24 replies to this topic

[IndyPendant]

I'm sorry if this is covered in the directions; I really have tried to look, I swear!

First...wow. The sheer amount of extras available for BGII is...staggering. And a testament to what Black Isle studios created. Kudos to you guys.

I think I understand how to install the Big Picture, and I'm in the process of dling the components--tho since I have zero xp with modding I'm a little nervous. And with so many freakin HUGE files to install, I want to get this right the first time. : )

My question is: I can't find when and where to install the BP-BGT files. Do I do it before I prep for and run the bpv161g-AUTOINSTALL app? Or after? Or is it part of the whole BP installation process and I somehow missed it? Or are they even compatible yet? (For example, is that what Horred is working on?)

And finally, is there anything in particular I should be keeping in mind when I install and run BP-BGT, wanting it to be compatible with the rest of BP (TDD, TS, etc)?

Thanks.

[Chevalier]

I am getting ready to re-install BP-BGT-NeJ myself. Are you installing BP or BP-BGT? Read this site. Read this fully be for starting your install.

[Azazello]

I found ASCENSION64's BP-BGT-NeJ INSTALL GUIDE an easier procedure to follow for installation. I also used:

http://www.shsforums...showtopic=10924
http://www.shsforums...showtopic=10960
http://www.shsforums...showtopic=10961
http://www.shsforums...showtopic=10943
http://www.shsforums...showtopic=14178
http://www.shsforums...showtopic=11254


There are other links, but these should prepare you very well.

Edited by Azazello, 04 August 2005 - 01:25 PM.

[IndyPendant]

Thanks you two. This is almost perfect, and I'm following the instructions to the letter. Which brings me to my question. What is 'VB6pkg.rar' referenced in ASCENSION64's great instructions, from Azazello's link? And is it critical that I have it? It seems to be the only thing I'm missing from the list.

And I assume that, *very carefully*, I can add other mods so long as they're marked compatible on that list, with minimal risk of conflict. I'm thinking, in particular, the Ease of Use mod and Item Upgrades.

Is Dark Side of the Sword Coast included in BGT?

Edit: Typos.

Edited by IndyPendant, 30 May 2005 - 06:45 PM.

[Chevalier]

Is Dark Side of the Sword Coast included in BGT?

No Read this forum about adding DSotSC and NTotSC.

yes you need VB6pkg.rar' do a search for it on Forgotten Wars forums or Google.

[Azazello]

The VB package is talked about here - http://www.shsforums...showtopic=10960

And for suggestions on which mods you can install, see my signature.

Edited by Azazello, 06 August 2005 - 07:53 PM.

[IndyPendant]

Heh. Should have thought of Google. (Although it only brought up some spanish (or something) site, I still got . : )

So, to make sure I get this right...I follow all the instructions for the BP as listed above, and then if I want DSotSC (plus a few related extras), I install the following files as per their instructions, in this order:

--DSotSC4BGT-BPv160.rar
--NTotSC4BGT-BPv120.rar
--BoneHill18BGT-BP.rar
--BoneHill4BGT-BPv19.rar
--BoneHill4BGT-BPv192.rar
--BP-BGT Worldmap v3.rar

And then, once that's done:

--Weimer-Ease-v32.exe
--Weimer-ItemUpgrade-v32.exe

And then (gasp!) I...should be done.

Correct? Or have I missed a key step?

Dayam, this is gonna be one helluva long game if this all works! And at the risk of simpering, thanks again for the help with setting up the process.

(Ran into a problem as I was trying to back up all these files on CD pre-installation. Getting an error that ejects the damn CD just as it's completing the process. I...*think*...I've solved that particular problem on my own, so...*shrug*. Set me back a day in my installation, tho.: )

Edit: Azazello, your post appeared while I was still typing out mine. I will check out that particular link now, thanks.

Edited by IndyPendant, 30 May 2005 - 08:41 PM.

[Chevalier]

--DSotSC4BGT-BPv160.rar
--NTotSC4BGT-BPv120.rar
--BoneHill18BGT-BP.rar
--BoneHill4BGT-BPv19.rar
--BoneHill4BGT-BPv192.rar
--BP-BGT Worldmap v3.rar

That looks good.

I am currently working on my fourth try at reinstalling. Becarefull, really careful!!! 2 of the trys I messed up.

