Loots and Lagers -- Hello from a 15+years of keyboard clacking BG Veteran

blinkdog

So I've pretty much been playing Baldur's Gate since 2000, a scruffy little tomboy who, when not in the woods creating bows and spears or pouring through AD&D manuals, sat in rapt attention at her computer playing BG and NWN, inventing my own little tales as I went. 110% Forgotten Realms novel series fan.

In any case, how time flies, yeah? Regardless, I'm happy to see more people excited to share characters and stories and make mods for BG:EE and the other enhanced editions.

I'm working on a portrait pack right now that's kind of in between the style of BG and BGII, and am working with my partner to try and create some heavy mod content (although the map editors we've tried are a little difficult to work with--ugh).

In any case, I hope to provide some neat custom portraits, hopefully some awesome NPCs with engaging quests and lore woven in, and in general am just happy to talk all about the realms.

Sidenote: I work as an indiedev / illustrator / writer on the side, have a bit of musical talent, and have been dabbling in VA. I pretty much have my hands in everything creative. Cheers!

--Blinkdog

TheArtisan

I don’t usually comment on newcomers, but it’s especially exciting for me to hear about others with an interest in modding for new characters and lore. I think that myself and @LavaDelVortel are probably the most noteworthy modders that specialize in that sort of content on this forum, though I only started about three years ago while Lava’s been at work for a a decade now. If you feel like discussing mods I’m sure either of us would be more than thrilled to respond.

I hope to see you active around the modding board. Welcome and have fun.

blinkdog

Very nice to meet you! I would definitely benefit from some advice--I've gleaned a bit by going through scripts and doing some minor edits here or there, and am generally more or less familiar with C++ but am by no means literate in it. I'm more of the story/concept art/character designer for any project I do, hopefully modding included. All the little artsy flourishes, no heavy lifting haha.

My partner should be activating his account--he's the one who'll be handling the actual map editing, a hefty bit of scripting, and all the behind the scenes mechanics.

I really appreciate you reaching out to me--modding is what pretty much keeps the game fresh after all these years, so I'm doubly motivated to get some out there. I'm looking through all your mods now! Super excited to work with this community.

thenegaverse

Hi! Thanks for your response @Artemius_I We're dying to make this mod, just having a lot of trouble with the chitin key and file locations when using IETME. Guessing it's because I'm using Windows 10 and Steam versions of the games, haha.

LavaDelVortel

Hi @blinkdog and hi @thenegaverse

I'm too quite happy to see new modders here, at the forums! I excited to see both story conent and new portraits you're working on!

About IETME - remember that the tool is really old and it wasn't created with EE versions of IE games in mind, so actually IETME can't do everything for you. I usually use IETME to set regions, entrances, walls etc, and then switch to DLTCEP to do the rest. Then everything should work fine The last step would be using NearInfinity to generate .tis + pvrz files for your area, because IETME creates .tis for old file (one huge file, while the format is different now - tis+pvrz, where tilset isn't in one file anymore, but is divided into seperate pvrz files that's organized by a quite small tis file).

ber5nie5

loots and lagers sounds a lot more fun than chutes and ladders lol. welcome to the forums!

blinkdog

@LavaDelVortel
Ah thank you so much for the welcome, and for the advice; apparently that's very close to what my partner was trying but we just keep headbutting a chitin key issue. He may ask you about it later, if that's alright with you.
As far as portraits, I have a good handful done right now, though I'm unsure if I can post them in this thread specifically for examples of what they'll look akin to.
@ber5nie5
Haha yes, I'm glad someone got the reference. Had to explain to @thenegaverse what it was a reference to, aha. Thank you so much for the welcome, cheers!

LavaDelVortel

Hey

I'm not sure what chitin key issue you're writing about You don't need to "link" IETME with specific game. Just load the image, switch to area editing and it should work fine As for portrait, I guess this thread is fine. But if you want to share it at some more art-oriented part of the forums, this subforums may be suitable for that: https://forums.beamdog.com/categories/fan-creations

As for other stuff - yeah, you can just poke me later, but it's not like I know everything But I will try to help. Also starting a thread somewhere here may be a good idea:
https://forums.beamdog.com/categories/general-modding
...as there are also other people who may know some answers If you decide to make a threat, just tag me there

thenegaverse

LavaDelVortel said:

Hi @blinkdog and hi @thenegaverse

I'm too quite happy to see new modders here, at the forums! I excited to see both story conent and new portraits you're working on!

About IETME - remember that the tool is really old and it wasn't created with EE versions of IE games in mind, so actually IETME can't do everything for you. I usually use IETME to set regions, entrances, walls etc, and then switch to DLTCEP to do the rest. Then everything should work fine The last step would be using NearInfinity to generate .tis + pvrz files for your area, because IETME creates .tis for old file (one huge file, while the format is different now - tis+pvrz, where tilset isn't in one file anymore, but is divided into seperate pvrz files that's organized by a quite small tis file).

This is essentially the pipeline I had set up, it's just that when I do my area editing, sometimes I get errors saying it cant find the resource in key file when trying to load the world map and whatnot. It seems like IETME has trouble finding some of the assets from the game. Strangely enough, I can place some creature spawns and items in containers, but other times it will just crash, it's so strange. In the meantime, I'm just making the art for the levels right now, which I'll probably post some previews when we start a thread for the mod specifically. I appreciate all the info, I'll dig into the other threads and see if I can't figure it out!

LavaDelVortel

Yeah, when you add animations, cre files and other stuff and the actual cre (or other refferenced element) does not exist, then the area will crash. To be honest, just use IETME to set regions/walls only. It's no good when it comes to animation, cre and other stuff. DLTCEP is SO MUCH BETTER when it's about details etc. Once you think it's all there, you just make the new tis with NearInfinity and it should work fine on EE. If you get weird notices in IETME... well, you should just ignore it. If you need to look for specific stuff like animations that are there in game, just use NearInfinity or DLTCEP. The thing is that IETME wasn't updated years before EE, so... yeah, the tool is far from perfect. A pity no one ever tried to make a new version of it.

thenegaverse

Thanks, I'll try that then. I set up DLTCEP before and it was also giving me errors with the map editing, but I've done so much file cleanup that hopefully it'll work now. I emailed the creator of IETME and offered my help in developing an updated version of the toolset. I've worked with Unreal Engine for 10 years so I figured I could help design some tools for the editor but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

What I'm doing now is just 3D modeling and rendering out some environment assets to edit in photoshop so I can piece together the maps. Working on getting a cavern-style environment put together while imitating the art resolution of the game. I'll let you know what I come up with!

LavaDelVortel

Sometimes when you open area in DLTCEP you may get a warning like "Area will be reordered to official standards" - you may just ignore that. It happens all the time and should not actually influence your work

Oh, can't wait to see some of your work! It all sounds quite exciting

Demanius

Wow, nice introduction and welcome to the forums Blinky

blinkdog

@Demanius (i really have no idea if you get alerts unless I ping you ahh) thank you for the welcome! I've definitely be nosedeep into D&D for a very long time, although not long enough if you ask me. Over half my life, to be exact. Scary when you think of it that way, yikes. Anyway, feel free to drop a line or whatnot, etc, always willing to have a chat! cheers

Demanius

@blinkdog Nice Awesome, I hear Baldurs Gate 3 is coming out from Larian Studios, should be interesting.