Profile for Ishad Nha
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | Ishad Nha |
| Member number | 7662 |
| Title | Shock Trooper |
| Postcount | 292 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
Recent posts
Pages
| Author | Recent posts |
|---|---|
| Blades of Avernum Improvements in Blades of Avernum | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Thursday, October 11 2007 17:31
Profile
The Windows 3D Editor is really quite good but an attempt to compile the source code leads to a full 12 pages of errors and warnings, that is with type set at size 10. Of course there is no compilation with so many errors. Which is a pity because what BoA needs is an editor that anyone can compile if they want. I am sure that would lead to all sorts of beneficial experimentation and improvement. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| What inspired Geneforge? in Geneforge Series | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Thursday, October 11 2007 17:00
Profile
Especially in the desert areas of Geneforge 1 and 2, I am reminded of the TSR Advanced Dungeons and Dragons games "Dark Sun 1: Shattered Lands" and "Dark Sun 2: Wake of the Ravager". These two games date from the first half of the 90s, so they are credible guesses but only guesses. The feel is similar as the games use a similar format: party grouped for exploring and individual movement during combat. [ Thursday, October 11, 2007 17:05: Message edited by: Ishad Nha ] Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Blades of Avernum Improvements in Blades of Avernum | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Wednesday, October 10 2007 22:08
Profile
The link is: http://p079.ezboard.com/Porting-Exile-Scenarios-Techniques/fthelyceumfrm19.showMessage?topicID=130.topic I will have to revise that article now that I have the source code to study, but it is still quite sound. Really, it would be handy to be able to recompile the editor because the porting process has all sorts of known flaws. Download the source code and look at the file Bl A Fileio.c I could not fix all the errors by hex - editing but I was able to fix a lot. Case 184, generic lever, line 3,552 has a missing “+10” in the set_state_continue. So what I did was to create a traceable error message: “reset_dialog_preset_options(X);”, here the 2 is replaced by the X. Alint will pick this up for sure. Another trick was to create a special copy of the BoE scenario file. In it all the town placed special nodes had their x and y coordinates switched, so when the porting happened the two errors cancelled out. (Also, line 2040 shows that the game will view terrain types 5 through 35 and 122 through 169 as being walls, which could be a real problem in a heavily customized scenario.) In your special copy you would translate custom walls, like the wooden walls of Wormwood to others, like standard adobe walls. Two big ones: In the Windows scenarios, the town special encounters have their coordinates wrongly rotated. A lot of the messages are not included in the porting of special nodes, they can be recovered from Scentext.txt though. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Item Augmentation? in Blades of Avernum Editor | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Wednesday, October 10 2007 21:38
Profile
About the only thing you could do here is to swap an item for a better one of the same type. Here you would use calls like "void move_item_on_spot" to make the old item disappear and "void put_item_on_spot" to make the new one appear. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Blades of Avernum Improvements in Blades of Avernum | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Wednesday, October 10 2007 16:14
Profile
Yes the double post was an accident. Obviously I am porting via the official Scenario Editor. I need to understand the scenario nodes because the porting process has quite a few flaws, errors and idiosyncracies. Really you need an editor that you have compiled yourself. The corner walls are more drawn by the program itself from what I can see. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Blades of Avernum Improvements in Blades of Avernum | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Wednesday, October 10 2007 02:28
Profile
If you finished the BoE scenario you could send it to me at ishadnha(at)bigpond.com. There may be something that I can do. I am currently trying to port Shadow of the Stranger, it is a hassle when I can't contact the author. What do all those scenario nodes mean department? See my August post in the Lyceum about porting Exile scenarios. Three types of walls, a few authors use custom terrain as a third set of walls: Amnesia, Foul Hordes, Mad Ambition, Shades of Gray. It seems that the equivalent of type 8 can be made viable with this addition: te_icon_offset_y = -10; That still leaves types 7 and 9 as being currently impossible to create in a third set of walls. Pushable stone blocks, Kelandon's scenario Exodus had this in town 48. There was a script "rockpusher.txt" that made this work quite well. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Blades of Avernum Improvements in Blades of Avernum | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Wednesday, October 10 2007 02:27
Profile
