Jump to content
The Community Blog (An Invitation)

Rob McGinnis

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    346

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by Rob McGinnis

  1. Rob McGinnis
    By Rich Taylor
     
    In 1.06, it will be possible to set up multiple GUI callbacks on a single UI event in XML. The syntax will be to use the event name and append a number to it. The engine will read in the callbacks until it fails to find the next sequential number.
     
    For example, I could set up a UI Button to with the following callbacks:
     
    OnUpdate=UIObject_OnUpdate_DisableIfLocalVarEquals(local:3,"true")
    OnLeftClick=UIObject_Input_ScreenOpen("SCREEN_OPTIONS","false")
    OnLeftClick0=UIObject_Input_SetLocalVarString(local:3,"true")
     
    When I click that button, it would open the Options screen, then set the local var to "true". On its next update, it would become disabled because of the OnUpdate check.
     
    Note that the callback without a number will be handled before the 0'th callback.
    So OnLeftClick will be handled before OnLeftClick0.
     
    Also note that the callback without the number is not required but is mostly just supported for backwards compatibility.
     
    For example, it would be valid to have the following callbacks:
     
    OnLeftClick0=
    OnLeftClick1=
    OnLeftClick2=
     
    That will work fine, executing 0, then 1, then 2.
     
    It is also valid to have:
    OnLeftClick=
    OnLeftClick0=
    OnLeftClick1=
    OnLeftClick2=
     
    This will execute them in order.
     
    It is not valid to start with any other number besides 0 however.
     
    OnLeftClick1=
    OnLeftClick2=
    OnLeftClick3=
     
    will result in no callbacks being loaded for that event for that UIObject.
     
    Sometimes the engine assigns callbacks to UIObjects internally. The engine will only ever override the first callback, so if you are having a problem with the engine overriding your callback for some UI Object, you might need to insert a dummy callback first, before the callbacks you actually want to execute. This doesn't happen too often though, so I doubt this will be an issue for very many.
     
    Note at this time, the only event that doesn't support multiple callbacks is OnTooltip, due to how the engine has to handle this event internally. I may or may not be able to fix OnTooltip by the time 1.06 comes out.
  2. Rob McGinnis
    UIObject_Tooltip_DisplayTooltipString takes up to 9 parameters, but only the first four parameters are required.
     
    Parameter list:
     
    Message = The literal string to display in the tooltip
     
    XLoc = The X origin for where the tooltip should appear. This can be a pixel location, or you can use the following two strings to make it relative: MOUSE_X will place the X origin of the tooltip near where the mouse is. OBJECT_X will place the tooltip next to the UIObject that is being moused over, if any. At first, it will try to place the tooltip to the right side of the UIObject. But if there is not enough screen space to fit the tooltip there, it will place it on the left side of the UIObject.
     
    YLoc = The Y origin for where the tooltip should appear. This can be a pixel location, or you can use the following two strings to make it relative: MOUSE_Y will place the Y origin of the tooltip near where the mouse is. OBJECT_Y will place the tooltip next to the UIObject that is being moused over, if any. At first, it will try to place the tooltip on top of the UIObject. But if there is not enough screen space to fit the tooltip there, it will place it on the bottom of the UIObject.
     
    Screen Tag = The Screen Tag for the XML file to be used for the tooltip
     
    XAlignment = This parameter can be used to quickly position a tooltip relative to the full-screen space. The valid arguments are: ALIGN_NONE(default), ALIGN_CENTER, ALIGN_LEFT, ALIGN_RIGHT
     
    YAlignment = This parameter can be used to quickly position a tooltip relative to the full-screen space. The valid arguments are: ALIGN_NONE(default), ALIGN_CENTER, ALIGN_TOP, ALIGN_BOTTOM
     
    XPadding = This is used along with XAlign to quickly position the tooltip. It controls how far in the tooltip should be pushed from the left or right border of the screen space. For example, setting XAlignment to ALIGN_RIGHT and XPadding to 10 will result in the tooltip appearing on the right side of the screen, with a space of 10 pixels between the right edge of the tooltip scene and the edge of the screen.
     
    YPadding = This is used along with YAlign to quickly position the tooltip. It controls how far in the tootip should be pushed from the top or bottom border of the screen space. For example, setting YAlignment to ALIGN_BOTTOM and YPadding to 10 will result in the tooltip appearing on the bottom of the screen with a space of 10 pixels between the bottom edge of the tooltip scene and the edge of the screen.
     
