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Qwinn's WeiDU PS:T FixPack


Qwinn

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My project is going remarkably well so far. 36 hours into it, and I've already got over 25 bugs (mostly from Platter's Fixpack so far, with a few of my own) squashed, with my changes verified as applied correctly at least in Near Infinity, and completing changes faster as I learn new things :laugh:

 

For the record, in the end I intend to have this FixPack fix all bugs addressed by Platter's Fixpack 1.37, the Restoration Pack, and SKARDAVNELNATE's All Inclusive Fix Pack, as well as a good number of bugs I've discovered on my own. Also for the record, SKARDAVNELNATE has generously given me his permission for me to consult with and re-implement his work, as long as credit is duly given, which it most certainly shall be. Platter and the writer of the Restoration Pack have, sadly, been missing for a few years now, but since I will also be extending credit to them, as well as the fact that this won't simply be repackaging what they did but actually manually going over every fix and WeiDUizing it, I'd hope there wouldn't be any challenges to the content of the mod on the basis of prior authorship. In most cases I'm actually just consulting the readmes to identify the bugs and then analyzing and reimplementing the fixes myself.

 

This thread serves two purposes.

 

One, I'll ask all my dumb n00b questions here in one place so I don't clutter up your forum any more than I have. (Don't have any questions right now, but I'm sure there will be more).

 

Two - is there any interest at G3 to host this mod once it's completed?

 

Qwinn

 

P.S. Oh - also. As far as Restorations go, I'm going to apply those with a light touch. Some restorations in the Restoration Pack are of dubious value, such as "Morte's original introduction", and I doubt I'll bother implementing them. This is going to be first and foremost a FixPack, not a restoration or new content pack, and if I do implement any restorations that are even slightly controversial I will make them optional during the WeiDU install process. I don't think there will be many of those though - right now the only content of that nature I will probably include is a WeiDUized version of Platter's Candlestick Quest, with SKARDAVNELNATE's fixes applied. (This is pretty much the only real content mod I'm aware of for PS:T at this time, hopefully WeiDUizing all this will lead more people to take a shot at it... I mean, c'mon, SOMEONE out there has to want to write extended romances for Annah or Fall-From-Grace ;)

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Okay, lots and lots of progress. I'm about 75% through WeiDUizing Platter's Fixpack at this point (and I've improved on a few of his fixes too, I think). Better yet, I think I'm finally beyond the point of asking -really- stupid questions, heh. Well, I hope.

 

But I do have a question now. Me stumped.

 

In a couple of places, I need to write a file name into a .ITM file So I use WRITE_ASCII. A couple of times previously, I used that method and it worked fine. But now, it isn't. It comes out close, but not quite.

 

For example, in one item, I need to modify the "drop sound". What's there before I write to the file is "Z-GEN2B.WAV". That dash should be an underscore. But when I WRITE_ASCII to the proper offset, what shows up in NI afterwards is "Z_GEN2B..WAV". Two periods. No matter what I do, it shows up. I tried specifying a length, and WRITE_ASCII_TERMINATE, nothing makes a difference. Why why why?

 

And now I've had it on a 2nd item. In this one, I'm changing the icon of an effect. What's there is II140.BAM. When I WRITE_ASCII 0x### ~II141.BAM~, what appears in the field in NI is II141.BA.BAM.

 

??

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Qwinn

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Guest jastey*

I am no help here, but "II141.BA.BAM" looks awfully like the result if "II141.BAM" is written into the 8 character-spaceholder of the file name at this place. Maybe something like

WRITE_ASCII 0x### ~II141~ 8#

would do the trick (I am not sure about the true syntax. Someone with more WeiDU knowledge should know how to replace 8 characters without writing the file ending into there.)

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YEP! That's exactly what it was... thanks tons for answering. I'd -just- noticed the field was only 8 bytes and was starting to think along those lines when I read your post. NI is in fact filling the extensions in automatically, I didn't expect that it'd be limited to only one type of file for each thing, ya know?

