I've been looking through this site for mods and the like for a while now, and have decided I would like to make my own, a custom character with a custom kit. I downloaded a tutorial for making a custom NPC (written by ghreyfain@yahoo.ca) and got a kit editing tool, NearInfinity, and InfinityExplorer. I've run across some problems, though, and would love a little help.

First off, the tutorial says to use NearInfinity to turn my NPC's .CHR file into a .CRE file. I understand that just fine, but I look through my NearInfinity folder and can't find any way to start it. There are no .exe's or anything like that of any kind. Did I get a poor download or am I missing something? Another site said I needed a perticular compiler, but their link to the compiler was dead and I can't find it anywhere else.

Secondly, the tutorial said to make the dialog in a .txt file and then change the extention to .d. Problem is, I'm using Win98 and it doesn't let me change extentions, not that I can figure out at least. Is there some other way to do this?

Third, I find the tutorial rather vague on anything more than making the actual joinable NPC. It doesn't describe in the least how to make quests, banter dialogs, romance dialogs, or flirt options (probably because that isn't a natural option in BG). I don't mean to criticize the author, as I don't think it was intended to cover these things, but if anyone could give me some pointers, or point me to some more tutorials, I would be most grateful.

Lastly, I tried to make my custom kit, but it didn't seem to save anything I did. I didn't get any errors, nor did it give me any kind of warnings that there were any problems, but the kit doesn't show up in the game, it doesn't show up when I try to re-load it in the editor, and I can't find any files associated with it anywhere on my PC. I currently have all my kit slots taken up, but the (very poor) tutorial that came with the editor said the kit would be saved in a seperate folder somewhere and that I should check the files to make sure there weren't any problems. Is this a problem with the editor or do I need an empty slot to actually make a custom kit? Can anyone suggest a better way to make a custom kit? Maybe a different tool?

Please realize that my computer programing and modding experience is basically highschool computer programing (Basic and C++) and computer science (C++). I don't know what all the different file types do, nor what various variables and commands do. I have no experience with hex-editing. I aced both those computer classes and computer stuff generally comes quickly to me, but from there I went into engineering, so I don't actually know much. Basically, what I'm trying to say is to keep any advice you give simplistic and explain how to achieve everything or point me to something that tells me how.

Thanks in advance for any advice I get.

NI is a java app. so you will need java runtime environment try that link

also there is a new beta version of NI that is suported NearInfinity-1.33b19-1 Released!

that is all the help I can offer others may be around for more help

As Sir Kill has mentionned, you need Java to run Near Infinity. Onec java is installed, double-clicking the .jar file should be enough to launch the program.

By default, Windows Explorer does not allow file extensions to be changed (because it doesn't show them).
To get Windows Explorer to show the full filename (including the extension), check here: http://www.granneman.com/techinfo/windows/showextensions/
Alternatively, you could drop to a DOS prompt and do the renaming from there


Making 'quests' is a common request, and while it's relatively simple, it's quite hard to explain. You generally need a dialog option where you start the question and set a variable, so you know the quest is underway. Then it gets slightly more complex, as all quests are different (killing a certain number of creatures, finding an item, exploring an area, etc...), however, generally you need to increment the value of the variable created earlier, to mark the quest as complete. Finally, you need generally need more dialog, to see if the quest is complete. Thats probably not entirely helpful to you though...
I'll see if I can get time to write a tutorial about it some time.

I'm pretty sure there is a banter tutorial around somewhere, and a romance one too. I'll see if I can find them, and post links, if no-one else beats me to it. If not, I'll write some more tutorials.

For the kit, I'll point you to http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?showtopic=584 - you're unlikely to find a better guide to kit making.
I'd also point out that TeamBG is soon to release a working, up-to-date, graphical kit creation program, which should also help solve your problems (but you should still read the tutorial anyway!).


Generally, I'd highly suggest reading the IESDP (http://www.iesdp.info), and trying to get a gist to how the game as a whole works, rather than just 'making an NPC', then 'making a quest' etc. It will help to know how things fit together.

Thanks. I got Java and can 'run' NearInfinity now, but whenever I do it says the 'main class' is missing. Is this something that should have come with NearInfinity or was NearInfinity designed to piggy-back off of the Infinity Engine. I put NearInfinity in the main BGII-SOA folder and tried it, but I got the same problem. I'll look through those tutorials and the other link you've given me as time becomes available.

the command line is
java -jar <jarfile>

But if you got and installed a Windows version of J2SE, then you should have had installed the windows class hooks for a jar file to call
javaw -jar "%1"

If not, just set up windows explorer to do exactly that and you should be fine.

Now, really, NI is good for prototyping, but if you do make thing in NI, then you really should also set up a WeiDU installer for your bits and peices; not doing so will mean that your changes might be lost as soon as you upgrade any of the other mods you installed.

