FredSRichardson

Okay, I solved the invisible-talking-archdruid problem. I tried replacing the Yeti's with the ones from IWD2, but they're way too tough. I need a more balanced Yeti, so we'll see. Aside from that, I want to try to play through the Kuldahar areas, and then see what happens in the Vale of Shadows. But for the Beta release, I'll only have up through Kuldahar working.

Alright, I've made it through to Kuldahar. The arch druid was invisible when he initiated the dialog, and the Yeti's wiped out my party, so clearly there's some work to do, but up to that point things were going pretty good. In the back of my mind I'm trying to think of an "auto-cr" way of transforming creatures from IWD1 to IWD2. It looks as though certain CRE parameters could be set consistently for different challenge ratings. Anyway, it's something to think about and it might work a bit better than the current CRE conversion (when I'm not replacing and modifying existing CRE's). -Fred

Alright, for today's blog: This was quite frustrating, but I did figure it out. Every time I entered the converted AR2004.ARE the game would crash. For some reason it took me forever to narrow it down to one CRE. The item slot conversion for the Orc Archer (ORCA2004.CRE) was bogus. He had a bow in weapon slot 1, his short sword was stuffed in shield slot 1, and the arrows were in weapon slot 3. Of course the original CRE is completely legit. I'm not sure how I missed this bogus conversion before without a crash. Anyway, at least I found it. Back to the grindage ;p

I've been working towards the first beta update with a few hitches. I can almost play through all the way to kuldahar, but I have some CRE conversion glitch that is causing an area load crashes in a few areas (currently the windmill in the area right before Kuldahar). I can always use a rule to re-map the CRE's, and I probably will anyway. But I'd like to nail down the bug. I actually think it might be another "unknown" parameter in the CRE.

Oh, install shield. Yes, that would come much later. In fact, I'd be happy to let someone else code up the install shield wrapper once the the mod is stable. For now, the mod runs in the same way as BG1Tutu runs (or used to run). It's simply an executable to run in a console window. If you've had any experience running WeiDU.exe, then you should have no problem with iw12.exe -Fred

I'm not sure... what is EasyTutu?

Ah, okay, if it's just the console color, then I could change the command to "SET_CONSOLE_COLOR" and give it one parameter. This would certainly simplify things a bit. I'm wondering if I'll run into problems with the Shadow Orcs. They look different in IWD1, and I'm not sure if they use a different or non-existant animation in IWD2.

Yes, I don't think that'd be any problem at all. The IWD2 game does have some balance issues, and this mod will have even more balance issues. I'd like to see if I can resolve the pickpocketing thing. It should be worth while to dump some points into that skill. I noticed that in IWD2, pickpocketing would become impossible when the CR of the creature got too high. You could really see this in HoF mode. I remember doing a test by setting my Char's PP up to the max (I think it was 127, I tried a bunch of different values), and PP still failed... -Fred

Okay, this seems to work pretty well. The Orcs are about right for a level 1 party: ~ORCWAXE.CRE~ < ~10GOBC.CRE~ SET_ANIMATION(59416); SET_COLOR(30,37,103,12,23,28,0); SET_NAME(~Orc~,~Orc~) > ~ORCWAXE.variable_of_cre~ [ ~Ghast~ ] ~ORCWBOW.CRE~ < ~10GOBARC.CRE~ SET_ANIMATION(59426); SET_COLOR(30,37,69,12,23,28,0); SET_NAME(~Orc~,~Orc~) > ~ORCWBOW.variable_of_cre~ [ ~Ghast~ ] ~ORCSHAM.CRE~ < ~12GOBSH1.CRE~ SET_ANIMATION(59481); SET_COLOR(30,37,73,12,23,28,0); SET_NAME(~Orc Shaman~,~Orc Shaman~) > ~ORCSHAM.variable_of_cre~ [ ~Ghast~ ] ~ORCEWBOW.CRE~ < ~12GOBAR.CRE~ SET_ANIMATION(59426); SET_COLOR(30,37,69,12,23,28,0); SET_NAME(~Orc~,~Orc~) > ~ORCEWBOW.variable_of_cre~ [ ~Ghast~ ] ~ORCEWAXE.CRE~ < ~12GOB.CRE~ SET_ANIMATION(59426); SET_COLOR(30,37,69,12,23,28,0); SET_NAME(~Orc~,~Orc~) > ~ORCEWAXE.variable_of_cre~ [ ~Ghast~ ] This is just using the Goblin's from early on in IWD1 (mostly from the cave). -Fred