 

That's really the worst problem I've had so far, and I've been doing all kindsa crazy patching and stuff, and it's working! It's weird, I couldn't grasp any of this stuff for like months of looking at it and now it makes tons of sense, heh.

 

Qwinn

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I didn't expect that it'd be limited to only one type of file for each thing, ya know?

Actually, that's how the game works as well. In the BIF files, you don't get any extension for the "files" in them. A sound file has a name and a type, stating "sound file". Same for creature, map, ... So the extension is always forced by the type of file associated with a given field in a structure. That's why every file name is only limited to 8 characters and not 12.

 

As for WeiDU WRITE_ASCII, you need to specify the size to ensure that WeiDU will add a final 0 if the name is less than 8 characters so that the game knows where it ends. Be careful with WRITE_ASCII_TERMINATE as it will add the final 0 even if the string is 8 characters, which means it will overwrite the following byte in the structure.

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That's great info, thanks! I'm make sure to avoid problems of that variety.

 

It's really going well. I'm basically doing cleanup now on the Fixpack fixes, going through and making sure I didn't screw up too badly, before moving on to the Restoration fixes.

 

Oh, and also, I'm being a serious stickler about doing everything via edits. At this point the only files I'm actually copying are three .BAM's, one .2da that deals strictly with a sound bug, and one spell because it actually added effects and I'm not quite there yet (will work on it though). I also -might- copy the Justifier dialogue, since both Fixpack and Restoration made so many changes that WeiDUizing code would probably be bigger than the .d, heh... haven't decided which version I'll work with yet though, or if I'll just work my own version from scratch, but that one will probably get copied rather than WeiDU'd one way or another.

 

Anyways, everything else is a WeiDU edit, and I'm taking pains to be as undestructive as possible. (About the only time I actually do get destructive is because of a lack of a REPLACE_TRANS_TRIGGER function, so I have to get destructive with ALTER_TRANS on those, but everything else is an add or replace, basically).

 

Not that I really expect that anyone would ever install a mod before this one, but I figure I might as well get into good habits while I'm learning.

 

Qwinn

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Oh, and also, I'm being a serious stickler about doing everything via edits. At this point the only files I'm actually copying are three .BAM's, one .2da that deals strictly with a sound bug, and one spell because it actually added effects and I'm not quite there yet (will work on it though).
Feel free to use the BAMs I "fixed." Someone else was working on a WeiDU PS:T Fixpack but I haven't seen ktchong around for ages. It would be nice to see someone finish such a mod.

 

And you can add effects to spells via WeiDU - there's code in the BG2 Fixpack and I think Nythrun and Ascension64 posted some samples around here somewhere.

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Miloch - sweet! Thanks! I'll try those out.

 

And don't worry, nothing less than an act of God is gonna stop me from finishing this now, heh... already put too much sweat into it (I've been pretty much non-stop since I started this, with maybe 4-5 hours of sleep a night, lol).

 

As a progress update, I actually stopped working on the Restoration Pack because too many of the things fixed in it are "iffy" and I'm going to have to think about some of 'em, and it's just distracting me from the larger tasks. So first, I'm working with SKARDAVNELNATE's override1 folder, recreating the fixes that are supposed to be applied after the fixpack. Made some good progress there already. I think when I'm done with that, I'll do just the stuff in RestoPack that are clearly fixes as opposed to bordering-on-new-content, and consider it ready for testing and potential initial release at that point. Can add the iffy stuff as optional components in later releases.

 

Oh, and, couldn't help but notice no responses to the question about G3 being interested in hosting this mod. Shall I look elsewhere, or is there a better place/way to ask, or...?

 

Qwinn

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Oh, and, couldn't help but notice no responses to the question about G3 being interested in hosting this mod. Shall I look elsewhere, or is there a better place/way to ask, or...?

 

I'm sure G3 will be happy to host your PST fixpack, however, CamDawg (the G3 Administrator) is taking a break at the moment. Feel free to PM him though, he usually catches up on all the unread PMs when he returns.

