83 replies to this topic

[amazinggameguru]

I was just reading this thread over at ppg and thought I would post it here. I think it would be great if at some point we could merge bgt and tutu taking the best parts from both of them.

[Salk]

Rest assured you're not the only one who wishes this...

[ronin]

start a Poll and see exactly how many people wish that

ronin

[Ascension64]

Yes, I have read that post, although I am abstaining from comment now because I'm a bit busy with other things.

In my interest, it is going to happen whether people like it or not. We just have to sort the details and actually get down to doing it.

[SimDing0]

Yeah, I'd be interested to hear opinions from the BGT camp.

[horred the plague]

Just as long as the final name isn't Tutu. Orcish ballerinas still haunt my sleep!

[SimDing0]

I always thought "Tutu" was kinda clever.

[Thauron]

I can't really comment on this, since I have never played Tutu or never even downloaded it to look at it's code.

Two remarks however when reading the linked thread.

1) The area-naming in BGT could indeed be better, but that's just because Bardez needed to fit all these BG1 maps into a BG2 install - unlike Tutu. To make it easier for modders he probably should have chosen for an alternative naming convention(not ARXXXX), but that's only a minor shortcoming IMO - An extensive list of all the BGT-maps does make a modders life much easier - though I have seem to have lost mine.

2) I, and probably many people on SHS, am strongly opposed against overwriting instead of patching. Tutu might be a starting point, BGT is not (SOS-weidu, NEJ-weidu, TS-weidu, TDD-weidu must always be installend before BGT). Opting for an overwrited dialog.tlk will cost us an awful lot - and raise immense compatibility issues - , for almost (IMO) no advantages. So, if one wants to merge BGT and Tutu, only patching the dialog.tlk will be an option.

Merging BGT and Tutu would be a good idea, but maybe before even considering that, one should first establish what BGT-players and Tutu-players consider to be of the utmost importance - and maybe a thread were all features of Tutu and Bgt are listed - so everyone involved will know exactly what the options and differences are.
Ok, I'll have a look at Tutu, so I can have a real opinion.

[AnnabelleRose]

Merging BGT and Tutu would be a good idea, but maybe before even considering that, one should first establish what BGT-players and Tutu-players consider to be of the utmost importance - and maybe a thread were all features of Tutu and Bgt are listed - so everyone involved will know exactly what the options and differences are.

Brilliant suggestion.

[SimDing0]

1) The area-naming in BGT could indeed be better, but that's just because Bardez needed to fit all these BG1 maps into a BG2 install - unlike Tutu.

Tutu fits both BG1 and BG2 areas alongside one another. The BGT areas are (most likely) so named because modding tools at the time were lame.

2) I, and probably many people on SHS, am strongly opposed against overwriting instead of patching.

While this is generally excellent news, as discussed in the other thread, the advantages of file patching in this situation is dubious.

Merging BGT and Tutu would be a good idea, but maybe before even considering that, one should first establish what BGT-players and Tutu-players consider to be of the utmost importance - and maybe a thread were all features of Tutu and Bgt are listed - so everyone involved will know exactly what the options and differences are.

Why? Nobody's going to be ramaptly deleting features of either that I can envisage. Any merger would certainly have to be *better* than existing options for any of us to bother with it.

[Thauron]

While this is generally excellent news, as discussed in the other thread, the advantages of file patching in this situation is dubious.

Well, maybe I misunderstand something but - doesn't patching meaning adding to the tlk using weidu, while overwriting means just replacing the tlk with a different, new one. The problem is, to quote MacReady at PPG

"for mods, patching is a Good Idea. For Tutu, which is essentially a starting point, I see little benefit."

As explained above, unlike Tutu, BGT is not a starting point, so overwriting is not possible without screwing up everything you have installed before BGT - and as I said before, many mods should be installed before BGT. So, if Tutu and BGT might one day become merged, I consider patching the only option. - or am I not making any sense here?