    TextAlignment = How the text should be aligned in the tooltip. The options are: ALIGN_NONE(default), ALIGN_CENTER, ALIGN_LEFT, ALIGN_RIGHT, ALIGN_TOP, ALIGN_BOTTOM
  3. Rob McGinnis
    The only valid parameter to this callback is a local or global GUI variable index.
    localguivars are expressed as local:#, where # is the index for the variable.
     
    globalguivars are expressed as global:#, where # is the index for the variable.
     
    This callback takes the engine-level data in a UIObject and stores it in a global or local gui variable. The engine-level data will vary from UIObject to UIObject. It is also impossible to specify which data item you want to set the GUI variable to, if the UIObject has multiple items of data.
     
    This is a really old callback and is of limited use to custom GUIs at this time. My intent is to write a new callback that accomplishes what this callback does, but that takes more parameters in order to more accurately specify what data you are interested in from the UIObject.
  4. Rob McGinnis
    This callback takes a single parameter. It's only purpose is to enable or disable a button based on whether or not the user has selected a row in a List Box.
     
    The single parameter is:
    sListBoxName = The name of the list box we want to check for selection.
     
    If the user has a row selected in the listbox named in the parameter, then the UIButton will be set to Enabled.
     
    If the user does not have a row selected in the listbox named in the parameter, then the UIButton will be disabled.
  5. Rob McGinnis
    Q: Trying to modify the knockdown feat in the feats.2da and here's what I've found.
    There is both a Cooldown time and also a Uses per day.
     
    Cooldown
    If I set a cooldown time it "works", in a sense you can only use the kd feat every X seconds (whatever you set it as) - but the problem with this, is that it doesn't give any graphical feed back to the users (for example, Rage shows a "greyed out" icon and how long you have to wait till you can reuse it again - if I modify the kd feat it doesn't show up this graphical feedback [just a message in the combat log]). Is there a way to get a "count down timer" on the feat/hotbar so the player has a visual indication of how much time is left (like the rage feat)? do I have to change another column?
     
    uses per day
    With the uses per day, that is settable. But if they use up all the uses, it removes the feat from their character I can store it as a local int and re-grant them the feat on rest, but the feat seems buggy after that (it shows up in the character screen, but the feat doesn't "activate" when you try and use it - also players have to re-equip to their hotbar which isn't a show stopper, but could be very annoying).
     
    feat calling a script
    Also would there be any way for the KD feat to call a script instead of the hard coded function? That way we could change the formula and how it works via scripting instead of using the default rules for it. Ie, when the user hit's the knockdown button to execute script "MyKnockDownScript".
    thanks!
     
     
    A: 1. There was a bug with cooldown timers showing up, which has been fixed in an upcoming patch. If you want a feat that only has a cooldown (without uses/day), you'll need to put "-1" in the "USESPERDAY" column (not "****"). Otherwise, I had no trouble having uses/day and cooldown on the same feat.
     
    2. I haven't had any problems with uses per day removing feats from the hotbar. If you send me your character .bic and your feat.2da, I might be able to figure out what is happening (contact me for e-mail info).
     
    3. EffectKnockdown() is available to script. We use a 4.5 second duration for the engine-side knockdown. You could easily create a new feat (call it Trip, perhaps) that is an active feat (set "IsActive" to 1) that calls a spell script (put the script spell ID in "SPELLID").
  6. Rob McGinnis
    Q: With 8-bit alpha, is it possible with the current NWN2 engine to use the alpha to make a surface translucent (as in 50% opacity with an alpha pixel value of 50%)?
     
    A: There are two ways to make a surface translucent.
     
    One way would be to make a special effect that edits the alpha. In the VFX editor this would be called a "game model effect". Then you'd have to assign the effect to the object via the toolset, or script.
     
    The second way would be to export the model that you want the translucent surface on as a "glow object". However this would cause the object to be additive as well.
  7. Rob McGinnis

    UIFrame

    By Rob McGinnis,

    By: Rich Taylor
     
    UI Frame is used for borders and backgrounds for other UI Objects. UIFrames are imbedded in buttons and a few of the container style UI Objects that will be discussed later.
     
    The following attributes are handled by UIFrame:
     
    The following is a list of the texture pieces that make up a frame. They take a texture name as an argument. The texture pieces are:
    topleft, topright, top, left, right, bottom, bottomleft, bottomright, fill.
     
