[MOD] Classic BG UI v1.2

Green stone UI from original Baldur's Gate for BG:EE
Download link, pick Source Code(zip).
Patch 1.2
Screenshots:
Full gallery








Installation: put everything you get from the archive into .../override. It will work on both Siege of Dragonspear and without, but without it, main menu is uglier and you don't get a donation animation.
For full BG1 experience you may want these mods too:
If you use Bubb's excellent Extended Spell Menu, I made a plugin that will overwrite icons to match the style of this UI. Install it last and override the base SoD styled icons you get.
Download
This mod will work with SCS, but you need to open UI.menu in a text editor and change
If added Icewind Dale spells have gibberish names in Key bindings section, here's what you have to do:
Added functionalities:
Known problems:
Final notes: If it looks like I run out of steam at the end (journal screen, for example), it's because I did. It was over a month of not that fun work and that UI isn't even that good, because it was designed for 4:3 640x480 resolution. Pixels can poke an eye out nowadays. And keep in mind that majority of them were already handled by Photoshop's neural filter to remove the worst offenders...I am only uploading it, because some kind soul helped me making it and I'd feel bad for wasting his time.
Signing out.
Download link, pick Source Code(zip).
Patch 1.2
- Added actual map markers from Classic BG (they blink red when hovered over! wow)
- Added search bar for shops/containers.
- Remove party member confirmation is pretty, not some generic garbage.
- Your location (that knight icon on the world map) is bigger and higher res.
- Increased some map markers sizes.
- Some minor tweaks I already forgot about, it's a mystery.
Screenshots:
Full gallery










Installation: put everything you get from the archive into .../override. It will work on both Siege of Dragonspear and without, but without it, main menu is uglier and you don't get a donation animation.
For full BG1 experience you may want these mods too:
- BG Classic Movies, for those sweet low res movies (entering Beregost, Gnoll Fortress, Ducal Palace, Candlekeep library etc.).
- BG Nostalgia Pack, for paperdolls, icons, sounds (HADOUKEN! HADOUKEN!), maybe sprites if you're brave and backed up your saves.
If you use Bubb's excellent Extended Spell Menu, I made a plugin that will overwrite icons to match the style of this UI. Install it last and override the base SoD styled icons you get.
Download

