115 replies to this topic

[Miloch]

What an odd mod. They've left 13 megs worth of junk in the backup directory of the install, more than doubling it's size. So far as I can tell there's no creature animations anywhere in it, at any rate.

Whoops, wrong mod... turns out it was the RPG Kitpack. It has some spell that adds the NWN scarecrow (and a poorly converted one at that, that uses a lot of extra space in the BAM frames) into the MBFI fire beetle slot.

But there's something more disturbing about all these mods, and that's that several have overwritten standard BG2 animations. I know that was a problem with Sheena putting its animation in an orog slot. Other mods have overwritten 2 of the goblins and left two. So we'd almost have to restore a lot of the actual BG2 animations to do the patch properly, and there's no really good way of doing that except to figure out which slots are hosed (by perhaps going through the M-series BAMs at least, with DLTCEP on a BWP install) then export the uncorrupted animations and package them. I suppose we could prevent those mods from installing creature animations, but that's tough to do if the mods have already been installed.

[Arkenor]

But there's something more disturbing about all these mods, and that's that several have overwritten standard BG2 animations. I know that was a problem with Sheena putting its animation in an orog slot. Other mods have overwritten 2 of the goblins and left two. So we'd almost have to restore a lot of the actual BG2 animations to do the patch properly, and there's no really good way of doing that except to figure out which slots are hosed (by perhaps going through the M-series BAMs at least, with DLTCEP on a BWP install) then export the uncorrupted animations and package them. I suppose we could prevent those mods from installing creature animations, but that's tough to do if the mods have already been installed.

Aye. that's one of the reasons I kept details of the animations and slots used by each megamod. Might want to save that for version 2 though.

Ideally some of these mods will update to use all the new slots that IA has made available, but I can imagine many will not want to have IA as a mandatory prerequisite.

Edited by Arkenor, 04 December 2009 - 04:14 PM.

[Erephine]

The Lady shall be ported properly at one point, she does actually have a full PST animation.

[Arkenor]

Whoops, wrong mod... turns out it was the RPG Kitpack. It has some spell that adds the NWN scarecrow (and a poorly converted one at that, that uses a lot of extra space in the BAM frames) into the MBFI fire beetle slot.

Lets see, that scarecrow is in MBFI, IC_BEETLE_FIRE

So.. S#CROW.CRE needs to be changed to 0x5273 µCC which is Erephine's conversion of the scarecrow with proper shadows and all.

And we have what appears to be a cow with an axe in MBET, IC_BEETLE_COPPER, which we're using for a copper beetle. I've no idea where that cow came from. NWN again I suppose. We don't have one of them. It's S#BOV.CRE at any rate.

Honestly, anyone using that deserves to have all the beetles turn into axe-wielding cows anyway. (Though I have the sudden urge to add it to the wild surge table)

I've updated all relevant documents with my findings on these mods.

Edited by Arkenor, 04 December 2009 - 05:31 PM.

[Lollorian]

If that ax-wielding cow is the one in this thread, it's from the 'Secret' Cow Level in Diablo II

Hats off to everyone on this project btw

Cheers,
Lol

[Erephine]

So.. S#CROW.CRE needs to be changed to 0x5273 µCC which is Erephine's conversion of the scarecrow with proper shadows and all.

It's not mine, still WoRm's conversion (I only fixed the shadows). Frames will be optimised and compressed when I re-upload to fix the Basilisk though.

[Hoppy]

Looking at Sheena, it puts the Half-Dragon Red into the MNO1 IC_OROG1 slot. None of the creatures in the mod seem to use it. I'm guessing the NPC polymorphs into the form, but I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out how it's all working.

Ah, here we are. A spell called K#POLYS.SPL One of it's effects is to polymorph to IC_OROG1. I guess you can edit that spell with your patch?

