Request guidance from modders

mars0124

Hello all! I'm looking into getting into the modding scene. These are my future goals and I would like to build up to them. I was wondering if you could point me to some resources to start the process? I've started messing around with NI, DLTCP, ShadowKeeper, etc to get a little more understanding.

My understanding is a Merchant is a good place to start? Any ideas where I might find a tutorial to start that process?

Here are some of the future projects I'd like to do:

• Someday I would like to have the technical knowledge to port the Druidic Sorcerer over to BG:EE
  
• I'd also like to create a familiar that A) levels up and can be spoken to in your backpack (if I can talk to a sword in BGII, I can talk to my familiar).
  
• I feel like Boo should be more than just a prop, maybe he should be a familiar for Minsc as well.
  
• I'd like to make a Druidic Find Familiar spell (lets me honest people, a jerk mage couldn't have the same kind of a bond with a creature as a lover of nature (noticing the 'familiar' trend yet?). Shapeshifter would have a wolf, Avenger would get a casting choice for spider/wyvern, regular druid would have bear... you get the idea. Of course in the case of these animals they would not fit in the backpack.
  

Actually... that prompts a question. Is it possible to create little or big versions of the same critters? Or would I have to export the animations, etc and shrink/blow them up manually and make a new animation?

... its a lot to ask at once. The short version: a little guidance would be nice

Cerevant

@mars0124 - I've found that I learn a new environment like this much more quickly if I start by making small changes to existing code, rather than starting with something brand new.

Start with BCS scripts: area scripts, character scripts, etc. These are the simplest and most straightforward. Best tool for getting started with this is NearInfinity. You will need to constantly refer to IEDSP for what all that stuff means and does.

From there, start tinkering with DLG files, actions and triggers. These use the same syntax as BCS, so it should be an easy transition. You can use NI for this, but once you get to the point where you want to add new dialog (statement or response) you'll need to move on to...

...full on dialog editing, using WeiDU. This is where you depart the comfy world of GUIs and head for the command line and text editor. The WeiDU documentation has all the gory details of the .d dialog syntax. The one thing that wasn't obvious to me at first is that ~~ is used to enclose strings rather than "", because the " character sometimes needs to be used in the string.

Once you have a handle on all that, or perhaps in parallel, you can use DLTCEP and/or NearInfinity to tinker with the other file types.

Finally dive into the world of .tp2 files. These are how you make a mod that someone can install - you take the changes that you've made and automate them so that someone else can apply them to their installation. This step ranges from pretty easy for scripts and dialogs (simple text search and replace, append, prepend) to very complex for pretty much everything else (write this binary value at this file offset).

Hope that helps!

mars0124

@cerevant. That is a perfect start. As for departing the comfy world of GUI, if you look at my iPad mod tool you'll see its nothing but a series of command line scripts in Bash and Batch. I look forward to when I come back to the command line

And the journey begins...
http://www.pocketplane.net/tutorials/simscript.html

Edit number two. Silly Gorion , you were supposed to cast lightning bolt and kill ME. Not turn yourself to stone. Oh well. Some mistakes you only make once...