My NPC Mod needs help

[Saber]

Alright, I've made an NPC mod. But, when I stick him in the game, he doesn't have a name, doesn't talk, and his avatar/items are messed up. I checked out my .cre, its fine, and I've gone over my dialogues with tons of other people. Does anybody know what could be wrong? Here is my .tp2:

BACKUP ~TNO\backup~
AUTHOR ~Saber (JohnnyDamon18@comcast.net)~
BEGIN ~TNO for BG2:SoA~
COPY ~TNO\TNO3.cre~ ~override\TNO3.cre~
SAY NAME1 ~TNO~
SAY NAME2 ~TNO~
WRITE_ASCII 0x2cc ~S-TNO~
SAY BIO ~When you ask him about his past, TNO snarles and turns away.~
SAY MORALE ~Sticking around is only going to get us killed.~
SAY HAPPY ~This is how its supposed to be.~
SAY UNHAPPY_ANNOYED ~You're making mistakes... morally.~
SAY UNHAPPY_SERIOUS ~Stop, if you know whats's good for you.~
SAY UNHAPPY_BREAKING ~You have corrupted the balance. I am leaving.~
SAY LEADER ~Hahaa! Now we do things my way!~
SAY TIRED ~We must stop, I can take it no longer.~
SAY BORED ~Sitting around here accomplishes what, Oh Mighty Leader?~
SAY BATTLE_CRY1 ~Lets see what your insides look like!~
SAY BATTLE_CRY2 ~For Balance!~
SAY BATTLE_CRY3 ~You lose!~
SAY BATTLE_CRY4 ~I'll bleed you!~
SAY DAMAGE ~That was painful!~
SAY DYING ~ARGH!~
SAY HURT ~Help me!~
SAY AREA_FOREST ~There is nothing to steal here...~
SAY AREA_CITY ~Such promise, such potential... lets get pick-pocketing!~
SAY AREA_DUNGEON ~This place smells of evil and decay... rat crap too.~
SAY AREA_DAY ~Its too bright - the guards might see us.~
SAY AREA_NIGHT ~Darkness is better.~
SAY SELECT_COMMON1 ~What?~
SAY SELECT_COMMON2 ~*Grunt*~
SAY SELECT_COMMON3 ~What now?~
SAY SELECT_COMMON4 ~What do you want now?~
SAY SELECT_COMMON5 ~Why do you insist on bothering me?~
SAY SELECT_COMMON6 ~Yet another task?~
SAY SELECT_ACTION1 ~Alright.~
SAY SELECT_ACTION2 ~I guess so.~
SAY SELECT_ACTION3 ~I'm only doing this because I want to.~
SAY SELECT_ACTION4 ~Whoop-de-do.~
SAY SELECT_ACTION5 ~*Yawns* Fine.~
SAY SELECT_ACTION6 ~If I must...~
SAY SELECT_ACTION7 ~Right.~
SAY SELECT_RARE1 ~Tell me what, and I'll see if I want to.~
SAY SELECT_RARE2 ~Why do you feel the need to command me?~
SAY CRITICAL_HIT ~Now that's what I'm talking about!~
SAY CRITICAL_MISS ~Damnit to the Nine Hells!~
SAY TARGET_IMMUNE ~What the hell?~
SAY INVENTORY_FULL ~I can't carry anymore, take it yourself.~

COMPILE ~TNO\S-TNO.d~
COMPILE ~TNO\S-BTNO.d~
EXTEND_TOP ~AR0406.bcs~ ~TNO\AR0406.baf~

APPEND ~pdialog.2da~
~S-TNO S-TNOP S-TNOJ S-TNOD S-TNO25P S-TNO25J S-TNO25D S-TNO25~
UNLESS ~S-TNO~

APPEND ~interdia.2da~
~S-TNO S-BTNO S-BTNO25~
UNLESS ~S-TNO~


Thanks. If you need my dialogues/banter files, then I'd be happy to supply them

The links for other places I've tried:
http://chosenofmystra.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2550&start=30

[icelus]

Are you running the WeiDU install while the game, NI, DLTCEP, ShadowKeeper, or Infinity Explorer are running?

[Saber]

Nope. But, I think I got it working.. jastey mentioned the area script, and as it turns out, I think I had that wrong. He worked when I CluaConsoled him in. My area script is this:

IF
Global("TNOExists","AR0406",0)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
SetGlobal("TNOExists","AR0406",1)
CreateCreature("TNO",[1483.1934],3)
END


But, my .cre is TNO3.cre. So, should the script be:

IF
Global("TNO3Exists","AR0406",0)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
SetGlobal("TNO3Exists","AR0406",1)
CreateCreature("TNO3",[1483.1934],3)
END

Instead?

