Third Edition Baldur's Gate 1

[Ishad Nha]

Currently the Icewind Gate 2 Delta program enables you to play Baldurs Gate 2 on the (Third Edition) Icewind Dale 2 engine. Someone at Sorceror's Place wondered if the program could be used to enable BG1 to be played on Icewind Dale 2. I did none of the work in the IWG2 converters so I can't say. Nor have I played BG1, so I don't know much about it. What I can say is that a lot of the side quest stuff in BG2 was very hard to implement in IWG2 because Icewind Dale 2 had none of the functions that I needed. Examples include Crom Faeyr, Tiris quest in Trademeet, Pocket Plane Ability.

 

BG1 conversion would be a matter of what functions BG1 needs versus what IWD2 has to offer.

 

IWG2 Delta is designed to translate BG2 file formats. As for file formats the news is good overall, according to IESDP, BG1 and BG2 always use the same file format, with only two exceptions: CHR Character files and GAM Save game files.

The CHR files are described as: "This file format describes an exported party member. The format consists of a CHR header, followed by a standard CRE file." Presumably you won't see these files in the translation process.

GAM files are not used by the translation process.

IESDP lists 37 file formats, you can ignore 3: CHR, SAV and GAM. SAV is a save game file.

 

You will need to check the other 34 to make sure there are no differences between the BG1 and BG2 varieties. BG1 has far fewer kits, this will affect translation.

 

Link for Icewind Gate 2 download page is:

http://www.shsforums.net/index.php?a...tach&tid=34232

Here you want the "iwg2_delta1.rar" file. It can be opened by the freeware 7Zip program.

 

Any adventurous souls want to give this a go? You may need to rename your BG1 install directory as: BGII - SoA. At least while the Icewind Gate 2 program is running.

It might help if BGT was installed.

[Valiant]

That was me, evidently... thanks for the info, I was just curious, if it would be easier to convert BG1 than BG2, as BG1 lacks of some BG2 specialites and many actions and triggers...

[lynx]

yeah, it would probably be easier and maybe doesn't need much coercion now that bg2 works.

[Valiant]

Had to create errors folder in iwg2 folder, otherwise conversions didn´t want to run. Another fault - SPAWNGRP.2DA is not in BG1 chittin.key. Conversions has stopped... Any idea??

[plainab]

BG's spawns are directly controlled in the area files.

 

don't know if the converter will find a spawngrp.2da file in the override. but you could try making a dummy file and seeing what happens...

[Valiant]

It will finds it with no problems, I just did exactly you adviced me to. But that is not the only difference, much more lies ahead. Converter pops up with too many failures, so I gave it up. Also some rules must be changed, but it is beyond my knowledge. I will stick to area creation for now. Perhaps in the future I will come back to it. Cheers

[plainab]

you could always see what happens when BGT or Tutu is installed on top of BG2 before running the converter. who knows..... might work, might not

[Ishad Nha]

If we could contact Nameless One we might get the source code to his Delta version. Then we could alter it to fit BG1. I have tried to locate him but no luck.

If anyone was a really good programmer they could make a program just for converting BG1.

[Valiant]

But the sourcecode still lies inside WeiDU, or not anymore?? I would rather play BG1 in IWD2 than BG2, but maye it is just me... Perhaps in this case (not so many specifics in weapons and other items, simple dialogs, no banter engine, not so many triggers and actions, etc) an original Weimer sourcecode would do just fine, only to adapt it...

[plainab]

i think there is something else underlying besides a weidu component. I downloaded and looked at it and there are numerous files that are actually text but not associated with txt extension that list out a bunch of rules for I guess what is the actual conversion process. Probably read by the iwg2.exe file that is included in the installer. There is even mention of some files with the _ prepended as is the case with Tutu/EasyTutu but I don't think that is proof that EasyTutu is supported. I think it's perhaps part of the conversion so original files are not overridden. using a BGT install and not biffing it might be the best solution to get BG1 into IWD2. all the files will be in the override and there is a override folder copy routine in place.

 

However, you might have to determine looking at those rule files if anything from the BG1 portion should be included in one of them in some way. Of course, not all sections specifically describe what they are doing so it's kinda hard to say at a first glance without actually installing it. Never played IWD2 myself so don't want to ruin anything by trying something else with the engine first

 

Then again, it may not be that difficult to first do a BGT game, then convert, then build a fix pack mod to correct the BG1 elements (and any BG2 elements too for that matter). just time consuming LOL

[Ishad Nha]

Link I gave was for Nameless One's Delta version not Wes Weimer's Beta version. I have no idea how much Weidu is found in the Delta.

Nameless One seems to be Chinese, hence the Readme is in Chinese.

Correction:

Understanding the translation would be possible if you understand both the structure of a BG1 file and the structure of its IWD2 counterpart.

[plainab]

Link I gave was for Nameless One's Delta version not Wes Weimer's Beta version.

I know. That's the version I looked at since it is more stable than the other.

 

There isn't much typical weidu, as we know weidu to be, involved in the process. There is a small tp2 that is ran after the main conversion to patch things up. The main converter and what exactly it does is the tricky part. Question being if it will convert any and all files located in the base game or do more like the Tutu & BGT converters and use only from the game biffs.

 

Understanding the translation would be possible if you understand both the structure of a BG2 file and the structure of its IWD2 counterpart.

IESDP would be handy for that.

 

unfortunately, weidu itself isn't that great for converting from one game to the other. mainly because weidu is designed to work within a specific game structure with all the necessary files located in the same directory or in sub directories. It has trouble pulling from other directory locations. Its theoretically possible to use a --nogame variant at a higher level to transfer the files into the proper game setup and then launch the real weidu to convert. But a dedicated program to do the conversion built specifically for such purpose is a better way to go.

 

too bad, I'm not a programmer. Just a modder who dabbles here and there to break up the monotony

[Valiant]

Acoording to Nameless One delta version - I don´t know how much work he made in original iwg2 converter, but it looks like the main converter´s .exe file is the very same, and he only added some patches that deals with some specialites. But as BG1 is using much more simplier IE version, perhaps they are not needed, or, more specifically, not all of them are needed...

 

Problem is in iwg2.exe itself. It is hardcoded to look after some BG2 specific filenames, like KIT.IDS or that SPAWNGRP.2DA or others, that BG1 simply does not contain, so the dummy files have to be created to substitute them. If this particular files would be deleted from sourcecode, so the converter won´t look up for them, it would moved us a bit forward... Although still many other sthing lies ahead...

 

I read something that weimorph is still in WeiDU archive, but I do not know how to get that code out. If somebody is willing to extract the sourcecode, I would be grateful. At least I will have them stored for future use...

[Ishad Nha]

Has anyone actually tried to apply BGT before running IWG2.exe on an install of BG1? That is the quickest path short of a new converter program.

[plainab]

i have not due to time. but if i get the chance I can at least try it and see if it has any problems during the conversion process. I wouldn't be surprised if all it needs is tweaking after the fact. Using Tutu wouldn't be recommended due to there already being references to files prepended with _ I'd imagine there might be conflicts in such a case.