There were problems with that slot and IC_OROG2 (which you know is used by TDD and RoT form your research) with the Baldurdash Weidu fixpack that the BWP project currently uses. That fixpack is integral for NeJ 691 and I do have that style of mod installed so I can help you with the animations in it. I am not sure what the extensive differences are from the normal Baldurdaash but I am almost sure it alters animations so NeJ and TS 704 can use. I have all that installed too so PM me if you have any specifics.

[Miloch]

Honestly, anyone using that deserves to have all the beetles turn into axe-wielding cows anyway. (Though I have the sudden urge to add it to the wild surge table)

I suppose the Wild Jester or Buffoon kit is able to summon it, so it might not be completely out of place.

There were problems with that slot and IC_OROG2 (which you know is used by TDD and RoT form your research) with the Baldurdash Weidu fixpack that the BWP project currently uses. That fixpack is integral for NeJ 691 and I do have that style of mod installed so I can help you with the animations in it. I am not sure what the extensive differences are from the normal Baldurdaash but I am almost sure it alters animations so NeJ and TS 704 can use. I have all that installed too so PM me if you have any specifics.

Both those slots will get restored to the BG2 standard if any of those mods are installed. Here's the full list from what I could tell:

Megamod slots to restore to BG2 values

Slot   In BWP		   In BG2			From
MGO3   bugbear		  goblin elite axe  CtB
MGO4   white abishai	goblin elite bow  RoT
MLER   yeti			 lich black		NEJ602
MLIC   driders*		 lich			  BP/RoT/SOS
MMY2   bugbear captain  myconid2		  CtB
MNO1   half-dragon red  orog1			 Sheena
MNO2   frost giant	  orog2			 Drizzt/RoT/TDD
MOR3   verbeeg		  orc melee3		NEJ/TS
MSPL   lady of pain**   spider_woman	  Planar Sphere
MTAN   marilith***	  tanarri		   Drizzt/RoT/TDD

*These mods have put an IWD-style animation in this slot, though the lich is still there in the base slot as a BG2 animation. I don't know what happens with this situation, does one take priority? I'm not sure the base animations will display properly. We may need to either overwrite the IWD-style MLIC BAMs with blank ones or just purge them altogether via batch files called from the installer.

**This needs a slot assignment for proper compatibility.

***The only real difference between these AFAICT is one is reddish, the other greenish. I'm not sure if they're even the right animation names, but though at different addresses, they seem to map to the same slot in BG2?
0x1100 MTAN CGAMEANIMATIONTYPE_TANARRI
0xE090 MTAN CGAMEANIMATIONTYPE_MERILITH

It looks like we just need the two oddball animations slotted (lady of pain and bovine warrior, or whatever it is) for full compatibility. We should probably include all the megamod animations we need in the base package, and make others optional downloads?

Hoppy, if you want to make sure everything on your NEJ/TS install gets covered, can you run the following tool-mod on it. After you zip the 4 resulting .txt files in the animtest folder and attaching them here, you can uninstall it if you want (though the only thing it will do is fix some creatures, items and spells if they are messed up). It might fail on your install, but it worked on BG2 and BWP for me.
 animtest.rar   550.62K   271 downloads
Incidentally, this utility told me there are several other items and spells that change animations on BWP like in Sheena, but that is the only one we need to worry about (the only one that uses an affected animation).

[Arkenor]

Honestly, anyone using that deserves to have all the beetles turn into axe-wielding cows anyway. (Though I have the sudden urge to add it to the wild surge table)

I suppose the Wild Jester or Buffoon kit is able to summon it, so it might not be completely out of place.

There were problems with that slot and IC_OROG2 (which you know is used by TDD and RoT form your research) with the Baldurdash Weidu fixpack that the BWP project currently uses. That fixpack is integral for NeJ 691 and I do have that style of mod installed so I can help you with the animations in it. I am not sure what the extensive differences are from the normal Baldurdaash but I am almost sure it alters animations so NeJ and TS 704 can use. I have all that installed too so PM me if you have any specifics.