It also makes it portable, savable as an independant unit, and re-installable in case a reinstall is needed.

Well, I just took a preliminary spin through igi's links and that solved a lot of my problems. I've got my .tp2 file mostly ready, and I think I understand how to do the rest of what I need to do for it. I got my .txt file turned into a .d file, too. I haven't gone looking for quest, banter, or romance tutorials just yet, I'm still trying to get all the details for my custom kit worked out. I'm just planning on using NI to convert an NPC's .CHR file into a .CRE file, but now I'm wondering if it wouldn't be easier to make my .CRE file in SK(hijack and copy an existing one, that's how I got more .CHR files to export to in BG1). The problem I'm running into here is with Spell Workshop. I make my spells, I write my descriptions, I do all this stuff with the effects, and I save it. I re-load it to edit a few things I forgot and all my effects have disappeared. The header is there, as is the target, range, casting time, etc, but all my effects (the focus of these abilities) are gone. What's happening here, anyone have any clue? I thought it might be because I'm trying to put them all in one header, since they're all effecting one group, but some of my abilities only have two effects and they're gone, too.

WizWom, could you maybe repeat that in english? I got J2SE v1.4.2_12 RTE, but I did it with the offline install, the online install wasn't doing anything (and I mean anything). I don't know if that did it, but it didn't say anything about 'class hooks'. It just installed. I also don't see anywhere to put in commands. When I open it up, it just has 4 demo options to run. And NI doesn't give me any command options, either, it just says it can't find the main class.

SK is (very) rarely recommended as a modding tool. It's definately worth persevering with Near Infinity (or DLTCEP, if you don't like NI).



Spell Workshop isn't receiving active support from it's author. You may have found a bug, or you may be using it wrongly (no offence meant).
When (if) you get NI set up and working, try loading the same spells into that, and see if they are still missing data.


Copy the NI file (something like NearInfinity.jar) to the root of your C:\ drive, then go to the Start Menu, Run, and type in

(assuming the file you copied is called NearInfinity.jar)
Hopefully NI should start, if it does then you need to associate the .jar extension with javaw,so you can run NI just by double-clicking it (or you could just leave the file in C:\ at type the earlier command in every time, but thats a poor solution). If NI doesn't start, then you've got a bigger problem.

The second point Wizwom made was WeiDU (http://www.weidu.org). While making spells, kits etc in any editor and saving them into your game is great, to get them into someone else's game requires a little work (though not much). WeiDU is currently the best ay of distributing any work you do. It's worth spending some time looking over what it can do, and how, but for now I'd concentrate on getting everything working on your end, and just seeing how everything works and fits together.

Ok, I copied NearInfinityBeta.jar into my C:\ drive, hit run, and typed in the command you said. An execution window popped up with something in it, but closed immediately, so I couldn't tell what it was saying. Nothing else happened and I still can't run NI directly. Where should this 'main class' be? What should it be called? Is there any way I can MAKE SURE that I have it? Was I supposed to get it with the NI download, the Java download, or is it supposed to be native to windows? Oh, and if it makes any difference, I found out I'm not using Win98, but WinXP.

I'll take your advice on Spell Workshop, I take it you all make custom abilities in it or something more advanced? And no offence taken, I may well be using it wrong, but I can't figure out what the right way should be if that's the case. I've had some other problems with it not saving information, but mainly spell names and descriptions, not effects.

I've got WeiDU and plan on using it, the kit tutorial made it clear that it was the easiest way to even make a custom kit for yourself (not editing all those files personally), as well as a good way to make sure you have everything you need for your mod before you make any permanent changes to the system.

As a side note, if NI is totally screwed up, is there an alternative out there?

In windows Explorer, if you right click a file you get a context menu.
One option is always "Open with..." which opens a dialog. If that file type is already assigned to one or more programs, that will show up in the "Reccommended programs" list at the top. The "browse" button will actually let you locate a program to use. you don't want to do either of these things.

You want to click the Explorer Tools menu, select Options, and click to the File types tab. Scrill down the list until you find the extension JAR. If it is not there, then you need to add it with the New button.

If it is there, select it, click the Advanced button and you get the Edit File type dialog. This is the magic that happens when you double-click a file. It chooses the default action, and executes the commands that are descriped in the Edit... dialog here. This Dialog lets you change the name ("open" to "run") and what to do. My system has

That's the full path to my javaw executable, then the command-line options to send to it. Notice the '-jar' bit there? that tells javaw that it needs to look inside the file as an archive rather than treat it as a class. The %1 is replaced with the file name that you clicked on, it is in quotes, because it might have spaces, which would mess up the command line otherwise. The %* is "all the rest of the command line. That means if you set up any special things to do with a particular JAR, they get passed along.

