1168 replies to this topic

[K4thos]

Related to this post: http://gibberlings3....255#entry234889

Same problem is true in Near Infinity when TIS is loaded not from ARE. Looks like TIS takes the water info from WED file that is loaded with ARE, but you can't export images from that screen.

 

So a request - please add an "export" button for example here:

 

 

Or "load wed" button here:

 

 

An option for exporting minimaps (different sizes depending on what engine is loaded like DLTCEP) would be also neat, but export to PNG with proper data from wed will do the job too.

Edited by K4thos, 19 April 2015 - 10:24 AM.

[Argent77]

Hmm, I can try to add a PNG export function to the area viewer, but it will most likely consume a great amount of memory during the export process. This is because the map graphics is located exclusively in video memory, so I have to clone the whole data into system memory before I can prepare it for PNG export.

 

I don't see a need for a minimap generator though. Java only provides nearest neighbor, bilinear and (with a huge performance hit) bicubic scalers. The scaling algorithms of dedicated graphics tools are much more sophisticated for a task like this.

[The Imp]

I don't think K4thos really cares how much memory or time the conversion will take as long as it happens so he can use them in the EET. He can yes, scale the pictures afterwards. If he can get the compiled big picture from the tool as a .png -format.

Edited by The Imp, 19 April 2015 - 11:47 AM.

[Argent77]

Well, I'm more thinking about potential error reports from casual users with insufficient memory. Even now the area viewer requires a pretty powerful system to open all kinds of maps.

 

Edit: First tests are looking promising so far. I'll probably add this feature to one of the next releases.

Edited by Argent77, 19 April 2015 - 01:23 PM.

[Sam.]

Well, I'm more thinking about potential error reports from casual users with insufficient memory. Even now the area viewer requires a pretty powerful system to open all kinds of maps.

Let me know if/when you recommend the default memory settings used by my Hide NI DOS program be upped.

[Argent77]

I don't think memory settings need to be upped anytime soon. NI requires lots of memory only in very few occasions (e.g. for displaying huge TIS files or for the area viewer). In the case of the area viewer you also need a certain amount of video RAM, depending on the size of the area.

Installing a 64-bit version of the Java Runtime helps as well.
 

[Echon]

When copying a v2 effect to a CRE with the effect flag set to 0, it is not possible to change the flag and then paste the effect. The CRE needs to be saved and reopened with the flag set to 1 for the effect to be added correctly. Is it possible to change this, and skip the extra step?

[Argent77]

Can you give me step-by-step instructions to reproduce?

[The Imp]

Can you give me step-by-step instructions to reproduce?

Open any .cre file, go to the Edit view and then to offset 0x2c8 (# effects), if it's a zero, set it to 1, and ... you can't see the Attribute "Effect 0" line anywhere, save the file, load the file and vola, there's a Effect 0 line. And of course this will be so for as many effects as you add to the .cre file.

This also should be with everything else, items, spells, memorized spells etc. things the files has associating array or what ever it's called ... there really needs to be a button to refresh the file, according to the new edit on the file, or something if you wish the creatures to be edited within this way in NI. Of course most today use weidu's tp2 functionality to do most of this stuff, or DLTCEP, but adding it to NI would be nice alternative.

Edited by The Imp, 22 April 2015 - 07:48 AM.

[Argent77]

Hmm, I don't think the structure count and offset fields were originally intended to be used that way. It's more like the other way around. These fields are automatically updated when you manually add or remove structures of a certain type (either by cut/copy actions or using the add/remove buttons) to the resource. From my understanding they shouldn't even be editable. Actually, when I tested your method in CRE resources, it worked for a few selected types and caused file corruption on other types.

Adding the requested feature sounds rather difficult, but first I have to look at the current implementation before I can say more.
 

[Echon]

Can you give me step-by-step instructions to reproduce?

