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possible creation of a toolset for the Enhanced Infinity engine?

LemernisLemernis Member, Moderator Posts: 4,318
edited August 2012 in General Modding
I'm not sure what the BG/BG2:EE engine will be called, so for convenience sake I referred to it as Enhanced Infinity.

How feasible do you all think it would be for a toolset to be created for the Infinity engine modding community after this shiny new retooled engine is completed?

The toolset would of course be a DLC.

I can envision system wherein if an excellent custom mod passes some sort of muster for Beamdog, then Beamdog offers it as a DLC and the author could share a modest percentage of the profits. It would have to be subject be an EULA and all that, the lawyers would work all that out. Beamdog basically sits back and reaps the profits and modders can at least get some compensation for all their hard work. A system like this could perpetuate revenues for the game for many, many years to come.

Many more fans will likely join the modding community if the toolset is relatively user-friendly for the non-coder.

Fans now can play mods that are built within present constraints for area design. But with a toolset we can create new areas. DLCs with new content for area building can be offered on a regular basis (if that nets a profit). Indeed, brand new adventures can be created that have nothing to do with the BG series. All with our beloved Infinity engine.

Or is this just a daffy pipe dream? :)
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Comments

  • CoM_SolaufeinCoM_Solaufein Member Posts: 2,607
    edited August 2012
    I would be happy with a decent area/creation tool that isn't crash happy.

    There is IEEP and dltcep that are great for item, stores and spell making. We do need something for dialogs instead of some archaic DOS tool. Perhaps they may work with BGEE.

    Near Infinity and dltcep are basically all in one type of tool sets.
  • Bynary_FissionBynary_Fission Member Posts: 202
    I'm normally not keen on purchasing DLC, but if this was offered up as a later purchase I would absolutely lunge at the opportunity. As a long-time Baldur's Gate fan (since 2002) and a modder/server admin in NWN's heyday I would kill for the opportunity to mod the Infinity Engine. It was, and still is, my favorite series of games, and the only thing it was ever missing was a good modding tool.

    If the powers that be up in Beamdog hear our pleas and come out with such a tool, I can honestly say that my life will be complete.
  • theJoshFrosttheJoshFrost Member Posts: 171
    This. Map editors have done wonders for Warcraft/Starcraft and NWN. To be honest, I wouldn't even be bothered if the maps couldn't go online, and it'd just be for making your own adventures. I'd fall in love if this feature was added.
  • LemernisLemernis Member, Moderator Posts: 4,318
    I'm currently watching the Trent Oster podcast on ten6gaming.com and I am even more encouraged now about the possibilities for the creation of an Enhanced Infinity toolset after learning that Trent was a lead developer for Neverwinter. I loved the toolsets of the Neverwinter series and used them extensively. If we can get something like that for Enhanced Infinity that will give BG/BG2:EE an enormous boost in terms of fan interest from all the mods that can be created for the game. Provided of course that the business model is well conceived.

    Anyway, given that Beamdog is so encouraging and supportive of the BG modding community--and especially given Trent's background with Neverwinter--I can't imagine that they haven't thought of this already. I am extremely hopeful that this will one day come to pass!
  • MississippiGhostMississippiGhost Member Posts: 20
    This is impossible.

    Let us ignore for a moment that EA/Bioware owns the Infinity Engine, and would probably have to greenlight a project of this scale.

    The Infinity Engine games use pre-rendered images as area backgrounds, created with 3D modeling software such as 3D Studio Max or Maya. And the source files used to create these areas back in the day have been lost.

    Theoretically, if you do not care about quality or copyright, you could copy and paste already existing area graphics with the help of Photoshop, GIMP or any equivalent image editing program. The result has a big chance of being ugly, and whoever owns the original art will not be happy. This would be a legal nightmare for Beamdog.

    So for a toolset, Beamdog would not only have to create the actual program, but also a metric ton of new art to go with it. This is a workload on the scale of an entire new game. And while dedicated programs such as RPG or Adventure Makers exist, I doubt Beamdog would prioritize such a project over Baldur's Gate 3. And if they did, why limit it to a decade old engine that is owned by EA/Bioware? Indeed, the most optimistic outcome would be for such an editor to be bundled with BG3, and based on a new engine.