[jastey]

Yes.

[Saber]

Huzzah! Thank you so much for your help over the last week, jastey. I owe you big time

Now, on to the other questions to make this mod go the tad bit further:

Items: How do I get custom items onto him? Do I need to remake the .cre?
My items won't load is the problem, so I can't even install them and CluaConsole them in...

Dialogue: To talk with the PC, what is the PC's banter file? Or does it not work that way? No romance yet, just the ability to talk with the PC.


Also: Is IsValidForPartyDialog("S-TNO") the same as saying: IF ~InParty("S-TNO") InMyArea("S-TNO")~ ?

[Duality]

You don't need to remake the .cre to put custom items on him. Just open the .cre file in NI and at the bottom, right above the long list of item positions, you can add an item. Once the item is added, make sure to update the appropriate position with the item number. (i.e. if its the only item he has, and it's a sword, change the weapon1 field to a 0. If it's the second item, change it to a 1, etc)
Does your item have on hit effects? They can often cause problems, changing .bam files can also sometimes cause problems. It's hard to tell without seeing the item.

The pc's banters go in the NPC's dialog file.
IF ~Whatever~ THEN BEGIN Greetings
SAY ~Hi there PC~
IF ~~ REPLY ~Hi there NPC~ GOTO Join
IF ~~ REPLY ~Go away~ GOTO Bye

This would create a dialog where the NPC says Hi there PC and you have two options of responding, Hi there NPC, or Go away!
Thus, you don't need a PC banter file, the NPC's contains all the relevant information.

Hope that makes sense.

[Saber]

But is there a way to make them like banter? I.E, so when it is time for a banter, the correct saying will come up? Using:

IF ~NumTimesTalkedToGT(1)~ //or something like that

Wouldn't the PC have to initiate dialogue? I want it to be so that my NPC will randomly say something to the PC that the PC can respond to, just as if I had a banter will another NPC. Is it possible to control that?

[Kismet]

No, in Duality's example the PC wouldn't have to initiate dialog.  The condition would be something like IF ~"NPCBanter1","GLOBAL",0~  Then in the dialog you would set the global to 1 so the banter wouldn't repeat.  If you wanted the banter to happen after a certain amount of time then you'd have to put in more conditions or trigger it via the NPC's script.  If you just want it to happen like a regular banter then just putting whatever conditions you want in the banter will work.

[Saber]

So if I had
IF ~("TNOBanter1","GLOBALS",0) THEN BEGIN Banter1
SAY ~Blah, Blah, Blah.~
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~Yes.~ Goto Ok
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~No.~ Goto Away
END

IF ~~ THEN BEGIN Ok
...


Then, that would start exactly like a banter between two NPCs?
Just as if I had typed in
CHAIN
IF ~InParty("Jan"
See("Jan"
!STATECHECK("Jan",STATE-SLEEPING)
!Dead("Jan")
Global("Banter1","LOCALS",0)~ THEN BEGIN Banter1
~Blah,Blah,Blah~
Do ~SetGlobal("Banter1","LOCALS",1)~
== BJAN
~Yada yada yada~

and so on...


And, if I make a romance between the PC and the NPC, will I be able to control which dialogue goes where? The romance tutorials are confusing, and don't make much sense.

[Duality]

You can always control which dialog goes where.

IF ~("TNOBanter1","GLOBALS",0) THEN BEGIN Banter1
SAY ~Blah, Blah, Blah.~
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~Yes.~ Goto Ok
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~No.~ Goto Away
END

The two REPLY's are the options the PC can choose. And in each case they go to another dialog set. The BEGIN Banter1 is an identifier, the next block might be:
IF ~~ THEN BEGIN Ok
SAY ~Blah, Blah, Blah.~
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~Yes.~ Goto NotAgain
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~No.~ Goto Away
END

In this case, choosing Yes would lead you to the Ok block. Choosing No would lead you to another block. (the Away block)
If you chose Yes in the first block, then No in the second block, it would take you to the same place as if you chose No in the first block. (Handy if multiple paths in a conversation end in the same way)

For triggering the dialog, the intial IF statement can contain anything. Timers, globals, !Dead, whatever conditions you want to put in there.

The easiest thing to do is generally look at another mod that has extensive dialog.
This is from the Tashia mod. It's a banter between Tashia and Valygar in which the player has no say. (I shortened it so it was easy to read)

CHAIN ~VALYGARJ~ valygar1
  ~It's nothing personal, Tashia. Magic corrupts. I would not wish to be stepping on your toes when it happens.~
  == ~BTASHIA~  ~Magic corrupts?~
  == ~VALYGARJ~ ~Your inner magical power is exactly what troubles me, Tashia.
  == ~BTASHIA~  ~Ah... Well, perhaps time will prove your worries in err.~
END ~VALYGARJ~ valygar2

The == indicates that the PC has no possible responses, and the game is just waiting for an enter key to move on to the next dialog.
The ~BTASHIA~ indicates the speaker.