If you finished the BoE scenario you could send it to me at ishadnha(at)bigpond.com. There may be something that I can do. I am currently trying to port Shadow of the Stranger, it is a hassle when I can't contact the author. What do all those scenario nodes mean department? See my August post in the Lyceum about porting Exile scenarios. Three types of walls, a few authors use custom terrain as a third set of walls: Amnesia, Foul Hordes, Mad Ambition, Shades of Gray. It seems that the equivalent of type 8 can be made viable with this addition: te_icon_offset_y = -10; That still leaves types 7 and 9 as being currently impossible to create in a third set of walls. Pushable stone blocks, Kelandon's scenario Exodus had this in town 48. There was a script "rockpusher.txt" that made this work quite well. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| OBoE Suggestion List in Blades of Exile | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Friday, October 5 2007 15:27
Profile
While we are at it we can have Editor support for all 30 boats and 30 horses. Perusal of the source code shows that the scenario file has provision for 30 boats, 30 horses and 20 scenario timers, not just 24, 24 and 10. Here and now the six extra boats can be hex – edited into the game: Twenty-four supported entries: 440,53 through 444,12. Six unsupported entries: 444,13 thru 445,2. The format: location X,Y, four spaces, short town number, Boolean exists and the Boolean party property identifier. Edit Horses [30], unsupported entries: 448,33 thru 449,22. Scenario timers Number of moves is found from 507, 61 through 508,10. Ten unsupported entries: 508,11 through 508,30. Scenario state to be called is found from 508,31 through 508,50. Ten unsupported entries: 508,51 through 508,70. The same file, Global.h lines 312… also shows that there is provision for 3,100 Stuff Done Flags not 3,000. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Compiling Open Source Editor in Blades of Exile | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Friday, October 5 2007 02:50
Profile
I can now get the open source editor to compile, but the resulting program is 296Kb versus the correct size of 735Kb. The economy size editor starts up properly then, I can't get it to load a scenario. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Petition for Carbonized Character Editor in Blades of Exile | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Wednesday, October 3 2007 21:19
Profile
No, that was the version of Blades of Exile that I used to test the ability in town 1. Presumably I will find the part of the source code that dictates the display of items, when I do I imagine that there will be no exceptions allowed for the Conceal Ability thing to work. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Petition for Carbonized Character Editor in Blades of Exile | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Tuesday, October 2 2007 17:12
Profile
I suspect that the Conceal Ability error is hard - coded. I had a look at line 410 of Global.h of the official source code, it says "item_record_type items[24];" Now the Scenario Editor uses item_record_type while the Character Editor uses the short_item_record_type. You would need to dig through the entire BoE source code to see what the score is. (Line 410 is part of the pc_record data structure.) I then added undesirable items to town 1 Bobling, of Wormwood, and the party picked them up when they entered the town. When the items were identified with a spell, every item displayed its concealed ability plainly. [ Tuesday, October 02, 2007 17:14: Message edited by: Ishad Nha ] Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Petition for Carbonized Character Editor in Blades of Exile | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Wednesday, September 26 2007 04:06
Profile
Special Items possessed by the party are listed on Line 644, Column 63 through Line 645, Column 42 of the save game file. Value 93 characters “]” signify 1 while value 92 characters “\” represent 0. This is different but it is the way that the save files are recorded. Everything is recorded in this topsy – turvy way, encryption feature? (My methodology in finding this out was simple, in Shadow of the Stranger using special item 19 replaces it with item 20, and vice versa. So I made two save files, one with item 19 and one with item 20, then I compared them in the Edit command by hitting the F8 key, blink comparator style.) As for making a program, you signed the petition because you can't do it, which is the same reason that I signed it. Until someone who knows about programming cares to write and compile a suitable program, it will be hex editing or nothing. Edit: I was able to customize a PC Editor to handle the custom items from Shadow of the Stranger, using the method I outlined above. While doing it I noticed another small flaw in the current editor, it has no provision for the Conceal Ability property of items. [ Thursday, September 27, 2007 03:17: Message edited by: Ishad Nha ] Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Petition for Carbonized Character Editor in Blades of Exile | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Tuesday, September 25 2007 17:22
Profile