    Now, if you are interested in IE modding, there is an excellent and self-taught modding community with their own tools already out there!
  • LemernisLemernis Member, Moderator Posts: 4,318
    edited August 2012
    @MississippiGhost:

    Lol, so much for my high hopes if you're right.

    The license and copyrights I would think wouldn't be as much of an issue as you make them out to be, since they are already overhauling the infinity engine.

    But if an area making editor is already dead in the water for the technical (versus copyright) reasons you state, then, yeah, it's hard to see development of a toolset, sure enough. Or maybe a decent workaround could be found?

    Just how expensive all this would be to make depends also on whether Beamdog might recruit free labor from the modding community to help develop it. In any case, it would be wonderful to see the current editors and tools all get tweaked and packaged together into a more non-coder-friendly application.
    Post edited by Lemernis on
  • MilochMiloch Member Posts: 863
    I'm pretty sure that DLTCEP would be able to support BG:EE in short order. It already supports Tutu and BGT without any special settings, as they use the ToB engine. Near Infinity is essentially maintained by the community these days, so whoever wants to (and knows Java) can make any necessary changes there.

    Infinity Explorer (http://www.shsforums.net/topic/31285-infinity-explorer-v085/) can handle dialogue files - I doubt that format is going to change. It isn't exactly maintained, but it could be once again.

    What we really need is a tool to edit, disassemble and reassemble animations (BAMs). BAM Batcher (http://www.shsforums.net/topic/42359-release-bam-batcher/) is a WeiDU workaround for that as used in conjunction with graphics editing programs, but it only does simple animations so far, such as icons. Apparently, BioWare/Black Isle *did* have tools for BAMs (there are still some screenshots lurking around on the web) but they've been lost apparently as well, unless someone's managed to find them. There's no real reason why the community should not have access to the developer tools of this nature. It would benefit both the developers and the modders as both could make improvements to them. DLC (downloadable content) is a bad term though in my opinion because it suggests add-ons that folks have to pay for, which a utility should not be.
  • jcomptonjcompton Member Posts: 157
    Miloch said:


    Infinity Explorer (http://www.shsforums.net/topic/31285-infinity-explorer-v085/) can handle dialogue files - I doubt that format is going to change. It isn't exactly maintained, but it could be once again.

    Don't hold your breath on InfExp being updated--in theory it *can* be, but in practice I tried for over a year to find someone who spoke both Delphi and Infinity and could only find one person--the creator, who swore he would never again update it. Bothering Avenger to duplicate the handful of things InfExp was uniquely good at in DLTCEP is probably our best bet. (Sorry, Avenger, but it's the truth.)

    As for the rest of it... people, you'd be much happier if you accepted the following facts:

    1. The Infinity Engine was designed by (well-meaning) sadists,

    2. We've been wonderfully blessed over the past decade to reap the benefits of some very diligent, resourceful, and innovative researchers and programmers who managed to sidestep much of the sadism, and

    3. This is as good as it's going to get. Which, as I glance at things like the size of the modlist and the quantity of downloads I see every month, is actually quite good.
  • LemernisLemernis Member, Moderator Posts: 4,318
    edited August 2012
    @jcompton

    But doesn't it depend on what Beamdog does in overhauling the Infinity engine? I'm reading the Beamdog dev interviews about what a Herculean labor it has been to clean up the code. Won't it all be much easier to work with when they're done? Trent Oster has basically said his goal is to perfect this game (engine).
  • WispWisp Member Posts: 1,102
    edited August 2012
    @Lemernis
    More efficient code does not mean the engine is any better designed (if we assume the premise the engine is badly designed). What may come out of Beamhaul's labour is a more moddable gui (I think they said that was one of their goals) but the rest would basically require a new engine.
  • LemernisLemernis Member, Moderator Posts: 4,318
    @Wisp

    So Beamdog's support for the modding community will consist mainly of helping it make existing mods compatible with the overhauled engine? I mean, that's still excellent if that's "all" it is. I was just hoping that a breakthrough of some sort might emerge for cobbling together areas, plus pulling all the functionality of existing IE editing tools together into a unified platform. Sounds like the area design tool is the real dealbreaker, though, eh?
  • ArdanisArdanis Member Posts: 1,736
    In all the honesty I doubt any modder had been expecting a breakthrough of any kind. The only possibility for that to happen is to break everything down and rebuild from scratch. None has enough time and motivation for that.
  • LemernisLemernis Member, Moderator Posts: 4,318
    Darn. I guess this idea will probably have to go quietly into the good night. How I would have loved to be able to create brand new areas within IE (that look as great as the originals and with relative ease)!
  • KerozevokKerozevok Member Posts: 695
    The problem is not the editing, with NI/DLTCEP you can edit/create everything... The problem is the export, weidu is a powerful tool, but not really user-friendly.
  • jcomptonjcompton Member Posts: 157
    edited August 2012
    Lemernis said:

    Sounds like the area design tool is the real dealbreaker, though, eh?

