16 replies to this topic

[Salk]

Great job, -Hurricane-!

I am sure A64 will be interested in it and will make it part of his next BGT release!

Thanks!

[Lollorian]

BGT expects SW1H19.ITM to have 2 abilities before adding in the new Berserk ability - which doesn't matter for normal BGII-SoA installs but borks the entire BGT setup if some mod changes the number of abilities in that item before BGT gets its hands on it

Updated the SW1H19.ITM handling code to directly add the ability rather than check for the no. of abilities before addition courtesy Turambar's code magic here Modified .tp2 containing Hurricane's awesome stuff with Turambar's thing here

[Ascension64]

Thanks for the hard effort. Will pop it in next release.
Much of the BGT-WeiDU code is still based on the good ol' days, so I wouldn't be surprised that there are a few rigid code blocks around.

[Ascension64]

This is now in, thanks again. However, I have an issue with

CLCK08: setting the Ability Icon = ICLCK08 instead of ICLCK07

as I do not believe this is a fix. BG1 did not have ICLCK07.BAM and its CLCK08.ITM uses the ground icon GCLCK07.BAM as well, despite GCLCK08.BAM existing. Open for comments.

[Turambar]

This is now in, thanks again. However, I have an issue with

CLCK08: setting the Ability Icon = ICLCK08 instead of ICLCK07

as I do not believe this is a fix. BG1 did not have ICLCK07.BAM and its CLCK08.ITM uses the ground icon GCLCK07.BAM as well, despite GCLCK08.BAM existing. Open for comments.

Those two cloaks have the same effects, so it could be intentional to have the same icon. Moreover, I'm not sure whether there is, generally, a single icon for every single cloak.
I think it's more an UB or tweakpack kind of thing...

Thanks for the hard effort. Will pop it in next release.
Much of the BGT-WeiDU code is still based on the good ol' days, so I wouldn't be surprised that there are a few rigid code blocks around.

Speaking about old code, is it possible to move to override, instead of biffing, the .bam, itm, spl, are, sto, 2da, bcs, dlg, eff files (as the trimpack (?) for BWP does), in order to make the installation of other mods smoother? And could you also include the searchmaps for ar4600, 8900, 9300, 7500 in the "not biff" list since they are used by DS and NT?
I know that changing that enormous batch file to a list of AT_NOWs + some final MAKE_BIFFs in the .tp2 file (which would be wonderful for non-Windows users) would be extremely long, but removing that 'total biffing' would already make multi-mod installations much easier.

[Lollorian]

as I do not believe this is a fix. BG1 did not have ICLCK07.BAM and its CLCK08.ITM uses the ground icon GCLCK07.BAM as well, despite GCLCK08.BAM existing. Open for comments.

Okey this might sound strange but my BGI-TotSC and BGII-ToB installs have the following setup for the items

• BGI
  
  • CLCK07
    
    • ICLCK07.bam
      
    • GCLCK01.bam
  • CLCK08
    
    • ICLCK07.bam
      
    • GCLCK01.bam
• BGII
  
  • CLCK07
    
    • ICLCK07.bam
      
    • GCLCK01.bam
  • CLCK08
    
    • ICLCK07.bam
      
    • GCLCK01.bam

... the difference in the BGI and BGII installs being that there exists a ICLCK08.bam in BGII that isn't being used by any item (and the freaky thing is that the BG2Fixpack seems to apply that BAM to CLCK08.itm )

So yeah, it depends on BGT being pure BGI or applying BG2Fixpack's changes to BGI items (which I think was Hurricane's intention )

Edited by Lollorian, 28 October 2011 - 07:04 AM.

[Ascension64]

Speaking about old code, is it possible to move to override, instead of biffing, the .bam, itm, spl, are, sto, 2da, bcs, dlg, eff files (as the trimpack (?) for BWP does), in order to make the installation of other mods smoother? And could you also include the searchmaps for ar4600, 8900, 9300, 7500 in the "not biff" list since they are used by DS and NT?
I know that changing that enormous batch file to a list of AT_NOWs + some final MAKE_BIFFs in the .tp2 file (which would be wonderful for non-Windows users) would be extremely long, but removing that 'total biffing' would already make multi-mod installations much easier.

