193 replies to this topic

[SimDing0]

So how exactly can the green water problem be fixed? What is the methodology on which the new tool will operate?

Edited by SimDing0, 14 February 2005 - 08:24 AM.

[PolarBear]

By the way, will BGT-Weidu include (or need at all) the XP patcher like the old BGT had?

[Yacomo]

By the way, will BGT-Weidu include (or need at all) the XP patcher like the old BGT had?

I offered to code this for Ascension64 a while back in this thread, but he had already done it by himself, so the answer is no

[NiGHTMARE]

Ashara: I wouldn't say everyone involved was an adult...

[King Diamond]

So how exactly can the green water problem be fixed? What is the methodology on which the new tool will operate?

Here's an algorithm:

1) As input it takes extracted with the help of WeiDU BG1 area fileset.
2) Examines WED on a matter of overlay(s) presence.
3) Removes 'green water' dithering from basic tileset and adds BG2-style extra tiles with solid green areas for water (as DLTCEP does).

Coding and checking this part I found out that DLTCEP (even the latest version) produces CORRUPTED WED during 'Fix green water' operation that could mess up everything and that is definitely a cause of all past problems with 'ar3499-like' stuff....

4) Saves resulting area file set under the given name that can differ from the original one.

That's it.

At this moment all data manipulating coding IS DONE and works perfectly...
So I just need to shape it to a console (command line) application. I think tomorrow it'll be ready for public use.

[EDIT] And one more thing... The newly converted areas with overlays have a CORRECT look in IETME

Edited by King Diamond, 14 February 2005 - 10:19 AM.

[horred the plague]

And, I feel so marginalized in the 'adult men pissing contest'....

*Passes over a pair of very tall rubber boots*

[Ghreyfain]

2) Examines WED on a matter of overlay(s) presence.
3) Removes 'green water' dithering from basic tileset and adds BG2-style extra tiles with solid green areas for water (as DLTCEP does).

Coding and checking this part I found out that DLTCEP (even the latest version) produces CORRUPTED WED during 'Fix green water' operation that could mess up everything and that is definitely a cause of all past problems with 'ar3499-like' stuff....

I believe Sim was asking for a bit more in-depth explanation. Which bits need to be examined in the .wed to tell if there's an overlay that needs de-greenifying? If there is one, what bits need to be set (and what are they set to) to de-greenify? We know about hex offsets and all that jazz, so an explanation on that level would be welcome.

[Ascension64]

Well, beyond the ongoing debate between BGT-Weidu and Tutu, it would be nice if BGT-Wediu worked.  I'm a big fan of BG2, and have been playing for a while.  I've had the files for a full BP-NEJ-BGT install for a while.  That being said, i never got around to installing it( i did manage get to a TuTu install, which works marvelously i must say).  Anyway, already having the bgt_mk3_1.13.exe installer, i decieded to give the BGT-Weidu install a shot to see how well it worked. 

So, i followed all the directions, brand new installs of BG1:The original saga, Bg2:ToB and patch.  Then i ran and configured, playing a bit of each game.  Extracted the bgt_mk3 installer, and ran the setup-bgt-install.  The weidu section of the install works just fine, i get no problems.  The problem occurs when it attempts to setup the music, movies, wavs and area files and such.  Loads of problems there.  I get a ton of error messages like: "Could not find ...Soa\bgt3\biffme\BGTWav\*.wav"   etc etc.  There were some problems with the movie files too i believe, although it scrolled a bit fast for me to write down on my third install try.  I also get numerous error messages of "'weidu.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable programm or batch file."

That being said, i decied to surge forth and load the game.  Bg1 button puts me at candlekeep, at night.  I don't get the bg1 intro movie, nor the chapter opener.  The screen moves over, ala bg2 irenny dungeon, in a cutscene, and then just sits there, as if waiting for Irenicus to showup.  Five minutes later, nothing happens, and i'm forced to alt-f4 because of cutscene mode.  Loading a bg2 game, i get the Irenicus tortue scene, but then no Immy, and Minsc and Jaheria aren't present.   There i can quit out because the cutscene is over, but no immy to open door.

This is based on a clean Bg2+ToB+patch, as indicated in the readme.  So, i wondered if it had to do with my bg1 install not in the correct place, reinstalled at c:\baldur, no dice.  So, i tried a third time, also, no dice.  Finally, i recopied over my original clean backup BG2:Tob install, and ran a full BP-BGT-NEJ install, which, miracously worked.     Starting bg1 i get the intro movie, and the chapter opener, and i can run around and do all the fun stuff in candlekeep.