    DLTCEP is a comprehensive area editor. The 3D modeler camera settings, scales, and so forth necessary to create new areas are generally well-understood, and the skills required to make a good-looking "Infinity-style" area are actually pretty common in the 3D art community at large. Yes, it's true that nobody has the library of objects the Bioware area artists used, so one can't (for example) make a new Athkatlan interior which uses the *exact* vases and jugs and tables found elsewhere in Athkatla, but these problems can be dealt with.

    Adding new areas to Infinity games has always been a bit of a modding pain because worldmap changes are among the more awkward (so much so that even official Infinity developers avoided it... as I recall, IWD's Trials of the Luremaster wasn't accessible through the worldmap, just through a "Talk to me and I'll take you to the expansion area!" dialogue) but it is by no means impossible or a problem which requires additional tools to solve.

    There are a few places where the process could be further automated (seriously, dudes, I will give you the WeiNGINE wallgroup-data-automator process) but well-motivated types are already perfectly capable of building new areas.
    Post edited by jcompton on
  • MississippiGhostMississippiGhost Member Posts: 20
    There's actually the IE Tileset Map Editor, which works a bit like Photoshop in a sense, by allowing you to copy and paste pre-rendered objects. But the results won't be pretty. And again, you need source art, or you may get the copyright hammer.

    If you truly want to create new area graphics of the same quality as the original games yourself, there is no way around learning 3D modeling, no.

    Graphics aside, the 3rd party modding tools are not that hard to learn. Most have a GUI, and you definitely don't need to be a coder.

    Now, get on it! ;)
  • jcomptonjcompton Member Posts: 157
    DLTCEP supercedes IETME.
  • MilochMiloch Member Posts: 863
    jcompton said:

    Miloch said:

    Don't hold your breath on InfExp being updated--in theory it *can* be, but in practice I tried for over a year to find someone who spoke both Delphi and Infinity and could only find one person--the creator, who swore he would never again update it.

    Well as you see from the link, Big Moshi briefly updated the Dmitry's original. Also claimed he was converting it to C# (much more developer friendly) but I don't know if that ever happened.

    I've always been happy using EditPad or any other text editor, but I'll admit, a linear tool is not the best for a non-linear format like .dlg - it would work much better with a flowchart sort of GUI that could then generate the .d code.
    jcompton said:

    Adding new areas to Infinity games has always been a bit of a modding pain because worldmap changes are among the more awkward (so much so that even official Infinity developers avoided it... as I recall, IWD's Trials of the Luremaster wasn't accessible through the worldmap, just through a "Talk to me and I'll take you to the expansion area!" dialogue) but it is by no means impossible or a problem which requires additional tools to solve.

    There are native functions in WeiDU for this now, so the main pain-in-the-arse is dealing with wallgroups and other .wed issues.
    jcompton said:

    There are a few places where the process could be further automated (seriously, dudes, I will give you the WeiNGINE wallgroup-data-automator process)

    I think you did give it, but that could've been an early version ages ago... Dunno if anyone implemented it. Put it on GemRB/DLTCEP's sourceforge so Avenger doesn't have a choice :).
  • jcomptonjcompton Member Posts: 157
    Forgot about that third-party InfExp update, when I was loading my laptop for BGEE testing I just found the old Sourceforge version. My mistake.
    Miloch said:

    I think you did give it, but that could've been an early version ages ago... Dunno if anyone implemented it. Put it on GemRB/DLTCEP's sourceforge so Avenger doesn't have a choice :).

    Yeah, I did document it, but someone would have to be willing to build a parser to turn the XML coordinate output into a valid WED file, I can't force anybody to do that.
  • CuvCuv Member, Developer Posts: 2,535
    jcompton said:

    DLTCEP supercedes IETME.

