55 replies to this topic

[bigmoshi]

Infinity Explorer was always my preference to view dialog files for IEngine games, and reading scripts. The original v0.75/v0.80 versions were slightly outmoded as time flew by. Thus, custom dialogs files like BG1NPC "X#**.dlg" that are not indexed in chitin.key don't show up on the list in Infinity Explorer. Hence, slight fixes for these and couple of other issues have been made to update the program, and I understand that it has not been done before.

Infinity Explorer is a simple intuitive brower, so I hope the updated version will be useful for modders by and large.

Download here:  InfExp_0.85.zip   614.68K   6284 downloads

Hopefully won't need to update this pascal version unless there are major issues. Do let me know you encounter any problem.

Fixes for v0.85 (5 Feb 08):

• Item flag columns when viewing CRE files (NoPick, Stolen, NoDrop) - Avenger
  
• Fixed duplicate file resources index
  
• Brighter area maps (Yes! You no longer go blind looking at dark area)
  
• Added custom are/wed/tis files

Fixes till v0.84:

• X,Y locations for area maps - SConrad
  
• shows custom dlg/itm/cre files
  
• fixed linking errors where you couldn't access dialogs from CRE files
  
• workaround fix for file locking of "dialog.tlk" file - Kulyok
  
• general fix for area CTD due to *.ARE file lock - jcompton
  
• shows custom bcs (in default.bif)- Avenger
  
• updated compiler to use strrefs & show the string at the end of line (for copy & pasting) - Avenger
  
• fix for some specific strrefs - Avenger
  
• updated spell effects based on IESDP - Avenger

Commencing work on a c# version to learn more about the specific stuff IE modding. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish it and share it with anyone interested to learn more about programming!

Since I'm a visual-type of a person, I'll not leave this without a picture. Here's to illustrate how IE's dialog pathing looks like:


Credits:

• IE v0.75/v0.80 was written by Dmitry Jemerov and his homepage is at http://infexp.sourceforge.net.
  
• Thanks to aVENGER, Kulyok & jcompton + SConrad for identifying issues for fixing!
  
• Thanks to all for taking time to check this awesome program by Dmitry!

Cheers

PS: I sent an email to Dmitry at yole@yole.ru about this. But I'm willing to bet he's probably busy with other commitments. So, if anyone spots him walking down the street, do let him know about this OK! TY

Edited by K'aeloree, 15 May 2008 - 10:09 PM.

[Kulyok]

You just saved my life. I think it's the best present for Snape's birthday I ever got.

Thank you!

[aVENGER]

Nice work bigmoshi, this is a very useful addition.

BTW, since Infinity Explorer is licensed under GPL 2 would it be possible to also update it with the new IESDP data so that it can properly read and display effects which are currently marked as unknown? For example, if you open RING95.ITM in Infinity Explorer you'll notice a bunch of "Effect: 0xCE" entries. Using IESDP it's easy to deduce that "Effect: 0xCE" is actually "Effect #206 - Protection from Spell".

[theacefes]

Wow! Awesome!

[cmorgan]

Great stuff, man - I have been exclusively using NI and DLTCEP because of this issue, and now I get another view of the files. Very cool. And very appreciated.

Edited by cmorgan, 09 January 2008 - 01:32 PM.

[SConrad]

Excellent stuff! This has been something I've been thinking about for a looong time. Thank you!

[Gabrielle]

Real awesome.

[jcompton]

Strongly recommend that you go through whatever bureaucracy is required by Sourceforge to get this in to the official site. No offense to this august institution, but direct forum attachments are a notoriously mercurial thing, and as a zillion people use Infinity Explorer, it would seem to be a good thing to have it on the actual infexp.sourceforge.net site. With Jemerov clearly disowning the thing, I can't imagine it being that difficult to push through...

[bigmoshi]

Hi people, okay so this means it hasn't been done before. Hope it helps.

Btw, in case you are wondering why some dialogs are duplicated, its cos the dialog can be found in both chitin.key & override. But both will show the same dialog from the override file. Maybe I'll clean it up next time.

.. would it be possible to also update it with the new IESDP data so that it can properly read and display effects which are currently marked as unknown? For example, if you open RING95.ITM in Infinity Explorer you'll notice a bunch of "Effect: 0xCE" entries. Using IESDP it's easy to deduce that "Effect: 0xCE" is actually "Effect #206 - Protection from Spell".

