13 replies to this topic

[Bookwyrme]

Just a peek at some of the merchandise you may purchase:

Boots of the Bar


Visiting Boots


Gnomish Boots


Drow Boots


Mask of Evasion


Acid Rapier +2


[Edit: updated with current graphics]

Edited by Miloch, 30 August 2009 - 08:25 AM.

[Rigel]

Hello i'm curious about some things cause i'm creating a mod with many merchants called "Merchants of Faerun" : have you just put some bmg images of boots painting the font in black or did you recolorize them ? Have you got a shadow on your big icon bam ? Does it works in game ? Nice work anyway. I'm making a mod with merchants and new items and little quests but i will not create totally originally new items (maybe later after finish my first mod) like you do, putting new bam images on descriptions, i just coloriZe on my own style existing items bam of IE games to make new ones.
If you need help i'm here, good luck for your mod.

Edited by Rigel, 27 January 2010 - 06:42 AM.

[Giuseppe]

These images sound promising! I'm looking forward for this mod!

[Rigel]

Nice bams ! Its looks really BG2-like

By font i was meaning the fluo green bottom 0 255 0 wich is transparent color (and black 0 0 0 the shadow color) under Infinity Engine.

Now i see the shadows and you're descriptions bams look great

For the paletteentries under BamWorkshop think you have to go in Edit -> Settings and choose the fluo grenn in place of turquoise green and the black in place of pink. Remenber with default settings you see the bam with turquoise green bottom and pink as shadow : probably set like this for see better when you work on it (like that you don't make mistakes between shadow color and other dark pixels).

Under BamWorkshop i got green 0 255 0 as transparent color and black 0 0 0 as shadow color, like that i see the bams quite exactly as in game except that the shadow color looks dark grey under BamWorkshop and more black in game !

I got a question : how did you do for the transparent bottom ? Me i got to reorganize the color palette by putting fluo green in first position. I've made a tutorial here if you want to see Bams Re-colorization Tutorial

I'm currently working on making original/custom bams but i take big images and when i resyze them got semi-transparent pixels (i know how to set this problem but it's boring cause you got to make a well done resyze and same time not lose too much colors) and when you flatten the layers with semi-transparent pixels it mix the colors of each pixels : many parameters to cake care of it's quite a hard job !

Congratulations for your mod, items and bams : it's a big work i know it

Edited by Rigel, 27 January 2010 - 07:17 PM.

[Miloch]

Rigel, on 27 January 2010 - 07:05 AM, said:

Nice bams ! Its looks really BG2-like

Thanks. I think I have the "baldurisation" technique down for inventory BAMs... the description BAMs should probably be sketched from scratch but I don't have that level of skill or patience yet.

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I got a question : how did you do for the transparent bottom ? Me i got to reorganize the color palette by putting fluo green in first position. I've made a tutorial here if you want to see Bams Re-colorization Tutorial

Not sure what you mean - bottom of what? Or do you mean "background"? In that case, as long as it's the palette entry that BAM Workshop will recognise, it can be in any position. Once you import the BMP to BAM Workshop it will make it transparent. If I'm doing lots of BAMs, I make it the first palette entry as you say and use BAM Batcher (see the link in my signature). Also I read your tutorial - it's pretty good and I think I commented on it, though I don't use all the same tools (I'm Tervadh on that forum).

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I'm currently working on making original/custom bams but i take big images and when i resyze them got semi-transparent pixels (i know how to set this problem but it's boring cause you got to make a well done resyze and same time not lose too much colors) and when you flatten the layers with semi-transparent pixels it mix the colors of each pixels : many parameters to cake care of it's quite a hard job !

Yes, this can be a pain but I have a technique for that too. From the original image, set the background to a dark brown, similar to the inventory screen background where you see your icons in the game. Then resize it to the proper dimensions, using other game BAMs similar to your item as a reference to determine the correct size. You may want to Sharpen it once or twice at this point. Then select the dark brown background with a "magic wand" type of tool (I use Paint Shop Pro but I think Paintshop and Gimp have similar features) - but select it with a 7% RGB "tolerance", meaning it will choose similarly-coloured pixels (increase or decrease this as necessary). Make it "Contiguous" if necessary so it doesn't select pixels in the middle of your image (again I am using PSP terminology). Then fill it all with either the turquoise or green colour, depending on what you're using for BAM Workshop's transparency. You probably have to edit a few pixels around the border manually. For inventory BAMs, usually you'll need to do this twice for the large and small frames. For the large frames, you'll also want to add your shadow. To do this, I "simply" magic-wand-select the background, invert the selection, promote it to a layer twice, hide the top layer, select the one under that, fill it with the shadow colour, move it right about 3 pixels and down about 2 (this varies depending on the image), then unhide the top layer and flatten the whole thing. Sounds like a lot, but all that takes about 10 seconds . I have a script that does it but it doesn't always work so I usually do it manually. Maybe I should write my own tutorial, if I ever get the time...