Edited by Chevalier, 30 May 2005 - 08:48 PM.

[Sir BillyBob]

For BoneHill, you only need the 1.8 base and patch 1.92. Read the readme files folks! 1.92 has 1.9 already in it. It still has a few glitches but overall it works and you can complete all the quests.

[IndyPendant]

Okay! I have successfully completed the first step! The Big Picture, Trilogy is installed on my comp, successfully as far as I can tell. I created a char, started in Candlekeep, and tooled around for a few minutes before having to leave for work.

Installing it was...quite the adventure. I had no idea it would take nearly two hours to complete and that I'd need roughly 7GB or more of free space--after everything was set up and ready to run! I was uninstalling programs in the middle of installing all these mods, and spent most of the installation below 1GB of space! (I was checking by vervously r-clicking the C-drive during the installation.) At one point near the very end, I even dropped to 0 disk space, windows flashed a warning message at me that instantly vanished--and then I suddenly had 3.5GBs again. Not really sure what happened there, but...*shrug*. Everything seems to work.

Now. For Dark Side et al. One more question I have before I install them later today: The instructions indicate I can uninstall BGI now that BGT is up and running. I take it I can still do so, and it won't affect the Dark Side etc installs? Just want to make sure I've got this right, and HD space is at a bit of a premium, suddenly...: )

[Chevalier]

If you use the right DSotSC for BGT, then yes you can get rid of BG1.

[IndyPendant]

Okay! It's all installed. And it runs. Seems to have gone without a hitch. Thanks again, you two. I *know* I would have failed without your help. Probably about five times. : )

Two more questions, and then I'm done.

First, there's a program called Shorter-Better Transition (sbt14.exe) that I can't find to dl--but there's hints that it is already included in the huge BP/BGT install. Am I correct in that--do I already have it? And if not, do I need to find it before I finish BGI?

And finally, a savegame editor. Is there such a thing that will work? I hate how sucky the NPCs are in terms of stats and proficiencies. But I want to use the NPCs, and not just play with a party of 6 of my own chars. Shadowkeeper flat-out doesn't work, so after a bit of research I tried dling IESE. After searching for and finding 3 .dll files, it finally ran--and crashes whenever I try to access the savegame file. I even tried an older version of IESE, and it did the same thing. Anything else out there for me?

If I have to, I'll play with the NPCs as they are--but I'd really rather not. They sort of suck. I understand that with any editor I'd have to tread *very* carefully or risk breaking a savegame, of course...

[Azazello]

Thanks again, you two.  I *know* I would have failed without your help.

Ahem! I hope, "you two" refers to me! Perhaps "you three" would be better.

First, there's a program called Shorter-Better Transition (sbt14.exe) that I can't find to dl--but there's hints that it is already included in the huge BP/BGT install.  Am I correct in that--do I already have it?  And if not, do I need to find it before I finish BGI?

I too would like to know the answer to this. I found the link in here, in case we do need it separately - http://www.shsforums...ic=13236&st=100

And finally, a savegame editor.  Is there such a thing that will work?  I hate how sucky the NPCs are in terms of stats and proficiencies.

Don't know why Shadowkeeper is not working for you, but it may be because TDD is part of the install. You should try Near Infinity, it's a great utility. I'm gonna make you search the forum/Google for it!

[Chevalier]

BP-BGT dialog.tlk is to large for shadowkeeper. Get SBT here.

[IndyPendant]

I...thought dialog.tlk was just for things the chars said...

(And yes, I should have said three sorry. Missed that BillyBob popped by. Hi there!)

Err...Azazello...should I be hating you right now? : )

Just cuz I'm a stubborn cuss, I managed to find NearInfinity. Eventually figured out how to get it running by updating java and manually forcing extensions and things onto the program.

What the hell do I do with it? : )

Is this going to be worth learning how to use, or would it take the equivalent of a 1st-year college course of work and study...to figure out how to change the stats of a char? It seems to only want to open .key files, and when I try to open using the 'any file' option, it can only open .sav or something files, and then I can't figure out what to do from there. Instructions on the website don't seem to help; they seem to infer a level of knowledge about things that I just don't have.

Anyways, dead tired. Going to bed now. Thanks again, and have fun!