This mod will work with SCS, but you need to open UI.menu in a text editor and change
iHaveSCS = falseto
iHaveSCS = true
If added Icewind Dale spells have gibberish names in Key bindings section, here's what you have to do:
make a new text file, name it "M_KEYS" (actually important part is M_ at the beginning, rest doesn't matter), then find "BGEE.lua" that SCS created in override, open it, find the section "keybindings".
Now, you need to copy everything, starting from "keybindings" all the way to both closing "}", leave the semicolon out (it will be 460+ lines of code) and paste it into that new file. Then names should show up fine.
I don't know why SCS doesn't do that by default, to be honest, as it's much smarter than overriding whole "BGEE.lua".
Now, you need to copy everything, starting from "keybindings" all the way to both closing "}", leave the semicolon out (it will be 460+ lines of code) and paste it into that new file. Then names should show up fine.
I don't know why SCS doesn't do that by default, to be honest, as it's much smarter than overriding whole "BGEE.lua".
Added functionalities:
- When you roll for stats, right click will dump 3 last stats and max strength (for those fishing for a good 18/xx score over everything else); 'P' will give you the next 90+ you would have gotten if you kept rolling and didn't fat fingered REROLL.
- Thieves add points in multiples of 5 (don't pick that option in SCS install).
- On Color Choices screen, you can get random colors by clicking on a right paperdoll. Sometimes you get some truly good color combinations.
- Whenever you have to scroll left and right, it's on A/D keys. Quickloot, pages in mage book and priest scroll, spell descriptions, you name it. The only exception is actionbar which is hardcoded.
- On reform party screen, holding "Remove" will skip confirmation screen, right clicking will remove everyone at once (when you need to get that fat XP drop for your guy ASAP).
- Double clicking on a room will rent it (skip one click, woohoo).
- On Buy and Sell screen the buttons next to names: left click to select everything, right to deselect, double click for select AND sell/move. Sell entire gem bag in one double click today, order now.
- On Donate screen, right clicking will add 100 instead of 1, upper right corner of the paper has Reputation cheat sheet for lazy people like me who don't want to go to wiki every time they do something nasty and NPCs are whining.
- On Identify screen there's "select all" button to save you some time.
- Container screen can be extended if your horizontal screen resolution is above 1030.
- Added search bar for shops (I know it wasn't in the original, but that screen is so tiny and annoying to navigate when you need to buy arrows it got tiresome quickly).
Known problems:
- Not a "problem" per se, but donation bowl is ugly, because after trying to get a proper animation that a) works b) doesn't crash the game c) is not weirdly mirrored or deformed d) has the exact colors I put in in source proved impossible. I settled for bad colors. If someone can get me a proper wbm from THESE frames I could fix it right now. I just can't be bothered to waste my life on ffmpeg.
I managed to fix it. Only works with SoD, because the base game, for some god forsaken reason, doesn't seem able to handle transparency. Anyway, bowl is now pretty as it was meant to be. Increasing resolution fixed the colors. For whatever reason. They were always fine in normal video player, but the game itself can't handle it when it's too small somehow. This is ffmpeg command line that did the trick if someone's interested:ffmpeg.exe -r 29.970 -f image2 -i DONATE%%05d.png -codec:v libvpx -cpu-used 0 -pix_fmt yuva420p -b:v 2M -qmin 10 -qmax 42 -maxrate 2000k -bufsize 4000k -threads 4 -vf scale=-1:1024 -codec:a libvorbis -b:a 128k -f webm -auto-alt-ref 0 DONATE.wbm
- Sequencer screen is laggy. Deal breaker in BG2, but in BG1 you almost don't make them (in classic BG you don't period, it's not even in the game).
- This one is and isn't more serious. If you don't use EEex, you can skip this paragraph. Basically, when you install it and start the game via InfinityLoader two screens destroy frames - namely CHARGEN_CHOOSESPELLS (where you pick spells for your newly created mage) and CHARGEN_MEMORIZE_MAGE (where you choose what to have memorized at the start).
By 'destroy frames' I mean, average frame rate can drop to single digits. Second one is the worst - 1-3 spells on the screen and "average fps: 9". First one is even funnier: when I level up sorcerer, screen with 4 level spells is completely fine, no fps drops. When I create new higher level mage in Siege of Dragonspear, level 3 is fine. If you can even begin to explain what's going on (again, only with EEex), you're already smarter than me and you should be in charge of this project.
If you have some beast rig you can probably plow right through. If you just create your mage without EEex(start with baldur.exe), then save the game and restart, you can bypass this until some real man looks at it and fixes it, because I am at a loss. Or just wait at low fps, not that it's broken, just slow, should work fine.
Final notes: If it looks like I run out of steam at the end (journal screen, for example), it's because I did. It was over a month of not that fun work and that UI isn't even that good, because it was designed for 4:3 640x480 resolution. Pixels can poke an eye out nowadays. And keep in mind that majority of them were already handled by Photoshop's neural filter to remove the worst offenders...I am only uploading it, because some kind soul helped me making it and I'd feel bad for wasting his time.
Signing out.
Post edited by K4f4r on
0
Comments
No idea why EEex would be causing certain screens to lag out. I just tested them and they run fine on my end, though my computer is pretty beefy so maybe it just chugged through it.
If anyone can recreate original BG2 SoA ui like this it would be even better!
Umm I installed this on bg:ee version 2.5 (no sod) and in the startup menu I can't get access to blackpits. Both symbols are of baldurs gate and neither gives access to blackpits.
To be more specific, this is referring to the "START.png" and "START_noSoD.png" files in override.
I'll add it to the list of mods my Nostalgia Pack is best enjoyed with
Also done some minor graphical fixes and moved portraits 2 pixels to the left, because they seemed too close to the right edge to me. It looked off.
Probably as good as it gets, but do report if I broke or forgot anything.
I want to use this for bg2:ee too, but the main menus become all broken. Can you make a version for bg2:ee too? That would be the best continous experience, aesthetics wise.
Sadly, it still gives the same error. It's centred around text lua "startEngine:GetCampaign()"
Ok, 7zip works, so it seems Windows' file explorer has this issue...
Spellbook
Priest scroll
Spell desc.
Item description complete with that cute bg2 font (hard to read but I love its nostalgia feel)
Dialogue window
Inventory, sadly I can't make original bg2 inventory skin work with ee's new things like weapon armor info. I changed the empty slot to original bg2, though.
I am loving it!
Screenshots look crispier when opened in new tab.
edit: lefreut suggested that in UI.menu "The line 19189 should be commented out, add -- in front of the line". It apparently works now.
If you follow the Infinity Engine discord, you may have seen that I've been working for a few days on an attempt of reproduction one of the original BG2 interface fonts.
It's this font
I guess you will be interested in my work on this font.
It's far from perfect because reproducing such a low-resolution font is subject to interpretation and choice of style (rounded or sharp corners, pixel style or not) but I think it could be interesting for some people.
For the moment I have only made an English version of the font. I still have to take care of languages like French or German with their different accents. One thing is for sure, I won't be able to handle other languages with a non-Latin alphabet.
I also share the birdfont (an open-source software) work file if others want to take over my work or join in.
https://github.com/WillScarlettOhara/BG2-UI-Font