    The next set of attributes are methods of mirroring one piece to other pieces. This mirroring happens at render time.
     
    mhtop
    Stands for MirrorHorizontalTop. Defaults to false. If true, the Top Left Corner will be mirrored to the Top Right Corner. If combined with mvright, then the Top Left Corner will be mirrored to the Right Bottom Corner.
     
    mhbottom
    Stands for MirrorHorizontalBottom. Defaults to false. If true AND mvright is true, then the Top Left Corner will get mirrored to the Bottom Right Corner. If true AND mvright is false, then the Bottom Left Corner will get mirrored to the Bottom Right Corner.
     
    mvleft
    Stands for MirrorVerticalLeft. Defaults to false. If true, the Top Left Corner will get mirrored to the Bottom Left Corner. If true AND mhbottom is true, the Top Left Corner will get mirrored to the Bottom Right Corner.
     
     
    mvright
    Stands for MirrorVerticalRight. Defaults to false. If true AND mhtop is true, the Top Left Corner will get mirrored to the Bottom Right Corner. If true AND mhbottom is false, the Top Right Corner will get mirrored to the Bottom Right Corner.
     
    mhside
    Stands for MirrorHorizontalSide. Defaults to false. If true, the Left Side will get mirrored to the Right Side.
     
    mvside
    Stands for MirrorVeritcalSide. Defaults to false. If true, the Top Side will very mirrored to the Bottom Side.
     
    maside
    Stands for MirrorAllSides. Defaults to false. If true, the Left Side will get mirrored to the Top Side, Right Side, and Bottom Side.
     
     
    The remaining attributes supported by UIFrame follow:
     
    fillstyle
    This tells the engine to fill in the center space of the frame with the fill texture using different algorithms. This attribute takes the following string arguments:
    center - Center the 'fill' texture.
    stretch - Stretch the 'fill' texture to take up the full center.
    tile - Repeat the 'fill' texture to fill up the center.
     
    border
    This is the thickness of the border pieces in pixels. Note that it defaults to 0. If no border thickness is set, then all the textures besides 'fill' won't show up when the UIFrame gets rendered.
     
    color
    This takes color strings to define the color that should be blended with the frame textures.
     
    Note that if a UIFrame doesn't have a height or width defined by its attributes, it automatically inherits the height and width of whatever object contains it.
  8. Rob McGinnis

    UIText

    By Rob McGinnis,

    UIText is the GUI object used for containing and rendering text. It is one of the more complicated UI Objects to work with.
     
    UIText takes the following attributes:
     
    fontfamily
    This defines which font should be used via a string argument. The fonts are defined in fontfamily.xml. The 'name' attribute for the different UIFontFamily elements in fontfamily.xml is how they are identified here. If this attribute is not set, then the text field will use the 'Default' font family defined in fontfamily.xml.
     
    nextcontrol
    Which control should have focus if the user hits tab while editing this UIText field. It only really makes sense to put UIText field names as the arguments to this attribute, as focus doesn't have any significant meaning for any other type of UIObject. Note that the nextcontrol must be in the same UIScene as this text field.
     
    prevcontrol
    Which control should have focus if the user hits shift+tab while editing this UIText field. It only really makes sense to put UIText field names as the arguments to this attribute, as focus doesn't have any significant meaning for any other type of UIObject. Note that the prevcontrol must be in the same UIScene as this text field.
     
    filter
    This attribute can be used to limit what text the user can enter into this text field when editing it. By default, any input character is valid. It takes strings as its arguments. The following strings are handled:
    alpha - Only letters can be entered in this field.
    numeric - Only numbers can be entered in this field.
    alphanumeric - Only letters and numbers can be entered in this field.
    signed_numeric - Only numbers in this field, except the '-' character, which may only be entered at the front of the string.
     
    maxnumber
    This number limits the max number that a user can enter when editing this text field. It only means anything if the text field's filter is set to numeric or signed_numeric.
     
    allowspace
    If this attribute is false, then any space characters will not be allowed in this field, including tabs or newlines. It defaults to false.
     
    allowpunc
    This attribute only means anything if the filter type is set to alpha or alphanumeric. It allows graphical punctuation characters to be entered in the text field. If no filter type is specified, then this attribute doesn't do anything. It defaults to false, so must be set to true if the intent is to allow users to enter punctuation style characters into this text field.
     
    password
    Defaults to false. If set to true, then the characters in this string will be replaced with * marks when this text field gets rendered.
     
    sanitized
    Defaults to false. If this attribute is set to true, then any string entered in this text field will be run through the built in swear-filter.
     
    style
    This is a modifier to the font that is being used. It takes a string or number as its argument. The following arguments are supported:
    normal - Or style 1. This is defined by the UIFontNormal element in fontfamily.xml
    bold - Or style 2. This is defined by the UIFontBold element in fontfamily.xml
    italic - Or style 3. This is defined by the UIFontItalic element in fontfamily.xml
    bolditalic - Or style 4. This is defined by the UIFontBoldItalic element in fontfamily.xml
     
    indent
    This is the number of pixels to indent the first line of any text. It defaults to 0.
     