The issue I have with this is that BGT still needs to stand on its own, and I don't want to BIFF other people's files to batch BIFFing extensions in the override directory.

How are installation of other mods 'non-smooth'?

If DS and NT use those areas, shouldn't they be providing the means to make sure those areas work for them?

Finally, BGT reintroduces the cloak's BG1 ability and, therefore, has to pick an item icon to assign to that ability. Given what I just outlined, I vote for sticking with ICLCK08.bam because it seems to me that, apart from the missing item icon file in BG1, the *CLCK08.bam resources were always meant to be used in the first place. The BG2Fixpack seems to make the same assumption, and BGT should therefore accord with it, else BGT would actually have to undo BG2Fixpack's change in order to make the cloak's item icon and ability icon consistent.

Come to think about consistency ... If we stick with ICLCK08.bam, BGT should probably duplicate the Fixpack's assignment of ICLCK08.bam as the item icon, in case someone installs BGT without BG2Fixpack.

Yeh, I meant C not G. The line in bold is the thing I dispute. We cannot know what BioWare intended in BG1 unless there is clearly a mistake. The fact that the 08 files were missing could have simply meant, for example, that BioWare were not happy with it and decided to can the icon for it, or it could mean they deliberately wanted it to use the 07 files.

Edited by Ascension64, 28 October 2011 - 02:47 PM.

[Lollorian]

One could add in a new BGTTweaks component called "Use unused BGII icon for Algernon's Cloak" yes?

[Salk]

Well, my two cents is that I agree with Hurricane here. His assumption cannot be confirmed of course but BGT would be consistent with the BG2 Fixpack which is nowadays canon for a BG2 installation.

[Turambar]

The issue I have with this is that BGT still needs to stand on its own, and I don't want to BIFF other people's files to batch BIFFing extensions in the override directory.

I was thinking of this suggestion by the bigg, who sugested, for SoS, to only biff WEDs, TISs, MOSs, BMPs and WAVs, and add an extra forced_subcomponent which either biffs everything/what you want/... (using the code from his generalized biffing or modifying it in order to only biff files from a certain list) or moves to the override folder whatever's still in other folders.

How are installation of other mods 'non-smooth'?

If DS and NT use those areas, shouldn't they be providing the means to make sure those areas work for them?

I used the wrong word, I meant that it's quite unefficient, since biffing things many times takes up a lot of space on the disk, which can't be simply freed by moving/deleting the backup folder.

Concerning DS and NT, they provide different serachmaps which overwrite the BGT ones; it would be an optimization here as well to only biff them if the user does not want to install further mods.

[Ascension64]

The whole decision boiled down to how slack I was, and seeing that I am super-slack (!), I'll just fix it like Fixpack in BGT.

[-Hurricane-]

Just a quick addendum to this topic, now that the changes have been included since the release of BGT 1.13. I only want to bring up something I have mentioned before:

Come to think about consistency ... If we stick with ICLCK08.bam, BGT should probably duplicate the Fixpack's assignment of ICLCK08.bam as the item icon, in case someone installs BGT without BG2Fixpack.

That is exactly the problem now. Since v1.13, BGT sets the ability icon for Algernon's cloak to iclck08.bam. In the odd case that BGT is installed without the BG2Fixpack, you end up with the "reverse" icon inconsistency that we were debating about before: The ability icon now is iclck08, but without the Fixpack, the cloak's item icon still is iclck07. To resolve this, the BGT setup must duplicate the Fixpack's change to the item icon, as I have suggested earlier in this thread.