I will sign too. I still can't compile the thing; I couldn't even compile "itemdata.h". If you want an editor that can handle the custom items found in major scenarios, this could be done here and now by hex – editing. It might be possible to create a custom editor good for only one scenario, or one group of scenarios having the same list of custom items. I will look into this and see what I can do, the basic idea is to: take the item information from the scenario editor using a program like Hexplorer, as found at: http://hexplorer.sourceforge.net/ paste it into Word, change white spaces to tab stops paste it into Excel, convert it into decimal numbers change it to a format that the PC editor will accept convert it back to hexadecimal paste it into Word, change the tab stops to white spaces and then paste it into the PC Editor using Hexplorer. (Edit: this process is for the birds, I have devised a new one that does not require use of Word at all.) If you want to rename the editor, when Line Width = 70, look at line 139, column 69 through line 140 column 20, inclusive. Special items are way beyond this approach, they could be added by hex - editing the save file, something else I will have to look into. [ Wednesday, April 30, 2008 15:14: Message edited by: Ishad Nha ] Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| PC Editor: Item Problems in Blades of Exile | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Tuesday, September 18 2007 21:52
Profile
The item data is found in the PC Editor source file "itemdata.h". It uses a slightly different format compared to the data in an Exs file. But the biggest problem is that compiling the thing is near impossible. Maybe it takes Code Warrior? There is also a peculiarity with the numbers given for graphics, sometimes 20 is added to the number. One of the source files adds 20 to the picture number, for certain pictures. My understanding is that lines 697,698 of BladPCEd.cpp have this effect: if (i.graphic_num >= 25) i.graphic_num += 20; Graphic number 25 is the fancy bow. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Blades of Avernum Improvements in Blades of Avernum | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Monday, September 17 2007 00:40
Profile
Text response requires one call for every enumerated answer, even if several of the answers are parts of the same word, see Exodus custom spells. Oh yes, Avernum spell descriptions are better than Exile, which isn't saying much. Last November I was able to work out a script for a magic shop, it used quite a few strings but you could customize the appearance of items. Said script is found in the Codex. Suppression of abilities, I tried it on a Runed Halberd in my unfinished Avernum port of Shadow of the Stranger, the manual proved right this time. The big picture is that the calls put restrictions on designer options, many times designers have to work around them. One problem is not knowing whether you can do something until you have read the manual yet again. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| PC Editor: Item Problems in Blades of Exile | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Sunday, September 16 2007 23:11
Profile
Type Edit at the Command Prompt then hit Enter. In the Edit command open the Character Editor, set Line Width: [65]. Then scroll down to Line:5288, Col:26 there should be a character with Value:22. What do the numbers mean anyway? Line 118 of the Windows source file Global.h “typedef struct { short variety, item_level; char awkward, bonus, protection, charges, type; unsigned char graphic_num,ability, type_flag, is_special; short value; Boolean identified, magic; unsigned char weight, description_flag; char full_name[25], name[15]; unsigned char reserved1,reserved2; unsigned char magic_use_type, ability_strength, treas_class, real_abil; } short_item_record_type;” Here “short” means that it takes two places to record a number whereas anything else only requires one space per number. A hex editor like Hexplorer will enable easy alteration: http://hexplorer.sourceforge.net/ Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Blades of Avernum Improvements in Blades of Avernum | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Sunday, September 16 2007 03:58
Profile
As for the Blaze Ring, it has one active special ability and no passive abilities at all. Here I am using the terminology from the BoA Editor Help file. If you have both active and passive abilities in the same item, one will suppress the other. To see what I mean about the hassle in enumerating every possible case, read state 12 from t2Raiser.txt in Kelandon’s High Level Party Maker. You can’t just say “what level party does the player want”, you must have this for every possible input number: check_text_response_match("1"); if (got_text_match()) what_num = 1; Another example is from the scenario Exodus, states 50 and 51 in the scenario script, where Kelandon would have liked to name the monsters in each slot of the Soul Crystal. Unfortunately he has to enumerate 255 cases, one case at a time. The Magic Shop uses up a lot of precious strings in BoA unless you give most items an equal chance of occurring. This scenario also illustrates my point about custom spells being second-class citizens. Yes you can buy them and have levels but the description screens are not as good. As for timers, you can’t have one run for more than 255 moves if you do it by incrementing a flag, unless you use two flags and some