    hangingindent
    This is the number of pixels to indent all lines besides the first line in a multi-line text field. It defaults to 0.
     
    align
    This is how the text should be aligned in the text field. The following string arguments are handled: left, right, center. Defaults to left.
     
    hilite
    Defaults to false. If set true, then the text in this text field will hilight when moused over.
     
    valign
    This is how the text should be aligned vertically within the text field. The following string arguments are handled: top, bottom, middle. Defaults to top.
     
    poscenter
    This attribute is defunct and no longer does anything.
     
    sizetofit
    Defaults to false. If set to true, then the text field will extend its height downward as far as possible in order to contain the length of text within it. This is an old attribute and should be replaced by just setting the height of the text field to DYNAMIC.
     
    buttonoverlay
    This only means anything if the text field is a child element of a UIButton element. If left to the default of false, then this text field will become the normal text field that shows up in buttons. If set to true, it becomes Overlay Text. At this time, Overlay Text can only be manipulated by the engine.
     
    editable
    Defaults to false. If set to true, then the user can edit the text within this text field by clicking it to place their cursor and typing like normal.
     
    selectable
    This attribute does nothing at this time.
     
    maxlines
    The max number of lines this text field can contain. Setting this attribute to '1' will keep the engine from trying to break the text into multiple lines. Text that will not fit into the text field after the maximum number of lines has been reached will not get rendered. If not defined, the engine will try to wrap a string and fit it into the space available no matter what, which can sometimes result in no text at all appearing due to spacing errors.
     
    multiline
    This attribute toggles whether or not a user can hit enter to start a new line of text within a editable text field. It requires that allowspaces be also set to true or else it will seem to do nothing. It defaults to false. When false, the OnReturn callback will get called when the user hits enter, instead of a new line being inserted.
     
    returnrestricted
    This attribute can be a bit confusing. It defaults to false and only means anything when used with multiline=true. What happens is that if this attribute is set to 'true', the text field will accept multiple lines of input and wrap them automatically, but if the user hits their return key, the OnReturn callback gets called instead of inserting a newline. An example of this behavior can be found in the chat input box.
     
    uppercase
    Defaults to false. If true, all text rendered in this text field will be rendered in uppercase.
     
    maxlength
    This limits the number of characters that can be typed into a text field by the user. Once the user has entered the max limit of characters, no additional characters can be input. If no maxlength is set, the user can keep typing indefinitely.
     
    color
    A color to blend with all of the characters within the text field. This can sometimes conflict with the use of the color tags in text fields.
     
    highlightcolor
    This attribute defines the color that should be blended with the text when doing a mouse-over style highlight.
     
    selectioncolor
    This attribute does nothing at this time.
     
    highlightonmouseover
    This is just a clone of the hilite attribute mentioned above.
     
    text
    This is for hard coding the text that should show up in this text field. Overrides strref.
     
    strref
    This is for coding which string ref should show up in the text field. It is overridden by text.
     
    OnReturn
    This callback gets executed when the user hits Enter while the cursor is in this text field. Note that if the text field is set with multiline=true and restrictedreturn=false, then this callback will not get executed.
     
    OnLostFocus
    This callback is executed when the cursor is taken out of the text field due to the user clicking elsewhere.
  9. Rob McGinnis
    By: Rich Taylor
     
    In 1.05 there is a new attribute that all UI Objects handle called hideoverride. If true, this attribute sets a UI Object hidden and keeps it that way until a script says otherwise via the SetGuiObjectHidden() script function.
     
    This can be used to keep an item hidden that the GUI may try to make visible regardless what a script tries to do, such as a row in a list box.
     
    As a result, objects that are set hidden via SetGuiObjectHidden() will STAY hidden no matter what, unless SetGuiObjectHidden() is later used to make it visible.
     
    For example, if I add a new icon to a screen and set it hideoverride=true in the XML, it will remain hidden on that screen no matter what the GUI might try to do with it until I call SetGuiObjectHidden() with a false parameter to make it visible again, at which point the GUI once again has control over making that object hidden or unhidden.
  10. Rob McGinnis

    Special Screens

    By Rob McGinnis,

    By: Rich Taylor
     
    Taking a break from writing about the UI Elements for a moment, though there are still some of those that I will cover in future posts.
     
    Most XML files are loaded as default UI Scene, which implies no special behaviors. There are, however, several XML files that will get special handling in code and most conform to specific rules in order to even be loaded. All of these scenes are distinguished by their identifying name in the INI file (Or the screen tag given to them when being loaded via script). The actual XML file name doesn't matter.
     