[Miloch]

This is either spam or some weird form of Engrish I'm not quite fluent in...

[persocom01]

While there are alot of different shoes, I eventually didn't use any that didn't upgrade into something that was as fast as boots of speed, and even then, I sometimes wished they provided more elemental resistances. Other than that, boots of the bar were interesting but I think it was overly expensive early in the game when they might have been the most useful. Boot of opposite alignment was also interesting although I didn't actually use it in combat. (because they didn't upgrade to something as fast as boots of speed) I was thinking of using it to give an evil party member holy smite immunity since I was using aerie with 3xholy smite in a spell sequencer.

Oh I unfortunately never did find the star ruby after completing the whole game. (including ToB) Statistically if I should get 1-2 star rubies per game on average, with such small numbers I think deviation is enough to make it quite possible that the star ruby is never found. I did find an amber though, which I never found the use of.

Edited by persocom01, 28 February 2010 - 10:04 AM.

[Miloch]

persocom01, on 28 February 2010 - 10:02 AM, said:

While there are alot of different shoes, I eventually didn't use any that didn't upgrade into something that was as fast as boots of speed, and even then, I sometimes wished they provided more elemental resistances.

This is one reason we invented the item upgrades, and especially allowed you to combine other boots with boots of speed, because it really does suck playing the game without them if you've already been through it once or twice and don't like it dragging along. Maybe in the future we can provide other upgrades/combos with boots of speed. For a price, of course.

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Other than that, boots of the bar were interesting but I think it was overly expensive early in the game when they might have been the most useful.

This was intentional. We wanted to make them available early, because as you say, they are the most useful then. On the other hand, we didn't want anyone just coming along and buying them straight away, then jumping all over the place. You should have to work to earn them, a bit anyway. But if you have a specific suggestion on repricing, feel free to make it. You can also use the Store Prices to change prices globally of course.

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Boot of opposite alignment was also interesting although I didn't actually use it in combat. (because they didn't upgrade to something as fast as boots of speed) I was thinking of using it to give an evil party member holy smite immunity since I was using aerie with 3xholy smite in a spell sequencer.

I don't think it was intended as a combat item, but rather to get around romance or other alignment-related requirements in dialogue etc. But I think this was one of Bookwyrme's ideas - maybe she has more insights about them.

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Oh I unfortunately never did find the star ruby after completing the whole game. (including ToB) Statistically if I should get 1-2 star rubies per game on average, with such small numbers I think deviation is enough to make it quite possible that the star ruby is never found. I did find an amber though, which I never found the use of.

Attach your aurora/batchlog/ag_scripted_cres.txt file (put it in spoilers tags, since it's probably large). It contains major spoilers if you know how to read it, but if you've already finished most of the game, probably not an issue.

Spoiler

Any creature that's been assigned an agrandsr script has a *chance* to spawn the star ruby. There should be several of these, some of which you might kill ordinarily, some not. Just the luck of the draw, but even for ones you wouldn't kill, you should be able to pick their pockets (though of course they may not have one, depending on the random factor within the script).

As for amber gems, they are semi-random like other gems (such as bandfire opals) - rare but not unique. They have a purpose.

Spoiler

They are used in combo with Gnomish Boots and Stinking Feet to make Stinking Gnomish Boots. Only Tomthal or Karaea will offer to make these, not Aurora (they all have their own unique upgrade choices, though Karaea will do just about everything).

[Bookwyrme]

Miloch, on 03 March 2010 - 03:13 PM, said:

persocom01, on 28 February 2010 - 10:02 AM, said:

While there are alot of different shoes, I eventually didn't use any that didn't upgrade into something that was as fast as boots of speed, and even then, I sometimes wished they provided more elemental resistances.

