Dale Keeper II - Status - Download Link Inside

[Aaron]

I've had some time to take a look at the files. Some things appear, at least so far, to be unchanged, or at least changed in a non-significant manner.

I've taken the Shadow Keeper source as a base to start this new editor. It was the most complete of the the other editors I've made and I really didn't want to start from scratch again and I'm reasonably happy with the UI in SK.

My resource lookup and reading code is working without any modification. This is the code responsible for reading the various lists you find in the editor (classes, races, appearances, etc...) as well as generating the item/spell/creature lists and displaying the images. Having this work right away is a huge time saver.

The 3 resource browsers are working for the most part. The item browser has some issues with the filter not knowing all of the item types and some of them are assuredly incorrect since they came from BGII. The other two I think are working correctly. The filter is a minor issue that I've skipped for now.

The CRE resources have changed pretty drastically. I have much of the basic editing sorted out on them. This is just the easy stuff though -- race, class, ability scores, gender, etc...

Inventory looks like it is probably done the same way. I haven't examined it in detail, but once I had the CRE info straightened out a bit the inventory code in the editor appeared to be working without any modifications.

Spells I haven't even looked at yet. I can see from looking at the CRE data that they have changed the way they store the information, but I don't know how yet. Hopefully it won't be too hard to figure out. It's probably a much better system -- the old method they used was really awkward.

I'll keep this thread updated as I work through things.

[Aaron]

I have the spell system figured out now. I don't have any sort of an interface for it yet, but at least now I know it will be doable.

I've identified the skills and feats. The skills were simple, but the feats are a little odd and took some extra digging. Again, no UI on either of these yet.

I don't have any more time tonight to work on it, but I'll try to find some more time tomorrow.

[Aaron]

Sorry for the lack of updates. I haven't had any time to work on it in the last couple of days.

Inventory turns out to be different; unlike my original quick-peek at it. Some of the slots have changed positions and there may be more of them. I haven't compared it yet and have just noted that it isn't quite the same.

I think I have enough information now (after I count up the inventory slots anyway) to pull the character records apart and reassemble them. This is the next part I'll be working on. Once I have it loading and separating the data into workable pieces, and then have the reassembly and saving working I can work on adding the new features to the UI.

The spells are different enough that I've deleted all my old spell UI code other than the browser.  There are enough different spell-type sections in the character files that I'm not sure how I want to implement the new UI yet. I haven't checked to see if they are all used yet or if there is just room for growth, but I'm not sure I want to put a separate tab in for each type like I did last time.

I did receive some saved games from a couple of people which have helped me out a lot. Thank you for those. It saves me a lot of time when I can just rummage around through various files rather than having to create a new character each time I want to compare some data between types.

There is still a lot of work to be done and I can't give any estimate yet on when I'll have something working. I could maybe release a version without the spell editing that would at least give basic editing capabilities (inventory, stats, global vars and affects). That would at least get something out a little earlier. Even a limited version though would probably not be for another 3 or 4 days at the earliest; given the amount of time I have to work on it.

I have some jury duty coming up in a few days too. I don't know how much of my time that will eat up.

[Aaron]

I made a fair amount of progress today.

Loading and Saving of saved games appears to be working correctly. I haven't put this through a lot of testing, but the editor can read the files again after saving and the game seems to like them too.

Inventory editing is working.

Most of the ability tab works. There are a couple of things I haven't found or am not sure about yet on this one. Reputation: Anybody know where this is visible in the game so I can verify? Is reputation still a factor and still used?

Characteristics tab has changed a little, but it's all working now: Gender, Race, Sub Race, Alignment, Class, Kit, Enemy/All and the Movement Speed. I took at least one thing off it, but can't remember what right now.

Appearance tab is all working. For the colors I ditched the color picker dialog I had -- it was based off of a palette bitmap that doesn't seem to be around any more. I changed the colors to dropdowns that use the values from CLOWNCLR.IDS. Color selections should be more stable now though -- assuming all the ones in this list work right (tried a bunch and they seem to be fine).

The Resistance tab is working.

Affects and Global Variables appear to be working -- haven't had to change anything with these two tabs yet.

Things still remaining before I'm comfortable letting a copy out:

1) Skills -- I'll convert the Thief Skill tab into the Skills tab since this appears to be where the thief skills are anyway.

2) Feats -- Need to make a new tab for this one. There are so many feats these will end up in a list.

3) Ranger Enemy -- Oh this is what I pulled off the characteristics tab. Looks like rangers can have up to 8 enemy races now so this needs more room. It will probably end up on its own tab.

4) Levels -- This got pulled off the first tab where there used to be 3 boxes for the level. Each class level now has it's own spot in the file to keep track of levels. These will end up on their own tab too.

