[solved] Help me find where cres are spawned - Imoen, Obe, ...

[jastey]

I have a problem that is driving me crazy: I cannot locate how/where some characters are spawned. EDIT: The below given area and script names are for vanilla BG1.

 

First instance: Obe, who helps the PC train in party combat in Candlekeep Prologue. Once the Gatewarden ("Gateward.dlg") informs the PC about the possibility for party combat training, Obe and the temporary NPCs (Arkanis etc.) are waiting downstairs (AR2643.are). Question is: How are they created? They are not in the AR2643.are-file. There exists no script file. There is no other creation block in any script or dialogue that would make sense. And the search in NI gives me "no hits" if i search for references for the obe.cre (which might be a bug in NI as stated here).

 

Second instance: Imoen, after Gorion's death. She is not in the AR2700.are. She is not spawned via the area script. She is not spawned by one of the many cutscenes. If I do "search for references" on any of the Imoenx.cres, I get "no hits found".

 

I am kind of clueless, here. What other possibilities than spawning via dlg or script, or having the cre in the .are file is there?

[Avenger]

Aren't they PCs?

[Jarno Mikkola]

Second instance: Imoen, after Gorion's death. She is not in the AR2700.are.

Well, knowing that the area is not ar2700.are, but ar6600.are in BGT and fw2700.are in Tutu might allow you to make sense of this. As the ar2700.are is the BG1 reference... and it might be that of BGEE, but I won't promise that it is.

 

Aren't they PCs?

Usually the are NPCs=Non Player created Characters.

[jastey]

Jarno: I was, indeed, referring to vanilla BG1, which I could have specified. If you have a look at FW2700 in Tutu, there is no instance of Imoen, either (or, _imoen for Tutu), nor in _AR2700.bcs, the according area script, which you could have seen if you'd actually check instead of implying such an oversight to a modder actively modding all 4 BG1 games.

 

Avenger: I cannot make any sense from your question, sorry. PC for me is the protagonist (i.e., Player1), (joynable) NPCs are the known BioWare / Beamdog / mod crew that can be added to the party, and all other characters in the game I usually refer to as "characters". Obe is not even a joynable NPC. Please elaborate.

[Ardanis]

I am kind of clueless, here. What other possibilities than spawning via dlg or script, or having the cre in the .are file is there?

They pre-exist in BALDUR.GAM as global objects.

[jastey]

They pre-exist in BALDUR.GAM as global objects.

Indeed! Imoen1.cre does, too. I was absolutely and completely ignorant to that the BAM file also places the NPCs into the game. I knew they have to be listed there to be joinable (well, in BG1, at least). Funnily enough, I never searched for Ajantis or any other NPC in the game, obviously. And also funny that I try to find the one character in the game that was designed as joinable, but offers no possibility for it (Obe). Thank you very much!

 

Avenger: Now i understand your remark.

[Lu_]

I think in BG2 joinable NPC's are spawned in the same manner (via GAM) The difference is, in BG2 you can also add one to the .are file or create them in a script, while in BG1 this will cause the game to crash (on trying to save the game, IIRC)

 

[...] PC for me is the protagonist (i.e., Player1) [...]

You mean PC, not [PC], right? For the latter, it means any party member, -- which many often forget and use [PC] in scripts and dialogs instead of Player1/Protagonist

[jastey]

Thank you, yes, all knew all of this. For vanilla BG1, I think even area changes might crash if a creature is in the party that wasn't put into the original area via the GAM. At least that happened to me while testing and cheating in NPCs to get to them earlier.