Near Infinity Guide/Tutorial ?

[Salk]

Does anybody know if there exists somewhere a complete guide to Near Infinity ? I find it extremely fascinating and useful even for people with no modding knowledge like myself but when I am there trying to make some creatures legal (I hate cheating both from the players' and the developers' side) I meet parameters and such that I really can't understand.

At the moment my problems are:

* I want to add new items to a creature but when I choose "Add" the Item is reported without a numerical value which NI refers to under when you must set it to either "Helmet", "Armor" etc. It appears as generic "Item" whereas the others that are already there are "Item 0", "Item 1" etc.

* What does it mean "Spell Table Index" ?

Thanks! 

[Andyr]

1. You add the number in the correct place, by inspection. Items are added without numbers so just assign it the next free one (counting from zero). If you save and reload the numberless file, you should find the correct number is added automatically.

2. I don't remember offhand (NI uses different nomenclature for some things to that I am used to).

There is also a limited amount of information at the tool's site. http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~joh/ni/index.html

[Salk]

Thanks, Andyr.

Didn't find much at that adress. I have been there first but documentation is pretty scarce...

Now I would like to know this. I am examining a creature that has an Unknown Animation (32257).

Have you any idea if it's possible in some way to see what animation that is ? Is there a way at all to display the animations ? 

[Andyr]

Not if it is unknown.

The converter from the numerical system to the one that actually tells you what the file names are is one of the .IDS files. I don't remember which, but it has a pretty obvious name.

EDIT: Or it could be one of the .2DAs. I forget.

[Salk]

There is a file called ANIMATE.IDS. I think you mean that one...

The Animations come with this format 0xnnnn with "n" being a numerical value from 0 to 8...

But Andyr, if the animation is unknown, how does it reflect in the game ? The .CRE must have an animation, right ? 

[Ghreyfain]

The number 32257 is 0x7E01 in hex, so if it had an entry in animate.ids, you'd find it as 0x7E01 BIG_BAD_MONSTARRR.  Checking my IDS file, this appears to be: 0x7E01 WEREWOLF_GREATER.

So either your .ids file is missing, incomplete, or possibly other things.

[Andyr]

There is a file called ANIMATE.IDS. I think you mean that one...

The Animations come with this format 0xnnnn with "n" being a numerical value from 0 to 8...

But Andyr, if the animation is unknown, how does it reflect in the game ? The .CRE must have an animation, right ? 

If it is unknown then that suggests there's no animation, or something. Is it a .CRE from a mod? Your .IDS file might not be up to date with mod changes, or something.

[Salk]

Hello Andyr and thanks again for your replies.

No, the .CRE is not from a Mod. I am looking through TotSC patched with official patch, Baldurdash and Dudleyville's. The .CRE I am speaking about is LOUPGAR.CRE and it's the Werewolf in Ulgoth's Beard that attacks you when you bring news of his wife being dead back from the Island of Balduran. It seems that all the Werewolves come with Unknown Animation ID. I wonder why...

Before turning into a Werewolf (I am just trying to remember here...) his name was Mendas and it's the one you get the mission from to go to the Island of Balduran as a matter of fact. 

P.S. By the way, is there a way to see with NI what creatures are using a specific object ? How can I track it ? 

[Andyr]

Hello Andyr and thanks again for your replies.

No, the .CRE is not from a Mod. I am looking through TotSC patched with official patch, Baldurdash and Dudleyville's. The .CRE I am speaking about is LOUPGAR.CRE and it's the Werewolf in Ulgoth's Beard that attacks you when you bring news of his wife being dead back from the Island of Balduran. It seems that all the Werewolves come with Unknown Animation ID. I wonder why...

Before turning into a Werewolf (I am just trying to remember here...) his name was Mendas and it's the one you get the mission from to go to the Island of Balduran as a matter of fact. 

I had a look too; odd. Oh well, it works ingame...

By the way, is there a way to see with NI what creatures are using a specific object ? How can I track it ? 

Depends what you mean by 'object'. You could try 'Find References' when viewing said object.

[Salk]

Yes! Find References works perfectly well! Thank you very much Andyr and sorry to bug you with stupid questions... 

I am curious to see if your game also comes with Unknown Animations for Werevolves... 

By the way, since I am at it I bother you with two more things, my patient friend

1: The file STRMOD.2DA seems to be the one that cares about giving bonus/malus according to the Strenght Value. It does strike me as odd that it's not reported the percentage scale (0-100) which should determine several steps in the +HIT +DAMAGE column. Does the program takes such values from somewhere else ? If not, does it mean that no matter if my character has 18/05 or 18/99 (example) because they would still get the same bonus given for a plain Strenght of 18 ?

2: The racial and ability bonus (coming from STR, INT, DEX, WIS, CON and CHA) are automatically added by the game to both .CHR and .CRE files ? It must be so at least for the first because I created a Halfling Thief with DEX 19. When I checked its file with NI, it reported only the 30 initial thieving points I distributed (however, PnP says they should be 60 at first level...). But does it work for the .CRE files too or do they need to be manually adjusted ? A better and more direct example comes with HP. I create a Fighter with 18 Con...My .CHR file shows HP 10 meaning that it's obviously the game that gives the 4 extra bonus points. But a .CRE file would show 10 HP or 14 HP at the same condition ?