fancy footwork. I struck heaps of problems with timers when I ported the Exile scenario River and Leaf to the Avernum world, in particular the On the Dacgban zones. They are tough if you want to have two running at the same time. Rotating the viewpoints, the Neverwinter Nights game does it well. I feel it would add realism to the BoA world. I don’t think it would create that much extra work, apart from the graphics. I have had a stab at it myself. Damaged gear is found all through Nethergate: Resurrection, I think designers should alter monsters so they don’t always drop perfectly good stuff. One other improvement, Mac scenarios could use a graphics format that was credible, that could exist on a Windows computer. This is discussed in this post on porting scenarios from Windows to Mac formats: http://www.ironycentral.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=15;t=002923 Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| OBoE Suggestion List in Blades of Exile | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Sunday, September 16 2007 00:48
Profile
Hex editing is quick, simple and fun when you get familiar with it; my description may make it sound harder than it really is. To remove the limitation on editing is a good idea, it does however require re – compiling the Scenario Editor, which I have not succeeded in doing. I am using the Ormus code on Bloodshed Dev-C++, so far the program does “compile”, it is however 300kb in size rather than the proper 735kb. It also does not actually work, like do anything. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Blades of Avernum Improvements in Blades of Avernum | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Saturday, September 15 2007 01:19
Profile
Thoughts about problems with Blades of Avernum, unless it goes open - source they won't be fixed any time soon but anyway... If there is one annoying problem it is the limitations affecting some script calls. For instance move_to_new_town can only be called in a special encounter that the party has walked into. These limitations have no clear rule; they must be memorized or found by reading the relevant notes. Which makes it harder to learn and use the Avernumscript. Again, it is “syllabic” not “alphabetical”. For example, “town_visibility()” is a variable that is always defined. But you can’t improvise a call like “get_town_visibility()”, because the game has no provision for it. This is also a problem with the trait names, the High Level Party Maker, (t1Library.txt) has to list every possible trait name, there is no call like “get_trait_name()”. The text response function currently requires enumerating every possible allowable case. Thus you can’t simply have the script accept a number at random, the number must be assigned a place in an allowed case. The underlying problem is that the Avernumscript has been simplified a bit too much in some cases. Sometimes the simplification requires more work just to do basic things. Then there are so many errors and dysfunctional features, a bucket load of bugs documented elsewhere. Thus the Avernum approach promises more flexibility than was found in Exile, but the promise may exceed the performance for the above reasons. Also the calls don’t translate all features of Blades of Exile. From what I can see, a Jewel of Return is impossible because none of the Avernum calls do what is needed, travel from the outdoors to the starting town or its environs. Thus the new is not always better than the old. Possibly we could have the Geneforge style classification of terrain, floors and objects. You can’t have both active and passive abilities in the same item, a restriction that may not be necessary. Need the ability to customize the descriptions of custom items. The First Aid in Avernum 4 was really useful, how unlike Blades of Avernum. Avernum series games have an isometric style, outdoors the new style looks very artificial around mountains, and it is as obviously angular as any skyscraper. (I personally find the Windows graphics to be dull and drab.) If there is one feature badly needed it is the ability to rotate viewpoint. Currently the north and the west are the favored directions. A rotate command would make the south and east favored instead. All terrain, loose items, floors and creatures would have to be moved to new positions. Thus 12,23 in the current viewpoint would be 35,24 in a rotated vista, for a 48 * 48 zone. Default viewpoint would be the current one. Where terrain has a distinct facing it must be inverted, thus south-facing hills must become north facing. Ditto where creatures have a distinct facing that must be inverted too. It is not easy to make the outdoor appearance of a town match what is found when it is entered. Never an easy task when there are so few outdoor wall, building graphics. There are all sorts of foibles and idiosyncrasies with town entrances. The cliffs outdoors are always taken from the visually so-so G616.bmp, Surface cliff. Unless the party is underground, in which case it’s a case of G614.bmp. Thus the only way you can customize the outdoor walls is to rename another file as “G616.bmp” or “G614.bmp” as the case may be. Timers In Blades of Exile it is so easy to set a timer, just set a special encounter, then choose the appropriate sort of timer: General or Town Specs. In Blades