    Note that when I list them below, if a name ends with a * mark, that means that only the text up to the * mark is required and that the name may be unique after that mark.
     
    The following are special GUI screens that are loaded differently than most XML files:
     
    SCREEN_FADE = The full screen 'fade' effect. It gets loaded like a normal XML file at first. After loaded, the first UIIcon object found (The one highest up in the file) becomes the engine's 'Fading' icon. The rest of the contents of the file will behave normally. In our default SCREEN_FADE, we include just the full screen icon. But there may be other things one would want to include on the fade, such as custom images, etc.
     
    SCREEN_QUICKCHAT = The NWN1 style dialog box. First it is loaded like a normal XML file, then the following ui objects are searched for in order for the engine to use them:
    npclistbox - Listbox of NPC spoken text
    npctext - Text field for NPC spoken text (Contained by npclistbox generally)
    replieslistbox - Listbox of Player Reply options
    skipdialogbutton - Button for skipping through the NPC spoken nodes
    speakername - Text field for containing the speaker's name
    portrait - UIPortrait object
    All but the speakername and portrait fields are necessary or the window will not be loaded.
     
    SCREEN_CUTSCENE = The fill screen cutscene view with the black bars on the top and bottom. This window is loaded like any other, then the following objects are searched for by the engine:
    topbar - UIFrame for the top black bar
    bottombar - UIFrame for the bottom black bar
    FULLSCREEN_IMAGE - UIIcon used for full screen images.
    toplistbox - Listbox to contain the text shown on top
    toplistboxtext - Textfield contained by toplistbox
    bottomlistbox - Listbox to contain the text shown on the bottom. Spoken by NPCs
    bottomlistboxtext - Text field contained by bottomlistbox
    replieslistbox - Listbox to contain the replies available to a player.
    skipdialogbutton - Fullscreen button for clicking through the dialog
    Failure to locate any of the above objects will result in the screen not loading.
     
    SCREEN_CONTEXTMENU = The rightclick menu system. Technically, this gets loaded like any other XML file. I'll make another post later about the syntax and format of the contextmenu.xml file.
     
    SCREEN_MINIMAP = The in-game minimap GUI. I don't know a lot about how the Minimap works. If further documentation is requested for it, I can research it further later.
     
    SCREEN_AREAMAP = The in-game area map that can be brought up. I don't know a lot about how the Area Map works. If further documentation is requested for it, I can research it further later.
     
    SCREEN_MESSAGEBOX_SPLITSTACK* = Scene used for splitting stacks of items in inventory. The only gui element required is 'inputbox'.
     
    SCREEN_MESSAGEBOX_SPLITSTACKSTORE* = Scene used for splitting stacks of items for stores. It's actually loaded identically to the SCREEN_MESSAGEBOX_SPLITSTACK and only requires the 'inputbox' object to exist. I'm not sure why it got made into a seperate entry.
     
    SCREEN_MESSAGEBOX* = This is used for the generic message box popups. I'll probably have to write up more on them another time as they can be used effectively by scripts as well. The required elements for these are:
    messagetext = Text field that contains the message.
    okbutton = Button that will execute the OK callback
    cancelbutton = Button that will execute the Cancel callback
    messageboxlb = Listbox for containing the message text in case the text gets long.
    MSGBOX_BACKGROUND = Frame used for the background, this one is optional.
     
    SCREEN_STRINGINPUT_MESSAGEBOX* = Message boxes that prompt for user string input. They are identical to normal Message boxes, except that they also require a 'inputbox' text field.
     
    SCREEN_MESSAGE* = Chat boxes, pretty much. Note that currently the engine only supports loading the hard coded ones in ingamegui.ini. I hope to change this to be a lot more flexible down the line. The required elements are:
    messagelistbox - Listbox containing the scrollback text. If it is not found, the engine searches for messagelistbox2 instead. If neither is found, the screen is not loaded.
    inputbox - Text field used for user input.
    IMEREadingWindow - Used for IME support.
    IMEReadingWindowBG - Used for IME support.
    IMEComposeWindow - Used for IME support.
    IMEComposeWindow - Used for IME support.
    IMECandidateWindow - Used for IME support.
    IMECandidateWindowBG - Used for IME support.
    INPUT_CONTAINER - Used by the engine for easily hiding/unhiding the input related objects.
     
    SCREEN_HOTBAR, SCREEN_HOTBAR_2, SCREEN_HOTBAR_V1, SCREEN_HOTBAR_V2 = All the hotbars built into the game. There are no required or special UI elements needed to load these.
     
