We currently have a list of nearly fourty creature animations that are currently being converted from varied sources for use in bg2. For a sneak peak, please follow the link below.

http://www.blackwyrmlair.net/~chevar/converts/anims.html

Nice.
These are all fully ported, and working?
Do they overwrite current animations - if so, are there plans to convert them so they dont?
Will they be released as a separate pack - if so, will it happen soon?

Okay, where to start.. These are all in progress. They walking animations are are all completed. (I'll be centering the last 10 walking animations later today)

The "get hit" animations have completed the staging phaze of production, which means I just have to build the animated gifs, change the transparency palette, then generate and center the bams.

Then I move onto the next action set. The projected timeline is about 4 months until completion. That's a high-end estimate.

Currently they are being constructed as "independant animations". They have no socket assignment. The animation slot assignment I hope to coordinate with Galactygon.

From the moment the WTP started we were planning on using Gal's creature animation packs. We've been waiting quietly for the release of his mod. Now that it's out there, and a reality, It's time for the WTP to rise to the occasion.

I first heard about Galactygon's project about a month before the WTP was founded. At that time I had discussed converting animations from other games with him. The current animations under conversion are mostly from Diablo 2, however 4 are from Diablo1, and 5 are actually from Ultima Online. We also have some others on our wish list, but those will be handled by others in the group.

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I enjoy modding for Infinity Engine games. I enjoy the freedom, and versatility of the game engine, however I feel that as a "comminuty" we are lacking. I tend to be a bit of an idealist, and the most unified/cooperative modding community I have seen is the Diablo 2 Modding community. I was very impressed by the amount of sharing of information and resources within their community.

Honestly, after seeing that they have sites dedicated to making new maps, sounds, animations etc' available to everyone I found myself feeling rather envious. It frustrated me that the IE modding community SHOULD be like that.

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The primary goal of the WTP is to try and help the IE modding community as a whole. We plan on eventually making a complete modding framework which will allow more freedom and flexibilty to mod makers.

I have about 800 meg worth of "mega-tiles" for map making which have been generated, and will be available within the next few months (with instructions) as part of the WTP map-share program. All we will ask is that copies of some of the maps made with these tiles are donated to the WTP.

Dragon_Lord, of the WTP, currently hosts the most expansive portrait site available to the IE modding community. (I'll let DL plug his site himself).

Now that the bestial animation packs are a reality, I'm proceeding with most of our planned animation conversions. Upon completion the majority of these animations will be made available to the modding community.

We also have several work-share programs, for people desiring to make mods. To provide an example. we had a item graphics repository of over 1000 images. Anyone wishing to make item packs can approach us with a high volume request, and will be provided with the BAMs they need, under the condition they share their work with the WTP - which ultimately means agreeing to allow the WTP to incorporate their item pack into our project, and crediting us with assisting.

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I hope that convered your questions, and more.

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Edit;

Sorry, the two winged women anims ahve not actually entered the conversion process yet, due to an initial problem with the color palette, which has now been corrected. There are aslo two or three additional anims which are under consideration.

So, a summary of the answers is:
No.
No.
Yes. Sometime.



Anyway, I encourage you to release anything you have as soon as possible - it's all very well having huge archives of stuff, but it needs to be available for people to use.
I'll probably (hopefully) be using any animations you release if/when they're bundled with the Bestial Animation pack.

As for sharing work, I think it's good in principle, but I don't think I'm so keen on it in practice.

we will be working on many things and releasing them as soon as we can. sharing can only benifet the community



so we should not share? Hmm ok we won't. well back to square one. I just don't get it, why not? no one has the uber mod, just uber egos. I would guess that there would many more mods released if more things were made available.

Chevar and I both quit (more or less) SeS for feeling like slaves to moders, that is why the wtp is having a share program, the people that partake in it will bennifet from it.

you maintain the IESDP and share the information, there is not much of a jump in logic for other sharing too.

Being the jerk that I am, I have to butt in here for a second. igi doesn't really maintain the IESDP. At least not for quite a while, so I suppose he's forgotten.

@igi:


But on a serious note, Black Wyrm is a community unlike most others. Here we try our best to share with other modders what we have completed. It's really not that difficult just to upload what you have finished and allow other modders to use it. I don't see any reason why not. :\

I don't have a problem with sharing, per se.

