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Hiya.

 

I'm pretty new at this modding stuff, but there's something I'd like to create, if I can. Is it hard to create a mod that installs a few portraits and changes a few .bams?

 

Here's what I mean.

 

I keep having to reinstall this silly game (for a number of reasons) and every time I do it, I have to go through and manually re-enter all my portraits (I have a lot of them that I like to use). I also have a few .bams that I like to use (primarily for containers... I have color coded bags of holding and scroll cases). And finally I have a few minor changes that I make to a few items (like taking the kensai restriction off the shield of balduran so my front line guy can use it in the beholder area). All of these things I usually do by hand, one item at a time, and it takes hours. After about the third time doing it you start to wonder if there's an easier way.

 

What would I need to be able to do to make a mod that would do all that for me?

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

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You could probably do it with a simple batch file command, to move the appropriate files to the appropriate directories.

 

Alternately, and I think a little easier, you could put all the files into an archive (ZIP or RAR) while preserving the directory paths they're in. After a reinstall, simply extract the files, telling the archive program to preserve those paths and bingo, you've got all your files in the right place.

 

Personally, because I've got the hard drive space, I keep a copy of the game with all my basic mods on it in a separate directory and just use it to replace my old game when I need a reinstall (deleting the old files first, of course).

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You could probably do it with a simple batch file command, to move the appropriate files to the appropriate directories.

 

This is where I show my ignorance:

 

Putting the files in the right directories isn't a problem. I just move the portraits to the portraits directory and the .bams to the override directory. The problem is the mind-numbing process of using near infinity or shadowkeeper to assign each portrait to the right NPC and the (thankfully much shorter) process of using near infinity to assign the new .bams to the right containers and to individually alter the items I want to be able to wear.

 

Am I missing something? Is there a directory I don't know about that will preserve the changes to the .cre files and the .itm files?

 

Personally, because I've got the hard drive space, I keep a copy of the game with all my basic mods on it in a separate directory and just use it to replace my old game when I need a reinstall (deleting the old files first, of course).

 

This is where my inexperience really hurts. I've got plenty of drive space too, but I don't know if I know what you mean. I always sort of assume that once you start modding the game, there's pretty much no going back.

 

I mean... the most recent reinstall happened because I finally figured out that using the "happy patch" from the Tweaks mod was what was keeping Dynaheir and Minsc from skewering Edwin (which I so wanna see). I thought about just going back and uninstalling that and reinstalling Tweaks, but I figured that I really didn't know enough about the way the mods work and the way the game works to be sure that (a) that would solve the problem and (b) it wouldn't create other problems. So I just uninstalled the whole game and started over.

 

Then when I did the reinstall I forgot to do the fixpack until after I did BGT and when I realized the problem I posted about it to find out if it would hurt things and before I got any replies, I just went ahead and redid all that work, only to find out that when I got out of Candlekeep, the worldmap didn't include the BG1 areas. So I started reinstalling again. :) I swear I was inches from just saying hell with it and putting the game away for another couple months.

 

So... I reinstall a lot, apparently. And by far the worst part of the process is the portraits. If there was an easy way assign a hundred or so portraits to NPCs with one installer, I'd be all over it. I just don't know where to start.

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Looking into it... how exactly? What do you mean? What tools should I use? How would I go about doing that?

 

That's sort of exactly what I was asking. I'd love to use another mod as a template, but I wouldn't know where to begin with breaking it down and figuring out how it does what it does. I wouldn't even know how to look at the code.

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Everything is easy once you get the hang of it.

Oh.... I'm not even close to getting the hang of it. I was just surprised that the program one uses to modify a game as complex and dynamic as BG is "notepad". It never would have occurred to me to try to open up any of the files in these mods with a program I already had.

 

As for actually understanding what I found there... I spent like six hours yesterday coming up with five lines of code. And even that I still have questions about.

 

<points to his post in Modding Q&A>

 

Still. I appreciate the vote of confidence.

:)

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Look, DavidNowlin, at the Modding Q&A forum. Over the last few months, I am the person with the most 'Help!' threads.

 

Almost every day I find another thing (yet another one) that I have no clue how it works.

 

You know, I really like having G3 as a place I can come running to yelling :) !

 

Icen

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I also have a few .bams that I like to use (primarily for containers... I have color coded bags of holding and scroll cases).
I have a component that does this already, if you don't want to reinvent the wheel. I haven't released it yet as I'm working on other components though (for portraits etc.).

 

And BG2CPM as I understand assigns portraits to all creatures with dialogue, though maybe you prefer other portraits. For BG1, there's BG1NPC's component, though it doesn't handle all possible creatures.

You know, I really like having G3 as a place I can come running to yelling ;)
But does anyone hear you when the forum software malfunctions? :)
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Oh.... I'm not even close to getting the hang of it. I was just surprised that the program one uses to modify a game as complex and dynamic as BG is "notepad". It never would have occurred to me to try to open up any of the files in these mods with a program I already had.

 

Well, a wrist-slap goes out to anybody recommending Notepad for the long haul, as if you're actually interested in mod creation you will want, at bare minimum, a proper text editor which tells you the line and column of the cursor position. WeiDU error messages are much much easier to interpret if you can actually find "line 105 column 8" without having to count by hand.

 

That said, of course you should ask questions and look for help and so on and so forth, but one of the crucial factors for success in any endeavor where technology and creativity intersect is a willingness to explore and experiment. So I'd suggest you start getting more curious, and more willing to just open up files and look at them, as part of your research.

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as if you're actually interested in mod creation you will want, at bare minimum, a proper text editor which tells you the line and column of the cursor position.
Notepad does that just fine. Turn off the automatic line break, and it will give you the current line number, as well the possibility to hop to a specific line number. I do recommend using Notepad, I am still working with it, and won't change it. I do not appreciate getting a slap for that, thank you very much.

I tried CONText and gave up frustrated: No woring automatic line break, but a lot of unwanted line breaks in the game. Gha.

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