Once Windows knows what to do, all you need to do is double-click a JAR file and it will properly execute it. NearInfinity has no splash screen and can take a few seconds to start up, but be patient and it will prove to be a very nice tool indeed.

I found all the stuff you were talking about, but it was under the folder "Tools" menu, not from right clicking the file. The code line was exactly like you put it already. I tried changing the "1%" to "NearInfinityBeta.jar" which is the name of the file, but it gave me the same results. I tried changing the link from that .exe to another .exe in the Java folder that actually opens Java when I click on it (the one given didn't do anything, I'm guessing it needs to be forwarded an archive), and that opened the java loading screen, then it said it didn't recognize the file type. I've put it back to the original for now, but now it says "Unable to access jarfile 1" instead of the "Could not find main class" prompt.

I hate windows.

"%1" is differeent than "1%"

I suggest you redownload NearInfinity (link), just in case it somehow got corrupted. If that still doesn't work, also try redownloading JRE (link).

If it still doesn't work, apparently there is a slight possibility that certain Spyware can interfere with Java. Grab a Spyware removal tool, such as Spybot S&D (link) and remove whatever it finds.

If you still have no luck after that, I believe DLTCEP is also capable of converting CHR to CRE.

For that matter, someone made a WeiDU to do it for batches.

Still, you probably do want a browser/finder app, and NearInfinity is the tool for that.

I'd use DLTCEP to work with Dialogs, except that I am comfortable writing dialog in WeiDU.

Thanks, I'm re-downloading NI now. Thanks for pointing out my '1%' error, too. Fixed that and we're back to the "Cannot find main class". I fixed my problem with Spell Workshop. I got IEEP and in about 10 minutes had replicated all the work and then some (IEEP has descriptions for all the animations so I don't have to look them up). This time it seems to be stable, too.

How hard is DLTCEP to learn? From what I've heard it seems to be a pretty advanced scripting tool and I'm not sure I have the time atm to dedicate to learning something like that.

DLTCEP is not very difficult, i think. I did just 1 little mod with it, so i'm not quite sure. I created all the files i needed with DLTCEP, but scripts i had to write manually - in .tp2 format, and then instal it with weidu

Scripting is only one, relatively minor aspect of DLTCEP. It's able to edit animations, areas, creatures, images, items, spells, stores, and lots more besides.

As for being advanced, it's definitely no more so than NI. In fact, since DTLCEP relies more on its GUI than NI (the latter basically just displays a list of the contents of a file, whereas the former has boxes, pull-down lists, multiple tabs, and so on), it's probably slightly more intuitive.

Well, I'm playing around with DLTCEP a bit, trying to de-construct some of the other mods I've gotten and see how they do it. It seems like it will be pretty intuitive, but I'm balancing that with school and only having a few hours most days to do anything fun, so it may take a while. I think I've given up on NI, and I hope I can do without it. I've still got this 'main class' problem and it isn't making any sense.

On top of it all, my plans for this mod, if I ever figure this stuff out, are getting bigger and bigger. I'm now planning 3 NPCs, one romancable, and the other two will romance each other if you get them both. Quests galore to flesh out all three personalities and histories, including finding one's father (probably) in the Watcher's Keep, possibly parents for two or even all three. Sparks will fly. I'm even planning on including another dragon and a wedding if everything goes well. Wish me luck, though things may be slow to develop. Thanks for all the help and advice, I hope I won't have any more questions, but I probably will.

Oh, before I finish this, I do have one more question. In the custom kit guide it said stat requirements were an advantage, not a disadvantage, and I understand, but I'm wondering about stat requirements in non-critical stats, like WIS for a fighter or CHA for a thief. From my experiments with the existing classes, it seems to me that, if the game rolls a stat too low for your class, it takes points away from other stats to boost it. I've noticed my F/M/T builds never seem to roll very high stats, and their critical stats are almost always just barely there. If I'm right, then a stat req. in non-critical stats would take points away from the critical ones, and thus be a disadvantage. Am I right?

As far as I know the game doesn't reduce stats to boost other stats to the minimum requirements.

It might look like that when you are rolling but I don't think its true. If you kept rerolling you would on average come out with higher stats than if you had not minimum requirements as you would only have to wait for high values in a few stats.

Yeah, the game just rolls in a loop until it gets a set which can be the class in question. Raw, a FMT is pretty darn loose; that is, I think 9+ STR, DEX nd INT, and 3+ everything else (er, elves might have a racial minimum somewhere). If you have an impossible selection - like, say limit half-orcs to 12 CHA, then limit Preists of Lathander to 14 min CHA - then you get an infinite loop.