[hlidskialf]

Just cuz I'm a stubborn cuss, I managed to find NearInfinity.  Eventually figured out how to get it running by updating java and manually forcing extensions and things onto the program.

What the hell do I do with it? : )

Is this going to be worth learning how to use, or would it take the equivalent of a 1st-year college course of work and study...to figure out how to change the stats of a char?  It seems to only want to open .key files, and when I try to open using the 'any file' option, it can only open .sav or something files, and then I can't figure out what to do from there.  Instructions on the website don't seem to help; they seem to infer a level of knowledge about things that I just don't have.

Anyways, dead tired.  Going to bed now.  Thanks again, and have fun!

NI is definately something you want to learn how to use. It'll work as a great savegame editor, and gently lead you into modding. (It's how it starts, just a taste to begin with that costs nothing. Maybe an NPC stat or two. Then you need to adjust your favorite item, maybe tweak a spell. Before you know it your hopelessly addicted. Fortunately you're also in the right place to get help for this condition. )
First, make sure that your decompressing program of choice (WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip, etc...) does not have the filetype of .jar assigned. Otherwise every time you attempt to run the program you'll instead be trying to decompile it! Next, put that actual NearInfinity.jar file into your game directory. The same directory as your dialog.tlk and chitin.key file. The default is C:\Program Files\Black Isle\BGII - SOA\. If you're only modding the one game, this is the best place for it as it will default open your BG2 game.
Once that's done, doubleclick the NearInfinity.jar file (or handy shortcut thereof) and shortly thereafter your editor will open. You can customize it's appearance somewhat, but the default is certainly good enough for savegame editing. If you look on the lefthand side you'll see a bunch of folders. There's one labelled "Save" which is incidentally where your savegames for single player are stored. Open the folder, and click on the savegame you want to play with. (It's a good idea to have two saves at the same point before you start modding. Say the first one is a quicksave, and in game you load the quicksave game, and immediately save it as "Temp" or "Cannonfodder" or whatever tickles you.) Open that folder. Inside are some base game files. To edit the characters, you'll want to open the baldur.gam file. A new window on the righthand side opens. These are the things you can play with ingame! :w00t: Bottom left are the global variables. These often can be tweaked to bypass things in game, or more often, get past a part of the game that's buggy. On the upper right, are the character files. This is where you want to start. (Bottom right are NPCs not in the party. Ignore these for now.) Click on a character you want to modify. Hit the view/edit button. A new window opens up with all the goodies about that character. Click the CRE tab, and see the details. Click the Edit tab, and you can start changing things. Click the edit tab, at the bottom of the open window is the actual CRE file (for that character). Click on it, and hit the view/edit button. A new window pops open with all the info on the character you can change with either text or checkbox as applicable. Make your changes, then save them. Fire up the game to test it.
It seems quite complicated the first time, but it's not really. It also seems like a lot of steps to simply mod your savegame, but that's only a small part of the editor's use. So you have to wean what you want out of it. Incidentally, editors like ShadowKeeper have difficulties with some modded games because we now alter the chitin.key file. (Basically and index file.) Originally those editors were created prior to that fact, and didn't take it into account. *shrug* Fortunately there are alternatives.
Hope that helped ya'. :thumb:

[IndyPendant]

Hrm. First, sorry for the frustrated tone of the earlier post. I usually know enough not to post when I'm overtired and bleary-eyed...: )

Thanks for the clues, hlid. Something's definitely wrong then. I have been doing exactly as you describe--placing NI in my game directory, getting it to run, and then going into the savegame directory to access the savegame.

Then things go wrong. The only file I can access that does anything is the .sav file. It opens the big window on the right with a 'decompress' option, giving me .are, .toh, and .tot files--which I can't seem to do anything further with, even if they would do what I want them to do. Which I doubt.

When I try to access the .gam file--nothing happens. Nothing shows in the right-hand window at all. I've tried to open the .gam file using the left-hand menu, r-clicking the file, opening it in a new window, the drop-down 'file' menu...nothing.

Note that the 'Open Game' option in the File menu *only* looks for either .key files or 'all files'. There's no option to select .gam files at all. I'm going to look into this further--maybe I'm using a wrong version, or Winrar is somehow interfering even tho I've got NI running, or something.