    If a Screen Tag doesn't match to any of the above screens, then a normal UI Scene gets created with all the default behaviors associated with it.
  11. Rob McGinnis
    (Rich Taylor gives us a peek into 2da caching)
     
    Our lead scripter, Charles Mead, informed me that we did not cache 2DAs that were being queried by script. This resulted in ridiculous seek time for looping over large 2DAs.
     
    He indicated that Bioware had fixed that in the 1.64 code, so I referenced the 1.67 code drop that we had and saw that they had implemented a system whereby the most recent 2 2DAs that were queried were cached.
     
    I took that a bit further and made it so that the # of 2DAs that are cached is a changeable value. The default is 10, but in nwnplayer.ini, an entry of:
     
    2DA Cache Size=
     
    under
     
    [server Options]
     
    will allow users to modify that cache size to suit their needs. There should never be a need to go lower than 10, but someone may want to increase the cache if they are querying a ton of different 2DAs quite frequently.
     
    In addition, the function:
    Clear2DACache() can be used to purge the in-memory 2DA cache. This will force the 2DA to be loaded from disk the next time a script tries to look anything up from it.
     
    This change is scheduled for 1.05.
  12. Rob McGinnis

    UIObject

    By Rob McGinnis,

    UIObject is the 'base' GUI object. You can't actually define it in XML, but it contains attributes that are common to many different UI Objects, so I'm starting here.
     
    The following are the attributes that will be loaded for every UI Object in the XML file except for the attributes.
     
    Some attributes will be ignored or overridden depending on the situation. Note that attributes are case sensitive.
     
    name
    String value for the name of the UI Object. This is used internally and will be necessary for scripting to interact with this object in the future.
     
    scalewithscene
    If this is set to true, then this UI Object will have its dimensions scaled to match its parent's dimensions if the parent object gets resized. Handy for things like background images.
     
    usescaler
    This tells the code to try and use some logic when this object gets resized in determining where its new X,Y origin should be. For example, if there is a lot of space to the right of the object, it will assume this object was left-anchored and keep the object to the left side with its new position. It's kind of a confusing attribute, all I can say is try it out and see if it does what you want, and don't use it if it doesn't.
     
    width
    The width of the UI Object. Many things override this, for example if the object will be a box in a grid, the grid will control the width, or if the box is in a list box, the list box may override it, depending on the list box attributes, etc. This attribute can take pixel count arguments, or the following strings:
    SCREEN_WIDTH - This object's width will be full screen no matter what the resolution is.
    PARENT_WIDTH - This object's width will be the full width of its parent object, no matter what the size of the parent object is.
     
    height
    Same as the width attribute, except substitute height for width in all cases. Note that if no height or width attributes are set, the object will take on the height and width of its parent object.
     
    x
    The x origin of the object with respect to its parent UI object. This can take a pixel count, or the following strings as arguments:
    ALIGN_CENTER - Center this Object to the screen
    ALIGN_PARENT - Center this object within its parent UI Object.
    ALIGN_LEFT - Keep this object oriented to the left of its parent (x = 0).
    ALIGN_RIGHT - Push this object against the right side of the parent object.
     
    y
    The y origin of the object with respect to its parent UI object. This can take a pixel count, or the following strings as arguments:
    ALIGN_CENTER - Center this object to the screen
    ALIGN_PARENT - Center this object within its parent UI Object.
    ALIGN_TOP - Keep this object at the top of its parent object (y=0)
    ALIGN_BOTTOM - Push this object against the bottom of the parent object.
     
    focusable
    In general, this means that the object can't be clicked on. For example, if it is an object in a UIGrid, it means that object in the grid can't be clicked on. This will keep the object of being the target of an actiontarget as well (When the mouse cursor changes to indicate the user can click somewhere to perform an action). Default value is true.
     
    ignoreevents
    This is somewhat identical to setting focusable=false, but it also means that the UI Object will ignore objects being dragged on it, among some other UI events besides just mouse clicking. It defaults to false.
     
    handleactiontarget
    Setting this to true means that action targets can be used on this GUI object. Action targets actions that need to be targeted on something, indicated by the mouse cursor changing appearance. For example, clicking on a spell button, then having the cursor change to indicate you need to click on what target you want the spell cast. If this attribute is true, then the GUI object will be treated as a valid target for actions to be performed on. It defaults to false.
     
    draggable
    This indicates that the UI Object can be dragged and dropped, such as hotbar buttons. Defaults to false.
     
