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Baldur's Gate Graphical Overhaul v3

The biggest visual overhaul of the game since it was released with many fixes to almost all BG1 and BG2 areas. Now in a single mod package compatible with BG2, BGT, TuTu, BG:EE, SoD, BG2:EE, and EET.

Download  |  Readme  |  GitHub

Overview

This mod is probably the biggest visual overhaul of the game since it was released. It reinstates the extended night areas that are missing from all main areas. Now, when you open doors at night they show light from inside the building. Buildings actually have windows that are lit up. Many night maps have their own lighting map and interiors are equipped with candles, torches and lights.

As luck would have it, the authors, Yovaneth and Weigo, met by chance on the Beamdog and Gibberlings 3 forums respectively (the thanks here goes to Jastey). One was trying to deal with all the problems of the two versions not working properly for both engine variants. The other was just tweaking and beautifying the graphics further. Fortunately, when they finally got in contact, there was an incredible synergy effect. They understood each other right away and joined forces.

 

Not only were all the old graphics from BG1 reworked, but they also decided to add all the areas from BG2, ToB, SoD, BG:EE and BG2:EE without the original night map. This means that there are now 83 new night maps. In total 636 maps will be improved. These are the night maps and also day maps. Light maps are added, graphical bugs are fixed, animated water areas are added, over 7000 animated candles, torches and lights are added. Especially with the animated candles, torches and lights, old maps can be improved at any time.

To learn more about this project, please visit its GitHub repository.

Discussions about this mod are also available on the G3 forums.

Jaheira Friendship is a new addition to the NPC Interaction Expansion Project: an attempt to bring more realism and interest to BG2 joinable NPCs with more interjections, friendships, and scenery dialogue. This mod adds a friendship with the iconic fighter/druid, Jaheira.

The new dialogue was written by Lava Del'Vortel with editing help of Isewein and Llewren.

Visit the mod's GitHub repository or forum for more details.

Infinity Animations v6 is still in development. Thanks to TobEx AfterLife, we can finally make this mod reach it's full potential on the original BG2 (read the explanations and discussions starting around this post; a lot of pages!) Of course, the new version will also support the EEs. The process of adding new animations will be much easier due to the dynamic slot allocation, ASCII-only filenames, and will be complemented by a guide.

There is no specific ETA on the new version yet. In the future, I'd also like to give a tutorial on porting 3D meshes and animations, e.g. from games supporting the NIF and KF formats, with a complete Blender environment setup for the IE.

 unicorn.jpg   64.55K   49 downloads

Spellhold Studios will be changing its GitHub account. The owner of the previous organization and a prolific IE modder, Gwendolyne, disappeared suddenly in 2022, unfortunately without appointing a successor with the ability to effectively maintain our modding projects there. Sadly, all attempts to contact Gwendolyne or restore full access through GitHub Support have been to no avail, which is why we have decided to create a new account.

All SHS mods will be gradually transferred to the new organization, which will be maintained by trusted, friendly, and open-minded Staff members. We recognize this as an initial inconvenience to Modders, but we hope our efforts put into preserving the community's legacy make up for it.

The new organization is available at: github.com/Spellhold-Studios

A complementary Index of Mods will be updated with links and descriptions.

To help our members and visitors reach us more easily, we have also enabled two communication channels: SHS Discord server and GitHub Discussions.

We hope to see you there!

When SHS went offline for a long time, many of you wanted to reach Staff and Modders, continue discussions, or ask questions about SHS mods on other forums or Discord servers. We recognize the necessity to provide our community with an official, active, and stable platform to fulfill such needs. This is why SHS now has its own Discord server!

You can join through this invite link: discord.gg/pE2Njbdb2a

Check it out if you want to discuss IE games and modding, make friends and collaborate with other modders, stay up-to-date with SHS modding projects, or get support with installing SHS mods. We've prepared a few surprises to welcome our members and plan to continue actively building the community in the future. Discord has come a long way from a simple instant messaging platform and now offers many new features for communities; just give it a try and see for yourself if it's something you'd like to be part of.

Join us! We're looking forward to having discussions with you, as well as reading your comments and suggestions