So, more hours later than i wanted, i've got a BP-BGT-NEJ install, which is the first time i've done it, and BGT-Weidu is completely useless, unless i am doing something utterly wrong.  If anyone would like to point out what is wrong, that would be great.  Otherwise, you're installer does something funky.  The bgt3\biffme\BGTWAV folder is present when you unpack the bgt_mk3 installer, but missing after done your Weidu install and going through the regular .bat install part of bgt.  I also believe that it referenced another folder that was missing, but i didn't catch it. 

I am by no means a modder, and i know this is a guest account, but perhaps i will register if further discussion is necerssary.  I don't really want to blame your weidu install, but seeing as how it wasn't the bgt_mk3 installer, which worked fine for the Bp-Bgt-Nej, i don't know what to tell you.  If i've just done something idiotic, be sure tell me.  Thanks for the help

Ah, sorry. I screwed up the part where it should copy weidu.exe to your bgii install directory. Can you try again once, but this time before double clicking setup-bgt.exe, make a COPY of setup-bgt.exe and rename your 'copy of setup-bgt.exe' to WeiDU.exe. This should solve your problem.

As for the dicussion, I don't really have anything to say at the moment.

Edited by Ascension64, 14 February 2005 - 05:16 PM.

[King Diamond]

I believe Sim was asking for a bit more in-depth explanation.  Which bits need to be examined in the .wed to tell if there's an overlay that needs de-greenifying?  If there is one, what bits need to be set (and what are they set to) to de-greenify?  We know about hex offsets and all that jazz, so an explanation on that level would be welcome.

I can tell you that it's not possible to make all that without real data processing - neither WeiDU nor any 'hex- editor' can't help to make a conversion. Because you don't have just to modify an existing data, but to add an EXTRA data to a TIS to make it compatible to BG2-style overlay system.

And I don't want absolutely to put here (or try to describe it) the whole C++ algorithm right now - If you (or somebody) wants I'll make the source code available later, when the work will be done...

[SimDing0]

None of that should be a problem for Japh to code up if he knows what needs to be done (WeiDU can already add data to files as well as modify it, but it'd probably be easier to modify WeiMorph itself than to code up a billion lines of TP2 code for the job). If you'd rather not put the algorithm here, you could PM it to one of us, and we'd be most appreciative. Well, in fact, if you'd prefer not to explain the entire algorithm right now, even a quick summary of how to fix green water would make us very grateful.

Edited by SimDing0, 15 February 2005 - 03:03 AM.

[King Diamond]

None of that should be a problem for Japh to code up if he knows what needs to be done (WeiDU can already add data to files as well as modify it, but it'd probably be easier to modify WeiMorph itself than to code up a billion lines of TP2 code for the job). If you'd rather not put the algorithm here, you could PM it to one of us, and we'd be most appreciative. Well, in fact, if you'd prefer not to explain the entire algorithm right now, even a quick summary of how to fix green water would make us very grateful.

LOL , ok, if you are so hurry here just a quickshot....

1) BG1 tis doesn't contain extra tiles for overlays, but WED's entry for every tile from overlay contain overlay's flag set. But it has -1 as index to extra tile.
So this won't work in BG2 engine.

2) First it's necessary to find out a number of tiles in TIS which is a number of tiles in basic tileset (overlay number 0) + number of door tiles (search through all doors entries in WED). In that way we're obtaining a starting index for newly added tiles.

[EDIT]
I forgot fireplaces' animation tilesets. Number of extra tiles can be taken from WED V1.3 Tilemap structure - 'Count of tiles in tile index lookup table for primary (default) tile' field (look at IESDP docs). It's necessary to add this number to the total tiles counter but only if this field contains a value>1.


3) It's necessary to perform a search through WED to find every tile with <>0 overlay flags and -1 extra tile index (Index1). For such tile a copy should be created and added to the end of TIS (tile_type_2). Original tile in TIS (tile_type_1) should be modified - green dithering removed. Index1 should be modified properly as well (new tile index).

4) Every tile contains 256 color palette. 0 index means transparent color and it must be 0-255-0 R-G-B. If not - there'll be wrong water appearance. So every tile that exists in overlay (WED) but doesn't have Green color in its 0 palette entry should not be included in the newly created overlay (actually it is a tile without any overlaying area - has no water). This should be taken in account on stage 3) when exploring WED.

