Hi, I'm trying to use this tutorial to learn the very basics of IE modding. My question is: How do I create the custom itm file for this tutorial?

Thank you, I forgot about this when I started my first mod a few weeks ago. Now I have completed the tutorial, but it's not quite working. It installs and it copies the sword and the dragon to the override folder, but the dragon doesn't have the sword. Can you have a look?

Yeah, that's what I did to test: I loaded the first saved game I have, in which I still haven't moved from the first room in Irenicus dungeon, from there went to the room of the otyugh, and then I used the console to make it join my party. It didn't have the sword. NI, however, shows the sword in the otyugh's files, but with the error I mentioned.

Hadn't thought about that. Still, I started a new game and I had the same result, the otyugh doesn't have the sword.

There is still the chance you didn't catch the one in Irenicus' dungeon, though. Try cheating in one of the cre files you patched.

That's what I've done.

Can you try it and see if you have the same problem?

That fixed it, it works now. Thank you again

As I did this I corrected and expanded the original tutorial with everything we discussed here. I attach it in case someone is interested.

Yes, I had already visited the dragon in the saved game I was using to test. So I tried with a game in which I hadn't visited the dragon yet. However, I didn't manage to test with this game. Using the console to travel directly to the dragon's lair crashes the game. I tried travelling to the temple ruins and going to the dragon's lair from there, but that also crashes the game, I guess the game must expect you to have completed all the previous steps in the quest before.

Since testing with the shadow dragon proved so complicated, I tried modifying the mod and giving the sword to the otyugh in Irenicus' dungeon instead. There are three otyughs in the game, so I gave the sword to all of them because I don't know which one is Irenicus'. The result is the same, the otyugh doesn't have the sword. Checking in NI, though, the otyughs do have the sword. However, when I try to open the sword item in NI I get an error: "Error reading null", "null". I attach the modified mod.

 mymod.zip   956.03K   271 downloads

I wanted to use this tutorial to learn some basics of IE modding, but this is a very complex topic (not for beginners in my opinion) and it's taking us a lot of  effort to clarify the concepts discussed here. I have a lot of mod ideas, but I don't think that these concepts are helpful for the kind of mods I want to create. So I think it's better to leave this area for now and focus on learning the concepts that are relevant for my mod ideas. Maybe I can come back to this tutorial when I have more experience with modding.

Thank you again for all your answers and clarifications.

I'm trying to use the tutorials in this site to learn the very basics of IE modding. Can you explain what the example talk is about? Is it a file you create as a base for the actual mod or is it something else? What are those funny letters and numbers in parenthesis (to v5b.1)?

Thank you, @jastey, that was so helpful . Some questions:

What is the format of dialogue state names?

What language is this? I think I read somewhere that IE scripts are based on a funny scripting language developed in a Brazilian university.

this is the conditions for which this state is called

What conditions can be used to call a dialogue state? What is the purpose of calling a dialogue state?

either PC reply options or other so called "transactions", i.e. actions that will be performed after the NPC line when the player clikcs on "CONTINUE".

What kinds of transactions exist?

Thank you for all the effort you're putting into helping with this.

What is the format of dialogue state names?

Do you mean why for the tutorial the name "v5b.1" was chosen? Basically, inside the d-file it is whatever you want to name it so you can read your dialogue comprehensibly. So, it's any name+number+symbol combination you want to use to keep track of your states and flow of dialogues. Important: no space inside the name. I name the whole dialogue something I can see which dialogue it is, say "first_meeting" for the greetings dialogue. Then the following states that still belong to this dialogue (because you have some chat options with the NPC) would be first_meeting_01, first_meeting_02, etc.

OK, but why use a funny name like v5b.1 when you could use something like first_meeting_01? That "v5b.1" sounds like an important format that he's using for something...
 

you have a script block in his script which sets a variable, let's call it "Global("xxxNPCReactionY","GLOBAL",1)". The engine then searches through the appropriate dlg-file of that NPC top to bottom. And what it expects to find is a dialogue state with the trigger "Global("xxxNPCReactionY","GLOBAL",1)"

Does it mean that every time you change the value of a variable in an NPC script a dialogue state is called?
 

For NPC PID, the "always true" trigger is "IsGabber (Player1)", meaning "it is the HC talking to me!".

What is an "always true" trigger?
 

What kinds of transactions exist?

Basically anything from here.

But you said that transactions come after the CONTINUE button. One of the actions in that page is, for instance, attacking. But attacking cannot come after the Continue button, because after the Continue button there is always another dialogue part, and it's not possible to attack while a dialogue is on. Attacking can only come after the End dialogue button.
 
Back to the tutorial itself, what's the meaning of all the text colours?
 

Rule 1: Every line should start with a tilde (~) and end with a tilde(~).

Not a single line in the dialogue state we've been discussing starts with a tilde.
 

Every line NPC says should start with a SAY.

This is the opposite of what he said in the previous paragraph.
 

If NPC says several lines, all NPC lines after the one starting with SAY should start with an equals sign (=).

And this is the opposite of the two things he said before.

I think that I can guess what he means, but it looks like he's actually saying the opposite of what he means. Which feels quite confusing, especially for beginners.
 

Rule 3: PC replies should look this way: ++ ~Reply~ + NPC_answers_this_line

What is NPC_answers_this_line?
 

Note: if a line only works under a special condition

What does it mean that "a line only works under a special condition"?