The first(?) AI designed mod - "The Heart of Baldur's Gate"

[Graion Dilach]

Quote

Now, the astute reader may just ask, "Ok, so why don't you run EET_End after installing your mod?" - to which I would retort, "My mod installs in about 10 seconds, EET_End takes 5 to 10 minutes, and when I'm learning a new programming language or technology, having the time between cause (changing the code) and effect (seeing the code in action) needs to be as short as possible, and 10 seconds is much preferable to 10 minutes".

No, the astute reader would moreso ask why wouldn't you dedicate a vanilla BGEE folder (even without SoD) to your in-dev mod and then do the EET conversion after you're done. That also prevents you from using BG2EE or SoD resources without realizing that you're introducing that dependency.

EEEE was like this - WithinAmnesia modded on a BGEE+SoD combo and a fair amount of his stuff are SoD monsters backported.

[ahungry]

I've been testing on a clean BG:EE+SOD install as well - that comment was more regarding EET testing (I dislike trying to wait until the end, it's easier to iron out small segments across multiple environments - just like if I was making a cross platform desktop app, I would test against targets in tandem as I go along, not try to port it at the end, where it may never happen - this ensures any practices/conventions I adopt are optimal up front vs refactoring a lot at the end).

I would be interested in seeing the analytics of who installs what - ignoring non-EE altogether, if 50% of mod users are running BG:EET for instance, 24% just BG2:EE, 24% just BG:EE+ SOD, imo it isn't worth the extra conditional checks/play testing to support BG:EE without SOD for what might be 1 or 2 people who for perhaps political reasons, choose not to use SOD.

If "GS" (glowing staff) for instance is only on SOD, as well as circlet animations (not sure if that's on BG:EE alone) - do I want to double my work on those particular items for some arbitrary reason?

I'm already tempted to just suggest it be an "EET mod" and not worry about non-EET users, but given that's a more challenging setup/install than a simple BG:EE+SOD, I'm inclined to try to continue to focus on the BG:EE+SOD support up front.

[jmerry]

Checking my own no-SOD test install ... both "GS" (glowing staff) and "JB" (circlet) equipped animations exist in plain BGEE. That didn't take long. And really, if you have just about any modern system, you can afford to have a few extra installs at ~3 GB each for testing purposes.

[Added in edit: Wait, not so fast. Equip animations are a surprisingly arcane system. Actual animation files ... three-letter prefix+two-character animation code+more stuff. There are 14 WQSJB***.BAM files and four WQSGS***.BAM files in non-SoD BGEE. All right, now it's actually confirmed.]

Count me as a non-SoD player. Well, until a few months ago. I didn't bother buying it because the limited companion selection in the campaign fit poorly with my preferred playstyle of themed runs. Nowadays ... still no EET. While I allow it with my mods and try to make the appropriate conversions, I don't test for it.

Edited December 11, 2022 by jmerry

[ahungry]

https://steamcommunity.com/stats/228280/achievements

This may be the best I can find atm for some rudimentary stats - those who have done durlag's tower (8%) and those who have beat korlasz (6%) are quite close - and I think many in the mod community would fall into the more passionate/get the expansion territory than not, but a real survey via the forums would be ideal.

 

[ahungry]

@jmerryyes, checking for 2 types of item animations in my contrived example may not have taken long, but I think it'd be foolish to release and claim support (or leave users with a buggy install) without having tested it on one's own.

If I plan to support and test for BG:EE+SOD, and EET, adding another option would increase all testing time by that amount.

By that mindset, would it be a fair expectation that I want you to play test any mods/content you release, for all given combos of fan made mods I install?  I would say, absolutely not.

I know we are more cordial than the general FOSS community here, but this reminds me of Rich Hickey's "Open Source is not about You" speech.

Open Source is Not About You

The only people entitled to say how open source 'ought' to work are people who run projects, 
and the scope of their entitlement extends only to their own projects.

Just because someone open sources something does not imply they owe the world a change in
their status, focus and effort, e.g. from inventor to community manager.

As a user of something open source you are not thereby entitled to anything at all. You are not
entitled to contribute. You are not entitled to features. You are not entitled to the attention 
of others. You are not entitled to having value attached to your complaints. You are not entitled to this explanation.

If you have expectations (of others) that aren't being met, those expectations are your own 
responsibility. You are responsible for your own needs. If you want things, make them.

https://gist.github.com/richhickey/1563cddea1002958f96e7ba9519972d9

It's the same reason on a heavily used project I maintain (org-jira) I had to change to "No feature requests unless you support them with a PR you write yourself" - so many people are happy to request addition changes/features/support, without contributing anything beyond the idea.

So, maybe for this effort, I will laser focus on my intended target, and if someone else wants to go back through the completed mod and extend support for other targets, they can do so by including a PR + adequate testing to ensure it meets theirs (and other's) needs.

[Endarire]

For your data set, assume our family would focus on EET.

More Style for Mages mentions circlets and glowing staves being for the EEs.

Edited December 12, 2022 by Endarire

[Gorionar]

Hello.

As for areas, there is a program for mixing seamless textures, but it is limited to 32 bits and the maximum size of the finished texture is 1024x1024. If you want, you can try to make a program for 64 bits with the maximum mixing resolution.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/l8wh0elnqnajart/TS_Studio_v_4.0a.rar/file