temnix

Thank you.

Of weapons, in Enhanced Editions. What is it and does it work?

There is an alternative to adding new creature animations - an easier one for which you don't need a full set of files, only motion and attack animations. When you need a creature or something creature-like to appear, attack and go away, you can give invisible minions items (rings) with in-built visual effects. The rings will be undroppable, of course, and the minion needs to be made immune to the Damage effect and have a few other precautions put on it, like Protection from creature type - EA - ANYONE, unless you want it to perform some actions on itself or see a local variable. In that case you limit the protection to EVILCUTOFF and GOODCUTOFF. The minion itself should probably be NEUTRAL, but you can also try GOODBUTBLUE, if you want it to benefit from Bless and things like that. In that case choose an appropriately tall animation for the minion instead of NULL_ANIMATION and add Remove animation and Remove feet circle; this is so that spell visuals play at the right height. It is also a good idea to put one of the immunity-giving rings on the minions' other hand, like RING99. This prevents untoward developments like getting confused or panicking.

The method works the best with ranged attackers. Now, let's suppose that you would like a swarm of archers to wander in and assault a target. The ingredients will be:

1) invisible minions summoned on the target;

2) Cast spell effects on the minions, the spell applying a Teleport field effect at some range that you find convenient. If you want the attackers to appear half a screen away, you need around 300;

3) Remove creature effects on the minions to keep things tidy. If a minion can't do its job for some reason or if it gets teleported into a corner behind a wall it can't get out of, let it fade away gracefully instead of playing god knows what on the spot. Include an increase in visual range to help it spot the summoner;

4) simple scripts for the minions, like Attack(LastSummonerOf). I would put OR(2) !See(LastSummonerOf) !HPGT(LastSummonerOf,0) - > DestroySelf() on top to cleanly remove minions who can't do the deed;

5) rings with Instant/While equipped Play visual effect. This visual effect will be a looping VVC animation for the motion of the creature - walking, flying and so on, oriented with Follow target. As the minion turns, so will your superimposed animation;

6) Ranged (preferably) ability for the item, this being a Weapon-class ability.  The ring, therefore, is also the minion's weapon. The reason this should be a Ranged ability is because then you can assign the weapon custom projectiles with graphics of your choice, shooting and flying at whatever height and angle your testing shows the most appropriate. Or you can use None for the projectile. With Melee abilities you are stuck with None;

7) Play visual effect, Self-targeted, among the effects of the Ranged ability. This animation is for firing the weapon. It will trigger as soon as the attack is made. Include suppression of the first animation. By fine-tuning the timing and weapon speed here and perhaps putting blanks in the first few frames of the projectile so that it becomes visible half a second later you can make the attack look smooth;

8 ) Options for leaving the scene, also among the effects. After the missile has been fired or the weapon swing made, you no longer need the minion - the attack will deliver its payload if the minion is gone, even carried by a slow-moving projectile. Thus, you can include a Remove creature effect, Self-targeted and delayed by a second. You may put some kind of flash there so that the attacker will disappear. But there is no rush. If your minion can make only one attack per round and you shifted to give it immunities to the two Haste opcodes and Modify number of attacks, just in case, you have a guaranteed full round until the next development. If you prefer, you can have the minion leave the scene just as he came right after making the attack. For this include Set local variable (309), Self-targeted, in the attack's effects, and put a condition on top of the creature script to EscapeAreaDestroy if that local variable is set to 1.

This arrangement is for minions who must come in and attack, which makes a grander impression. If you simply want them to appear around the target, face the creature, fire and disappear, you only need the attack animation. Just make it slow enough, and as the minion whirs about through the first frames of the directions, the starting motions, there will be a complete illusion of preparing to strike, until the minion completes the turning, faces the target, and the attack animation plays through.

