New Areas

[Bons]

It wouldn't hurt to try.

[DrattedTin]

It wouldn't hurt to try.

Color me stumped (sort of an off-mauve, I guess).

Replacing the .TIS with the original .TIS crashed the game right when the loading bar was completely full. Replacing the .TIS then resaving it with IETME yielded the same behaviour as before (and no, the shading didn't look that different).

(http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/2677/bug16xi.jpg) (http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/2623/bug25hc.jpg)


I should add that the first screenshot is what happens when I just stroll in (you can't see it, but the weird overlapping/blanky tiles flicker and twitch a lot) and the second is when I mouseover.


I suspect what's happening (after looking at the .TIS) is that the fireplace has several different "tiles" it automatically cycles through to create an illusion of animation, and for whatever reason BGII is handling them psychotically. Any ideas how to fix this?

[Bons]

Yes, that's weird. Looking at the area straight from Baldur's Gate, DLTCEP gives an error that there's a corrupted tile, and I see what you mean about the duplications. I'll look at it more once I return home to my game CDs, because I'm curious.

[Cuv]

It's a fireplace, and I suspected it has some old BG1 overlay (fire version of water) but I don't see any option to remove this in IETME?

Open the area in IETME... at the bottom of the editing tool panel, you will see a whole section for Overlays.   Use the dropdown menu to choose the overlay you want... then hit the delete overlay button      Re-save the ARE, and TIS... but say NO to the auxillary map save.   Done!

Cuv

[DrattedTin]

Definitely not an overlay then. There's no extra overlays listed in IETME.

[Bons]

I suspect what's happening (after looking at the .TIS) is that the fireplace has several different "tiles" it automatically cycles through to create an illusion of animation, and for whatever reason BGII is handling them psychotically. Any ideas how to fix this?

The original AR0719 has 232 tiles in the tileset. Tiles 221-232 are the extra ones relevant to the fireplace. When we try to resave the original area under a new name, we get the area crash. The reason is IETME is rebuilding the tileset, but with only the standard 220 tiles. The WED, however, retains the references to display tiles 221-232 where tile 91 and 108 would be. Like you guessed, this is how BG displays the burning fire, rather than a nice second overlay layer like we would expect. BG2 encounters this, can't find the tiles, and crashy crashy. When you reuse the AR0719 tileset, it has the extra tiles, but I haven't gotten this or other BG areas with fireplaces I've tried to work. Why this is happening, I can't figure out. Tutu manages to use copies of these areas in the BG2 engine and they don't have the distortion.

The only way I can tell to overcome it at the moment is to not reuse the WED. Export a bitmap of AR0719 with one of the area tools, then build the area from scratch using that bitmap, redefining wallgroups, etc. yourself. The downside is you have to give up the animated fireplace, though if you were willing to put in the time and suffering, the extra tiles could probably be extracted and built into a proper overlay.

[DrattedTin]

I suspect what's happening (after looking at the .TIS) is that the fireplace has several different "tiles" it automatically cycles through to create an illusion of animation, and for whatever reason BGII is handling them psychotically. Any ideas how to fix this?

The original AR0719 has 232 tiles in the tileset. Tiles 221-232 are the extra ones relevant to the fireplace. When we try to resave the original area under a new name, we get the area crash. The reason is IETME is rebuilding the tileset, but with only the standard 220 tiles. The WED, however, retains the references to display tiles 221-232 where tile 91 and 108 would be. Like you guessed, this is how BG displays the burning fire, rather than a nice second overlay layer like we would expect. BG2 encounters this, can't find the tiles, and crashy crashy. When you reuse the AR0719 tileset, it has the extra tiles, but I haven't gotten this or other BG areas with fireplaces I've tried to work. Why this is happening, I can't figure out. Tutu manages to use copies of these areas in the BG2 engine and they don't have the distortion.

The only way I can tell to overcome it at the moment is to not reuse the WED. Export a bitmap of AR0719 with one of the area tools, then build the area from scratch using that bitmap, redefining wallgroups, etc. yourself. The downside is you have to give up the animated fireplace, though if you were willing to put in the time and suffering, the extra tiles could probably be extracted and built into a proper overlay.

I just went with a different area, so it all worked out in the end.

It was nice to know it wasn't just me screwing up, though. ;)

Just as an addenum, does this apply to *all* BG1 areas with fireplaces, or just this one?

[Bons]

I didn't look at all of them, but the one I did check out, AR0143, had the same thing going on.