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complete set of terrain graphics? in Blades of Avernum
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Wednesday, June 23 2004 10:48 Profile #0
1. I would like to have a numbered list of all the terrain graphics, and then, how can I access them in the editor? At the moment all of them don't show up!

2. When creating custom terrain graphics, must we also make a 'square' tile for the editor to display {as opposed to the graphics actually used by the game), and if so, where should they be stored and numbered?

regards,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Win32 MSVC project files? in Blades of Avernum Editor
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Wednesday, June 23 2004 10:35 Profile #10
Jeff,

I should have been clearer, I use MSVC++ version 6, which handles C++ code just fine.

I could certainly use the MSVC++ 5 project files, if you would be kind enough to send them.

Best regards,

mrb

PS I am still looking at the 'offending' code, although it still looks fine to me; I suspect CR/LF problems may be the gremlin - I'll run the source file through my text processor and see if that does it.
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Win32 MSVC project files? in Blades of Avernum
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Wednesday, June 23 2004 10:35 Profile #10
Jeff,

I should have been clearer, I use MSVC++ version 6, which handles C++ code just fine.

I could certainly use the MSVC++ 5 project files, if you would be kind enough to send them.

Best regards,

mrb

PS I am still looking at the 'offending' code, although it still looks fine to me; I suspect CR/LF problems may be the gremlin - I'll run the source file through my text processor and see if that does it.
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Win32 MSVC project files? in Blades of Avernum Editor
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Monday, June 21 2004 05:30 Profile #4
Dear Jeff,

Since you have already compiled it with MSVC <version?>, would you be kind enough to make the project files available?

Using MSVC++ version 6 I have encountered numerous <>1000> errors, however they were all in just 2 source files, globals.h and library.cpp. The strange thing is that the errors in global.h are not at all obvious, code looks fine! The first occurrence is in the class definition for graphic_type, but then the very next one <floor_type> works fine?

Thanks,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Win32 MSVC project files? in Blades of Avernum
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Monday, June 21 2004 05:30 Profile #4
Dear Jeff,

Since you have already compiled it with MSVC <version?>, would you be kind enough to make the project files available?

Using MSVC++ version 6 I have encountered numerous <>1000> errors, however they were all in just 2 source files, globals.h and library.cpp. The strange thing is that the errors in global.h are not at all obvious, code looks fine! The first occurrence is in the class definition for graphic_type, but then the very next one <floor_type> works fine?

Thanks,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Win32 MSVC project files? in Blades of Avernum Editor
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Friday, June 18 2004 12:18 Profile #0
If anyone successfully builds the Win32 version of the editor would they be kind enough to post the MSVC <preferably version 6) project files. If we cannot post them in this forum would you consider e-mailing them privately?

Thanks,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Win32 MSVC project files? in Blades of Avernum
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Friday, June 18 2004 12:18 Profile #0
If anyone successfully builds the Win32 version of the editor would they be kind enough to post the MSVC <preferably version 6) project files. If we cannot post them in this forum would you consider e-mailing them privately?

Thanks,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Avernumscript in Blades of Avernum Editor
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Friday, June 18 2004 12:14 Profile #3
Yes, I stand corrected. I have just spent much more time with the docs and have located those references.

Thanks,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Avernumscript in Blades of Avernum
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Friday, June 18 2004 12:14 Profile #3
Yes, I stand corrected. I have just spent much more time with the docs and have located those references.

Thanks,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Map editing in Blades of Avernum Editor
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Friday, June 18 2004 12:11 Profile #2
Not really. Unless the source code is made available under an OpenSource <GPL etc> type licence I wouldn't want to spend the time working on it. Also, this is still a shareware product <meaning the developer hopes to be compensated for all his time and efforts in developing it> and I do support that concept. I still feel that better tools are the responsibility of the developer, not the user - the exception being the case of OpenSource licenced software, where I am happy to contribute.

To make this clearer, suppose I implement some nice but radical changes to the editor - in addition to the interface, also including the way files are compiled and saved. The result would be chaos, since I am not the developer and I also would not be able to support those changes in the future.

Regards,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Map editing in Blades of Avernum
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Friday, June 18 2004 12:11 Profile #2
Not really. Unless the source code is made available under an OpenSource <GPL etc> type licence I wouldn't want to spend the time working on it. Also, this is still a shareware product <meaning the developer hopes to be compensated for all his time and efforts in developing it> and I do support that concept. I still feel that better tools are the responsibility of the developer, not the user - the exception being the case of OpenSource licenced software, where I am happy to contribute.