Yes, I think you right on with that. Making custom CRE's isn't very appealing. I have a few alternatives I've been experimenting with. One looks like this in the rules file: ~ORCWAXE.CRE~ < ~20ORCWAR.CRE~ ADD_AND_EQUIP_TARGET (~001D6S.ITM~, ~WEAPON1~, 0, 0, 0, 0); SET_ATTR (12, 9, 8, 10, 12, 9); SET_HP (6, 6) > ~ORCWBOW.CRE~ < ~20ORCACH.CRE~ ADD_AND_EQUIP_TARGET (~001D6S.ITM~, ~WEAPON2~, 0, 0, 0, 0); SET_ATTR (12, 9, 8, 10, 11, 8); SET_HP (6, 6) > These two rules read something like this (starting with the first one): In place of CRE "ORCWAXE" from IWD1 (one of the Orcs in the cave outside Easthaven), use CRE "20ORCWAR" in IWD2, but add and equip a new weapon (1D6 slashing instead of 1D8 slashing), change the stats (these are reduced down from the existing ones) and lower the HP to 6 (from 8). These Orc's were still a bit too tough for a level 1 party, so I was thinking of a different approach: taking some of the Goblins from IWD2 and changing their animation and coloring. This will make very wimpy Orc's, but then the IWD1 Orc's are very wimpy. While I was comparing CRE resources, I did notice a few other "Unknown" fields that might make a difference (and I also noticed that the number of attacks per round was too high). Anyway, these are just some details. I'll try to provide you beta testers with a bit of documentation so you can try to play with these things as you tool round with the mod. -Fred

Just another status/update I've been playing through the first few areas, and so far there aren't any game crashes, but there are definite game-balance problems. The default weimorph IWD2 CRE conversion routines create really tough monsters by almost any standard. I've gotten around this in a few places by substituting in an existing IWD2 CRE that's a close match to the original, but this doesn't always works. I couldn't find any orcs that were weak enough for the first area outside Easthaven. So this is probably the next thing to work through: creature balancing. I haven't quite figured out the best way to tackle this, but I'm going to see if I can at least balance the creatures up to Kuldehar before I make the first Beta release. The next biggest topic is Mage A/I. The IWD1 A/I scripts won't make a lot of sense for IWD2 because of the 3E class changes. It would at least be more satisfying to take a look at some of these and try to improve them. -Fred

Hi Holk, If you'd like to get involved, you can register here at G3 and send me a PM. Take a quick look at the Beta Testers notice I put up a few days ago (stickied somewhere above). -Fred

If you're interested, send me a PM. Some of you have already expressed interest, and I'll respond shortly. I'll try to add useful information here as it becomes useful for beta testing. Useful Info Installation WARNING: please note that if you are beta testing this mod, you do so at your own risk. I'm pretty sure the risk is low, but I can't guarantee that something bad won't happen to you computer or the data on it. In order for this mod to work, you need to have IWD1 installed with the HoW expansion and TotLM (with the latest update). You also need to have IWD2 installed with it's latest update. It's very important that you not have any other mods installed (WeiDU or otherwise). Prior to running the installer, make sure you backup the following files from each game: the Override directory, CHITIN.KEY, dialog.tlk. To uninstall the mod, just restore those 3 files and directories from the backup version (there is no other uninstaller at this point in time). After unpacking the archive, run iw12.exe. Check to see if there were any errors during installation. I'll open up a thread here for feedback. IWD2 Cheat Modes Edit icewind2.ini to enable cheats: under "[Game Options]" add "Cheats=1". Hit Ctrl-Tab to bring up the cheat console. To enable "cheat keys", type "ctrlaltdelete:enablecheatkeys()". Now the following keys become available: CTRL + M - Debug dump with area information CTRL + J - Teleport party to mouse cursor CTRL + Y - Kill current selected unit CTRL + R - Heal selected character or portrait (as well as several others). To move the party to a particular area, use: ctrlaltdelete:movetoarea("ar0113")

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

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

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:

Yes, the music is there. Unfortunately, Easthaven isn't a very rigorous test. There are a lot of game features that don't get used until later areas (I'm pretty sure my wizard conversion will be pretty unsatisfactory). However, things are looking pretty good so far. Next I'm going to put in the *.CHU conversions so that the chapter information is there (and maybe the map conversion too). -Fred

Okay, I do have an update. The whole Easthaven part seems to work with a few minor problems. I figured out how to get the starting are changed (pretty easy, it's just in STARTARE.2DA and maybe STARTPOS.2DA). So I played through almost all of Easthaven from the opening dialog with Hrothgar and a new party. But unfortunately there's still a ton to do. I haven't had any spell casters yet and those are going to be a problem. Still, things are looking promising.

Okay, you're on (And I look forward to checking out "Mysteries of the Moonsea" when I finally get to playing NWN2)

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.

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.

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]

I have some good news. I'm back in the saddle again. I actually found a pretty serious bug I left in the code from the last time I was tinkering with it (has to do with sizes and offsets). I'll try to keep adding notes here as I make progress. I'm hoping I can release something to some very patient, tolerant and energetic beta testers who don't expect anything to work and are willing to help me debug things. Believe me, that is asking a lot! ...but I'm not there yet I'm afraid. I'll put a sticky note for this when I'm a bit closer so people can add themselves to the list for anyone wanting to do this. -Fred

Thank you for fielding that cm GemRB is quite a remarkable project/effort, hat's off to your work on that At this point, all of these IE projects rely on a real dedication to the games. If they keep burn in our hearts, we'll keep work on the mods.

My apologies for dropping out for so long. I'm hoping I'll be able to pick things up again. I don't have anything even close to testable, but when I do I'll try to make it available to anyone who's excited about this