Should be possible. Will need to do some reading on the IESDP thing before I can confirm though.

Strongly recommend that you go through whatever bureaucracy is required by Sourceforge to get this in to the official site. No offense to this august institution, but direct forum attachments are a notoriously mercurial thing, and as a zillion people use Infinity Explorer, it would seem to be a good thing to have it on the actual infexp.sourceforge.net site. With Jemerov clearly disowning the thing, I can't imagine it being that difficult to push through...

Actually I just tried to fix the dialog so that you guys would find it easier to see the dialog paths. I'll see if I have time to fix anything else before uploading it into sourceforge.

[bigmoshi]

Updated v0.82a:
(a) added itm, cre files
(b) fixed linking errors in v0.81 eg. you couldn't access dialogs from CRE files (sorry, overlooked some libs)

Hope you enjoy it

[Kulyok]

By the way, I'd like to you a newbie-ish question about IE, since you're the best person to answer it: when I run it, it "locks" my dialog.tlk(so, for example, I can't view it via another program, or install mods at the same time). With Near Infinity, which I use for item/cre editing, though, I noticed that it doesn't do any such thing. So I'm wondering: why is IE doing it, and is it really necessary?

[bigmoshi]

By the way, I'd like to you a newbie-ish question about IE, since you're the best person to answer it: when I run it, it "locks" my dialog.tlk(so, for example, I can't view it via another program, or install mods at the same time). With Near Infinity, which I use for item/cre editing, though, I noticed that it doesn't do any such thing. So I'm wondering: why is IE doing it, and is it really necessary?

Oh ya, it does. I had that before. I'll have to study a bit more on IE, and see if I can release the file without repercussions based on its current design.

[aVENGER]

Nice work! BTW, I noticed that custom (non chitin.key) AI scripts still can't be opened directly while browsing the CRE files.

That said, the Infinity Explorer script decompiler is kind of outdated. Would it be possible to use WeiDU for decompiling the scripts instead?

Edited by aVENGER, 11 January 2008 - 10:12 AM.

[bigmoshi]

By the way, I'd like to you a newbie-ish question about IE, since you're the best person to answer it: when I run it, it "locks" my dialog.tlk(so, for example, I can't view it via another program, or install mods at the same time). With Near Infinity, which I use for item/cre editing, though, I noticed that it doesn't do any such thing. So I'm wondering: why is IE doing it, and is it really necessary?

Hi again.

Its a design issue. The tlk file is kept locked throughout the entire application, and read only when necessary.
Changing it would break a lot of code. So instead, here's a quick workaround fix that makes a copy to "dialogcpy.tlk" and reads from there. NI will be reading the original "dialog.tlk" that will remain as it is. Pls see 0.82a-release2. Thanks!

Nice work! BTW, I noticed that custom (non chitin.key) AI scripts still can't be opened directly while browsing the CRE files.

That said, the Infinity Explorer script decompiler is kind of outdated. Would it be possible to use WeiDU for decompiling the scripts instead?

Hi Avenger, for custom (non chitin.key) AI scripts are you referring to bcs/bs files? sorry, I'm still trying to get used to the different file formats from IESDP.

Also for the script decompiler, in what sense is it outdated? Do you mean its unable to parse certain scripts? Any egs? I could try to take another look. Thanks!

Edited by bigmoshi, 11 January 2008 - 06:05 PM.

[jcompton]

If you're taking bug reports, you might also look into this one:

- Open InfExp
- Browse the area tree and open an area of your choice (AR0700, let's say for the sake of argument.)
- Start the game
- Move to AR0700
- The game crashes.

[bigmoshi]

If you're taking bug reports, you might also look into this one:

- Open InfExp
- Browse the area tree and open an area of your choice (AR0700, let's say for the sake of argument.)
- Start the game
- Move to AR0700
- The game crashes.

Done, its due to some file access issue locking the biff files. Area files with ARE in override didn't seem to have this issue. Made a general fix for that, but let me know if specific exceptions arise. Thanks!

[Kulyok]

Its a design issue. The tlk file is kept locked throughout the entire application, and read only when necessary.
Changing it would break a lot of code. So instead, here's a quick workaround fix that makes a copy to "dialogcpy.tlk" and reads from there. NI will be reading the original "dialog.tlk" that will remain as it is. Pls see 0.82a-release2. Thanks!