I guess I'm drawing the line at in-game believability.
If something would be seen in more than one place in-game (a creature animation, a common item, smarter AI scripting) I'm for it.
If something wouldn't be seen more than one place in-game (two castles with identical area art, 3 unrelated spells with the same explosion graphic, character portraits) I'm against it.


Awake: Update will come soon.

Igi, i'm just joking. Perhaps we should all just take a few e-chill pills and stop fighting. how about some smilies?

I was not looking for fighting just a discussion that saddens me, look at the amount of tile packs that are available to the ie community. almost nill unless I am wrong.

Speaking of which Chevar's Diablo 2 Tilesets are up for everyone to download now. Currently they are in .pcx format but they'll be converted to bmp format soon.

Sir-Kill: Szien's tilesets (some cut-offs from diablos, fallout, arcanum... if I remember correctly)... but I'm not sure whether they are uploaded anywhere - they were on TeamBG originally...

I googled Szien's tilesets, (click cached) and the links that tbg had are dead

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Szien...G=Google+Search

Okay now.. As for areas and tiles. The tile collections we put up will eventually need documentation, which I've been tryint to make time to write up, and verify. until then..

Igi;

The tiles we have up are actually generated using Diablo2 modding tools. they're not actually individual tiles, their pregenerated map segments. Which means they're large, and make it easy to make basic maps in a hurry.

It's broken down by map, area type and theme. Due to the fairly generic nature of these tiles it allows a map-maker to get their basic map dealt with quickly, so they can dedicate their time to fine tuning it, and adding the features they want in the room or area.

Vlasák;

Are you talking about the same D2 tiles that were online via TeamBG? The ones that were horribly distorted? I've made these available because I had a horrible time finding decent tile sets.

The way Diablo2 handles maps is in sections which are interconnected 'randomly' by the game engine. The information as to how each of these segments is put together is store in DS1 files.

I used d2 modding program to generate a PCX file for every DS1 data file within the diablo 2 game, with exception for the ones we plan to use without much modification.


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Edit; I'll be adding samples to the tiles page sometime over the next week or two.

As a footnote, I feel like I should take a moment to thank the folks from the Diablo 2 modding community for all of their help and cooperation, with special thanks to Darque Onyx who gave me alot of help and advise with getting set up with the right modding tools to get the job done.

They may never see this post, but I like to give credit where it due.

Chevar: I do remember that there were tiles from d2 and d2 expansion in the pack and I think that Arcanum tiles as well.

I had them on my hdd but it seems that I've deleted them because I cannot find them...

I downloaded quite a few tile packs with Arcanum and Diablo stuff in them (mostly the Arcanum stuff) from Fileplanet about a year ago. The Arcanum stuff was mostly bits and pieces for streets (barrells, lamps, signposts, carts etc) and some spell animations by frame. The walls and such that where in the pack where terrible (some of them you would have to have 50 of side by side to make a decent length wall)

I can dig through my pc and find some stuff if people are interested...there are some nice trees and bushes for example.


Edit: I have also just found some 138mb worth of D2 tiles that I obviously downloaded and forgot about it anyone wants them! I have some 30mg of the Arcanum ones (though these are better than the D2 ones imo).

Whatever you can dig up would be fantastic. The tile resources without our community has gone way down hill.

d2 tiles we don't need for obvious reasons.. we have about 600megs of them compressed and available for DL - granted they're large pregenerated area chunks.

We really don't have indivigual tiles on at the moment - those are already available online if you know where to look.. The D2 community has resources that put us all to shame..




Now I've been saying for a while that they put us to shame, and I've never given this kind of information to back it up before.. So, here's where I drive the point home:

http://dynamic6.gamespy.com/~infinitum/

Just take a look around..


We've all been out done.. I look at the resources that they have available, and I think "We can do that! Why haven't we?"

In a couple weeks I'll be making available some unmodified files which could be adapted for spell use.

There used to be millions on TBGKA.

Nobody used them.

I forgot about this place dealing with Diablo II stuff as well. I've been working with Paul Siramy of the diablo modding arena on a few things and I'm glad to see that things are alive and kicking over here as well.