of Avernum the routine is to increment a flag in the Start State of the town script. It is not as convenient as the set – and – forget Exile variety. Magic Shops To create Magic Shops in the Avernum world is a real problem. Quite a few BoE features can’t be replicated in Avernum, even the Avernum 3 – style Jewel of Return is a tough problem. Combat In Exile series, the monsters sometimes drop items when killed. While in Avernum, every last piece of monster equipment is dropped. It still retains its full market value. All monster gear is undamaged after the PCs have killed the monsters by every violent means permitted in the game. Custom Spells Canopy has an interesting concept, custom spells that are cast via “wands”. This gives an interesting variety to the scenario. Of course the uses of the various spells must be remembered, not easy to do when the wands don’t have this written on their item information screens. (As far as I can see, there is no way to give an item a custom description, you don’t seem to have the power to customize what appears on the item information screen.) It would be handy if this information could be made available to the player on-line, inside the game. At the end of the day, the custom “spells” are just scenario states, they lack all of the features of the real spells: spell levels, description screens and ability to buy them. If these features were to be available for the custom spells, they would require the use of scenario states and SDFs. Basically they are second-class citizens. The Blades of Avernum program is not GURPS, it is not infinitely versatile and it can only be customized so far. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| OBoE Suggestion List in Blades of Exile | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Friday, September 14 2007 16:58
Profile
Customizing the first 91 terrain slots is already possible, but it has to be done by hex - editing. Back in January this year, I wrote a post on how to do this. http://www.ironycentral.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=001792 You can also use a hexadecimal editor like Hexplorer, here the terrain listings start at hexadecimal address 7A98 = 31,384. (Hex editing is basically okay for these purposes.) [ Friday, September 14, 2007 17:04: Message edited by: Ishad Nha ] Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Using Equippable Items in Blades of Avernum Editor | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Tuesday, September 11 2007 16:56
Profile
Currently it is impossible to use any equipped item because there is no provision for this in the "portrait with equipped items" part of the Inventory screen. You would need to re - design the screen to provide for Use Item buttons to appear when an item can be used. They could appear in a row at the top of the portrait or along the sides. Then again you could have a third screen for this purpose, it would look much like the carried items part of the Inventory screen. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| BoA BUGS v6.0 in Blades of Avernum Editor | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Thursday, September 6 2007 23:48
Profile
From what I can see, item ability 65: Affect Rune Reading skill, does nothing in actual practice. Ditto when it is rephrased as item ability 43: “Affects the statistic equal to this value, minus one”. (Rune Reading is statistic number 42.) You can increase Arcane Lore via an item ability, but this increase does not affect Rune Reading, unlike increases to Arcane Lore coming from skill points. I think Rune Reading is redundant, there is no need for both it and Arcane Lore. [ Thursday, September 06, 2007 23:50: Message edited by: Ishad Nha ] Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Using Equippable Items in Blades of Avernum Editor | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Thursday, September 6 2007 23:39
Profile
From what I can see, there is an exclusive choice of passive or active. If you choose both, one is suppressed. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Using Equippable Items in Blades of Avernum Editor | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Thursday, September 6 2007 04:07
Profile
From the BoA Editor Help 1 file: “Active Abilities - These are effects that happen when the item is used. An item can only be used when it is in the character’s pack. No item that can be equipped can have active abilities. Some active abilities are spells or require targeting a foe. An item can only have one such ability. If it has more than one, only the last one will take effect.” Apparently items can be used even if they are equippable, like armor and weapons. In BoA Editor Help parlance they can have active abilities. They just can’t be used while they are equipped. Weapons with such abilities can only be used in combat. Of course, when they can be used, this can only happen when they are in a PC’s backpack. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |
| Derek's Ring & Adam's Wolf in Nethergate | |
|
Shock Trooper
Member # 7662
|
written Monday, September 3 2007 17:40
Profile
The Shadow Wolf you must track down, a bit of Woodcraft helps here. It is in the outdoor zone immediately east of Adams, you may need to go over every square in the zone. Posts: 292 | Registered: Monday, November 13 2006 08:00 |