No, no, thank *you*! Downloading it now, and if you ever need a Russian translator when you're writing to Dmitry to update the page or whatever, just ask. (Though I'm sure his English is even better than mine, )

[aVENGER]

Hi Avenger, for custom (non chitin.key) AI scripts are you referring to bcs/bs files? sorry, I'm still trying to get used to the different file formats from IESDP.

I was referring to custom BCS files. For example, if I open a mod CRE in Infinity Explorer which has a custom (non chitin.key) AI script assigned to it and click on the script link in the AI tab nothing happens.

Also for the script decompiler, in what sense is it outdated? Do you mean its unable to parse certain scripts? Any egs? I could try to take another look. Thanks!

For example, Infinity Explorer decompiles any strings present into scripts directly into textual lines instead of placing them in comments which makes copy/paste from it fairly unreliable. For comparison, try viewing USEITEM.BCS in Infinity Explorer and Near Infinity and notice the difference.

This is from Infinity Explorer:

IF
	HPPercentLT(Myself,50)
	HasItem("potn55",Myself)
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		DisplayStringHead(Myself,'quaffs a potion')
		UseItem("potn55",Myself)
		Continue()
END

And this is from Near Infinity:

IF
	HPPercentLT(Myself,50)
	HasItem("potn55",Myself) // Potion of Superior Healing
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		DisplayStringHead(Myself,46150) // quaffs a potion
		UseItem("potn55",Myself) // Potion of Superior Healing
		Continue()
END

Personally, I find the Near Infinity version much more descriptive, and I'd like Infinity Explorer to be able to do this as well, if possible.

Edited by aVENGER, 12 January 2008 - 01:49 AM.

[bigmoshi]

Hi Avenger, for custom (non chitin.key) AI scripts are you referring to bcs/bs files? sorry, I'm still trying to get used to the different file formats from IESDP.

I was referring to custom BCS files. For example, if I open a mod CRE in Infinity Explorer which has a custom (non chitin.key) AI script assigned to it and click on the script link in the AI tab nothing happens.

Okay, will look into the BCS files. What about the those .BS files in <scripts> do? Are they important at all, as in do they actually affect the game? Or do they essentially mean the common "bs" term?

Also for the script decompiler, in what sense is it outdated? Do you mean its unable to parse certain scripts? Any egs? I could try to take another look. Thanks!

For example, Infinity Explorer decompiles any strings present into scripts directly into textual lines instead of placing them in comments which makes copy/paste from it fairly unreliable. For comparison, try viewing USEITEM.BCS in Infinity Explorer and Near Infinity and notice the difference.

This is from Infinity Explorer:

IF
	HPPercentLT(Myself,50)
	HasItem("potn55",Myself)
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		DisplayStringHead(Myself,'quaffs a potion')
		UseItem("potn55",Myself)
		Continue()
END

And this is from Near Infinity:

IF
	HPPercentLT(Myself,50)
	HasItem("potn55",Myself) // Potion of Superior Healing
THEN
	RESPONSE #100
		DisplayStringHead(Myself,46150) // quaffs a potion
		UseItem("potn55",Myself) // Potion of Superior Healing
		Continue()
END

Personally, I find the Near Infinity version much more descriptive, and I'd like Infinity Explorer to be able to do this as well, if possible.

Ok, I can see what you mean. There seems to be two things you need:
(1) Maintain the script code format - IE replaced the strref with the actual string
(2) Additional Desc - NI places comments if they detected items in that script line

Anything else besides the strrefs that will affect the copy/pasting issue like (1)?

I'll try to see what IE did for the decompiler, and play around with weidu.

[aVENGER]

Okay, will look into the BCS files. What about the those .BS files in <scripts> do? Are they important at all, as in do they actually affect the game? Or do they essentially mean the common "bs" term?

BS files are the AI scripts which you can assign to your partymembers via customize -> script option in the game.

Anything else besides the strrefs that will affect the copy/pasting issue like (1)?

Not sure, I'll check and get back to you.

BTW, would it be possible to group the files which are presently in the override folder in a separate "override" category, just like Near Infinity does? This would also prevent duplication when a single file exists both in the biffs and the override folder.