Both those slots will get restored to the BG2 standard if any of those mods are installed. Here's the full list from what I could tell:

Megamod slots to restore to BG2 values

Slot   In BWP		   In BG2			From
MGO3   bugbear		  goblin elite axe  CtB
MGO4   white abishai	goblin elite bow  RoT
MLER   yeti			 lich black		NEJ602
MLIC   driders*		 lich			  BP/RoT/SOS
MMY2   bugbear captain  myconid2		  CtB
MNO1   half-dragon red  orog1			 Sheena
MNO2   frost giant	  orog2			 Drizzt/RoT/TDD
MOR3   verbeeg		  orc melee3		NEJ/TS
MSPL   lady of pain**   spider_woman	  Planar Sphere
MTAN   marilith***	  tanarri		   Drizzt/RoT/TDD

That looks right, except I think MUMB IC_UMBERHULK might need to be in there too. A couple of mods stick Belhifet in there, but unmodded BG2 has Umberhulk animations in there.

Edit: Oh, belay that. According to the porting page that's already covered.

On the Marilith thing, we need to make sure that the one from the ToB files is the one living at MTAN, I think. Some mods place that one in MTAN to ensure compatability of their mods for SoA players, while other mods put the Icewind Dale recolour in there. That one now lives at 0x502a µBQ MARILITH_IWD . On the naming thing, I figured it was just because a Marilith IS a Tanar'ri, but there could be something else going on.

Not sure what we should do with the cow. If it's a port from a non-Bioware game, that opens up something of a can of worms. The chap who ported it might not want us messing with it anyway. Might be best just to leave that alone, and put a note in the readme saying it's a known incompatability.

Edited by Arkenor, 05 December 2009 - 03:41 AM.

[Erephine]

*These mods have put an IWD-style animation in this slot, though the lich is still there in the base slot as a BG2 animation. I don't know what happens with this situation, does one take priority? I'm not sure the base animations will display properly. We may need to either overwrite the IWD-style MLIC BAMs with blank ones or just purge them altogether via batch files called from the installer.

Two slots with the prefix MLIC exist in Baldur's Gate II (IWD+BGII style). They coexist. Same situation with IA actually.

***The only real difference between these AFAICT is one is reddish, the other greenish. I'm not sure if they're even the right animation names, but though at different addresses, they seem to map to the same slot in BG2?
0x1100 MTAN CGAMEANIMATIONTYPE_TANARRI
0xE090 MTAN CGAMEANIMATIONTYPE_MERILITH

Two different animation slots, once again. One is the 4-part BGI demon animation, the other the green Merilith.

Likewise MMIN is the prefix for both Minotaur and Mindflayer, etc. etc. It's briefly explained in the readme (I think).


I think we can add the cow? I don't know. Can't download the files at BWL as a non-member anyhow.

I'll see about porting the Lady of Pain.

[Lollorian]

Not sure what we should do with the cow. If it's a port from a non-Bioware game, that opens up something of a can of worms. The chap who ported it might not want us messing with it anyway. Might be best just to leave that alone, and put a note in the readme saying it's a known incompatability.

Well, I've seen BG animations being ported to some Diablo II mods (Median XL being a very famous example) so I dunno whether the inverse would be wrong either ... but then again, this is Blizzard we're talking about

But there are many sites openly sharing Diablo resources (I & II) so it's probably cool with Blizz too, unless you make a commercial venture outta this mod, which I'm sure you won't

Cheers,
Lol

[Hoppy]

@Miloch

Here is the file and it passed installation with flying colors. The weidu log is inside as I do have some mods that you guys are talking about (RPG kitpack) and some others that are highly unsupported but I made my own installation and working with it from time to time.

From my basic knowledge of Improved Anvil, which is included, IA may change some animations and use some unused ones at least for what it was compatible with. This is an old out of date version but I had it installed with Nej and BGT a log time ago and I was trying to recreate an NeJ version mega mod for my own enjoyment. Totally unsupported but this may give you some better information as well and cover more bases.

