CreateVisualEffect

[Diana]

With TeamBG down, does anyone know of a site where I  can see which spell produces what visual effect?

Thanks.

I've been studying some of the JonDemo's bcs files but I'm really interested in mist and gaseous effects.

[Ghreyfain]

CreateVisualEffect just plays a BAM file.  You can browse BAM files using NI, probably DLTCEP, or InfExp.  Just use their file-name, minus the .bam extension.

[Idobek]

It also plays VVC files, I believe.

[Diana]

Thanks all!  Just recently downloaded IE but didn't know that animations were contained in the bams.  This is going to be fun. 

[Exodus]

Does it?  I thought that a VVC was responsible for larger/looping animations and wasn't an animation in itself.

Seif

[Idobek]

The Gibberlings Three is hosting IESDP as a temporary measure: http://www.gibberlings3.net/iesdp/

272 CreateVisualEffect(S:Object*,P:Location*)
The Object parameter here should actually be ResRef since it references a VVC file with priority. If a VVC file is not found, it will search for a BAM file. If I were to rename this, I'd call it PlayAnimationPoint().

273 CreateVisualEffectObject(S:DialogFile*,O:Target*)
Again, a weird first parameter. DialogFile should actually be ResRef. If a VVC file is found, it will play that, and if not, it will try to play a BAM of the filename specified. The difference between this and CreateVisualEffect() is that this references an object.

[Ghreyfain]

A VVC is just a file to coordinate multiple BAMs and stuff.  Like for Fire Shield.  Allows the front half to overlap the player, and the back half to be overlapped by the player's avatar.

[Avenger_teambg]

If there is a vvc of the same name, it is the vvc which gets precedence. If there is no vvc, it looks for a bam and plays it in a default way. At least this is confirmed with the play 3d effect opcode, but i'm almost sure it is the same for scripting actions. IWD2 differs because its scripting action contains more parameters which normally were given via the vvc in bg2.