[Kismet]

Pretty much, yes.  Although it's GLOBAL and not GLOBALS and you'd also want to set the variable to 1 in the dialog.

Romance dialogs are banters scripted to go off sequentially after a set amount of time.  If you're going to have a romance and banters then the romance dialogs need to go at the top of the banter file.  The easiest way to see how they work is to look at a modded NPC's banter and script file.  Look at the files in the NPC's directory rather than decompiling them as that will show you how the coding looks rather than how the files end up looking once installed.

[Saber]

I have looked at various mods: Kelsey (they said it wasn't good to learn from), Tashia, Kiara/Ziaya, etc, and instead of dialogue, they just  have numbers, @ signs, and /* something or other */.... I've asked, but nobody would explain. What do all of those things mean?

And is there a good Romance guide out there, to help me in scripting? It would be slightly inconvient for all of us if I asked you to explain it to me fully.

When would I set the variable to 1? After the entire dialogue, or here:

IF ~("TNOBanter1","GLOBALS",0) THEN BEGIN Banter1
SAY ~Blah, Blah, Blah.~
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~Yes.~ Goto Ok
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~No.~ Goto Away
IF ~~ THEN DO ~SetGlobal("TNOBanter1","GLOBAL",1) // When do I use LOCALS?
END

[Duality]

The numbers are references to strings. You put all of the strings in a .tra file;
@1 = ~Hi there~
@2 = ~Bye~
etc.
Then you reference the string by numbers (so in you dialog it would be SAY @1 or whatever), and in your .tp2 file, you have to tell weidu where the strings themselves are.

COMPILE ~mymod/scripts/~
USING ~mymod/english/mymod.tra~

Weidu would then compile all the scripts in the scripts folder, referencing mymod.tra whenever it hits a @#

For setting globals, say you want the second conversation choice to make the NPC hostile,

IF ~~ THEN BEGIN Fight
SAY ~Do you challenge me?~
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~No~ GOTO angry
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~Die!~ ~DO SetGlobal("myNPCHostile", "GLOBAL", 1)~ EXIT

The NPC asks if the PC challenges him, if yes, the variable is set to make him hostile (the check would be in his script), if no, continue the conversation.
The exit exits the dialog, you can replace it with whatever you want (such as another goto)

The actual check in the NPC's script (I don't know if you care but...) woud look something like this.
If
Global("myNPCHostile", "GLOBAL", 1)
then
response #100
ChangeEnemyAlly("npcName", Enemy)
SetGlobal("myNPCHostile", "GLOBAL", 2)
End

Setting the variable to two in the block makes sure that it doesn't continue repeating that action, after all, you only need to make him hostile once.

As for a good tutorial, I don't really know, I learned most of what I know from looking at decompiled scripts and asking lots of questions that no one can answer.

Locals are used when you have a variable that ONLY applies to ONE script, and never has to be referenced by ANYTHING outside of that script. An example would be, in most enemy spell casting scripts, there is a timer set to six seconds (one round) every time a spell is cast, so as not to try and cast two spells in one round. Because the timer is only accessed by the one script, and it is likely that there will be multiple copies of the same timer being used (say you have two casters, they can both use the same local variable, but using the same global would cause mass confusion).

Well, now that this has turned into a novel, I'll shut up.

[Kismet]

I have looked at various mods: Kelsey (they said it wasn't good to learn from), Tashia, Kiara/Ziaya, etc, and instead of dialogue, they just  have numbers, @ signs, and /* something or other */.... I've asked, but nobody would explain. What do all of those things mean?

And is there a good Romance guide out there, to help me in scripting? It would be slightly inconvient for all of us if I asked you to explain it to me fully.

When would I set the variable to 1? After the entire dialogue, or here:

IF ~("TNOBanter1","GLOBALS",0) THEN BEGIN Banter1
SAY ~Blah, Blah, Blah.~
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~Yes.~ Goto Ok
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~No.~ Goto Away
IF ~~ THEN DO ~SetGlobal("TNOBanter1","GLOBAL",1) // When do I use LOCALS?
END

KelseyTOB is well coded so you could take a look at him.