 Hops_results.rar   10.72K   258 downloads

[Arkenor]

@Miloch

Here is the file and it passed installation with flying colors. The weidu log is inside as I do have some mods that you guys are talking about (RPG kitpack) and some others that are highly unsupported but I made my own installation and working with it from time to time.

From my basic knowledge of Improved Anvil, which is included, IA may change some animations and use some unused ones at least for what it was compatible with. This is an old out of date version but I had it installed with Nej and BGT a log time ago and I was trying to recreate an NeJ version mega mod for my own enjoyment. Totally unsupported but this may give you some better information as well and cover more bases.

 Hops_results.rar   10.72K   258 downloads

I'm looking at Improved Anvil V5 now which appears to be the current release version. There does not appear to be any creature animations included, so it shouldn't break anything we're trying to do, I don't think.

Edited by Arkenor, 05 December 2009 - 08:52 AM.

[Hoppy]

@Miloch

Here is the file and it passed installation with flying colors. The weidu log is inside as I do have some mods that you guys are talking about (RPG kitpack) and some others that are highly unsupported but I made my own installation and working with it from time to time.

From my basic knowledge of Improved Anvil, which is included, IA may change some animations and use some unused ones at least for what it was compatible with. This is an old out of date version but I had it installed with Nej and BGT a log time ago and I was trying to recreate an NeJ version mega mod for my own enjoyment. Totally unsupported but this may give you some better information as well and cover more bases.

 Hops_results.rar   10.72K   258 downloads

I'm looking at Improved Anvil V5 now which appears to be the current release version. There does not appear to be any creature animations included, so it shouldn't break anything we're trying to do, I don't think.

Yep v5 is the most recent and 6 is up and coming. I think the new creatures are improved versions(AC, MR, etc.) rather than animation changes I couldn't remember.

[Chevalier]

@Miloch

Here is the file and it passed installation with flying colors. The weidu log is inside as I do have some mods that you guys are talking about (RPG kitpack) and some others that are highly unsupported but I made my own installation and working with it from time to time.

From my basic knowledge of Improved Anvil, which is included, IA may change some animations and use some unused ones at least for what it was compatible with. This is an old out of date version but I had it installed with Nej and BGT a log time ago and I was trying to recreate an NeJ version mega mod for my own enjoyment. Totally unsupported but this may give you some better information as well and cover more bases.

 Hops_results.rar   10.72K   258 downloads

I'm looking at Improved Anvil V5 now which appears to be the current release version. There does not appear to be any creature animations included, so it shouldn't break anything we're trying to do, I don't think.

No need to look at Improved Anvil since it is made to be incompatible with other big and MegaMods.

[Hoppy]

MLIC   driders*		 lich			  BP/RoT/SOS

No it is yeti for RoT and SoS (abominable snowman). BP used to... still does...copies MLIC bams over for its introduction of driders that are not used (the readme even says they are not used) and thus overwriting. I dunno if it is changed in 179(x) but I had brought it up to the BP workroom when everyone was helping out.

RoT and SOS share the slot whether any or both are installed. That was the problem with yeti's looking like Driders.

Driders are from CTB (IWD port) and the ones in SoS are normal spider animations (I was going to change that to match CtB). They use IC_HISTACHII - 57408 and IC_WIGHT - 60416 for male female respectively. Using IC-Histachi creates an incompat with TS-BP for its Greater Zombie which uses the same. NeJ42b may change NeJ's use of the Histachi creature for a more compatible slot for BiG Picture type of installs but I know NeJ691 uses Histachi for creatures and the corresponding slot.

Edited by Hoppy, 05 December 2009 - 09:35 AM.

[Hoppy]

MMY2   bugbear captain  myconid2		  CtB

Another conflict appears with RoT installed which uses tougher Myconids and assigns the MYCONID2 slot to make them look different. This is confusing because RoT doesn't add anything it just uses a creature file with a stock animation. Since CtB changes the BAMs, bugbears become myconids.

