23 replies to this topic

[Sir BillyBob]

I spent last night working on the last outside areas of L2 (BoneHill's sequel). Attached is the area just north of the lake and Garrotten. Look familiar? Right at the moment, water overlays are winning out over doors as the worst part of area builds. There is no water overlay on this map. I give up. No matter what I do, the damn water will not display right.

Another outside area is a copy of AR4200 (next to gnoll stronghold, dryad and 2 tree-haters). I don't plan to change this map at all. That area is just south of Garrotten. Right now I plan to point the ARE file to AR4200's WED so I can reduce the file size of the mod. However, I still need to keep my version of the search map and I can't figure out how to do that. Seems that if you use another area's WED or TIS, you also get that area's three BMP files and the MOS file. Can't use my version of the WED, the damn water overlay is screwed up.

Version 1.8 will have all the area corrections from King Diamond (take a bow guy) and some fixed dialogs. I will also add BoneHill to the Worldmap (so the mod uses it) and add in the 4 new areas to the map (but you can't access them yet!). This version should also prep all the dialogs for the sequel. If I do this right, we can biff the files now and not have to worry about them when I do finish the mod.

Attached Images

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[King Diamond]

I spent last night working on the last outside areas of L2 (BoneHill's sequel).  Attached is the area just north of the lake and Garrotten.  Look familiar?  Right at the moment, water overlays are winning out over doors as the worst part of area builds.  There is no water overlay on this map.  I give up.  No matter what I do, the damn water will not display right.

Give me that stuff - I'll sort it out (just that area files).
PM me a link to it somehow.

Another outside area is a copy of AR4200 (next to gnoll stronghold, dryad and 2 tree-haters).  I don't plan to change this map at all.  That area is just south of Garrotten.  Right now I plan to point the ARE file to AR4200's WED so I can reduce the file size of the mod.  However, I still need to keep my version of the search map and I can't figure out how to do that.  Seems that if you use another area's WED or TIS, you also get that area's three BMP files and the MOS file.  Can't use my version of the WED, the damn water overlay is screwed up.

You need to have ALL area files (but surely except TIS) to guarantee to work it correctly. So make everything that u want with that area and then point your WED to existing TIS. That'll be right thing. (Don't change the graphics and overlays though).

Version 1.8 will have all the area corrections from King Diamond (take a bow guy) and some fixed dialogs.

I'm really glad to help...

[AnnabelleRose]

This looks like the begining of a beautiful partnership. Looking forward to your colaborative efforts.

[Sir BillyBob]

This is the ARE and WED for the area. I removed the original WTLAKE overlay using DLTCEP and added the water back in with IETME (a gamble I lost). There is no water on it now. Besides the large area, there is a small pond near the SE corner. That was the area I tried to add back in with an overlay.

So I can upload an ARE but not a WED??? Here they are together.

Attached Files

•  BH2200.RAR.TXT   17.46K   18 downloads

[Sir BillyBob]

This looks like the begining of a beautiful partnership. Looking forward to your colaborative efforts.

What can I say, he does great work.

[Sir BillyBob]

You need to have ALL area files (but surely except TIS) to guarantee to work it correctly. So make everything that u want with that area and then point your WED to existing TIS. That'll be right thing. (Don't change the graphics and overlays though).

Okay, I can't get DLTCEP to change the TIS from AR4200 to BH2300. It keeps saying that you can't drop this overlay (I am in the WED edit screen). Did find that the water overlay problem on this map was probably caused by my messing around with the WED file. If I have DLTCEP make a copy of AR4200 and rename it to BH2300, it works fine if the WED is still AR4200. If you change the WED's name also, the game crashes. I know that NI can change the WED's pointer to a new TIS but why can't DLTCEP do it?

[Gaias]

You need to have ALL area files (but surely except TIS) to guarantee to work it correctly. So make everything that u want with that area and then point your WED to existing TIS. That'll be right thing. (Don't change the graphics and overlays though).

Okay, I can't get DLTCEP to change the TIS from AR4200 to BH2300. It keeps saying that you can't drop this overlay (I am in the WED edit screen). Did find that the water overlay problem on this map was probably caused by my messing around with the WED file. If I have DLTCEP make a copy of AR4200 and rename it to BH2300, it works fine if the WED is still AR4200. If you change the WED's name also, the game crashes. I know that NI can change the WED's pointer to a new TIS but why can't DLTCEP do it?

Does this thread
help you at all?

[Sir BillyBob]

Somewhat helpful. I am finding that it is safer to change the ARE's pointer to a WED file in NI instead of DLTCEP. That program burned me again today. Lucky for me it was just a small inside area file.