To make this clearer, suppose I implement some nice but radical changes to the editor - in addition to the interface, also including the way files are compiled and saved. The result would be chaos, since I am not the developer and I also would not be able to support those changes in the future.

Regards,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Win BoA and Editor in Tech Support
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Friday, June 18 2004 11:58 Profile #5
Regarding max skills/levels:

I have used the editor to create a max skills level player, but I quickly gave that up because of the inability of the game to deal with it. Resistances need to be quite low before the game decides they are too much to deal with - I don't have an exact figure yet, but around 150 already causes problems <the file corruption error>. The other derived skill <Item Lore> must be about 120 or less.

I would still like to hear from the developer(s), why allow high levels if the game cannot handle them? It's not as if we are hacking the save files, we're just using the built-in tools.

Regarding corescendata2.txt:

After completely uninstalling and reinstalling all thse files, and then leaving the corescendata files alone, I haven't had the 'hang' again, so there must be a relationship. Since my debugger doesn't work well with BoA, and of course we don't have the source code, I can't tell much more about the problem.

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Avernumscript in Blades of Avernum Editor
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Thursday, June 17 2004 12:13 Profile #0
It seems there a very few calls related to the player.

give_char_item(char, item)
set_char_status(...)
set_char_trait(...)
change_spec_item(...)
set_level(...)? <it seems not to be recommended?>

The appendix also lacks info about the game limits for various calls, such as duration for setting the character 'status' <featherfall, flying etc>.

It would be nice to have a more complete set of functions and better documentation.

Regards,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Avernumscript in Blades of Avernum
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Thursday, June 17 2004 12:13 Profile #0
It seems there a very few calls related to the player.

give_char_item(char, item)
set_char_status(...)
set_char_trait(...)
change_spec_item(...)
set_level(...)? <it seems not to be recommended?>

The appendix also lacks info about the game limits for various calls, such as duration for setting the character 'status' <featherfall, flying etc>.

It would be nice to have a more complete set of functions and better documentation.

Regards,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Map editing in Blades of Avernum Editor
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Thursday, June 17 2004 12:04 Profile #0
I find the Editor to be very poor for editing maps, especially with only 2 levels of zoom, lacking a proper scroll etc. I am not impressed by the interface nor is it sufficient for the developer to state that the code is old - after all, if BoA is to have numerous scenarios it needs good tools, and isn't that the developers job?

Is there an alternative way to create maps, assuming that a utility could be made available to parse and compile and write the binary file needed for the game <*.bas>? It would be easier to work with yet another text file, giving tile coordinates and using a script to place other game elements at the various coords.

I really think much better tools are needed!

Regards,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Map editing in Blades of Avernum
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Thursday, June 17 2004 12:04 Profile #0
I find the Editor to be very poor for editing maps, especially with only 2 levels of zoom, lacking a proper scroll etc. I am not impressed by the interface nor is it sufficient for the developer to state that the code is old - after all, if BoA is to have numerous scenarios it needs good tools, and isn't that the developers job?

Is there an alternative way to create maps, assuming that a utility could be made available to parse and compile and write the binary file needed for the game <*.bas>? It would be easier to work with yet another text file, giving tile coordinates and using a script to place other game elements at the various coords.

I really think much better tools are needed!

Regards,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Win32 game graphics formats in Blades of Avernum Editor
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Thursday, June 17 2004 11:54 Profile #0
What file formats/resolutions are required for the game graphics?

In the Editor docs it mentions 8 bit <indexed> or 16 bit, why not 24 bit?. If it is 8 bit, this means the file has a palette, presumably it must match a standard BoA graphics palette. Where is the standard palette? Do we have to derive it ourselves from one of the graphics files, or is it the Win32 standard palette?

Resolution could range from 72 to 96 or greater in Win32, which is considered standard?

Thanks,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Win32 game graphics formats in Blades of Avernum
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Thursday, June 17 2004 11:54 Profile #0
What file formats/resolutions are required for the game graphics?

In the Editor docs it mentions 8 bit <indexed> or 16 bit, why not 24 bit?. If it is 8 bit, this means the file has a palette, presumably it must match a standard BoA graphics palette. Where is the standard palette? Do we have to derive it ourselves from one of the graphics files, or is it the Win32 standard palette?

Resolution could range from 72 to 96 or greater in Win32, which is considered standard?