5) We have 2 types of tiles: original one (tile_type_1) and newly added (tile_type_2). Both have greenish dithering at the beginning. For tile_type_1 we have to remove it, for tile_type_2 - expand and make the green area solid.

tile_type_1 - removal - just duplicate a neighbour (left or right) pixel.
tile_type_2 - expanding - just make a pixel green if 2 neighbours are green.

That's it. as I said I'll post full sourcecode later...

Edited by King Diamond, 15 February 2005 - 08:43 AM.

[Ascension64]

Just had a look with compatibility of BGT-WeiDU with TDD-weiduv2, SOS-weiduv2, TSv600-with-biffer, and NeJ2v21b, and here are the incompatibilities I found:

Shadows over Soubar
AR4202.ARE (very major)

Tortured Souls
BASILL.CRE (some basilisk gets changed)
BISHOP.CRE
KING.CRE
KNIGHT.CRE
KNIGHT1.CRE
PAWN.CRE
QUEEN.CRE
ROOK.CRE (these chess pieces replace the ones in Durlag's lair, it basically makes them a harder fight because the chess thing in TS overwrites these)
WOLF.CRE (this is the well known Veter bug, that is still there)

Never Ending Journey
AR9800.ARE (major)
AR9801.ARE (major)
IMOEN6.CRE (fairly major, unless you want souped up Imoen with incorrect scripts)
XAN.CRE (same here)

The Darkest Day
VICONI6.CRE (same here)

Otherwise, BGT-WeiDU has now been made compatible with all the BP mods, except BPv170 itself.

As for a Tutu conversion of the BP mods, I can't see any incompatibilities at all, except the world map.

Edited by Ascension64, 15 February 2005 - 10:50 PM.

[horred the plague]

Just had a look with compatibility of BGT-WeiDU with TDD-weiduv2, SOS-weiduv2, TSv600-with-biffer, and NeJ2v21b, and here are the incompatibilities I found:

Shadows over Soubar
AR4202.ARE (very major)

Tortured Souls
BASILL.CRE (some basilisk gets changed)
BISHOP.CRE
KING.CRE
KNIGHT.CRE
KNIGHT1.CRE
PAWN.CRE
QUEEN.CRE
ROOK.CRE (these chess pieces replace the ones in Durlag's lair, it basically makes them a harder fight because the chess thing in TS overwrites these)
WOLF.CRE (this is the well known Veter bug, that is still there)

Never Ending Journey
AR9800.ARE (major)
AR9801.ARE (major)
IMOEN6.CRE (fairly major, unless you want souped up Imoen with incorrect scripts)
XAN.CRE (same here)

The Darkest Day
VICONI6.CRE (same here)

Otherwise, BGT-WeiDU has now been made compatible with all the BP mods, except BPv170 itself.

As for a Tutu conversion of the BP mods, I can't see any incompatibilities at all, except the world map.

The areas are not as major as you may think (well, as is...)

I sinply forgot about AR4202 in SoSv1 (&2). In BP-BGT, I switched it to AR4208. The same thing can be done here; I'll do so in SoSv3, hehe

A similar thing can/should (sorta has) be done with NeJ. I'll have to hunt up the thread, or perhaps SirBillyBob could help with this. I had him add an area to his latest worldmap; this corresponds with AR9800 from NeJ. AR9801, if I recall, was simply numbered one after it. (Was it AR9850-1? hmmm....) It was going to have a link set up from the city gates district, as Vlad requested. Only revealed on the plot stipulation. There were other possible issues as well, but I think they were BP-related (animations). Those, i can fix in BP itself. Hoping a definite answer comes soon on the "multiple BAM death animation" theory (see Dragonlance forums for details, Galactygon's post)--I've already started incorporating the basics into BP.

As far as the worldmap goes--I gave Sim a copy of CtB's map, which I had resized to 1.25:1 ratio. (I wonder what happened with it, from there....Sim? )

That means that the Bg1 areas won't be so smashed together. I plan on using the same map when I release BPv170, discarding the older one currently in use. This will greatly clear up the questions of worldmap compatability, and give us a common base to do all the mods on.

If you would like the map, Ascension, I can send it to you via email; just PM me with your address. Or. give me a time when you can step into IRC chat, and I'll DCC send it to you. IETMC can at least be used to manually move the existing icons about, although it will not add new areas. I've always had to use DLTCEP for this task.

EDIT: Found the thread! Yay...

AR9804 is NeJ's new Ulcaster, located in the same spot as the old. Stacked, just like D'Arnise Keep and the Temple Ruins. AR9805 will be the second floor (underground portion).


