@Cerecant Found that one too, but unfortunately my server at home died so I don't have a machine powerful enough for either a Hackintosh or a OS X VM. Unfortunately I am only using a 10 year old P4 ATM
Edit: that means if we can find a WIndows/Linux way to get the ball rolling, that would be ideal.
Well, I should start off by saying that porting WeiDU probably will not be for the faint of heart. It would also probably be wise to start with compiling WeiDU for OS X and have that working before you move on to iOS. Unless you can find another iOS crosscompiler than OcamlXARM, OS X is where you will have to start.
Now, WeiDU may or may not need some jiggling to compile on OS X. The comparative bear will probably be Elkhound, which is an external compile-time dependency written in C++. It's also been at least 4–5 years since it saw dedicated maintenance. (The upside is that getting it to work on OS X may be enough for the iOS port as well.) There is a year-old account of compiling Elkhound and WeiDU for OS X here. Note that there is another tarball of Elkhound source here, which may or may not work better. Also note that you do not need to build WeiGUI, so it is not necessary to install tcl/tk (labltk).
Finally, WeiDU is currently targeted at the old PPC/Mac OS versions of BG(II), so the code may need tweak or two to work properly on modern systems and/or BGEE for OS X.
Alright, so I'll get started on that for Monday. I brought my i5 notebook from work so I should be able to get OS X running in a VM before then.
If the VM works, we're one step in the right direction... Otherwise I'll have to bow out.
On a side note, I was thinking of trying to create a hard link to the override folder in Documents. MAYBE we could get the drag and drop working in iTunes for backup of mods while syncing an iPad... Just something else to try for the side.
This is most definately going to be fun. I just hope it gets to be a whole journey.
Getting OS X to start porting WeiDU: Got my PC fixed and am now running an OS X 10.8.2 VM. I have three children at home, so I'll only be able to work on this at night (unless I build a VPN server sometime).
Placing BG override mods using iTunes: Using shortcuts, or 'links' as they are called in UNIX do NOT work for override folders. Symbolic links do not give the desired result (it shows as a file in iTunes rather than a folder) and hard links do not work with folders at all.
Placing BG override mods using Cydia: I've got most of the research done on this, I'm just not sure how to apply a mod to a folder that has a dynamic name (the folder that contains Baldur's Gate.App). This idea won't go any further as I have more interest in getting WeiDU mods running in BG:EE, they tend to be a lot more interesting.
I installed Armor pack mod from CoM_Solaufein and it's working. The Dialog.TLK file on iPad was identical to that of PC version. So I applied mods on PC version and copied override folder as well as dialog.tlk file to iPad.
So far I applied a few Weidu mods: Isra NPC, Weapon pack, Armor pack, BG2 collector's edition bonus merchants. They should work, will report later.
All of the above seem very complicated to me. Here's what I tried on my jailbroken iPad
1) extract the Baldur's gate app from iPad (same as what you need to use Shadowkeeper) 2) create an override folder 3) run the installer of the BGTweaks, with it pointing to the BG folder 4) copy contents of override folder to iPad copy of Bg app using iFunBox
I tried it with just one tweak (Khalid fighter/Mage) and it seems to work. This may be good enough for people like me who only want some simple mods and are not interested in recompiling or setting up VMs.
I think the Tiger Style Monk also gave the same (crashing) results, but I am not sure.
Short Version: Transfering WeiDU mods DOES work, but not all mods work on the iPad. Should we maybe start a thread for iPad-friendly mods and proper instructions? Confirmed working: Scion of Murder Kit Isra NPC Recoloured BG:EE GUI V1.11
Currently looking into methods to mount BG:EE directly to a PC so there won't be any copy/paste require.
If anyone wants to help out with that I am looking into the following on the iPad: Samba, NFS, SCP, FTP, WebDAV. All can be mounted as a local dir on your Windows file system. That coupled with using a USB Tunnel (with MyWi, PDANet, or iFunBox) we should be able to apply WeiDU mods directly to the BG:EE install on the iPad.
Volunteers?
Oh, and @nsr, I will try again. The Tiger Style Monk was one of the first mods I tried to apply, so I very likely did miss on copying dialog.tlk.
So, there is a problem with dragging and dropping dialog.tlk and the content of the override folder. If you start installing mods on the PC and not moving them to iPad or the other way around, things get out of sync and the next time you drag/drop you could mess up certain mods. Consequences could vary from unnoticeable to dire.
What I am doing: I am applying WeiDU mods directly to BGEE on the iPad... using Windows.
All I am doing is: Using SSH, creating a link to dialog.tlk Running a Samba share on my iPad (installed from Cydia) Placing my mods in the iPad share Double click the .exe as you would on a normal PC install
If people are interested I could place further instructions here.