In principle, an invisible minion is a real creature, so you don't even need to summon him on one specific enemy. You can just summon the minion where you like and have him attack Nearest([EVILCUTOFF]) or some such. But having a definite target like LastSummonerOf and a simple program will prevent a lot of running on the spot and other strangeness.

When I use the Create weapon effect, it gives me that many items from the Resource field. Melf's Minute Meteors, for example. But if I use it again before depleting the stack - before throwing away all of the meteors, for instance - the leftover items are replaced by the new batch. Is it possible to create weapons so that they add to the stack instead of wiping it out? If there is no direct way, one possibility I can think of is to use an invisible minion who will apply the XEquipItem action on the character and put some extra instances in the magical weapon slot. Which slot number is it, though, in SLOTS.IDS, who can tell me?

Is it possible to set up a weapon so there is no motion? When I put all of the animation percentages at 0, the character still swings.

I would like to christen a chicken something else, but it turns out that this effect does not work on chickens. This hen just refuses to accept the name. I don't know if this is something peculiar to chickens, to some class or race combination - does anybody? The same effect renames my party characters and bystanders, but a chicken - no.

Edit: okay, never mind. The effect simply doesn't show the tooltip and bottom window name change right away.

In the list of scripts available to characters, when I open a saved game, I see "BS" files, but I can't select this file type for the "Set AI Script" opcode. What are they?

What role does melee weapon range play? Is this distance in feet added to the standard distance between creatures, determined by their personal space - 3 by default, I think? I have made a creature armed with a custom spear which has range 3, hoping that it would be able to get at enemies from farther away. It makes sense for spears, halberds and two-handed swords to have longer reach. Possibly also morningstars and staves. But my creation in a fight has tried to put distance between itself and the oncoming ogre, backing up several times. I don't know if this had to do with its script or if weapon range doesn't just permit a creature to attack from this distance but forces it to.

Do you have a microphone or at least a set of headphones you can speak into - something better than my in-built, totally mono, World-War-2-underground-shelter-sounding notebook microphone? Then you can help me dub my Phantasmal Force spell. I'm making an earth-shaking mod with all sorts of illusionary magic, among other things, and though it is still far from completion, that particular spell is ready. Being the most basic illusion, 1st level, it creates a giant who is not altogether convincing.

Menace should be added. Phantasmal Force comes without a sound component, it only creates an image, so audio has to be supplied by the caster - with the lips. The great resounding footsteps and the terrible roar of the giant need to be improvised - in-character just as by someone at the microphone. This is one spell where professional voice acting is not required. If you can put yourself in the shoes of a beginner illusionist trying to make his way in the world or if you have seen this movie (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056112), you are bad enough for this gig.

Thank you.

Other than for monks, is FIST.ITM always present in any character's inventory, including when magical weapons are on?

There is an item with three abilities, all powered by charges. When the charges for an ability run out, the "item vanishes." The first ability has 1 maximum charge, the second has 10 and the third has 1 again. The item is added to stores with a simple action, #0 #0 #0 for charges, so that the maximums should be in place. When the item is bought and stacked, though, something weird happens: the number of charges for the first ability of the item stacks for some reason, though for the others not. If you have two pieces, you will see 2 10 1 in the "Use item" menu. What is more, if the third ability is used (really, any of them, but the third one is just the easiest to test for), the whole stack disappears as if depleted. Both the stacking of the charges for the first ability and this whole-stack depletion are strange. Is this familiar to someone? What can be done to avoid it?

That's what I get for choosing a crappy image hosting site. All right, there. And I heard from the person who has helped me test, he is back, but I'm still interested in finding more.