This is one reason we invented the item upgrades, and especially allowed you to combine other boots with boots of speed, because it really does suck playing the game without them if you've already been through it once or twice and don't like it dragging along. Maybe in the future we can provide other upgrades/combos with boots of speed. For a price, of course.

Which just goes to show you, Miloch is a Much Nicer Person than I am. Though I did give Aurora lots of extra pairs of Boots of Speed because of the travel time issue (which had led me to the bad habit of CLUA-ing in extras), I'd have stuck with making people change their boots from time to time otherwise.

I mean, just think of the Stinking Cloud you are generating if you don't!

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Boot of opposite alignment was also interesting although I didn't actually use it in combat. (because they didn't upgrade to something as fast as boots of speed) I was thinking of using it to give an evil party member holy smite immunity since I was using aerie with 3xholy smite in a spell sequencer.

I don't think it was intended as a combat item, but rather to get around romance or other alignment-related requirements in dialogue etc. But I think this was one of Bookwyrme's ideas - maybe she has more insights about them.

They were largely a role-playing alternative, though I find the potential combat immunity interesting (Viconia is *always* getting smitten when I play).

[persocom01]

mm well here's the file, although I'm not sure oit helps since my aurora was reinstalled multiple times during play. There's one last oddity in my modded bg2; the bonus merchant in the copper coronet gets shifted to the animal cells after I free Hendak and co. I don't know what causes this, and I'm not saying it aurora or any particular mod, but I'm kind of lazy to find out.

Attached Files

•  ag_scripted_cres.txt   97.77K   105 downloads

Edited by persocom01, 04 March 2010 - 08:06 AM.

[Miloch]

persocom01, on 04 March 2010 - 08:04 AM, said:

mm well here's the file, although I'm not sure oit helps since my aurora was reinstalled multiple times during play.

Well as you say, it may not help much if you finished the game or have reinstalled, but anyway, you could've found a star ruby *possibly* (small chance) on any of the following:

Spoiler

Tethyrian Battlemage, Lucy the Wyvern, Bondari, Bernard, Wolfwere (c6were1), Alianna (d1mothhu), Dead Adventurer (deadb02), Yellow Dragon, Apparition (elearb06), Zaelas, Efreeti (genefr01), Ghoul* (ghoul01), Githyanki (gorgitc3), Enslaved Genie (hellgen), Zombie (kelzomb), Genie (kgenie2), de'Arnise Guard (kpsold07), Orc Archer* (orc02), Front (pirmur03), Metrich Footman, Desharik, Ira'kiou'dneg, Ruffian (rufpal2), Spectator (sahbeh01), Militia Guard (sargrd13), Guard (sguard4), Elven Archer (suelfw15), Lurraxol Guard (trfued02), Troll (Snow? trolsn01), Master Whip Kuo-Toa (udkuo02), Kuo-Toa Prince (udprince), Vampire (vvmale6), Chinchilla (ysgp04)

* One of these guys (ghouls or orc archers) really should've given up a star ruby eventually if you ran into them at all, because they're quite common IIRC.

Note this file gets regenerated dynamically every time you install. So if you do get stumped again, can't find an item (some would say "and want to cheat" ) then you can always reconsult that file.

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There's one last oddity in my modded bg2; the bonus merchant in the copper coronet gets shifted to the animal cells after I free Hendak and co. I don't know what causes this, and I'm not saying it aurora or any particular mod, but I'm kind of lazy to find out.

Aurora does nothing like this but it sounds vaguely familiar. SCS2 maybe (see last item here).

[Gray Mouser]

I am trying out this mod and think the conception is wonderful.

However upon donning the mask of evasion, I saw no improvement in my thieving/stealth skills on the character information screen

[Miloch]

Gray Mouser, on 10 November 2010 - 05:05 PM, said:

However upon donning the mask of evasion, I saw no improvement in my thieving/stealth skills on the character information screen

Wearing it only protects you from critical hits (as does anything in the head slot). You have to "use" it to gain the stealth benefits. The last sentence in the description should be a clue there:

(In case it's hard to read: "It has, however, only limited uses before passersby catch on to the disguise and also tends to wear out after a while.")

Click "Show" if you want to know how many times you can use it:

Spoiler

10 times - presumably you can sell and buy it back to "recharge" it like other such items.