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Graphical problem after importing areas from BG1:EE to BG2:EE - water with weird overlay

switswit Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 495
edited August 2014 in General Modding
In the attached screenshot you can see the scene from BG1:EE ported into BG2:EE engine. As you can see there is some strange graphical problem with water going on. It is only present in BG2:EE engine, so the files seems to be fine. The problem shows in every ported area that contain water. It's strange that both engines interprets the same area resources differently :(

I remember that @AndreaColombo and @Avenger_teambg once talked about similar problem (green water overlay). Any idea what may cause it? Thanks in advance for a help with this matter.
Post edited by swit on

Comments

  • Avenger_teambgAvenger_teambg Member, Developer Posts: 5,862
    It is perfectly normal (it was between vanilla BG1 and BG2 too).
    I think the new bg2ee engine allows full bg1 area compatibility. But this might be only in the upcoming patch.
  • switswit Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 495
    Thank you for the answear. It's good to hear that at some point these files will be compatible with BG2:EE. I have acces to BG2:EE beta and it still looks like this, but the beta has not been updated for a while now, so maybe it is already fixed in the internal build.
  • switswit Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 495
    edited December 2014
    @Avenger_teambg I've just tested it on the latest beta 1.3 BG2:EE game and there is still no bg1 area compatibility :( Same file tested on IWD:EE and it worked fine there. I really hope that it will be fixed in the final version of BG2:EE v1.3 patch...
  • Avenger_teambgAvenger_teambg Member, Developer Posts: 5,862
    @Dee‌ you might now what's the difference between iwdee and bg2ee ?
  • DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
    What area are you attempting to port? Can you post a screenshot of what you're seeing in IWD:EE versus BGII:EE?
  • ScottBrooksScottBrooks Member Posts: 687
    When compiled for BGEE, the engine expects dithered water. When compiled for BGIIEE, and IWDEE it expects the stencil water.
  • switswit Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 495
    @Dee my mistake, IWDEE also is not compatible with BG1:EE format. The problem presented in the screenshot affects any ported area with water.
    @ScottBrooks so, any chance that BG2:EE and IWD:EE will support dithered water? If no than can devs please share instruction what exactly need to be changed in area resources to make it work?
  • switswit Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 495
    edited December 2014
    @Avenger_teambg @Dee Is this on the radar for the next BG2:EE update? It looks like vanilla BG2 had similar problems but there is a tool called 'tis2bg2' released by King Diamond (included in BGT) that does the conversion on the fly by modifying TIS and WED files. The problem is that it crashes when used with BG:EE resources (probably because tilesets are now packed in PVRZ files). Without BG:EE areas compatibility in BG2:EE/IWD:EE we won't be able to use any of BG:EE area resources in other games :(
  • ALIENALIEN Member Posts: 1,271
    @Avenger_teambg @Dee
    Hello, could you please reply about this issue? Supporting BG1:EE water in BG2:EE and IWD:EE ist just copy-paste...
  • agrisagris Member Posts: 581
    ScottBrooks said:

    When compiled for BGEE, the engine expects dithered water. When compiled for BGIIEE, and IWDEE it expects the stencil water.

    Could you add a flag at the end of the file format to specify dithered or stencil? Or find another way to support BG1:EE areas in the BG2:EE engine? This isn't theoretical, it's for the BGT:EE mod. http://forums.pocketplane.net/index.php/topic,29313.msg336249.html#msg336249
  • Saigon1983Saigon1983 Member Posts: 157
    Hello. Are there any news about water compatibility?
  • EtaminEtamin Member Posts: 830
    This bug holds BGT:EE release. Do developers work on some solution or is it forgotten?
  • switswit Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 495
    edited July 2015
    a follow up to problems described in this topic. It looks like BG2:EE engine has even more issues with supporting TIS/WED format than what was described in this topic. The EE engine is more limited compared to vanilla BG2 engine.

    Up until now we knew that BG2:EE and vanilla BG2 engine had the same problems with dithered water. With a recent release of tile2ee tool we can now extract PVRZ based files back to TIS format and try to fix water problem when porting dithered water to BG2:EE using additional tis2bg2 tool (for example used in BGT and EasyTutu Degreenifier, also used during development by modders for adopting BG1 areas for BG2 mods).

    But it looks like there are 2 more problems with BG2:EE when it comes to supporting BG1 areas even if converted to use stencil water:
    1. Interior areas have strange corner transparency issues (shows up in every interior area when ported from BG:EE, doesn't matter if in TIS format or PVRZ format)
    2. BG2:EE engine has problem with showing up not only dithered water (that is expected) but also stencil water that is fully supported by vanilla BG2 engine

    More information, files that can be used for testing, links and screenshots showcasing how it looks in game available on IESDP forums: http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=27399

    In other words EE release of the engine makes modding even more troublesome. Unless there is some additional undocumented WED flag (other than the one mentioned in the linked topic) that can resolve these issues we can forget about "mega mods" support that re-use BG1 areas or BGT like mods on BG2:EE.

    @ScottBrooks
    @Avenger_teambg
    @Dee

    Thanks @Etamin, @Saigon1983, @agris, @ALIEN for supporting the topic
    Post edited by swit on
  • WhiteAgnusWhiteAgnus Member Posts: 112
    Hmm, the first problem is also shown in a non-modded game in AR5502...

  • switswit Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 495
    edited July 2015
    @Blaze (@ScottBrooks ?) shared information about water transparency on IESDP forums:
    http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=27399#entry236660
    Unused "wind speed" in ARE file (0x52 offset) is responsible for it. Change it to 0 and you end up with default 50% water transparency.

    Problem with invisible corners is a known BG2:EE engine bug that will be fixed at some point. In other words all is good and no problems with porting areas between games :)
  • TerryMulhernTerryMulhern Member Posts: 3
    edited June 2019
    The topic on Gibberlings3 is deleted or archived. I can't access it. But I do remember there were screenshots and links that explained a lot. I'm running it on Win7 but when I try to open it on iPad, it just freezes.

    https://thetermpapers.net/
  • GwendolyneGwendolyne Member Posts: 461
    edited June 2019
    TerryMulhern wrote: »
    The topic on Gibberlings3 is deleted or archived. I can't access it. But I do remember there were screenshots and links that explained a lot. I'm running it on Win7 but when I try to open it on iPad, it just freezes.

    https://thetermpapers.net/

    No, G3 has been updated a few months ago and the old links are not working anymore. Try this one.
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