Adding items from Icewind Dale to Baldur's Gate 2 (Help)

[Baptor]

Hello,

One of my personal goals is to find a way to port over some of the cool weapons from Icewind Dale to Baldur's Gate, such as the "phase dagger" and the "long bow: protector +1." Obviously I figured out early on that you can't just drop the item into the override folder and then try to put it into the game. If you try this, it screws everything up. The text on ALL items goes insane and nothing is right.

However, I know it's possible to add custom items from outside the game because lots of modders have done this. Can anyone explain the process to me so that I can do this as well? Many thanks!

[Jarno Mikkola]

You pick up a mod, open the setup-modname.tp2 file with notepad and look at the code. It's pretty self explanatory on multiple item mods, and here is somewhat tutorial on how to make one.

Now, of course you'll need to take in the fact that if you export the .itm form a non EE edition of the icewind dale, you'll need to re-add in the non common effect that came from the items special nature, that it's file name prefix came with, as those were tied in to the items in icewind.exe itself. To figure that one out, you'll want to open the .itm file with Near Infinity or DLTCEP.

[Baptor]

7 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

You pick up a mod, open the setup-modname.tp2 file with notepad and look at the code. It's pretty self explanatory on multiple item mods, and here is somewhat tutorial on how to make one.

Now, of course you'll need to take in the fact that if you export the .itm form a non EE edition of the icewind dale, you'll need to re-add in the non common effect that came from the items special nature, that it's file name prefix came with, as those were tied in to the items in icewind.exe itself. To figure that one out, you'll want to open the .itm file with Near Infinity or DLTCEP.

I'm importing from Enhanced Edition, so no worries. Thanks for the link to the instructions! If I am successful I'll be sure to share my item mod in case anyone wants some Icewind Dale in their Baldur's Gate!

[Baptor]

In these instructions it talks about adding the item to a creature. What I'm aiming to do is replace existing BG2 items with my items, similar to Item Revisions. Since you created the Item Revisions mod, @Demivrgvs, do you have any advice for what I should put into my mod so that my items replace specific items in the game? Anyone else who has advice is also welcome!

[Jarno Mikkola]

Well, you should first find out the in code names of the items you want to replace, and then name your replacements to be those exact files... so you can then just copy them over with:

COPY ~modname/itemname.itm~ ~override~

After which you can adjust those with NAME1, NAME2, UNIDENTIFIED_DESC, IDENTIFIED_DESC etc etc etc with the weidu commands. Aka:

COPY ~modname/itemname.itm~ ~override~
	SAY NAME1 ~axe~

And now you know the power of weidu... it can rename items description strings with very simple commands. Of course you will also want to know that the mod can consist of at least of 2 files. A renamed weidu.exe file as setup-modname.exe, and a text file called setup-modname.tp2 that the earlier will take commands from.

Also you will likely want to start the whole text file with:

BACKUP ~modname/backup~
AUTHOR ~Baptor~
VERSION ~text ... something~
BEGIN ~component name~

... so it's all out of the way.

Also, here's the weidu readme. Not that you need it too much, nor you'll need to understand any of it.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Jarno Mikkola

[Baptor]

1 hour ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

Well, you should first find out the in code names of the items you want to replace, and then name your replacements to be those exact files... so you can then just copy them over with:

COPY ~modname/itemname.itm~ ~override~

After which you can adjust those with NAME1, NAME2, UNIDENTIFIED_DESC, IDENTIFIED_DESC etc etc etc with the weidu commands. Aka:

COPY ~modname/itemname.itm~ ~override~
	SAY NAME1 ~axe~

And now you know the power of weidu... it can rename items description strings with very simple commands. Of course you will also want to know that the mod can consist of at least of 2 files. A renamed weidu.exe file as setup-modname.exe, and a text file called setup-modname.tp2 that the earlier will take commands from.

Also you will likely want to start the whole text file with:

BACKUP ~modname/backup~
AUTHOR ~Baptor~
VERSION ~text ... something~
BEGIN ~component name~

... so it's all out of the way.

Also, here's the weidu readme. Not that you need it too much, nor you'll need to understand any of it.

These commands go in the "setup-modname.tp2" yeah?

Does the below look like a correct example of what to put in the file?
 

BACKUP ~axeofdeath/backup~
AUTHOR ~Baptor~
VERSION ~1.0~
BEGIN ~component name~

COPY ~axeofdeath/AX1H01.itm~ ~override~
  SAY NAME1 ~axe~
  SAY NAME2 ~super axe of death~
  SAY UNIDENTIFIED_DESC ~This is probably just an axe.~
  SAY DESC ~It is actually a magic axe +5~
	

 

[Dan_P]

Yeah, that'll work. The tp2 doesn't need to have the setup- part in front. Just the same name as the folder is fine.

Adding items is pretty simple like that if you're not editing anything, and you're just moving between EEs. Just get them in the override, and add in the text. As already mentioned, if you're replacing items, you just use the same file name as whatever you're replacing. The game references the file name, so the change is made right away, even if installed in the middle of a playthrough.

Make sure to export any related files as well, such as icon BAMs. Many of the IWD ones aren't in the BGEE games, and vice versa. Some items use EFF or SPL files that don't exist in the BGEE games, so you'll have to bring those over too.

Also note that BG items have a description image, while IWD items do not. You'll need to add in a description image to the files if you want them to fit in with other items. By default, this field is empty in IWD items. You can make your own images or look through existing ones in NearInfinity.

I only learned how to do anything with WeiDU a few months ago. What I can say is looking at how other item mods do it is by far the best way to learn, especially different ways to organize things. I didn't find any of the guides useful compared to actual mods.