 

Copy an EFF from a CRE with effect flag set to 1, and then paste it to a CRE with the flag set to 0. Save and reopen that CRE. NI will not recognize the EFF and sees it as a lot of unused bytes. Setting the flag to 1 before pasting the EFF results in the same error. To prevent it, the flag must be set, the file saved, closed, reopened, and then the EFF can be added. I would like NI to recognise the change immediately. Does this make sense?

[Argent77]

I think I understand the problem. This is a very uncommon situation though. BG2 only contains a handful of CRE resources with the effect flag set to 0, which are almost exclusively leftovers from BG1. The other games also largely contain only CRE resources of a single type (either 0 or 1).

I'm not sure if this situation can be fixed easily because of the way how resource structures are managed internally by NI. I'll add it to my to-do list, but it may take a while before I can tackle the problem.
 

[Echon]

The problem sometimes applies to me because my mod moved from the BG:TotSC engine to BG2/EE. If it is not an easy fix, don't bother with it.

[Argent77]

Update: NearInfinity v1.36-20150428

Changes:

• Added "Export to PNG" feature to area viewer. It exports the map background graphics, which includes current day time and door states, (water) overlays and selected mini maps.
• Fixed black borders around frames of PVRZ-based BAM files created by the BAM Converter.
• PVRZ files of imported BAM v2 files are loaded from the BAM folder first before falling back to the game's own PVRZ resources. This change is relevant when importing BAM v2 files in the BAM Converter.
• Fixed a bug in BCS script editor which caused freezes in very specific situations.
• The "Remove" button of structured resources (ARE, ITM, SPL, ...) can now remove whole ranges of selected entries.
• Added missing (albeit unused) value fields of different types in Variable structures of GAM V2.x and ARE resources.
• Count and offset fields in structured resources can't be edited by the user anymore. These field types were never intended to be modified directly by the user and more often than not caused file corruption because of it.
• Several smaller fixes and updates.

[K4thos]

Added "Export to PNG" feature to area viewer. It exports the map background graphics, which includes current day time and door states, (water) overlays and selected mini maps.

 

Awesome work, Argent77. Thank you. Here is a minimap created from PNG exported by NI. As you can see water looks as expected: http://i.imgur.com/lprHgW3.jpg

 

No problems with exporting image on integrated HD3000 video card (takes about 3 seconds for very large maps). Obviously NI must be run with -Xmx512M or -Xmx1024M to be able to open area viewer.

Edited by K4thos, 28 April 2015 - 05:15 AM.

[Saigon1983]

@Argent77, I'll post a question from one of our guys, who is no registered here:

 

"Please, can you explain why in the earlier versions of NearInfinity(like 1.35.0/20141003) when you search a string with text in the tree work correct. Example: String with text will expand to correct state/response in the tree. In the latest versions(all versions from 2015) that feature doesn't work anymore."

 

I don't know what is it about, because use NI only 1,5 month, but'll provide your answer to him. 

[Argent77]

"Please, can you explain why in the earlier versions of NearInfinity(like 1.35.0/20141003) when you search a string with text in the tree work correct. Example: String with text will expand to correct state/response in the tree. In the latest versions(all versions from 2015) that feature doesn't work anymore."

In earlier versions of NI you could search for text strings via Search->Text Search->DLG and the tree view in the resulting DLG resource would automatically jump to the respective state or response entry. It worked until snapshot 20141003a. This feature had the unwanted side effect of blocking NI in certain cases and putting the system on high load (more in this post). I'm not sure if I can safely add this feature again without triggering that particular bug.

Edited by Argent77, 29 April 2015 - 06:07 AM.

[Saigon1983]

Thanks. I'll retranslate this

[Saigon1983]

My friend asks, is this possible to implement that feature again in some beta-version, because we are working with the official russian translation of BG2EE, and this thing could be very helpful.

[Argent77]

As I said, I would have to find a way to prevent this particular side effect, which is probably a very time-consuming task. I can add it to my to-do list, but it will have a low priority. The standard dialog viewer should be a good substitute however.