Why? Nobody's going to be ramaptly deleting features of either that I can envisage. Any merger would certainly have to be *better* than existing options for any of us to bother with it.

I am not afraid someone will go rampant on Tutu's or BGT's features. It's just that I have not enough info to judge exactly what I think Tutu does better and what BGT does better.
f.e. on the Tutu and Tutufix forums there has been a lot of talk about fixing spawns, and sometimes someone comes over here and asks if in BGT creature-spawns were fixed - and I don't know what they are talking about - spawns in BGT were never fixed but no-one ever complained there was a problem anyway. So I was just asking for more info - for those, like myself, who have a good knowledge about what one mod has to offer but knows almost nothing about the other. People who know both very well, like Ascension, are rare I think. Before we can judge something to be *better* we must first know what we already have, don't we? - I, f.e. know what BGT has, but have no idea about what Tutu has.
Ok, I'll check out the Tutu readmes and overviews and see how far they can help me with this.

Edited by Thauron, 11 January 2006 - 06:09 AM.

[CamDawg]

The patch v. overwrite is not a discussion of overwriting dialog.tlk but rather individual spell and creature files. Both BGT and Tutu append dialog.tlk.

[SimDing0]

(Actually, uh. If I had my way, I'd overwrite the TLK too...)

[Salk]

Well, of course a BGT-TuTu merger will have to take advantage of both programs strong parts and discard what is instead less good. Of course the final result must be better than the two single programs it takes from.

This is actually not even something that should be discussed. About the name, being it a merger I would find highly unfair to keep the name of one or the other. I'd call it Baldur's Gate Ultimacy if I'd had a go to it ( )...

Ascension64 knows both TuTu and BGT-WeiDu well enough to understand that a merger is possible and extremely convenient. There would be much to discuss probably to come to a final, approved project but nevertheless I believe it'd be fascinating to see our best modders in action together to deliver the final Baldur's Gate experience...

Edited by Salk, 11 January 2006 - 06:43 AM.

[BlueCross]

Um... slighty related question.

I have played Tutu in the past (and enjoyed it) but this time around, I loaded TBP (pretty much just the base stuff indicated in the pinned load instructions above).

At first blush, the TBP graphics seem a bit better but I'm wondering if that is just not my imagination.

At any rate, can anyone sum up the differences between the two systems in 50 words or less? So far, they seem the 'same' to me.

Thanks.

[Andyr]

The graphics are the same.

EDIT: At least, I am 99.999% sure they are.

Edited by Andyr, 11 January 2006 - 10:08 AM.

[CamDawg]

Originally BGT had worse area graphics because they were so heavily (and lossily) compressed to get the download size to slightly-less-than-ginourmous. However, both projects are now extracting BG resources on the fly and there is no longer any quality loss from compression.

The large fundamental difference between the two projects is that BGT aimed to add BG material to BG2, whereas Tutu sought to convert BG material and play using the BG2 engine. It may seem like a subtle difference, but in practice it meant that BGT was a huge download (3 or 4 GB in v1, then down to 700 MB in my Mk III, last of the non-WeiDU BGTs) with a complicated install process; Tutu was a simple ~600k conversion program.

With BGT-WeiDU, the BGT goal remains the same (BG content added to BG2) but it's now more of a Tutu-like conversion approach to adding the content, resulting in a faster, smoother install and a reasonable download size.

Edited by CamDawg, 11 January 2006 - 10:22 AM.

[kharan5876]

So if they were both combined first it would add the bg1 content to the bg2 engine and then you would choose if you want to use BGT's transition?

This would be a really cool idea, and once its done all the mods out there could be made in one simple uniform version to work with BGT-Tutu.

Edited by kharan5876, 11 January 2006 - 11:59 AM.

[SimDing0]

That's the idea, yes.

[kharan5876]

perhaps the other weidu mods could be altered so bgt-tutu can be installed first.