    OnMouseDropReceived
    This is the UI Callback to execute when a draggable UI object gets dropped on this UI object. This is not executed by the object being dropped, but rather the object that got something dropped ON it.
     
    OnMouseDrop
    This callback is executed on a UI Object when it gets dragged and then dropped. Upon being dropped, this callback will be executed.
     
    OnMouseDropFailed
    This callback is executed if a UI Object is dragged and then dropped but not dropped over another UI Object.
     
    OnMouseEnter
    This callback is executed when the mouse cursor is moved over this object.

    OnMouseLeave
    This callback is executed when the mouse cursor is moved off of the object after having been moved onto it.
     
    OnResize
    This callback is executed any time the UI Object gets resized for any reason.
     
    OnTooltip
    This callback gets executed if the mouse hovers over this object long enough based on the user's preference for the tooltip delay.
     
    OnRadialRequest
    This is the callback that gets executed if the user brings up the context sensitive menu on this UI object.
     
    DefaultTooltip
    This is a default tooltip STRREF that is used in case a custom tooltip callback is not really necessary.
     
    hidden
    Whether or not this object is visible. Defaults to true..
     
    disabled
    Whether or not this object is enabled. Applies mostly to buttons, but for the most part, no UI Object that is disabled will accept user input. Defaults to false.
     
    capturemouseclicks
    If set to false, then mouse clicks should pass right through this object. Useful for semi-transparent overlays and other situations where it is expected that the user be able to click through the UI Object. This also applies to MouseEnter and MouseLeave. If an object is set to not capture mouse clicks, then objects underneath of it cannot be moused over.
     
    OnGainedFocus
    This callback is executed when an object gains focus. This applies mostly to buttons that got clicked on or editable text fields that got clicked in.
     
    OnLostFocus
    This callback is executed when an object loses focus. This applies mostly to buttons that had been previously clicked on or editable text fields that had been previously clicked in.
     
    update
    This determines if this UI object receives calls to an OnUpdate callback. Defaults to false. If set to true, then this UIObject will have its OnUpdate callback called on every frame, or slower if an updaterate is defined.
     
    OnUpdate
    The callback to be executed when this object receives its update.
     
    UpdateRate
    This attribute can be used to tune the update rate of a UI Object. If a particular object doesn't need to be updated every frame, then set an update rate here to slow it down. The number value is in seconds and floating points are okay (0.5 for half second, for example).
     
    hotbartype
    This is an advanced attribute that is used for determining how the hotbar should treat another UI Object being dragged onto it. The currently valid values for this attribute are:
    HOTBAR_NONE - The hotbar should ignore this.
    HOTBAR_ITEM - This is an item icon being dragged, such as from inventory.
    HOTBAR_KNOWNSPELL - This item being dragged is something from the spellbook.
    HOTBAR_SPELL - This item is a spell from somewhere else, such as another hotbar slot.
    HOTBAR_FEAT - This item is a feat from somewhere, such as the feat listing or another hotbar slot.
    HOTBAR_BUTTON - This is an empty hotbar button.
    HOTBAR_SKILL - This is an activateable skill, such as from the skills pane or another hotbar slot.
    HOTBAR_TOGGLEMODE_BUTTON - This is a button used to toggle some kind of mode.
    HOTBAR_BARTER - This is used to flag barter grid items as not being able to be dragged to the hotbar.
    HOTBAR_DM_COMMAND - The item being dragged is a DM Client command.
    HOTBAR_VM_COMMAND - The item being dragged is an emote command.
    HOTBAR_DM_CREATOR - The item being dragged is an entry from the DM Client Creator.
     
    Scale*ToParent
    This was a set of attributes that was going to allow more control over how an object behaved when its parent got scaled. But in looking at the code, it looks like they've been gutted and no longer do anything.
     
    MouseOverSFX
    The sound effect to play when this UI Object gets moused over.
     
    alpha
    How transparent this object should be by default.
     
    dontrendermousegrab
    'Mouse Grab' means item being currently dragged. Normally the mouse grab is rendered last of all in order to keep it on top. There are situations where this behavior wasn't desired, though I can't remember what. When set to true, it means that this object needs to not get rendered last like normal dragged objects, but rather is rendered when it would normally be.
     
    SetDataInt
    This stores an 'int' value in the UI Object's data element at int index 0. More on data elements another time.
     
    SetDataFloat
    This stores a 'float' value in the UI Object's data element at float index 0. More on data elements another time.
     
    SetDataString
    This stores a 'string' value in the UI Object's data element at string index 0. More on data elements another time.
  13. Rob McGinnis

    UIScene

    By Rob McGinnis,

    The UIScene tag at the top of the XML files defines certain global parameters about the entire GUI window being defined in the file.
     