As for status, I just reduced BoneHill's weight by a 100 MB or so. All redundant area files have now been removed. All the areas for BH2000 (Garrotten) are now done and most have people in them. Still have to finish dialogs and stores. Most of the main plot line dialogs for the sequel is coming along. It is much easier to whip out the small dialogs for non-essential NPCs. The main characters have so many globals to track I am afraid this may turn into SoS. Hope not. That one drives me crazy with all the reloads because a global didn't stick when you needed it to.

I haven't gotten to the inside of the castle or the caves for the outside areas. Once the story is done and the main areas finished, I may just go ahead and post this for people to hammer on. Cave crawling for orcs is fun but it isn't critical to the story in this mod.

In case anyone was wondering. I am working on the BGT version first. Once that is mostly bug free, I will do the Tutu conversion. I don't need to track different bugs in two versions.

[Gaias]

This is one or more of the mods I have been waiting to play. Now I could have played it at anytime... but with Horred and the rejuevination of BP BGT, I am waiting to play all of it in one package. I have heard some great things about this mod, and I did have it installed to play during christmas. But my computer didn't want to live (gave me a few reasons why it didnt ). So I figured I might as well wait for how ever long it takes for you to finish L2 and play the whole chabang (sp?). Well good luck to you and hopefully you don't get the modder burn too bad... or hopefully your interest recovers quickly to get this done by the end of the year :thumb:

[King Diamond]

This is the ARE and WED for the area.  I removed the original WTLAKE overlay using DLTCEP and added the water back in with IETME (a gamble I lost).  There is no water on it now.  Besides the large area, there is a small pond near the SE corner.  That was the area I tried to add back in with an overlay.

So I can upload an ARE but not a WED???  Here they are together.

Sorry but what am I supposed to do with them? A little bit confused...
I need a whole set of area files to be able to fix an overlay. Can you upload them to some FTP temporarily?

And Yes - I use NI to modify WEDs.

[EDIT]
This is Fabio's sounds update. All cleared and normalized.

Take it HERE

Edited by King Diamond, 27 January 2005 - 02:18 AM.

[Sir BillyBob]

Well then we have a problem. I can't put the TIS file here because of the size. I don't have a website of my own yet. I can post up all the area files of the sequel to TheWizard and have him post them in the SoBH folder for you. It may take a day or two for you to see the files but would that work well?

[King Diamond]

I can post up all the area files of the sequel to TheWizard and have him post them in the SoBH folder for you.  It may take a day or two for you to see the files but would that work well?

Sure, if you could - do this. It would be some kind of alpha pre-release but I think it will save a lot of time and efforts later...

[Sir BillyBob]

I am going to hope that Horred or Hlid (or some other guru) has an answer on this one. I need to set a timer so that when you perform or say something, an event will happen 24 hours or so from that time. The event trigger and end of time could both be anywhere within one town area map and several inside areas. I am hoping to avoid the BALDUR.BCS file if I can since it has so much crap in it already. I assume that this is where I will have to put these script blocks though, isn't it?

Also, because of this assumption. If I start a timer inside an area and the PC leaves before that timer goes off, what happens? Will it reset when you re-enter the area? Do you have to start it all over again? What keeps a player from breaking your timer, accidentally or not?

[hlidskialf]

I am going to hope that Horred or Hlid (or some other guru) has an answer on this one.  I need to set a timer so that when you perform or say something, an event will happen 24 hours or so from that time.  The event trigger and end of time could both be anywhere within one town area map and several inside areas.  I am hoping to avoid the BALDUR.BCS file if I can since it has so much crap in it already.   I assume that this is where I will have to put these script blocks though, isn't it?

Also, because of this assumption.  If I start a timer inside an area and the PC leaves before that timer goes off, what happens?  Will it reset when you re-enter the area?  Do you have to start it all over again?  What keeps a player from breaking your timer, accidentally or not?

What you want to do here is set a GLOBAL timer. That'll run independantly of the area, so it won't be cancelled if you travel outside the main or sub areas. (Although, if you guarentee that the player isn't going to leave those areas, you can add the main area to the MastArea.2da file, and use a LOCALS timer. I wouldn't as I'm not that trusting, and prefer to cover the bases.) You can then use the area scripts to trigger the event when the timer expires. The Baldur.bcs doesn't need to be touched unless you need an event to trigger irregardless of the area the party is in, and you don't want to attach it to a specific NPC script.

[Sir BillyBob]

Ambients and Biffs (not a good mix)

I just tried my new install of BH and half the areas fail to load. The only file to the area is the ARE (some also have a script), the WED and other files come from the area I copied it from. After biffing the ARE files, some areas load and some don't.

