Has anyone tried a complete overhaul mod?

Edwin

I loved "Classic Adventures" complete replacement/overhaul mod and would love to see this very ambitious project finished. I haven't seen "Sir Billy Bob" in years but give me a heads up if anyone has ever tried these mods or worked on them.

Jackkel_Dragon

The biggest thing between me and converting one of my not-currently-BG-related writing projects into a BG total conversion is the art needed for new areas. While one could skimp on VO and music and focus on the writing and game design, you'd still need new art for each area (to my understanding). As a poor artist with no friends willing to churn out free art for a modding project, I would be limited to re-using the existing game area art and pretending it's not what it looks like (easier said than done).

That said, I would have thought there would be a total conversation or two of a BG game by now. It's had 15+ years for people to make such things... perhaps the amount of work got to them.

Dee

I think the obvious first conversion would be to reverse @Cuv's work, and build a total conversion of the content of Dragon Age: Origins to the BG engine.

Edwin

lol

Stargazer5781

Classic Adventures is the only total conversion mod I've tried that was functional and enjoyable. Return to Trademeet was alright I guess. Supposedly Helms Deep is good, but I've run into a bug that renders it unplayable.

Edwin

@Stargazer5781 Classic Adventures was definitely the best of them. A little buggy in spots, but a great story, well implemented. I really wish there were further development on it. You could tell by the las areas that it would be huge.

Drugar

Aosaw said:

I think the obvious first conversion would be to reverse @Cuv's work, and build a total conversion of the content of Dragon Age: Origins to the BG engine.

That would be amazingly awesome.

Cuv

@Jackkel_Dragon @et al There have been many attempts at total conversions over the years... but none finished (except Classic Adventures) and only a very few came close: Dragonlance (Total conversion) and RTW (partial conversion). Having new area art is one of the most important parts and there are very few people who know how to make them. If you have a great story and really want to tell it... then I suggest learning how to make the areas you need yourself:) The botton line with TC projects is they are much more work than you would ever dream from a time estimate.

Once you have the art, I have a few tutorials out there that can help build the areas.
http://www.shsforums.net/topic/28080-cuvs-area-making-class-tutorial/

I used IETME in my tutorials... but you want that AND DLTCEP now. Once you are finished building the raw area in IETME and doing the basic stuff, then open it in DLTCEP and let that order and clean it up. Then you can make further tweaks in DLTCEP and NI.

bigdogchris

@Cuv

I thought the DLTC was only a few area's? The job they did on the area's was amazing, but I don't remember it being much more than a starting area and a few other places.

Cuv

@bigdogchris ... there was much more that was never finished or released. It was originally a whole new game in the DL setting. I don't know what happened to all the assets... I have a few (but I didnt work on it so much as I got passed a few things by Death and KenTeamBG, iirc). So long ago... sigh.

Edwin

@Cuv

What would you say is the most difficult step in creating new areas?

redline

Did RTW ever come even remotely close to release? I remember following the project since Black Isle had their own boards, and after years of screenshots and hopeful-sounding dev posts it was hard to tell if it ever really had a chance or if it was just a set of lofty ideas that no one was able to pursue.

Also, it sounds like whatever they had is in Beamdog's hands now. Interesting.

the_spyder

I tried one Mod that attempted to convert BG1 to 3rd edition. Gotta say it totally failed in my eyes. There weren't enough things that could be converted for the rest to make any sense.

I also tried a Mod that recreated the original 'Gold box' Pool of Radiance in the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine. It was actually pretty good as far as it went. Of course, nothing could compare to the original (In my view), but the conversion was fairly decent.

Cuv

@Edwin I would say the most difficult part is getting the area art done and ready to be made into an area. Yep, that. Then after that it is all about the Wall Polygons, hehe.

@redline I am not at liberty to confirm or deny that statement about RTW. We shall have to wait and see what happens. And about the old Black Isle boards... fond memories there:)

Edwin

It appears as though the areas at just flat images, with various weight maps to define collision areas, And lumenance but I still don't see where you get the crude depth queing where characters are dithered behind foreground objects...foreground doesn't compute for me...eg flat image. I guess that is where the polygon fun comes into play.

Edwin

@Cuv I'm pretty sure I could eyeball it, but do you know what the orthographic angle is for a camera (yaw and pitch targeting a center null) looking down on a prospective 3D scene aimed at producing an area.

Cuv

@Edwin I don't remember and can't find that information. It is actually posted somewhere here on the boards but I can't find it. The thread was something about creating a toolset for BGEE but it's not this thread: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/3472/possible-creation-of-a-toolset-for-the-enhanced-infinity-engine/p1 It's something like that though. I remember that @NWN_babYaga was interested in it too and someone else posted the information. Maybe he can come along and point us in the right direction to that camera angle information.