I am currently missing the following 60 map files: [...]
It looks like the 60 maps you're missing are the largest ones. They're 1.5 GB by themselves, whereas all 512 maps together are 2.5 GB.
Is something interfering with the creation of large files on your computer? Or maybe you do not have enough RAM? I think NearInfinity can be pretty greedy when it comes to RAM. Try closing your browser and other memory-hungry programs while doing the mass export. (Summoning @argent77 in case he has additional insight...)
Of course, make sure you're using the latest version of NearInfinity from here, especially if you're using a BG installation which includes the SoD expansion, because proper support for that was only added recently to NI.
Well my Laptop has 4 gig of ram, I'll try closing other non-essential programs, and try again but on the off chance I continue to have issues, is there any chance you could .zip the maps I'm missing and upload them somewhere for me?
It helps a lot to use a 64-bit version of the Java Runtime (JRE) as it makes much better use of available system resources. Alternatively you can try the tool "Hide NI DOS" found somewhere in the first post of this thread which starts Near Infinity with extended memory settings.
Of course, there may be other reasons why these maps could not be exported. You may find out by inspecting the messages in the debug console (open via menu Tools -> Show Debug Console).
is there any chance you could .zip the maps I'm missing and upload them somewhere for me?
I'm trying to upload them to here, but my Internet connection is super slow when it comes to uploading, so it'll take a few hours before all the PNGs are up.
I'll just leave it running in the background - you'll know it's done when the folder has 60 files. :P
@argent77 Thanks for your help, but I still can't get NI working properly, I have attached a copy/paste version of nidebug.text as NI wouldn't even let me save the debug info iteself, I'm sure the text means more to you than me though.
@ineth Thanks for uploading those maps for me, I';m still 5 maps short, I must have missed them in my list above:
AR3700 AR4900N BD5100 OH2000 OH2000N
Could you upload these too for me at your convenience please?
@Allyx It's indeed caused by insufficient system memory. You might have more luck exporting the remaining files manually and restart NI whenever you encounter this issue. Select each one of them in the resource tree and select "Export..." -> "as PNG". You might have more luck if you start NI with the "Hide NI DOS" tool mentioned in my previous post. (Btw, recent NI releases contain a harmless bug which causes NI to ask whether to overwrite an existing file even if there is no file to overwrite. Will be fixed in the next release.)
When selecting which location to extract files to, NI seems to be able to see files I alternative locations that I have attempted to extract the files to, but when I check the location, there are no files visible. Are the files hidden in some way? Are they retrievable at all? Or merely ghosts of extracts past?
No, NI doesn't set any special file attributes. It uses the default settings of the local file system. If you have applied special attributes or permission settings to the target folder it will use these instead. Did you check the correct directory? Can you open any of the exported PNG files in Near Infinity? To do so select Game->Open File and select the desired PNG file in the "Open File" dialog. Press "Open in new Window" to open it.
No, NI doesn't set any special file attributes. It uses the default settings of the local file system. If you have applied special attributes or permission settings to the target folder it will use these instead. Did you check the correct directory? Can you open any of the exported PNG files in Near Infinity? To do so select Game->Open File and select the desired PNG file in the "Open File" dialog. Press "Open in new Window" to open it.
There were no special permissions added to that file before extracting the files to that location, and NI seems quite capable of opening these files, yet I cannot locate them outside of NI, they just plain aren't visible.
I can't think of anything special that NI is doing to these files. It's simply using standard I/O operations to write these files to disk. There may be something on your side that is interfering with or blocking these files, such as an antivirus or security tool or maybe some special display settings or filters in your preferred file manager.
I think maybe Comodo internet security is doing a far better job of protecting my files than I want it to, removing it however has corrupted my Windows 7 installation, so I'm recovering the OS now and looking to get a less overbearing antivirus program.
But I would recommend doing this with IWD1 instead of BG1. And probably also only with the IWD1 base game content, without the Heart of Winter expansion content. Because:
Much fewer maps. BG1 has a crazy amount of little indoor maps for all the houses in the cities, not to mention all the throw-away overland areas, dungeons, and caves in the countryside. Correctly setting all of them up in another engine will probably entail a lot of boring and repetitive work. IWD1 has fewer maps, but they are more unique, more deliberate, and more polished.
Much fewer side-quests and quest NPCs. This means less complexity for the total conversion to deal with.
More combat focused. The appeal of IWD is the cool atmosphere (pun intended) and the never-ending sequence of challenging combat encounters. Since the main benefit for porting an Infinity Engine game to the TOEE engine would be to make the combat more tactical, this would be a perfect fit right?
More beautiful The art style of the IWD games (as well as BG2) has also aged much better than that of BG1. Many BG1 maps look like they were assembled using a primitive tile map editor. The IWD1 maps look like they were all custom-rendered/painted.
The downside is, of course, that there a fewer fans of IWD than fans of the BG series. So using IWD content might give your mod less of a community impact. On the other hand, I imagine that the kind of people who enjoy the combat-focused IWD might be more likely to give tactical turn-based a try, than people who play BG for the story...