Seif

Also, Chevar, he's been at it for a long time,much longer then us in fact. Also, its not a competition is it? So no worries.

Mortis first did this two years or so back and even then, from what I recall, someone else did the extractions for him.

If you need them I've got the fully animated gif's of Diablo and a few level four fiends kicking around if you need them. The hardest one to extract is Mephisto.

For anyone not sure how to get it, take a look at this. I'll be adding an IE addendum on the end as soon as I can but its still a good starting reference: -

http://forums.spellholdstudios.net/index.php?showtopic=13524


Seif

Thanks for the input seif. It sure isn't a competition, and if you think that was what I was indicating you missed the point entirely. Their modding community enchanges material readily, is very helpfull, and it's members work well together with a common goal. I consider them to be the model of what a modding community should be...

Case and point;

August, last year, on FW I started a conversation about the conversion of d2 anims for use in BG2.....

http://forums.spellholdstudios.net/index.p...topic=10015&hl=

If there were conversions and other info available, why did I have to spend months developing my own formula for conversions? There are indeed people within the community that have the information at their disposal, but they only seem to wish to share said information when their goal is to one-up other modders.

I ask a question like; "Does anyone know how to change the starting exp for the bg2 expansion side of the game... I get nothing. I go thought with a hex editor and find it myself, then get told by someone "We already knew how to do that!"

If that is the case, why isn't this information shared when it is initially sought?

I spent 2 days in the D2 community and managed to get all the help I needed, including alternate links to the allegro libs required by mergedcc.

This has been frustrating me since I returned to BG2 modding last year.

Now that I've finished my rant.. I'm going to attempt to ask a straight question in hopes of, for a change, getting a straight responce before spending months figguring it out myself.

I've been told that when making bams that shadows (the magenta color in the color palette) that the shadows usually don't work ingame. This holds true in item BAMs, and if I remember correctly I had a problem with it during my early animation conversions that I did back around 2001.

Has anyone documented a work around for this?

First: Hello to the WtP team!

I must admit, I was lurking around here for some time now, but I was not sure if WtP would turn into a project that would appeal to me.

Honestly, I am not too much of a fan of creating an all new world. I would rather like to see more of Faerun being fleshed out, but then that's just my preference.

But, I am a strong fan of the attitude towards sharing that was expressed within this thread. That alone is enough to convince me that I want to join in here.

That being said, please feel free to add any parts of my worldmap mod that you might want to take to your repository. I think especially the bam-file could be quite helpful, since it contains a growing number of completely coloured and properly animated icons for bg1, bg2 and some mods. Of course, my mospack utility is offered here as well.

Apart from this I am currently working on some all new area graphics using Bryce, Poser, Shade and Gimp. I'll be happy to donate those graphics as well, once they are done. Question is: Will something like this be useful for you? I ask, because I am missing the proper experience to create the wed and are files, so those would have to be created by somebody else.

It's not simply a matter of whether it'll be usefull to us at the WTP. It's a matter of if it can benefit the community. I do not have a planned use for the majority of the nimations I'm converting, just as an example.

As for areas, in particular.. through dltcep or eitme you will need to populate and script your areas after they're complete. That's something we can't help with (for obvious reasons).. however in terms of the converting of graphics to usable maps. We may be able to offer you assistance in that regard, when the time comes - granted that would depend on our workload.

That's exactly what I was hoping for See I am probably the 'prototype community' kind of person you are looking for, I do not want you to do me a favor, I rather want to do you and the rest of the modding community a favor.

As for me, I do not intend to make a complete mod by myself. I am mainly interested in doing art and do have some experience in that area. But art in itself is pretty useless without a purpose. So what I like to do is create the art and hand it over to other people to see what they can make out of it. It would be nice if you guys could help me put together all the files needed to make a bitmap basically usable within the game. So that we can post it for others (and of course for WTP as well) to download and add their actors, scripts whatever. A growing number of ready-to-use areas would be something nice for the community, wouldn't it?

Guess, I will be able to produce the auxiliary files (height map, search map etc.) myself, but the wed-file sounds like a pain without proper experience

I'll polish up one of my files this weekend and post a screenshot here, then we can see if you guys think it is worth the effort or not - makes not much sense talking about vapor-ware, does it

cant wait to see it. and thank you for understanding what we are trying to do here.