Note 1: installing WeiDU mods on a remote file system via Samba is most definitely slower. It will also most definitely install things PROPERLY. Note 2: this does not mean all BGEE mods will work. Some just don't work on the iPad.
So messed around with this today to get xp cap removed working. If having trouble some things that I did wrong: 1. Check to make sure you're using the right file protocol (SFTP iirc) 2. When setting max XP set it like "3000000" and not "3,000,000". Otherwise your max xp ends up being "3". 3. Don't change the "start xp" unless using pregenerated characters, I set this to 1 just to know if the override was working but it made some classes always crash on creation (monk was okay but sorcerer and cleric/ranger were not)
Black Pits should be entertaining with this mod and a small party ...
I did a test of the kits mod and it did indeed crash on startup when I ran the default (full) install. However I found that if I installed the kits individually, they would work. It seems to work for about 5-6.
Hmm... maybe I will go through and test them one at a time. Then we'll know at least.
I've started a new thread here that pertains to modding BG:EE on the iPad. I'd like to compile the information we have so far in one useful post rather than a whole thread where it is iPad accessible (where as the Modding forum is 'known' not to be currently pertinent.).
2. Download iexplorer for either mac/windows. It's a paid program, but you get 30 days free. You can also get openSSH on cydia and sftp into your iPad as well, it's up to you (iexplorer is definitely easier if you don't have prior experience with openSSH)
4. Open the .2DA files in the xp cap zip file with notepad or other text editor (make sure when you save, the file extension stays as .2DA). In the "xpcap" file, change all of the "-1" values to any xp cap you want. I used 5,000,000 but you can use whatever. In the "startare" and "startbp" files, change the START_XP_CAP value from -1 to the xp cap you used in the other file. You can also change the START_XP value to something other than 0 if you want to start a new game with a higher xp value.
5. Open iexplorer and plug your iPad into your computer. On the left hand side should be a file tree. Open Apps/Baldur's Gate/Baldur's Gate.app/. You should see a folder with a bunch of png files and several folders like 'data,' 'lang,' 'movies,' etc. Right click the "Baldurs Gate.app" folder in the file tree and click "new folder". This should create a new folder in the same directory as the png files. Rename the new folder to "override".
6. Copy the three .2DA files from step 4 into the override directory you just created. iExplorer allows you to just drag and drop them in.
That's it. Just close everything out, disconnect your iPad and open the Baldur's Gate app. Any new game you start will now have the xp cap applied and the new starting xp value you set. Also, any previously saved games should now allow you to gain xp up to the new cap. I can't guarantee this will work for everyone, but it worked for me and I have tested several saved games successfully. Good luck!
I have tried the above only and my game does not respond to neither the new level cap nor starting xp.
Only difference is that i used ifunbox to transfer the files. Do you have any suggestions as to what might cause bgee not to adhere to what is in the override folder?
Guy, you are a genius, I'll be trying this tomorrow, I'm going to tell if it works.
Off-Topic P.S: Today I messed up so much with the voices and the dialog.tlk that i replaced them with the PC version's one, changing Female1 voice set for Male5, it worked, but the text is wrong, it says: Mmmmh? instead of Yes? or How I may be of your assistance?
Also, I "teleported" my party out of South BG to the Cloud Peaks, that were inaccessible on my iPad, I tried to reach it from every area near it, but it were impossible, but, I never finished the Cloud Peaks, because my sister deleted all my non-quick save saves, i stopped her before she could delete the quick-save.
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@Cerecant Found that one too, but unfortunately my server at home died so I don't have a machine powerful enough for either a Hackintosh or a OS X VM. Unfortunately I am only using a 10 year old P4 ATM
Edit: that means if we can find a WIndows/Linux way to get the ball rolling, that would be ideal.
Now, WeiDU may or may not need some jiggling to compile on OS X. The comparative bear will probably be Elkhound, which is an external compile-time dependency written in C++. It's also been at least 4–5 years since it saw dedicated maintenance. (The upside is that getting it to work on OS X may be enough for the iOS port as well.) There is a year-old account of compiling Elkhound and WeiDU for OS X here. Note that there is another tarball of Elkhound source here, which may or may not work better. Also note that you do not need to build WeiGUI, so it is not necessary to install tcl/tk (labltk).
Finally, WeiDU is currently targeted at the old PPC/Mac OS versions of BG(II), so the code may need tweak or two to work properly on modern systems and/or BGEE for OS X.
If the VM works, we're one step in the right direction... Otherwise I'll have to bow out.
On a side note, I was thinking of trying to create a hard link to the override folder in Documents. MAYBE we could get the drag and drop working in iTunes for backup of mods while syncing an iPad... Just something else to try for the side.