In the above example I would do:
IF ~("TNOBanter1","GLOBAL",0) THEN BEGIN Banter1
SAY ~Blah, Blah, Blah.~
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~Yes.~ DO ~Setglobal("TNOBanter1","GLOBAL",1)~ Goto Ok
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~No.~ DO ~Setglobal("TNOBanter1","GLOBAL",1)~ Goto Away
END

This way, whichever reply in the first block ets selected the variable gets set to 1.  Definitely look at mods NPC scripts to see how lovetalks are fired. 

[jastey]

Sorry I didn't read all of the reply posts above so maybe I give you double information: The only romance tutorial I know is Rastor's: http://www.rpgdungeon.net/cms/content/view/87/79/

LOCALS variables are only valid for a specific NPC (can't be used for other NPCs or area scripts)
GLOBAL variables are valid well, globally, i.e. every NPC/area etc. script can be triggered by them.

[Saber]

For the timer, is it in minutes, hours (game), seconds, or what? And it is realtime?

And what does

RESPONSE #100

mean?


Thanks so far... I can't do anything until the weekend, as I am at my mom's house until the weekend, and all my stuff is at my dad's. So, I won't be responding with problems until then 

[Duality]

The timer is in seconds, game time. RealGlobalTimer is for real-time, it is also in seconds.

Response #100 is what you use after the THEN in an IF block, it dictates what the odds are of the action executing. (so Response #1 would only execute the action 1% of the time, I think). You can have as many Response ##'s in a block as you want. (although, I read somewhere that if two #100's are listed, the game favors the first)
Note that this is only for ingame scripts, and NOT dialog scripts.

[Saber]

So what is a good time between banters? 30 minutes RealTime, or 10 hours game time, or...? I know it is whatever I prefer, but what would a suggested time be for a few banters (5 or 6 so far... I am working on a lot more, but they are a little more difficult to script)?

[Kismet]

Unless there's some reason you need the banters in a certain order every so often, I would just leave it up to the banter engine to call them at random.

[Saber]

Well, some banters sort of require knowledge of previous banters... I guess I could make all of the important ones in the dialogue file, as romances, which I can make in order, right? Or, if they aren't in the banter file, but in the normal file, they will be done in order, right? Grrr, why couldn't the engine do them in order of the script!?

[jastey]

The engine does that, just give the talks variables that have to trigger "true" to set the order in which they appear. No problem there: For a talk sequence just increment the same variable, for example (as it is done in the romances with "LoveTalk" variable)

[Saber]

  I still don't know how to do that though... people have mentioned it before, but no one has actually showed me where to type it in, and what to type. Could anyone do that, please? It would be a magnificent help to me. 

[Rabain]

As part of the IF block of your banter include a GLOBAL check:

IF ~("TNOBanter","GLOBAL",0)~ THEN BEGIN Banter1
SAY ~Blah, Blah, Blah.~
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~Yes.~ DO ~Setglobal("TNOBanter","GLOBAL",1)~ Goto Ok
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~No.~ DO ~Setglobal("TNOBanter","GLOBAL",1)~ Goto Away
END

To have the second banter happen after this just include the GLOBAL that was set as part of the end of the first banter:

IF ~("TNOBanter","GLOBAL",1)~ THEN BEGIN Banter2
SAY ~Blah, Blah, Blah.~
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~Yes.~ DO ~Setglobal("TNOBanter","GLOBAL",2)~ Goto Ok
IF ~~ THEN REPLY ~No.~ DO ~Setglobal("TNOBanter","GLOBAL",2)~ Goto Away
END

And so on, incrementing the same GLOBAL by 1 for each banter.

[Saber]

So, if I'm ordering my Banters, can I leave some un-ordered? As in, there are only a few that need to be in order, others can be random. If I leave them how they are, the engine will pick them up randomly, correct?

And thanks

Two more things:

1. Should I use a .tra file, or just keep my dialogues inside the actually .d files?

2. Where do I stick a timer in a romance file? Just in the IF section? And it would be:

Global("TNORomance","GLOBAL",28800)

If I wanted it to be 28800 seconds (8 hours, so once every rest period...), in game time, right? Or would it be:

RealGlobalTimer("TNORomance","GLOBAL",1800)

If I wanted it to occur every 30 minutes Realtime?

Is there a way to reset the timer, or would I just put (at the end of each dialogue):

IF ~~ THEN DO ~SetRealGlobalTimer("TNORomance","GLOBAL",1800)~

?




EDIT: When trying to add items to the .cre, the "View/Edit" can't be clicked on... is there another way to do it?

[AnnabelleRose]

The only reason you would need a .tra file would be for future translations.

So I'd say if you have the modding "know-how", you should do it that way.

I'll leave the other questions to the experts.

All in all, I am impressed with how much you have done considering this is your first mod.