* Converting Chapters

[FredSRichardson]

I just thought I'd leave my notes here as I figure this out.

 

IncrementChapter() is the action that bumps the game to the next chapter.

 

GUICHAP.CHU is the resource that defines the MOS files and text regions (and buttons) for each chapter intro.

 

CHAPTERS.2DA specifies the strref's used in the regions defined by each GUICHAP entry.

 

Each chapter narrative strref references the corresponding WAV file. Here's an example:

 

@14448 = ~Leaving the horrors of the frost giant caves behind them, the party made their way into the deepest tunnels of the dwarven complex. In the distance, a bright red glow emanated from the mouth of a large corridor, indicating that they were not alone in the darkness of Lower Dorn's Deep.~ [NARR_CH6]

[FredSRichardson]

I don't see any CHU conversion routines in the existing weimorph sources so I'll have add that. Fortunately the iwd1 and iwd2 files are nearly identical (the main difference is that iwd1 uses lower resolution MOS files).

 

I was just looking into the load-screens. These are handled by the "AREALOAD.2DA" file. The format looks a bit different in iwd2, so this conversion might be interesting.

[FredSRichardson]

Okay, AREALOAD might be a slightly tricky conversion. I'm not sure what the "MAPICON" entry does in the 2DA file, but if it's important then the world map (WMP) conversion will also have to be done with some care.

[FredSRichardson]

Okay, I'm working with the GUICHAP.CHU file and I discovered that even though the file types are nearly identical, I can't simply do a straight conversion. The problem is that the MOS file dimensions have change from 640x480 to 800x600. So the chapter narrative MOS doesn't work as is. I've thought about doing some cutting and pasting and then just replacing the MOS files like this:

[maerduin]

Cutting and pasting looks like a good solution to me. Does MAPICON have something to do with the action that happens when you select a location on the world map?

[FredSRichardson]

Cutting and pasting looks like a good solution to me. Does MAPICON have something to do with the action that happens when you select a location on the world map?

You mean the 3rd field in the CHAPTERS.2DA file, right (only in IWD2)? I wasn't sure what that does. If you look in NearInfinity at the world map, you'll notice that there are these little informative Icons they use (they look like something from Mapquest or GoogleMaps, with the lodging/restaurant/rest-stop type symbols).

 

I was trying to remember if the map is handled differently in IWD2 compared to IWD1. In IWD2, I recall having icons that were inaccessible until I reached a certain point. Maybe this is what that CHAPTERS field does.

 

-Fred

[FredSRichardson]

Alright, I got chapter narratives and load screens working. The audio text and graphics work nicely for the narratives (the text bounding boxes fit nicely). I had to do the same trick all around: I created 600 x 800 images by cutting and pasting against a larger background. I think resizing the images would've looked pretty bad and this isn't a bad compromise (it's too bad I can't find higher res versions of these resources).

 

-Fred