I think Vlad is saying (if not, then I'm saying) what about if a WeiDU-based mod called "Play Dominos With Jaheira" and a TBG/IAP based mod called "Play Dominos With Jaheira, (the way she plays dominos are different, but the triggers are the same) something has to give. Both cannot take place at the same time its either one or the other.
Okay, but before installing "Play Dominos with Jaheira", you had installed the "Jaheira spouts poetry" mod.
"Dominos" and "Poetry" mods both edit Jaheira.dlg, so a plain SoA install would look like this:
Jaheira.dlg has 5 states.
Dialog.tlk has 5 strings (small game
)
By installing "Poetry" mod, it changes it to this. It can be any of the three install types.
Jaheira.dlg has 5 states, +1 state from mod. Dialog.tlk has 6 strings.
Now let's install the IAP version of "Dominos" mod.
Jaheira.dlg has the same states as the developer's version. 5 states +1 state. Dialog.tlk now has 7 strings (base, Poetry, and Dominos)
So now you can't play the Poetry mod, because jaheira.dlg only has the base + Domino states.
But if we installed the WeiDU version of "Dominos", it'd look like this.
Jaheira.dlg, 5 states (base), +1 (peotry), +1 (dominos), for a total of 7.
Dialog.tlk would have 5, +1, +1.
So now the player can play either the poetry or dominos mod. This is what we mean by "APPEND", which is the command you'd use your WeiDU .d file to add to an existing .dlg.
If the triggers are exactly the same then she can't play both versions of Dominos. I suppose this depends on one modder knowing what another is doing and its not something easily solvable and not the fault of the tool or author. Let me know if someone has found a solution.
No, you wouldn't want to play two versions of the same mod, i.e. Ascension in it's original form (entire dialog.tlk) AND it's WeiDU form (appends to scripts, .dlg's, and dialog.tlk).
1) New text screens .2da files. How do I append to my new .2da text screen files with the new strings.
This is where looking at another .tp2 would be useful, but I agree that it's hard searching through everything yourself.
I can't remember where I saw it, but I have done it successfully.
COPY ~KelseyToB\Epilogues\FWKelsZZ.2da~ ~override\FWKels03.2da~
REPLACE ~99999~ ~The text for epilogue #3 goes here.~
COPY ~KelseyToB\Epilogues\FWKelsZZ.2da~ ~override\FWKels04.2da~
REPLACE ~99999~ ~Epilogue #4 goes here~
COPY ~KelseyToB\Epilogues\FWKelsZZ.2da~ ~override\FWKels05.2da~
REPLACE ~99999~ ~Epilogue #5 goes here~
As you can see I'm using the same source file to make multiple files in the override. The source file looks like this:
2DA V1.0
*J#KlsyL
0 1
SWITCH DEFAULT DEFAULT
DEFAULT 71020 99999
DWARF 0 0
ELF 0 0
HALFELF 0 0
etc.
So you can see that I am replacing 99999 with whatever text I want, which is added to the dialog.tlk by WeiDU, and the .2da is modified accordingly. If the new strref for my epilogue is 87654, then the .2da would have 87654 instead of 99999.
2) How to append to an existing .bcs file?
You would write a little .bcs of your custom additions, AddVicky.bcs for instance, and in the .tp2 you'd have the command:
EXTEND_BOTTOM (or TOP) ~viconi25.bcs~ ~Kelsey\Scripts\AddVicky.bcs~
This would look through the .bif's and override for viconi25.bcs, and add your custom stuff to the bottom (or top).
3) If I create a .bcs file and some new strings in Near Infinity how will WeiDU know which new string to display when using DisplayStringHead etc?
In the .bcs itself you'd have the command...
DisplayStringHead(Myself,999999)
And in the .tp2 you'd do...
COPY ~Kelsey\Scripts\script.bcs~ ~override\Script.bcs~
REPLACE ~999999~ ~This is the text I want for DisplayStringHead()~
4) new journal entry strings?
Not sure about this, as I haven't done it. I believe japheth has, however, so maybe he'll answer if he gets time.
5) Strings for map notes.
Again, haven't done this, and I think .are editing is one of the few places where WeiDU is very hard to edit with. One method springs to mind, however. Not too sure how well it'd work.
COPY ~Kelsey\Areas\MyArea.are~ ~override\MyArea.are~
REPLACE ~123456~ ~This is a map note.~ (Where 123456 is the string you entered for the map note)
If it's an entirely original area, then IAP/TBG is probably the best solution. I think it does .are's properly. If you're modifying an existing area then things get tricky if you don't want to overwrite other people's work.
I spent hours trying to convert some of my existing mods but gave up when I hit these sort of problems. I think they are most likely possible but is buried somewhere and the current GUI by Raistlin (?) doesn't give access to these sort of functions. A WeiDU type mass converter would be useful too but I maybe stretching it.
Do you mean like de-compiling a lot of .dlg's to .d format? I think you can do that by putting all .dlg's in a given folder, and typing something in. Personally, I rarely use the command line, just .tp2's.
There's a base .tp2 in the WeiDU package called mymod.tp2. All you need is this, pretty much:
BACKUP ~mymod/backup~ // the folder things will be backed up to
AUTHOR ~weimer@cs.berkeley.edu~ // when an error message happens, WeiDU says "Send error reports to this e-mail address"
BEGIN ~Component 1 of your mod~
(Insert installation commands here)
BEGIN ~Optional Component 2~
(more commands)
To find out which commands you actually need, read the readme.txt for WeiDU (in the .tp2 section), and if you have any questions, ask 'em.
[!--EDIT|Ghreyfain|Jul 29 2002, 05:34 PM--]