I hope I am not being too much a pain in the ass for you with all these questions. I know you're busy but I am trying to learn something to become a little more useful to the community...

[Ghreyfain]

In TotSC, there is no entry for greater werewolves in ANIMATE.IDS.  That is not to say that the animation is "unknown".  It's just not known by NearInfinity, because NearInfinity draws on the IDS files to tell you what the value of 0x7E01 means.

An example is the script action SpellRES().  Now, you could write a .baf file with SpellRES("SPWI101",Myself), and if the line "31 SpellRES(S:RES*,O:Target*)" doesn't appear in the IDS, then compiler programs such as NearInfinity, DLTCEP, or WeiDU won't be able to compile it.  A script that had already been compiled on a computer that had 31 SpellRES(S:RES*,O:Target*) in action.ids, however, would still work in BG2 without that entry in the .ids.  Likewise, the Loup Garou was created by BioWare, who presumably had an editing program that knew what 0x7E01 meant.  That means it doesn't matter whether the editor you're using knows what's what or not, but that the engine knows that it must play X.bam when 0x7e01 is called.

[Salk]

Now that's clear, Ghrey! Thank you very much for your answer! 

[Echon]

1: STRMODEX.2DA

2: The effects of ability scores are automatically applied to CREs, so if you give a CON 18 1st-level fighter 10 HPs, he will have 14 in all. Racial bonuses and penalties to ability scores are only applied to PCs by the engine so you will need to edit those on CREs yourself. The same goes for saving throw bonuses, thieving skills and so on.

-Echon

[Salk]

Thank you very much, Echon! 

[Borsook]

Sorta BTW did anyone try to talk Bioware into making their Herculean Infinity editor public after all these years?

[Kulyok]

Sorta BTW did anyone try to talk Bioware into making their Herculean Infinity editor public after all these years?

Publishing rights do not belong to Bioware, they belong to Interplay.

[Lu]

Racial bonuses and penalties to ability scores are only applied to PCs by the engine so you will need to edit those on CREs yourself. The same goes for saving throw bonuses, thieving skills and so on

    I am afraid that it's not always so. Some values are exactly what it says in the .CRE file, others aren't
   To verify it, I've just tried a thief .CRE file with thieving skills all 0's. The game set all numbers to RACE+DEX bonuses. So the safest is to check every .CRE file in game on creation, IMO

[Borsook]

Sorta BTW did anyone try to talk Bioware into making their Herculean Infinity editor public after all these years?

Publishing rights do not belong to Bioware, they belong to Interplay.

are you sure this includes tools written by the developer?

[Kulyok]

It's like this:
Baldur's Gate series rights belong to Interplay;
Infinity Engine belongs to Bioware.

[Borsook]

It's like this:
Baldur's Gate series rights belong to Interplay;
Infinity Engine belongs to Bioware.

So it might seem that the tool used to create IE game would belong to BIOWARE? Anyway I think it'd be immensly interesting could we have a look at it...

[Salk_]

Racial bonuses and penalties to ability scores are only applied to PCs by the engine so you will need to edit those on CREs yourself. The same goes for saving throw bonuses, thieving skills and so on

    I am afraid that it's not always so. Some values are exactly what it says in the .CRE file, others aren't
   To verify it, I've just tried a thief .CRE file with thieving skills all 0's. The game set all numbers to RACE+DEX bonuses. So the safest is to check every .CRE file in game on creation, IMO

I actually meant to introduce no newly created creatures but to make the existing ones legal...If its like you say, everything becomes more difficult although I find strange that the game's behaviour changes from .CRE to .CRE without any logic.

[Lu]

[...] the game's behaviour changes from .CRE to .CRE  [...]

   I don't think I understand what it means
   Anyway, what I said is very easy to check. Wouldn't hurt, sure enough

[Salk]

LU,

sorry if I might have misunderstood what you said. Is it right to assume you suggested that some .CREs have values set like Echon suggested and some others have not ?

If so, what logic is there in this ? This is what I was wondering...

But it can be you meant something completely different.

Please come with some suggestion for me to verify your theory. Keep in mind I am no modder and I have very limited knowledge of NI only. How can I do to check things out ? Thanks! 

[Lu]

@Salk
   Of course the engine handles all .CRE files alike. But some values in a .CRE file are modified in game, others aren't
   Consider a creature of PC-available race/class e.g. Such values as HP, thac0, AC, attacks per round, thieving skills, etc should be set to base in .CRE file, to have them represented in game correctly. Others, like weapon skills e.g., won't be modified in game
   That's the general idea, let me know if you need more info/help

[Lu]

   Here's an example. If you have a level 1 fighter with 18 CON, setting HP to 10 in .CRE file will result in 14 HP in game (the game will add 4 hp/level bonus automatically). On the other hand, a ranger with 0 in dual-wielding won't have default ranger's 2 points in dual-wielding in game, so you have to set it manually in the .CRE file

How can I do to check things out ?

   Basically, checking in game every .CRE file on creation isn't a bad idea, at least until you find out how every value in the .CRE file is handled