Area Map Artwork.
ComradeFurious
Member Posts: 3
Is there a method I can use or a place I can go to retrieve the area map artworks? The neon green camera square UI makes screenshots unusable, and artwork I've found online always seems to have writing over it or be to small/poor quality to use. I really enjoy the map artwork and would appreciate some assistance greatly. Thanks!
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I'm just trying to get some images of the artwork that could be used for, say, my desktop background.
This would be an example of what I mean by 'areas', these just happen to be too small;
http://baldursgate.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Areas
@Tresset
@elminster
@CrevsDaak
Can you guys help him out?
You can get the latest version from this post. Simply unpack the downloaded zip file into your BG(2)EE installation directory (the folder where you can find the file chitin.key) and double click the extracted file. You'll need Java to be installed on your system to start NearInfinity.
There is more than one way to extract map background graphics. Each way has its own limitations.
The first one is by directly exporting the respective map backgrounds into a graphics file. It's quick and easy to do, but the result for a few selected maps is not perfect, since maps use a simple layer structure to emulate water, lava or other kinds of animated background portions. The exported graphics files will show transparent "holes" in those places. Filling the holes with the missing graphics requires some basic understanding of how map files are defined and a graphics editor (preferably one with layer support).
The second method requires more work, but you'll be able to extract the maps as they are displayed within the game. You can even select a specific day time to simulate certain lighting conditions for the map. For that you'll have to open the map viewer included in NearInfinity and take screenshots of the visible portions on the screen. Afterwards you'll have to put the screenshots together in the graphics editor of your choice.
To extract maps using the first method:
On the left side of the tool you'll see a tree view of the supported game resources. Expand the entry labeled as "TIS" to see all of the game's map background files. Valid map graphics files are usually called AR0020.TIS or OH6000.TIS. An appended letter 'N' indicates night maps. Select the map file you want to extract and you'll see a preview of the map in the main area of NearInfinity. To export the map as graphics file, click on the "Export..." button at the bottom and select "as PNG".
Depending on the map you might have to remove excess tiles at the bottom part of the graphics that are used for replacing portions of the map in-game.
To extract maps using the second method:
Expand the entry labeled as "ARE" in the tree view on the left to see all of the game's map definition files. As mentioned in the first method, valid files are called AR0020.ARE or OH6000.ARE. Selecting a map will display an overview in the center area of NearInfinity. On the top you can see two tabs, "View" and "Edit". Select the "View" tab if it hasn't already been selected yet. If the map is valid, you can see an enabled button "View Area". Click on it to open the Area Viewer.
The area viewer will show you the map as it's seen within the game. There are a lot of controls on the right side, but you'll only have to select "Enable overlays" (if it's not grayed out) and make sure Zoom is on 100% for best results. If you want to simulate different lighting conditions, you can also fiddle around with the "Time" button on the top. Optionally you can toggle the "Draw closed" checkbox if you want to see open or closed doors on the map.
As the viewer doesn't provide a dedicated export feature, you'll have to copy screenshots of each visible portion of the map into the clipboard (using the keyboard shortcut Alt+Print or Print if you are on Windows) and paste it into the graphics editor of your choice. Afterwards you'll have to manually edit and put the pieces together to form the final map graphics.
And yeah, BG map artworks rock as desktop images, before this one I had the Firewine Ruins and before that, Bhaal's Throne of Blood.
And yes, I did it on purpose