slot). Don't forget 3 stars in two-weapon proficiency, or you'll mess up your creature's THAC0.

 

Yes, that's the appropriate attack routine. Does this mean that, if I want the claw and bite to do different damage than that of a typical Wild Tiger, I'll have to create those as new items? As for proficiencies, do I simply enter the desired number in the .cre with NearInfinity? I see a value of 0 for proficiencies there across the board (as I do for my NPC, which doesn't reflect what I want for her).

 

I'll keep exploring with NI as I go, too.

 

Thanks,

Eric

[ericp07]

I may have just had an "Aha!" moment (and I'm not talking about the band from the '80s *L*) Am I correct in the idea that it will be necessary to package and install the Beast of Malar I'm creating, the way we package and install an NPC? That would explain to my why the .tp2 is needed to give a creature some of the detail that can't be achieved by using NearInfinity. Am I on the right track here?

 

I found that the page that had info on altering the panther's animation to make it look like I want for my creature no longer exists So, with some trepidation, I'll be wanting to learn if it's possible to duplicate such an animation, alter the images by hand (in this case, using Photoshop), and save it for use with this creature.

 

As always, I welcome words of wisdom and advice I can summon the Beast of Malar in the game by using the CLUAConsole, and it appears to fight as it should. I'm still stumbling through giving it the attack routing of two claws and a bite, and I'm sure I've got it wrong so far, so guidance in that area will be most excellent, too!

 

Thanks and happy modding,

Eric

[Miloch]

Am I correct in the idea that it will be necessary to package and install the Beast of Malar I'm creating, the way we package and install an NPC?

Yes, of course. This should be true for any modification to the game (mod).

I found that the page that had info on altering the panther's animation to make it look like I want for my creature no longer exists So, with some trepidation, I'll be wanting to learn if it's possible to duplicate such an animation, alter the images by hand (in this case, using Photoshop), and save it for use with this creature.

Eh... yeah it's possible. It's just a whole lot of work. Start by looking at all the animations, all sequences and all frames for your tiger (with something like BAM Workshop from teambg.eu - probably something in the mgcl*.bam range), multiply that by the work you might need to touch up each frame, add a large glob of time at the end of that to reassemble and test everything, then you're looking at, oh, 2010?

 

On the other hand, you could theoretically mess with the BAM palettes globally with WeiDU to make an orange tiger some other colour. It'd take some time to figure out which entries you want to remap to which values, but it'd probably be less time-consuming in the long run.

 

I'd love to write a tutorial on this but eh... I gotta run to class and stuff. Seems bigg already kindly assigned me the task anyway. I guess that's fair if I asked for the feature... so much to do and a negative quantity of time in which to do it...

 

Now if someone just did a PS/PSP BAM plug-in, it'd make all the above (mostly) unnecessary...

 

Note that creating a .cre is a lot different and much easier than creating a set of .bam sequences, and creating scripts (.baf or .bcs files) is different again, and somewhere in between those two in terms of complexity.

[ericp07]

So, I see that I've done only part of the work for creating and adding the Beast of Malar to the game. I'll follow the procedure to create the needed files, package it into a mini-mod of sorts (all I'm doing is adding the creature, after all...don't know if I can make it appear at random, but I'd like it to have a percentage chance of appearing and attacking a party that includes a druid or ranger character, maybe one chance per day, only in outdoor wilderness). This will, of course, eventually become an optional component of my NPC mod. The creature will be keenly interested in hunting and attacking any Needle kit character. Maybe there's a way to tie the kit and the creature together...but I get ahead of myself here

 

Back to immediate concerns. Perhaps I should stick with the black panther, and not try to tamper with the way it looks, at least for now.

 

As for attacks, it does have the P1-10.ITM (skull) specified in the Item 0 slot. Why does it say "skull," though, if it's a claw attack? There's a corresponding 0 in the Weapon 1 slot, and -1 in all the remaining inventory location slots. I take this to mean that 0 represents something present, while -1 represents nothing present. Now, I want to add a bite attack, and WizWom advises to place it in the Shield slot. Do I add a new Item 1 for this, and assign the tiger attack to it? Also, do I need to change the -1 in Shield slot to a 0 (or some other value)?

 

Heh, I was tempted to use Beast Claw for the creature's claw attack, but that might be overkill. Still, though, I'd like to be able to specify the damage this creature's claw and bite are supposed to do.

 

One more detail I'd like to add (I know, I said no special abilities, but I looked it up, and was wrong about that): the creature needs to have permanently active regeneration. Should I give it a ring of regeneration for this purpose, that isn't lootable after it dies? (This creature has no treasure; it provides only XP when slain).

 

I'll see about correcting what I currently have for this creature mod, and await further advice

 

Thanks,

Eric

[ericp07]

Now I have a question about a BGII creature's .d file. Is this needed, if there's no dialog? If so, what needs to be in it? I've created the necessary files (except for the .ARE file, because I don't yet know which codes to use for all outdoor wilderness areas) and folders, so the install package is nearly ready to test. I opened a .dlg file from the override folder, to see if that would give me any clues, but all I saw was coding that meant nothing to my novice eyes.

 

Thanks,

Eric