This is most definately going to be fun. I just hope it gets to be a whole journey.
Getting OS X to start porting WeiDU: Got my PC fixed and am now running an OS X 10.8.2 VM. I have three children at home, so I'll only be able to work on this at night (unless I build a VPN server sometime).
Placing BG override mods using iTunes: Using shortcuts, or 'links' as they are called in UNIX do NOT work for override folders. Symbolic links do not give the desired result (it shows as a file in iTunes rather than a folder) and hard links do not work with folders at all.
Placing BG override mods using Cydia: I've got most of the research done on this, I'm just not sure how to apply a mod to a folder that has a dynamic name (the folder that contains Baldur's Gate.App). This idea won't go any further as I have more interest in getting WeiDU mods running in BG:EE, they tend to be a lot more interesting.
So far I applied a few Weidu mods: Isra NPC, Weapon pack, Armor pack, BG2 collector's edition bonus merchants. They should work, will report later.
1) extract the Baldur's gate app from iPad (same as what you need to use Shadowkeeper)
2) create an override folder
3) run the installer of the BGTweaks, with it pointing to the BG folder
4) copy contents of override folder to iPad copy of Bg app using iFunBox
I tried it with just one tweak (Khalid fighter/Mage) and it seems to work. This may be good enough for people like me who only want some simple mods and are not interested in recompiling or setting up VMs.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/14682/mod-sun-soul-monk-kit
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/12697/mod-bgee-kitpack-v1-62-3113
I think the Tiger Style Monk also gave the same (crashing) results, but I am not sure.
Short Version: Transfering WeiDU mods DOES work, but not all mods work on the iPad. Should we maybe start a thread for iPad-friendly mods and proper instructions?
Confirmed working:
Scion of Murder Kit
Isra NPC
Recoloured BG:EE GUI V1.11
Confirmed NOT working:
Sun Soul Monk Kit
KitPack
If anyone wants to help out with that I am looking into the following on the iPad: Samba, NFS, SCP, FTP, WebDAV. All can be mounted as a local dir on your Windows file system. That coupled with using a USB Tunnel (with MyWi, PDANet, or iFunBox) we should be able to apply WeiDU mods directly to the BG:EE install on the iPad.
Volunteers?
Oh, and @nsr, I will try again. The Tiger Style Monk was one of the first mods I tried to apply, so I very likely did miss on copying dialog.tlk.
So, there is a problem with dragging and dropping dialog.tlk and the content of the override folder. If you start installing mods on the PC and not moving them to iPad or the other way around, things get out of sync and the next time you drag/drop you could mess up certain mods. Consequences could vary from unnoticeable to dire.
What I am doing: I am applying WeiDU mods directly to BGEE on the iPad... using Windows.
All I am doing is:
Using SSH, creating a link to dialog.tlk
Running a Samba share on my iPad (installed from Cydia)
Placing my mods in the iPad share
Double click the .exe as you would on a normal PC install
If people are interested I could place further instructions here.
Note 1: installing WeiDU mods on a remote file system via Samba is most definitely slower. It will also most definitely install things PROPERLY.
Note 2: this does not mean all BGEE mods will work. Some just don't work on the iPad.
If having trouble some things that I did wrong:
1. Check to make sure you're using the right file protocol (SFTP iirc)
2. When setting max XP set it like "3000000" and not "3,000,000". Otherwise your max xp ends up being "3".
3. Don't change the "start xp" unless using pregenerated characters, I set this to 1 just to know if the override was working but it made some classes always crash on creation (monk was okay but sorcerer and cleric/ranger were not)
Black Pits should be entertaining with this mod and a small party ...
I've started a new thread here that pertains to modding BG:EE on the iPad. I'd like to compile the information we have so far in one useful post rather than a whole thread where it is iPad accessible (where as the Modding forum is 'known' not to be currently pertinent.).
Only difference is that i used ifunbox to transfer the files. Do you have any suggestions as to what might cause bgee not to adhere to what is in the override folder?
Off-Topic P.S: Today I messed up so much with the voices and the dialog.tlk that i replaced them with the PC version's one, changing Female1 voice set for Male5, it worked, but the text is wrong, it says: Mmmmh?
instead of Yes? or How I may be of your assistance?
Also, I "teleported" my party out of South BG to the Cloud Peaks, that were inaccessible on my iPad, I tried to reach it from every area near it, but it were impossible, but, I never finished the Cloud Peaks, because my sister deleted all my non-quick save saves, i stopped her before she could delete the quick-save.
My lvl 8 Fighter reached lvl 10 in 30 minutes!!!
Thanks a lot guys!!