[Baptor]

14 minutes ago, Dan_P said:

Yeah, that'll work. The tp2 doesn't need to have the setup- part in front. Just the same name as the folder is fine.

Adding items is pretty simple like that if you're not editing anything, and you're just moving between EEs. Just get them in the override, and add in the text. As already mentioned, if you're replacing items, you just use the same file name as whatever you're replacing. The game references the file name, so the change is made right away, even if installed in the middle of a playthrough.

Make sure to export any related files as well, such as icon BAMs. Many of the IWD ones aren't in the BGEE games, and vice versa. Some items use EFF or SPL files that don't exist in the BGEE games, so you'll have to bring those over too.

Also note that BG items have a description image, while IWD items do not. You'll need to add in a description image to the files if you want them to fit in with other items. By default, this field is empty in IWD items. You can make your own images or look through existing ones in NearInfinity.

I only learned how to do anything with WeiDU a few months ago. What I can say is looking at how other item mods do it is by far the best way to learn, especially different ways to organize things. I didn't find any of the guides useful compared to actual mods.

Hey thanks for responding! A few followup questions if you don't mind:

1. What are EFF and SPL files?
2. So I put the ITM file from IWD:EE, the tp2 file and the txt file into a folder - then where does that go? Not sure of next step.
3. Do you have an item mod you recommend I try to work from? Not sure where to start there honestly.

Thanks again for all your help!

[Jarno Mikkola]

1. .eff file is the "effect" file. As you can use item ability to use an effect, which refers to a .eff file. the .spl file is similarly a spell file, which also can be used to apply a whole spell. They use the opcode 177 to then use the eff files effect. This has their own advantages etc, like the ability to set difficulty to differ from the characters ability casting score etc.

2. Then you archive the files, and extract them to from that archive into your game folder, run the .exe and vola, your mod is installed. And ready to be redistributed.

3... if I would find it ... been a long time since I moded this game. EDIT: yeah, here's one item mod, I helped at.

Also note, that overwriting the ax1h01.itm might have side effects, like changing some orcs to be hillarious, as they just got +4 to thac0 and damage bonus, but ouh well.

Edited December 5, 2021 by Jarno Mikkola

[Dan_P]

You didn't mention if you have or not, but if you haven't yet, I'd recommend getting the latest NearInfinity:
https://github.com/Argent77/NearInfinity/releases

You can use it to edit or export pretty much any file in the game, but it's just as useful for looking up information on things. With item files, you can look into the specific effects fields on each item. If an item uses an effect (EFF) or spell (SPL) file, it'll be referenced in one of the effects. If you want to know more about effects, take a look at the Opcodes page on IESDP.

Explaining it all here won't really help. Actually looking at some items in NearInfinity yourself is the quickest way to figure out how they work under the hood, so to speak. If you know the file name of an item, you can click the magnifying glass icon and type it in. You can also search an item name directly if you click the Search -> CRE/ITM/SPL/STO option.

Whenever I've been working on a mod, I have 3 resources open most of the time: NearInfinity, the WeiDU readme, and IESDP.

 

For mods examples, I'd recommend looking at the stuff from these modders:
https://artisans-corner.com/
https://downloads.weaselmods.net/

As someone with no coding experience, I found these mods some of the easiest to read and understand what they were actually doing. Two specific mods that I remember looking at when I first started are the item pack component from Bardic Wonders and the FINDIT-IWD mod for IWDEE.

[Baptor]

9 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

1. .eff file is the "effect" file. As you can use item ability to use an effect, which refers to a .eff file. the .spl file is similarly a spell file, which also can be used to apply a whole spell. They use the opcode 177 to then use the eff files effect. This has their own advantages etc, like the ability to set difficulty to differ from the characters ability casting score etc.

2. Then you archive the files, and extract them to from that archive into your game folder, run the .exe and vola, your mod is installed. And ready to be redistributed.

3... if I would find it ... been a long time since I moded this game. EDIT: yeah, here's one item mod, I helped at.

Also note, that overwriting the ax1h01.itm might have side effects, like changing some orcs to be hillarious, as they just got +4 to thac0 and damage bonus, but ouh well.

1. Got it!
2. I guess what is tripping me up is that I am not editing the .exe file aside from renaming it - that's all I have to do to the .exe file?
3. Thanks!
4. Oh that was just an example, I wouldn't replace all normal axes with +5 ones! Ha!

8 hours ago, Dan_P said:

You didn't mention if you have or not, but if you haven't yet, I'd recommend getting the latest NearInfinity:
https://github.com/Argent77/NearInfinity/releases

You can use it to edit or export pretty much any file in the game, but it's just as useful for looking up information on things. With item files, you can look into the specific effects fields on each item. If an item uses an effect (EFF) or spell (SPL) file, it'll be referenced in one of the effects. If you want to know more about effects, take a look at the Opcodes page on IESDP.

Explaining it all here won't really help. Actually looking at some items in NearInfinity yourself is the quickest way to figure out how they work under the hood, so to speak. If you know the file name of an item, you can click the magnifying glass icon and type it in. You can also search an item name directly if you click the Search -> CRE/ITM/SPL/STO option.

Whenever I've been working on a mod, I have 3 resources open most of the time: NearInfinity, the WeiDU readme, and IESDP.

 

For mods examples, I'd recommend looking at the stuff from these modders:
https://artisans-corner.com/
https://downloads.weaselmods.net/

As someone with no coding experience, I found these mods some of the easiest to read and understand what they were actually doing. Two specific mods that I remember looking at when I first started are the item pack component from Bardic Wonders and the FINDIT-IWD mod for IWDEE.

1. Thanks! I do have it and I've been trying to port items with it but without the weidu it was obviously going very badly!
2. Thanks for all the resources!