I changed the patch code for clck08.itm accordingly by adding the first four lines (the rest is untouched):

//also implements BG2 Fixpack fix
COPY_EXISTING ~clck08.itm~ ~override/clck08.itm~
  READ_ASCII 0x3a inv_icon
  PATCH_IF NOT ("%inv_icon%" STRING_EQUAL_CASE "iclck08") BEGIN
    WRITE_ASCII 0x3a ~ICLCK08~ #8 //Inventory icon
  END

  READ_LONG 0x64 abil_off
  READ_SHORT 0x68 abil_num
  READ_LONG 0x6a fx_off

  INSERT_BYTES "%abil_off%" 0x38
  SET abil_num += 1
  WRITE_SHORT 0x68 "%abil_num%"
  SET fx_off += 0x38
  WRITE_LONG 0x6a "%fx_off%"

  WRITE_BYTE "%abil_off%" 3 //Ability type
  WRITE_BYTE ("%abil_off%" + 0x2) 3 //Ability location = ITEM_SLOT
  WRITE_ASCII ("%abil_off%" + 0x4) ICLCK08 //Ability icon
  WRITE_BYTE ("%abil_off%" + 0xC) 1 //Ability target = LIVING_ACTOR
  WRITE_SHORT ("%abil_off%" + 0xE) 100 //Ability range
  WRITE_SHORT ("%abil_off%" + 0x1C) 1 //Ability damage type = PIERCING
  WRITE_BYTE ("%abil_off%" + 0x24) 3 //Ability when drained = RECHARGE_DAILY
  WRITE_SHORT ("%abil_off%" + 0x2A) 1 //Ability projectile type
  WRITE_SHORT ("%abil_off%" + 0x2C) 34 //Ability animation overhand %
  WRITE_SHORT ("%abil_off%" + 0x2E) 33 //Ability animation backhand %
  WRITE_SHORT ("%abil_off%" + 0x30) 33 //Ability animation thrust %

  READ_SHORT 0x70 fx_global_num

  SET fx_total_num = %fx_global_num%

  FOR (i = 0; i < "%abil_num%"; i += 1) BEGIN
    READ_SHORT (%abil_off% + %i% * 0x38 + 0x1E) fx_abil_num
    SET fx_total_num += %fx_abil_num%
  END

  INSERT_BYTES ("%fx_off%" + "%fx_global_num%" * 0x30) 0x30

  WRITE_SHORT ("%fx_off%" + "%fx_global_num%" * 0x30) 5 //Effect type = CHARM_CREATURE
  WRITE_BYTE ("%fx_off%" + "%fx_global_num%" * 0x30 + 0x2) 2 //Effect target = PRESET_TARGET
  WRITE_BYTE ("%fx_off%" + "%fx_global_num%" * 0x30 + 0x3) 3 //Power
  WRITE_BYTE ("%fx_off%" + "%fx_global_num%" * 0x30 + 0xD) 1 //Dispel/Resistance = YES/YES
  WRITE_LONG ("%fx_off%" + "%fx_global_num%" * 0x30 + 0xE) 3600 //Duration
  WRITE_LONG ("%fx_off%" + "%fx_global_num%" * 0x30 + 0x12) 100 //Probability 1
  WRITE_BYTE ("%fx_off%" + "%fx_global_num%" * 0x30 + 0x24) 0b00000010 //Savetype = VS_BREATH
  WRITE_LONG ("%fx_off%" + "%fx_global_num%" * 0x30 + 0x28) 0xFFFFFFFF //Save bonus = -1

  WRITE_SHORT ("%abil_off%" + 0x1E) 1 //New ability #FX
  WRITE_SHORT ("%abil_off%" + 0x20) "%fx_global_num%" //New ability FX index

  FOR (i = 1; i < "%abil_num%"; i += 1) BEGIN
    READ_SHORT (%abil_off% + %i% * 0x38 + 0x20) fx_abil_idx
    WRITE_SHORT (%abil_off% + %i% * 0x38 + 0x20) ("%fx_abil_idx%" + 1)
  END

Just did a quick installation using this code, without the Fixpack present - it worked.

Finally, this should then also be reflected in the dev.doc:

• CLCK08 (Algernon's Cloak): Add Charm Creature ability, implements BG2 Fixpack fix for item icon and ability icon ICLCK08 (assuring consistency between the two)