My main new town area, BH2000, only worked after I unbiffed several ambient files that are in other orginal game biffs. Why can't the game find a WAV in a biff?

[russ]

Ambients and Biffs (not a good mix)

I just tried my new install of BH and half the areas fail to load.  The only file to the area is the ARE (some also have a script), the WED and other files come from the area I copied it from.  After biffing the ARE files, some areas load and some don't. 

My main new town area, BH2000, only worked after I unbiffed several ambient files that are in other orginal game biffs.  Why can't the game find a WAV in a biff?

This sounds to me like the problem people had with the XP cap. Everybody thought it was a CtB problem but I think CBisson was right about it being a biff problem. I posted in that discussion that some of the biffs in my game weren't being read properly by DLTCEP and I suspect not by the game either and that maybe that's why we were having the XP cap problem. I got DLTCEP to read the files in the biff by decompressing the biffs and remaking the biffs (specifically the BP and CtB biffs) I don't know why it worked but it did. (Of course when I did this I still had the XP cap problem so I could just be babbling at this late hour). Still I think it might be worthwhile to check if there's a problem with the way WeiDU makes biffs.

[Sir BillyBob]

Is it a problem with the way Weidu makes the biff or with the way DLTCEP reads it? NI reads the biff just fine. The game obviously doesn't. Right now I am trying to figure out what is the best way to handle the ambients. If unbiffing them into the override works, that defeats an autobiff routine. If re-biffing them works, you now have two copies of the exact same file on your hard drive (which seems to be a waste and isn't logical).

In either case, I have deleted that install and will continue with the original for today. If I can get a successful install to work, I will post up version 1.8 this weekend. The parts of the mod you are used to will have all their fixes. I may block access to the new area since I am not sure if I even want anyone to beta test it yet. Several quests don't have their conclusions yet, meaning that after you solve the problem, the person who gave you the quest doesn't have a dialog to say good job have some XPs.

[russ]

Is it a problem with the way Weidu makes the biff or with the way DLTCEP reads it?  NI reads the biff just fine.  The game obviously doesn't.  Right now I am trying to figure out what is the best way to handle the ambients.  If unbiffing them into the override works, that defeats an autobiff routine.  If re-biffing them works, you now have two copies of the exact same file on your hard drive (which seems to be a waste and isn't logical).

I had the same situation: DLTCEP wouldn't read the biffs, NI could. I didn't mention last night after I unbiffed all of my BP and CtB biffs I deleted them from the \data directory and I used NI to do a chitin.key cleanup. I then placed all these extracted files in my override (in the correct order so that CtB files would overwrite BP files) and then I manually created my own biffs using .bat files I created (there were about 40 biffs). Then, I think, I did another chitin.key cleanup. And I cleaned out my override folder. So I did not have duplicate files (well except for the backup of the override). My game and DLTCEP now work fine. I hope this helps. Now that I look at my post, is a chitin.key cleanup necessary if you are biffing a file that has already been biffed (maybe that's why DLTCEP didn't work)? I don't really know, alot of this is still voodoo to me despite my four succesful and complete reinstalls of this game.

[Sir BillyBob]

Unfortunately, telling players to use NI as an install step is not a very good idea. I need to be able to do all of this from within a Weidu mod install. I am going to assume that the new Weidu versions of these mods may help me but that doesn't explain problems with WAV files already in the game. I suspect for now, I will just have the user copy the files into the override during install and biff up the WAV even though the file already exists. The only catch is what happens if the original area can't find the ambient now?

Well, half the mod is complete and half the mod is in beta, so maybe the answer is to hold off on biffs until it is completely done.

[Sir BillyBob]

The Tutu version is coming along. Since I made so many changes to the BGT version I figured it would be easier to just port that to Tutu and make the changes as needed. Yeah, that was a great idea.

Finally getting most of the new areas to load (it is amazing how many ambients and BAM files BGT-BP-NeJ has that Tutu doesn't. It's going to get some of them now.

Horred - if you are out there, I finally found your drider. It stole the animation slots for a Lizardman Shaman. MLI2*.BAM files seem to all be parts of a drider animation but the IDS file says this should be Lizardspellcaster2 or something that I needed. So now I need to figure out what happened to the original lizardman animation that I need to copy to Tutu.

In the meantime, most of the areas are now loading in Tutu. It shouldn't be too much longer to have this out for Tutu and a quick patch for the BGT version as I have been finding bugs I added in 1.8 :glare: At least I am finding them.