I have an ACTION_IF with globbing for CRE files, doing a lot of changes to them, starting with PATCH_IF (SOURCE_SIZE > 0x2c8) THEN BEGIN and concluding with END. I want to put another ACTION_IF inside, two actually, and within each of those a patch. They are almost identical and go like this:

ACTION_IF !(FILE_EXISTS_IN_GAME ~RNDSTA_#.SPL~) THEN BEGIN

PATCH_IF (class = 155 || class = 212 || class = 156 || class = 211) & level < 4 & !(~%SOURCE_RES%~ STRING_EQUAL ~SCAR~) & !(~%SOURCE_RES%~ STRING_EQUAL ~SCAR2~) & !(~%SOURCE_RES%~ STRING_EQUAL ~DELTAN~) THEN BEGIN        
    LPF ADD_CRE_EFFECT INT_VAR opcode = 146 target = 1 timing = 9 duration = 0 probability1 = 100 parameter2 = 1 STR_VAR resource = ~RNDSTA_#~ END
END
END

Weidu gives me a parsing error and demands an END, but I think I have enough. What is the problem here?

I had great help from someone on these boards with testing, but now he is unavailable - too busy with his own affairs, maybe on leave. So I'm looking for someone or a few people with the "classic" engine (Shadows of Amn) to test it. I have already tested the mod thoroughly on the Enhanced engine - everything works - but I would like it to work on the old version as well. A few screenshots.

Disguises:

Rope:

Fires:

Torches and flares:

Dicing:

1 hour ago, Endurium said:

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~.*\.SPL~ ~override~

PATCH_IF (SOURCE_SIZE > 0x113) THEN BEGIN		// protects against invalid files
  LPF ~ALTER_EFFECT~ INT_VAR match_opcode = 174 silent = 1 STR_VAR match_resource = ~EFF_M02~ resource = ~EFFM02_#~ END
END
BUT_ONLY 

Per the WeiDU readme you can use the "silent = 1" int var to suppress messages when you know they're only happening due to spells lacking the opcode you're trying to alter.

Excellent! Will try.

Nice, but irrelevant!

I would like to patch all spells that use the Play Sound effect and play a particular sound so that they use a different sound. I have an "alter effect" function in my mod:

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~.*\.SPL~ ~override~

LPF ~ALTER_EFFECT~ INT_VAR match_opcode = 174 STR_VAR match_resource = ~EFF_M02~ resource = ~EFFM02_#~ END
BUT_ONLY

This should go through all of the spells and change them on a match, but Weidu gives me warnings because there are many spells that don't match and aren't changed as a result. How do I direct Weidu to only look at spells with that combination?

6 hours ago, Endurium said:

Misc items are limited to the Quick Item and Inventory slots.

What I'm asking is what slot number I need to enter for an item type to be equippable at Quick Item. They are all, of course, allowed in the backpack.

Items can belong to a long list of types, only a quarter or third of which are used. There are eyeballs, earrings, scarves - scarves? What game has scarves? Well, I would like to make use of those categories and include some of my custom items in them, mostly so I can have new pick-up and drop-off sounds. I did it for "Hats," when I wanted something for my characters' heads without the clanging of metal, and in that case I edited a line in ITEMTYPE, putting in my own sounds and "6" for the slot where they were to be equipped. But how do I make a version of "Miscellaneous"? What do I need to type for slots for the item to be equippable in the quick items?

Thank you, Imp.

8 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

Fixed that for you...

That link leads to a post about adding missing columns. Just tell me which page it is on.

No, it's possible to set two flags in a CRE's item - by hand. The problem is that Weidu doesn't accept more than one when adding or replacing an item. It may be possible for an advanced coder to GLOB scan creatures, pick up their equipment by name or slot, fetch the offsets dynamically, because they are going to be different for every file, and then set both flags, but I am not such a coder. 

This is not a place for irrelevant explanations to the general public. It's my question, and if you don't know the answer, don't say anything. Especially if it's nonsense. The STOLEN and UNSTEALABLE flags are not in ITM files, they are in CRE files.

I have been given this code: PATCH_IF FILE_CONTAINS_EVALUATED(~pdialog.2da~ ~%deathvar%~) to patch only potential companions. But a whole lot of other creatures get patched too. How come?