True on all counts, I can't fault your logic there, I'll take a look at Icewind Dale when I get time tomorrow and start a game, take a peek at the files ect... Thanks for your opinions on this matter, the Infinity Engine games are all new to me having never played them prior to two weeks ago.
Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2 Some progress has been made, happily the maps from the Infinity engine games are both the correct scale and from the same isometric angle to make the maps usable (albeit with some artwork required to remove the doors completely) in ToEE, doors can be added, and particle effects can add much of the animated effects that the map tiles on the original maps do, we may be able to add other effects and workarounds for other animated areas as well, like the rippling water effects in bodies of water etc..
To be fair, the discussion I started was based on the question "is it possible" it certainly seems it is possible, I have been assured that IWD would be the easier option, (though looking at the bestiary of IWD - the 3d moddelers are gonna have a fit) as BG is huge by comparison. With luck a set of conversion tools will be coded to make converting all the IE games easier while we struggle through with this first project.
I'm having difficulty locating the cursor icons within IWD with near infinity, would someone be able to point me in the right direction? *put not intended*
I don't believe teaming up with those guys would help either project. As I stated earlier, I am attempting to recreate an IE engine game in the Temple of Elemental Evil's game engine, not create total conversion mods for an IE engine game.
@Allyx it is possible though that TOEE is a good vehicle for that group to create BG3 while their knowledge of IE games may provide useful information in your quest for conversion of the IE games. Not sure if that would be the case or not, but if they can provide their expertise to you and the other TOEE folks at Co8 and in addition they can utilize your skill set to help them with their creation it would certainly be mutually beneficial.
If recreating ToEE in the IE engine is indeed the aim, then of course I and the rest of the http://www.Co8.org community would be happy to help with technical knowledge of the ToEE engine, and the many modding quirks it contains. @Aedan may also be interested in assisting with the conversion, s/he contacted me a few weeks ago about how to extract ToEE's map files and recombining them into a single image.
The main differences between ToEE's maps and IE engine maps is that ToEE's maps are split into sections, which must be recombined into a single image before importing into an IE game (The Co8 have tools for this already), and ToEE maps don't require additional map tiles at the bottom to depict closed doors, chests, and other animations on the map like IE games do.
While the first difference isn't an issue, new artwork would need to be added to ToEE's maps to make them usable in IE games.
If you ever happened to complete such a mod (especially for BG2) I would forever consider you the greatest modder in existence. The only "issue" I ever had with the BG series was the lack of a true turn based gameplay.
We are still a long way off from a full release, but the sectoring for the Prologue chapter maps in and around Easthaven are almost complete, adding the NPC's, creatures and dialogues (including the quests) should be relatively straightforward, I've even adapted graphics of IE cursors and door transition icons for ToEE, designed a new 'loading' splash screen and added the Icewind Dale title to the main menu screen, and added the intro cinematic video too.
Once the Prologue chapter is complete, I plan to package it up and release it as a demo version while we make a start on Chapter 1.
I've added the images for the narrated sections at the start of each chapter, the scrolling text I've added as a static block of text instead, I had to alter the image for chapter 3 as there was more text than could fit in the box, so I made the box bigger to include all the text, I am however having trouble finding the voiced narration files, would anyone know where they are and what they are called?
Comments
Opened NearInfinity in a BG:EE+SoD installation, selected "Tools > Mass Export", and chose TIS (and checked all the checkboxes).
It created 512 PNG files. It looks like the 60 maps you're missing are the largest ones. They're 1.5 GB by themselves, whereas all 512 maps together are 2.5 GB.
Is something interfering with the creation of large files on your computer? Or maybe you do not have enough RAM? I think NearInfinity can be pretty greedy when it comes to RAM. Try closing your browser and other memory-hungry programs while doing the mass export.
(Summoning @argent77 in case he has additional insight...)
Of course, make sure you're using the latest version of NearInfinity from here, especially if you're using a BG installation which includes the SoD expansion, because proper support for that was only added recently to NI.
Of course, there may be other reasons why these maps could not be exported. You may find out by inspecting the messages in the debug console (open via menu Tools -> Show Debug Console).
I'll just leave it running in the background - you'll know it's done when the folder has 60 files. :P
@ineth Thanks for uploading those maps for me, I';m still 5 maps short, I must have missed them in my list above:
AR3700
AR4900N
BD5100
OH2000
OH2000N
Could you upload these too for me at your convenience please?
Thanks for your assistance.
(Btw, recent NI releases contain a harmless bug which causes NI to ask whether to overwrite an existing file even if there is no file to overwrite. Will be fixed in the next release.)
Screenshot 2
Some progress has been made, happily the maps from the Infinity engine games are both the correct scale and from the same isometric angle to make the maps usable (albeit with some artwork required to remove the doors completely) in ToEE, doors can be added, and particle effects can add much of the animated effects that the map tiles on the original maps do, we may be able to add other effects and workarounds for other animated areas as well, like the rippling water effects in bodies of water etc..
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/59588/my-friend-is-making-a-total-conversion-for-bg2-ee#latest
While the first difference isn't an issue, new artwork would need to be added to ToEE's maps to make them usable in IE games.
Once the Prologue chapter is complete, I plan to package it up and release it as a demo version while we make a start on Chapter 1.