I was going to break apart RoT someday (update ) and change them to the normal myconids but maybe by that time I will have another slot to use.

[Creepin]

No need to look at Improved Anvil since it is made to be incompatible with other big and MegaMods.

This. Dig a bit deeper & you'll see that guy voluntarily made his mod to be incompatible with others... just let him rot in his own personal one-mod world

[Arkenor]

Guys, I already said I'd looked through Improved Anvil several posts ago. I can't unlook through it, so telling me not to look through it isn't helpful, much as I'd like that 5 minutes of my life back. And anyway, it doesn't do anything that would interfere with Infinity Animations, so its all good. The only threat it possesses is that it uses the same acronym of IA.

If there are any other non-standalone mods not listed at the top of this thread that add animations, please let me know, I'll take a look at them and update whatever documents need updating.

Edited by Arkenor, 05 December 2009 - 11:00 AM.

[Miloch]

Two slots with the prefix MLIC exist in Baldur's Gate II (IWD+BGII style). They coexist. Same situation with IA actually.

But I don't get it. Which does the engine use, then, when you assign it to a creature? If the slots are "stacked" it depends on the weapon but these aren't stacked in the traditional sense, I don't think.

***The only real difference between these AFAICT is one is reddish, the other greenish. I'm not sure if they're even the right animation names, but though at different addresses, they seem to map to the same slot in BG2?
0x1100 MTAN CGAMEANIMATIONTYPE_TANARRI
0xE090 MTAN CGAMEANIMATIONTYPE_MERILITH

Two different animation slots, once again. One is the 4-part BGI demon animation, the other the green Merilith.

Likewise MMIN is the prefix for both Minotaur and Mindflayer, etc. etc. It's briefly explained in the readme (I think).

The readme only mentions that IWD and BG2 slots can coexist, as you've said, but doesn't give more details that I can see. In the case of MTAN, there *are* separate animations there - apparently one for the snakewoman/marilith type of tanar'ri and the other for the balrog/balor type. But 0x1100 is used for both, and I think likewise 0xe090 is too. Maybe it depends on the gender of the CRE in this case? It would make sense, since one is only a female demon and the other male, but I don't know if the engine makes that distinction when choosing the animation to display, but it seems possible.

Regarding the different (ToB/IWD) animations, I think we should restore the ToB animation to the 0x1100 slot (it's the IWD one in megamods, as noted) and patch all CREs assigned to 0xe090 to the new IWD address, assuming they both accomodate the male and female animations.

I think we can add the cow? I don't know. Can't download the files at BWL as a non-member anyhow.

I really don't see why not - it's from Seifer here who offered it to "anyone" (I doubt it was BWL-specific - Seifer was an admin here as well). As for being in Diablo, it's not like you're converting the whole game or even any substantial part of it, as if even that would matter much for something noncommercial. It is the exact same one in the RPG Kitpack, I'm sure, or if you can't get it there, someone should attach it here.

MLIC   driders*		 lich			  BP/RoT/SOS

No it is yeti for RoT and SoS (abominable snowman). BP used to... still does...copies MLIC bams over for its introduction of driders that are not used (the readme even says they are not used) and thus overwriting.

Yeah, I know about most of the conflicts (I did do this after all). I didn't report them all, just the "last standing" one on BWP, because only one animation can exist per slot, or two in this case, in some manner I don't quite understand yet. It doesn't really matter though, since this will restore all creatures it finds to the animation they should have, and then restore the known slots to what they should be as well, thus resolving any conflicts.

If there are any other non-standalone mods not listed at the top of this thread that add animations, please let me know, I'll take a look at them and update whatever documents need updating.

Well, I guess you might want to take a look at the latest versions of NEJ and TS, if you fancy downloading over half a gig . There are some creatures on Hoppy's results we haven't accounted for, some giants using beetle slots it looks like, but other than that, nothing really that unusual (myconids using myconid slots is not an issue, for example).