Thanks,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
Win BoA and Editor in Tech Support
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Thursday, June 17 2004 00:10 Profile #0
Below are 2 types of problems I am encountering:

1. I used to get this error message often:
"Error:File corruption caused too-high skill. Skill being reset to 0. Can correct it manually with editor."

The 'too-high' skills it refers to are mainly the resistances, all derived from the main stats. There was also a problem with the Item Lore <derived>, but lowering the Arcane Lore skill eliminated that.

I have reduced the likely stats <intelligence, mage, priest, magery, resistance etc> and have been able to eliminate most of these messages.

The question is, why does this occur? If the levels of skills cannot be handled by the game, then why allow someone to change them? And why does the savefile become corrupted as a result of 'too-high' skills?

BTW, I have seen the similar post in this forum, but the question has not been addressed by the developers yet.

2. Even more serious, for me, are frequent 'hangs' <requiring a complete forced reboot>, and the causes of these are not evident yet. They occur when just walking around, when opening/unlocking doors (whether locked, unlocked or previously unlocked) etc. They are not consistent, in other words, and I cannot be sure of experiencing a 'hang' at any given point. It does seem that the game engine is somewhat 'overloaded' at certain points, given to longish pauses <where everything is frozen for that period>. I don't have any answers to this, but I'd like to have some possible solutions.

Thus far, I have limited my 'tweaking' of scripts to those in the scenarios, and they are usually limited also to increasing a single value, for instance:
//from za-khazi run scenario
begindefineitem 450; // town 10
import = 36;
it_full_name = "Silk-Woven Chain Mail";
it_protection = 24;
it_bonus = 2;
it_encumbrance = 0;
it_value = 1000;
it_magic = 1;
it_icon_adjust = 1;

where the 'tweak' is just an increase in the it_protection value.

Without accurate guidelines/limits for each of these values, how are we supposed to successfully experiment and eventually contribute by writing scenarios? Is the game engine unable to 'cap' these values to a limit that it can deal with?

I find this makes a less than robust environment, as it doesn't take too many occurences of those errors to make you lose confidence and therefore also interest.

I have many years experience writing code, scripts and scenarios/modules for various game engines, and I would not even bother to write this up unless I felt that there are issues here worthy of attention by the game developers. I hope There will be some meaningful feedback.

Regards,

mrb
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
proposed new sub-forum: Bugs! in Blades of Avernum
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Wednesday, June 16 2004 12:29 Profile #0
I'd like to see a sub-forum covering 'Bugs'. I have found a number already, and I'm sure there are many more to be discovered :)

One of the problems with all the Spiderweb softare is that it is not very well-behaved with regard to debuggers, thus even a known error/bug cannot easily be trapped.

I am really concerned that not enough play-testing was done, because I have been experiencing many 'hangs' during the course of a scenario. Each one needs a complete reboot to solve. BTW, I am using the Win32 version.

Regards,
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
3 anomalies/bugs? in Blades of Avernum
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Wednesday, June 16 2004 12:19 Profile #5
In answer to each:
The skill levels are never more than the editor allows.
Yes, I know about adding xp and then levelling up, but that is a different issue.
The other anomalies were related to the editor, so I've posted them in the editor forum.

Thx
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
corescendata2.txt edits in Blades of Avernum Editor
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Wednesday, June 16 2004 00:41 Profile #0
Can corescendata2.txt be edited at all? Even adding a small change to a single item <adding a resistance for example> causes the program to hang frequently - often in non-repeatable ways, ie just walking around a town, opening a door etc.

I understand this data file is intended for everyone's use, but for me it is also a good place to test various things prior to use in a specific scenario.

Any insight appreciated, thx.
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
corescendata2.txt edits in Blades of Avernum
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Wednesday, June 16 2004 00:41 Profile #0
Can corescendata2.txt be edited at all? Even adding a small change to a single item <adding a resistance for example> causes the program to hang frequently - often in non-repeatable ways, ie just walking around a town, opening a door etc.

I understand this data file is intended for everyone's use, but for me it is also a good place to test various things prior to use in a specific scenario.

Any insight appreciated, thx.
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00
3 anomalies/bugs? in Blades of Avernum
mrb
Apprentice
Member # 3517
 written Wednesday, June 16 2004 00:33 Profile #0
After using the char editor to increase stats there is often a 'file corruption, too high skill, reset to 0...' error. This is very annoying, since there is no indication of the real problem. What are the maximum stat levels at which the game will still be functioning properly? And why should the file be corrupted by using the built in char editor anyway?
Posts: 40 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00

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