    It does indeed... but the other 'me' refuses to admit such things in public! :D

  • MississippiGhostMississippiGhost Member Posts: 20
    My apologies, been absent from the modding scene a few years, until I heard of BG:EE. I should probably let you do the talking! :D
  • DiscoCatDiscoCat Member Posts: 73
    Here's one scary possibility: Overhaul team doesn't have a toolset. There was never a unified toolset for BG. I remember reading an interview with a BG2 developer in some gaming magazine a decade ago and he said that they're using a dozen or so tools to build BG2 (in response to a similar request). Some of these tools were probably custom-made for BG but those could've gotten lost along with source art. I wouldn't be surprised if Overhaul is developing their content with the tools built by modders.
  • MilochMiloch Member Posts: 863
    DiscoCat said:

    Here's one scary possibility: Overhaul team doesn't have a toolset.

    Wouldn't surprise me, @DiscoCat. After all, modders have had a luxurious lack of deadlines (and nevermind lack of pay) in which to polish their tools. Er, I mean, in which to refine their utilities.
    DiscoCat said:

    I remember reading an interview with a BG2 developer in some gaming magazine a decade ago and he said that they're using a dozen or so tools to build BG2.

    And that developer was @TrentOster if I recall the same article correctly :D.
  • TrentOsterTrentOster Administrator, Developer Posts: 433
    Use DLTCEP.
    -Trent
  • LemernisLemernis Member, Moderator Posts: 4,318
    Well, I guess that answer doesn't definitively say that there will never be a toolset at some point in the future, but for the foreseeable future use what's already available to mod...

    If a toolset isn't going to be developed, from what I've read from modders in this thread I can easily understand how a project like that would be a non-starter.
  • salomonkanesalomonkane Member Posts: 48
    edited August 2012
    Toolset for the Enhanced Infinity Engine
    Mapping
    BAMing

    @TrentOster :
    "DLTCEP is better than the original tools Bioware"
    But some of us dreamed of a new Map Editor (tired of tandem IETME / DLTCEP ^^) !
    And for my part an update of BamWorkShop or a new BAM Editor ...
    Could you do something about it ?
    -TY .

    P.S. :
    Of course these new/update/tools should be : -inter & -retro-compatible with BG.EE/BG Vanilla : )

    Sources :
    http://www.baldursgateworld.fr/lacouronne/baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition/25237-bgee-et-les-mods.html
    http://www.baldursgateworld.fr/lacouronne/baldurs-gate-enhanced-edition/25295-bgee-un-mysterieux-compte-rebours-encore.html
    Post edited by salomonkane on
  • salomonkanesalomonkane Member Posts: 48
    edited August 2012
    Tool
    Tool of the Past
    Full 3D Model of the Past

    @TrentOster :
    Despite the loss of many original sources,

    A) Could you please, share, those old originals tools ? :

    1) Spell-O-Matic (Spell Editor), 2) Animation Editor, 3) Dialog Editor, 4) Itemizer (Item Editor)

    image
    image
    image
    image

    http://web.archive.org/web/19991007162913/http://www.interplay.com/bgate/makingof.html

    B) And could you share, at least, one of the full 3D animated IE models that could be remain in the Bioware's Server archives ... ? :


    image
    Zimage.fr

    This would be greatly useful and interesting for modding & historical purpose !
    T.Y. , Again .

    P.S.
    Please don't forget this concept :
    Infintiy Campaign Maker :
    image

    http://teambg.info/db-forge/icm/Overview.htm



    Post edited by salomonkane on
  • MilochMiloch Member Posts: 863
    I don't know if Beamdog or even Interplay have still got that stuff, but it would be great if they did, at least the animation tools. The other stuff might well be inferior to DLTCEP, particularly if @TrentOster says so. But it'd still be great to see those old tools - there could be some advantage they have in small areas, just as DLTCEP is not the end-all solution - it still requires interfacing with BAM Workshop, graphics editors and even homemade scripts to really work with animations properly.
  • CoM_SolaufeinCoM_Solaufein Member Posts: 2,607
    I recall David Gaider saying the same thing back in the old days.
    TrentOster said:

    DLTCEP is better than the original tools Bioware used to make the game. I've observed both in use and DLTCEP is much less painful than the original tools. There was a reason Bioware later founded a tools group.

    -Trent

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