5) Item Browser doesn't have correct item types. This doesn't cause any problems with the inventory editing, but the list of items has a lot of Unknown and incorrectly labeled types in it.

6) There are a few things I have to locate or verify still: THAC0 and Number of Attacks. I don't even know yet if you can still set these through the CRE. Saving Throws -- are these still used like they used to be? I saw there were a couple new saves on the character record and didn't see the old ones. Are there still proficiencies or are they just through the Feats now?

That's still quite a bit of work before I can get something out. At least 2 or 3 days still.

[Aaron]

I have a Beta version online now for any of you feeling adventurous. Use some caution when testing it -- I've played around with most of the features and they appear to be working right, but you never know.

In particular, you might pay extra attention to the parts of the editor that have the ability to ovewrite data. Editing a CHR file will create a .BAK when it saves, but if you save the same file two times, you will have lost your original. It's probably a good idea to make sure you have backups before you do any serious editing of a CHR file or CRE resource.

Editing a saved game should still be safe. It shouldn't let you overwrite a game so there isn't much to fear here.

The editor still has some ULD files. I removed all the entries from the Kits.uld and am using the values from the KIT.IDS file now. You can still add your own kit values using the list editor, or editing the KITS.IDS.

Post a message on the board if you have any problems, or find any spelling errors please. If you find "Shadow Keeper" mentioned anywhere, let me know about that too.

I still have the ability to pick from single and multiplayer games in. I have the editor defaulted to multiplayer (which is where IWD2 saves all your games). If you uncheck the box, you aren't gonna see any games -- just a warning and to let you know I know about that. Eventually I'll take the switch out.

When browsing saved games the itty bitty screenshot that is normally on that dialog won't show up. The box is still there though. Or maybe it will show up for some of you. If you see the saved game screenshots let me know. The windows function I was using to load those images doesn't seem to want to load the ones from the saved games, dunno why. For any coder types if you think you know: I'm using LoadImage and it returns a NULL handle and doesn't set an error code. It's the same function I've been using for that dialog since the beginning. I'll probably just load it by hand eventually, but that is at the bottom of my todo list.

I took some of the filter options off of the Item Browser. There were way too many and this version of the game has a bunch more. I just grouped a bunch of them together that were similar. Swords covers all types. Bludgeoning Weapons covers Maces, Flails, etc... I changed the text around on some of the items to make them sort together too. Instead of "Shortsword", "Greatsword", "Bastard Sword" you'll see "Sword - Short", "Sword - Bastard".....

The spell browser is still there, but I'm not sure what to do with it. The selection of spells to pick from is going to be from a much more limited list (SPELLS.IDS). Instead of storing the resource strings they changed to storing spell ID numbers; which so far look to correspond to the list in SPELLS.IDS. It could cause some problems if that list isn't a complete list that players can use. If it turns out the spell numbers are hard coded and don't use that list...dunno if I'm up to compiling a list by hand. I didn't see any other related data in the resources that had any relation to the data in the CRE records.

I left the BG2 movement tweak on the Characteristics tab. I forget where it came from, monks? I don't have any idea if monks still get that or do it the same way, but the tweak still seems to work -- it's really an affect, but pulled it out at display time to make it easier to edit.

There is new tab for the Levels. When you load a character, if all of the individual levels add up to the total level value, the "Lock total level" will be checked and any edits you make to individual levels will be reflected in the total. If you uncheck it, you can tweak them independent of each other.

The appearance tab changed to use the color strings from one of the IDS resources. Hopefully that will be more reliable than the method I used in Shadow Keeper.

For feats double click the item to toggle it on/off. For feats that can take a value in addition to being turned on, you can use the plus and minus buttons at the bottom of the list to raise and lower them. If you hold Ctrl down when you click the button it'll go up/down by 10.

The Favored Enemies tab is for Rangers. The races will show up for other characters, but the bonus on the race shows up as a 0. It looked like the number of races was determined by the Ranger's level -- I haven't looked to see if the number of them or the bonuses are stored in the file -- if somebody thinks they are let me know and I'll go look for them.

There are a couple of slots I have as "Unknown" in the inventory list. If it turns out those are actually for something let me know. There have always been a few unknowns but I've hid them in the past. I left them in this time. You can stick stuff in the slots if you want -- it worked for me. But... you can't see them in the game and they probably add to your total weight, so it probably isn't a good idea.

I made the tabs a little bit taller. You still can't resize the saved game dialog, but this gives a little more viewing space.

Trying to avoid some of the number-range issues I had before, I removed all the code-enforced ranges on the items. There are still range limits based on the datatype though. A byte can only hold 0-255. Most of the values are BYTES - Abilities scores, Levels, Skills, Feats, Resistances. If you change any of those and they come out negative in the game let me know which ones they were and I'll change them to signed values.