 

BTW, nice work. :(

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Thanks, Avenger, I sent Cam a note :(

 

Okay. LOTS of progress. Still a ways to go - SKARDAVNELNATE has addressed more bugs than Fixpack and Restoration put together, pretty much, but progress does continue.

 

There's going to be a -lot- of cool stuff in this fixpack, btw. Along with a few quests that he restored (Elyce and Company, the Pendant of Yemeth quest, and others), I've also decided to add a couple mods of my own that I think I'll try to get into the first release:

 

1. The Scale of Souls. This is an item I will be creating that will be accessible very early in the game, with an appropriate and reasonable explanation for it's existence by Morte (if you brought him, you'll need to be pretty smart/wise to figure it out on your own if you didn't), that will allow the player to get a numerical representation of both his own alignment and his party member's morale. Want to know if you really did hurt Annah's feelings, or if that last conversation affected your petitioner's status after death (or, well, would have, but shhhh!)? Consult the Scales! This will be an optional component.

 

Oh, and if anyone knows of a good suitable .bam I could use for this item, or would like to create one, please do! Anything from a simple to an ornate set of old-style scales will do. Full credit will be extended in the readme. It will need to be in the PS:T style to be acceptable though, nothing worse than an item that looks totally out of whack with everything else.

 

2. The Morte-Ingress's teeth banter. I love this little dialogue, and will be inserting it so you can see it in game, probably immediately upon acquiring Ingress's teeth.

 

3. The thugs in the Alley of Dangerous Sighs in the Hive are, well, morons. Yes, yes, I know, but even moreso than you'd expect. Most of them will stand there saying "Stay here, someone will come up to talk to you soon." - which isn't true except right at the zone entrance - and all you can do is say alright or fight them. I don't believe this was intended. The dialog files they're assigned don't fit the standard naming convention, and there are better dialog files for them available. I'll be attaching those to the thugs. So, you can expect them to all get about +3 to their INT... which will bring them up to all of about 8 or so. Should make the Alley a bit less of a one-dimensional hack and slash area.

 

Sound cool? :D Okay, got a modding question, will do it in a separate post.

 

Qwinn

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Okay. Mainly due to two quests that Skard is restoring (both mentioned in the last post), there's a TON of changes that need to be made to one particular area - specifically, the area in the Hive outside the Smoldering Corpse bar. His changes include adding actors to the .ARE, lots and lots of changes to the scripts, etc.

 

Now, I -have- figured out how to add actors to the .ARE... basically, I'd have to reset each of the offsets that come after the section I'm expanding (and naturally, actors is the -first- offset in the area file, ugh). And I'm certainly prepared to do this if there's anything to be gained from it.

 

But, let me ask - should I bother? Any .ARE, .CRE, .ITM file which I'm just editing simply, not actually growing the size of the file, I'm doing so. But is there much point in trying to do that with files where I'm actually changing the size and therefore the offsets? If another mod were to be installed after mine, they'd pretty much -have- to use my version as a starting point or it would do very bad things, yes? If they were to use the vanilla version and write to the original offsets, horrible bad things would happen. So is there any point in me trying to do this via edits, and should I just instead copy the whole modified files into the override folder?

 

Or is there some way to just -add- to the offsets somehow, rather than just writing in what they are after modifications?

 

And I suppose I should also ask - what benefit is there in the first place to add actors into the .ARE file, rather than just spawning them in the .BCS?

 

Thanks for any help!

 

Qwinn

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And I suppose I should also ask - what benefit is there in the first place to add actors into the .ARE file, rather than just spawning them in the .BCS?
None that I know of. That's how it's done in the BG games anyway. I don't know if PS:T is different, but it doesn't sound like it.

 

These restorations and other components sound more like an "Unfinished Business" for PS:T, which is cool, but maybe it should be a separate mod from a fixpack. That lets you just concentrate on fixes in one mod, then you can add all the new material you want in the other at your leisure.

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