You could try asking Avenger, or at the SES forum at FW.

I start to understand what you mean... This is just great.

In case you didn't notice: At FW, WoRm (simpleton) offered to transfer NWN animations to BGII, maybe you want to combine forces? (If you haven't done already.)

hey, thanks for the heads up J!

the tutorial for the IETME says to "consult IESDP for a complete list of overlay textures" is there one I looked all over and I could not find it




ok this has been bugging me for a long time (when I first incountered it back in tbg days) I took some screenshots to see what I could see. the game does produce transparent (or better yet semi-transparent) shadows. so now we know for a fact that bg uses transparency, the question is now HOW?

EDIT: this is not the best pic but if you look closely you can see that there is a difference in opacity.

EDIT2: is the shadow just black and the game will render is semi-transparent?

I recently ported some PST item bams and in those the item shadow is simply black.

If that helps any.

Nope, not that I know of (which is a pretty definiate no).
What textures would you want listed...?

well the short answer would be all of them for at least bg1 and 2 then iwd 1&2

I know that there was a list somewhere, I just cannot remember

Yes, but which *textures*? What are you defining as a texture?

the overlays as far as I understand them means water; rivers, lakes, and sea there is also lava

one example is "WTRIV" for a water/river

Well, to counter this point, the ratio of people crossing between the two mod communities was very low to begin with and it took me a damn long time to ge hold of Mortis. When Dan (phrozen Keep domain master) heard I'd done some preliminary stuff with animations and the like, he got in touch with me.

It wasn't that the information wasn't readily given through a profound lack of co-operation, there just wasn't much there.

Also, and I've not looked so correct me if I'm wrong by all means, have you/are you keeping a developers journal or creating any instuctional material so that people may help with this?

And have you looked at any animations from Fall Out and related games?

Okay Seifer..

I don't actually own fallout, so I can't use it as a resource. The next batch planned will be a few odds and ends from the current set, as well as some from ARCANUM. I will be provided with the files I need to do the work at that point.

As for a developers journal. I don't have one onlne, hoever my procedure is paper documented at the moment, to insure consistency. I also have done some limited distributing of the shareware tool I'm using to create the animated GIFs.

Technically speaking the procedure is so incredibly simple that I haven't written down formal documentation.. It's really only 6 easy (albeit time comsuming) steps.

1) Export the animation images from the source game, using the utilities available for said game (CV3.5 for diablo 1, CV5 for diablo2, Merge DCC for multipart animations in diablo2, InsideUO for Ultima online). The export format should be BMP, GIF or AVI.

2) create folders for each of the eight directions;

0 - south
1 - southwest
2 - west
3 - northwest
4 - north
5 - northeast
6 - east
7 - southeast

3) With the exception of direction AVI's from IUO Sort the output files into the corresponding folders.

4) Using Animagic load the images and change the background color in the color palette. For Diablo animations it will be the first color (0,0,0 for CV, 170,170,170 for mergedcc) For insideUO the default background palette color is 255,255,255 and will be somewhere random within the image.

If you make sure that the animagic options are to use a global local palette it will change the colors for all frames simultaneously.

If the background color is not set to transparent set it to transparent under int image options. Save the files in the folder with the name of the direction (0 for south, and so forth)

5) Using BMW import sequences 0 - 4, and save the file as the appropriate type, then create a new file, and add blank entries for sequences 0-4, then import sequences 5 - 7. save the file with the same name as the prior wile with E at the end of the file name (eg MHISWLKe)

6) Load the BAMs into DLTCEP, click on center frames, and save.. that's all.

Hey, this wasn't for my reference, just for others. Useful though.
Regarding FO animations, see what you can do with these. They need some frame duplication/flipping as FO series has only a set of 6 directional vertices (i think). This is probably why Mortis left... : -


http://www.final-exodus.net/Mod/critt000.rar

PM me a reminder after monday - that's when I get my DSL in. I can snag it and look at it then.

I'm assuming that you're here mosty days in the week so it seems a tad pointless really.

Actually, I have the memory retention of a Gnat 1/2 the time :>

Seemsas bad as mine then. =(