Download DK2 Beta

[Aaron]

Another version is available. This is mostly bug fixes.

The install path browser should be working normally now and shouldn't give you "Shadows of Amn" errors anymore.

The log filename has been changed.

Subrace now save.

Fixed the bug that was giving Bludgeoning AC whenever you saved.

Added additional AC modifiers to abilities tab.

Changed the skills tab to use signed values (-128 to 127).

Added a new tab to support multiple kits. Double click the items to toggle them on/off. You can click a lot more than the game will support -- don't pick more than one from the same class of kits or the game will get confused (two mage kits probably isn't going to work).

Removed the option that switched between single- and multiplayer games.

Changing the global variables should be recognized as a "saveable" action.

The feats that use the ability button will have to wait a little longer. I see what needs to be done, but it's related to spells and will have to wait until I get the spell management code done.

Download DK2-Beta-2.zip

[Aaron]

I'll probably have another version with spell editing, and the Saves that I meant to put in the last version, done this weekend.

I changed how the spell browser works. It still looks the same, but I filled the list quite a bit differently than I have in the past. With the way they changed the storing of spells, you now need to be able to specifiy which class should receive the spell. I like being able to just double click the spells (or the push the assign button) to give the spell to a character. To prevent having an intermediate dialog popping up to ask you where you want it, I've instead filled the list with all possible combinations, sorted by Class. This should also assure that the spells goes to the right level for the class -- some spells are shared between classes but use them as different levels in the spell books.

The list is generated from the following 2DA files: LISTSPLL, LISTDOMN, LISTMAGE, LISTSHAP, LISTSONG and LISTINNT. To get a player made spell to show up in the browser, you'll have to override and edit the appropriate 2DA. In the past it would add spells by just scanning the override directory, but this wasn't always a reliable way for the editor to determine the class and level of the spell and in the case of IWD2 doesn't provide the information needed to assign the spells to a CRE.

[Aaron]

This version has the 3 saves I forgot in the last version. They share space on the Resistances tab.

The new spell browser and spell editing tabs are in.

The feats that add ability buttons still don't add the abilities when you enable them in the editor. You can do it by hand though. If you look through the innates you can find the feat-abilities and just assign them there. I think that plus enabling the feat should work.

Download Beta 3

[Aaron]

Just a bug fix in this one. As reported, some creature files would crash the editor.

The problem was some spells that the editor didn't have IDs for. In the 2DA files I used to generate the spell lists there are some entries that have "**" at the front of their resource string and they have 0 for all of the character classes. At the time, I just didn't add the "**" entries to the editor's lists because they didn't have any level assignment information anyway. Some creatures use these spells.

I had some code in that would stop a debug build of the editor if it couldn't find a spell definition, but didn't put a graceful check in for the release build -- causing the crash. This problem has been fixed and if it the editor encounters any spells that it doesn't know it will let you know about it and remove the spell from the character. It needs to know about the spell in order to display it.

I added the "**" spells to the editor and hopefully that will cover all the creatures so it won't find any unknowns. You won't be able to see these spells in the browser because they don't have any class or level information -- without that information the editor doesn't know where to place the spell. You will be able to see the spells that are already assigned to creatures though. If you DO want these spells to show up, you can fix it by editing the 2DA files and putting some levels in for the various classes you want to use them.

Download Beta 4

[Aaron]

Fixed the spelling of "Dimplomacy" on the Skills tab.

Added color samples beneath the dropdowns on the appearance tab.

Autosaves and Quick-Saves should should show up (or not show up) according to the Misc option now.

Rearranged the resistances so that they are in alphabetical order.

Added Magic Damage Resistance.

Cleaned up all the unused menu options.

The option to memorize spells when saving is now enabled.

Stopped using FEATS.IDS for the text list on the Feats tab since some of the items in that list are not correct. Now using FEATS.2DA and pulling the names for the feats out of the .tlk file.

The feats that make modifications to your characters should work now when you assign them in the editor.

Feats that add abilities: Arterial Strike, Envenom Weapon, Hamstring, Power Attack, Stunning Attack, Wildshape, Boring Beetle, Wildshape Panther and Wildshape, Shambling mound. The editor doesn't try to figure out how many times you should have this ability. When you pick a feat that assigns an ability it defaults to 1 use.

The only feats that actually modify your stats I think are related to Saves (direct will, reflex and fortitude only), hit points, and resists. All of the feats that modify those stats on your characters should do it in the editor.

Please note that not all feats modify your characters. Some of them provide bonuses without actually changing any of your stats. Feats that increase yours skills, for example, do this. You get a bonus but your base skill values do not increase. Please do not email me saying "it doesn't raise <something>" unless you are positive that it should be doing it. You can test it out yourself by assigning the feat in the game and looking to see if it changed any of your base values in the editor.

Download Beta 5