ANOTHER EDIT: Renaming the TS CRE's to TSROOK.CRE, etc seems like the logical answer (I did a similar thing with Veter--he was namesd WOLF.CRE in TS; I named him TSWOLF). This could be done right from the tp2 file in my biffer pack. Perhaps some clever use of the WRITE_BYTE function of weidu could change the entries in the TS area file as well, thus not requiring a rewrite of Vlad's package--or, i can drop it in my autobiffer package along with the 7 other files (you may not know this, but I am one of the co-authors of TS --though Vlad and Domi did the real work)

VICONI6, I will simply delete from TDD. The file isn't used anyways, it's just one of the (possibly more) extraneous files I forgot to delete along with the others.

IMOEN6, and XAN: NeJ is going to need some tp2 reworking in order to blend with the BP set. I was planning a side package, with an autobiffer, anyways. (Damn, can't find the tp2 file I as working on--hope I didn't delete it accidentally!) Maybe a simple trick like ACTION_IF FILE_EXISTS (checking for whatever file from BGT you left in the override as an identifier--you did leave one, I hope?), to change the names of these files in this instance. Then, we simply have to hunt down whatever NeJ area/script file creates them (hopefully a script, it would be neater that way) and make the changes.

I personally can be of more real assistance, once I get this NWN mod out of the way. Give me a few more days, a week tops (I've said this before, to the people waiting on it ). At least I solved my "all-#$%ing-day" problem....

BPv170 will not be a problem for compatability; I'm on good terms with the author, and I'm sure we can come to some agreement on things...

Edited by horred the plague, 15 February 2005 - 11:57 PM.

[PolarBear]

BPv170 will not be a problem for compatability; I'm on good terms with the author, and I'm sure we can come to some agreement on things...

Horred, you do really need a break, you are showing simptoms of schizophrenia

[Chevalier]

BPv170 will not be a problem for compatability; I'm on good terms with the author, and I'm sure we can come to some agreement on things...

Horred, you do really need a break, you are showing simptoms of schizophrenia

There must be more than 1 Horred, because no 1 person could get this much done!

[Reiner]

Thanks for you help in telling me that i needed wediu.exe in my folder, the things been deleted and reinstalled enough that i didn't even remember it.

I'm sorry to whine again, but the BGT-Weidu is giving me CTD errors all over the place. Its mostly when i walk over certain tiles, in outdoor areas, although the game has CTD when i've entered a random house, say in Bereghost. I imagine you'd want some coordinates, but that is the funny thing. I did a reinstall, and the original areas i was having problems with where fine. They were early areas including lion's way, temple of lathander, area south of bereghost. After my reinstall i started another new game, and the lions way and temple of lathander were completely clean. I could walk around just fine, the entire map, etc etc etc. The area south of Bereghost i've hit atleast 3~4 areas that cause a CTD. Unsure of what to do, if anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

Its unfortunate, because i really haven't seen any other errors like this on the boards, but then i haven't been around that long. The only other thing i saw was a random ctd post by radwen in the BGT+BP forum, but that went unresolved. If another reinstall is advised, i can do that. I can also look up coordinates, or take other suggestions. Just not sure what to do because different areas give ctd's on the two different installs. Thanks.

[Ascension64]

Thanks for you help in telling me that i needed wediu.exe in my folder, the things been deleted and reinstalled enough that i didn't even remember it.

I'm sorry to whine again, but the BGT-Weidu is giving me CTD errors all over the place.    Its mostly when i walk over certain tiles, in outdoor areas, although the game has CTD when i've entered a random house, say in Bereghost.  I imagine you'd want some coordinates, but that is the funny thing.  I did a reinstall, and the original areas i was having problems with where fine.  They were early areas including lion's way, temple of lathander, area south of  bereghost.  After my reinstall i started another new game, and the lions way and temple of lathander were completely clean.  I could walk around just fine, the entire map, etc etc etc.  The area south of Bereghost i've hit atleast 3~4 areas that cause a CTD.  Unsure of what to do, if anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

Its unfortunate, because i really haven't seen any other errors like this on the boards, but then i haven't been around that long.  The only other thing i saw was a random ctd post by radwen in the BGT+BP forum, but that went unresolved.  If another reinstall is advised, i can do that.  I can also look up coordinates, or take other suggestions.  Just not sure what to do because different areas give ctd's on the two different installs.  Thanks.

The Beregost crashes have been around for a while, no one really knows what the problem is there. Are the others consistent CTDs? That is very weird because sometimes the old BGT had some problems with that as well. So these south of Beregost CTDs only appeared in this install? Have you tried loading earlier savegames and just walking there?