(And just to show I'm not a total newbie at adjusting savegames: I used to hexedit the old Curse of the Azure Bonds etc, Eye of the Beholder, and so on to get the things I wanted. I went so far as to hexedit inventory in the Wizardry series, after beating them the first time. I've used Shadowkeeper extensively in the past, but never IESE or NI. And while I have teeny-tiny programming abilities (--Although true programmers would probably look at that statement as a kindergardner saying they have some math knowledge!: )--I have zero modding xp.)

[hlidskialf]

It does take a bit for the .gam file to load. Have you tried clicking on it and waiting a few minutes? Some of the info inside it takes a while to retrieve.
The "Open Game" is to open a game selection. ie) BG2, BG1, IWD, etc... It's looking for the chitin.key file in your game directory. If you open NI in your game directory, you get to skip this step.
BTW, the .sav file decompression you're talking about is good for modding areas and stores you've already visited in game.

[Sir BillyBob]

As a tip, don't both with modiying a saved game you may have made before adding the other mods. Only a saved game after you installed Yacomo's worldmap update (you did install that didn't you?). The map gets saved into each saved game and any updates will not show up in an older saved game. So if you are modifying the saved game from when you were tooling around Candlekeep, skip it a build a new character and save that game.

[IndyPendant]

Billybob, no worries there. The savegames were after I installed everything. I've now got SBT also installed, so it looks like the installations are done. NI is being extremely stubborn tho. I've tried all the options: dl it, dl the .bat to run it, dl the 128 .bat to run it, dl the zip to install it, ran it from many many directories, nothing. Left it to open a file for nearly 20 minutes just in case. Nothing. Same problems I listed above. (Thanks for explaining the whole .key thing btw, hlid.)

I've read pretty much the entire website there, with no luck. I even tried running it with BG2 up and running in the background. I just can't get this thing to work, and have pretty much exhausted my limited knowledge trying, unfortunately.

One thing: when I run it using the batch file, it opens a cmd window and gives me a ton of error messages. They always look similar, possibly exactly the same, and I've copied one set here. These mean anything to you?

C:\Program Files\Games\Baldurs Gate II>java -Xmx128M -jar NearInfinity.jar
Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: wrong
parent for CardLayout
        at java.awt.CardLayout.checkLayout(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.CardLayout.show(Unknown Source)
        at infinity.gui.StructViewer.valueChanged(SourceFile:326)
        at javax.swing.DefaultListSelectionModel.fireValueChanged(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.DefaultListSelectionModel.fireValueChanged(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.DefaultListSelectionModel.fireValueChanged(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.DefaultListSelectionModel.changeSelection(Unknown Source)

        at javax.swing.DefaultListSelectionModel.changeSelection(Unknown Source)

        at javax.swing.DefaultListSelectionModel.removeSelectionIntervalImpl Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.DefaultListSelectionModel.removeSelectionInterval(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.JTable.checkLeadAnchor(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.JTable.tableChanged(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.JTable.setModel(Unknown Source)
        at infinity.gui.StructViewer.<init>(SourceFile:129)
        at infinity.Struct.makeViewer(SourceFile:464)
        at infinity.Browser.setViewable(SourceFile:236)
        at infinity.gui.ResourceTree.valueChanged(SourceFile:115)
        at javax.swing.JTree.fireValueChanged(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.JTree$TreeSelectionRedirector.valueChanged(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.tree.DefaultTreeSelectionModel.fireValueChanged(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.tree.DefaultTreeSelectionModel.notifyPathChange(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.tree.DefaultTreeSelectionModel.setSelectionPaths(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.tree.DefaultTreeSelectionModel.setSelectionPath(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.JTree.setSelectionPath(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicTreeUI.selectPathForEvent(Unknown Source)

        at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicTreeUI$Handler.handleSelection(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicTreeUI$Handler.mousePressed(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.AWTEventMulticaster.mousePressed(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.AWTEventMulticaster.mousePressed(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.Component.processMouseEvent(Unknown Source)
        at javax.swing.JComponent.processMouseEvent(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.Component.processEvent(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.Container.processEvent(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.Component.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.retargetMouseEvent(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.processMouseEvent(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.Window.dispatchEventImpl(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForHierarchy(Unknown Source)

        at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)
        at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(Unknown Source)