    A scene doesn't have anything to render by default, but rather contains items that will get rendered. So a file that defines a UIScene and nothing else will not appear as anything in the game.
     
    Some of the attributes for UIScene overlap with those of UIObject, even though UIScene does not inherit from UIObject, so this attributes will be repeated here.
     
    The following attriibutes are supported by the UIScene tag:
     
    OnCreate
    This callback gets executed when the scene is loaded from the XML file. This is not necessarily a one time thing, as it is possible for scenes to get unloaded from memory and then reloaded from the file the next time they are needed. Additional detail about this will be included later in this article.
     
    priority
    This determines where scenes fall in the render order, in terms of which scenes should cover up other scenes.
    The valid arguments to this attribute in order of highest priority to lowest are:
    SCENE_TOOLTIP - Appears on top of any other GUI
    SCENE_GLOBAL - Used for messageboxes generally.
    SCENE_FE_FULLSCREEN - Pre-game full screen GUIs
    SCENE_INGAME_FULLSCREEN - Full screen GUIs within the game.
    SCENE_INGAME_SYSTEM - Escape menu and options screens.
    SCENE_SCRIPT - GUIs brought up by script
    SCENE_NWN1_DIALOG - The NWN1 style dialog box
    SCENE_INGAME_MENU - The popup player menu
    SCENE_INGAME - Most of the windows in-game
    SCENE_INGAME_TARGET - The target box
     
    OnDestroy
    This callback gets executed when the scene is unloaded from memory.
     
    OnAdd
    This callback gets executed any time the scene is made visible.
     
    OnRemove
    This callback gets executed any time the scene is closed. Note that scenes can be closed and yet remain in memory. This in fact the default behavior. See idleexpiretime below for more information.
     
    OnBackout
    This callback gets executed when the user hits their Esc key and this scene is going to be closed as a result. If the backoutkey attribute is not true, then this callback will do nothing.
     
    OnUpdate
    This is the callback to execute every frame.
     
    OnUnhandledMouseClick
    This callback gets executed if a user clicks on the scene, but none of the contents of the scene did anything with the user's click.
     
    updaterate
    The time between updates, in seconds. If no value is specified, the scene will get an update every frame.
     
    draggable
    This determines if the entire scene is draggable. This is different from dragging a single UI Object within a scene as it moves the entire window. The default setting is false.
     
    dragregion_x
    dragregion_y
    dragregion_width
    dragregion_height
     
    These 4 attributes are used to define the space on the scene that can be used to drag the scene. The numbers are in pixels. If a drag region is defined using these 4 attributes, the user can only drag the scene by clicking and dragging in the defined location. If no drag region is defined, the user can drag the scene by clicking anywhere on the scene where the click will not be used by a child object of the scene.
     
    dragresizable
    Determines if this scene can be resized by dragging the edges of it. This is used in the chat window for resizing, for example. The default setting is false.
     
    dragresizeborder
    This attribute defines the size, in pixels, of the border of the scene that can be clicked on in order to resize the window.
     
    capturemouseclicks
    If set to false, then mouse clicks should pass right through the background of this scene. Useful for semi-transparent overlays and other situations where it is expected that the user be able to click through the UI Object. The default setting is true.
     
    capturemousevents
    This is pretty much a redundant attribute. It does the exact same thing as capturemouseclicks.
     
    fullscreen
    This attribute can be true or false. By default it is false. It controls what happens to this scene when the resolution of the game changes. Scenes that have this attribute set to 'true' will not have their origins moved but their dimenions will be adjusted to the new resolution. Scenes that have this attribute set to 'false' will not be resized when the resolution changes but their origin will change to stay roughly in the same part of the screen that the window appeared in before.
     
    width
    Width of the scene in pixels. The argument 'SCREEN_WIDTH' can also be used to make this scene always match the width of the full screen.
     
    height
    Height of the scene in pixels. The argument 'SCREEN_HEIGHT' can also be used to make this scene always match the height of the full screen.
     
    x
    The x origin for the window. The following string arguments are also valid: ALIGN_CENTER, ALIGN_LEFT, ALIGN_RIGHT. Defaults to 0.
     
    y
    The y origin for the window. The following string arguments are also valid: ALIGN_CENTER, ALIGN_TOP, ALIGN_BOTTOM. Defaults to 0.
     
    expiretime
    This is the amount of time in seconds a scene should be up before it is automatically removed from view and unloaded from memory. If 0 or not set, then the scene will never be automatically removed from view.
     
    idleexpiretime
    This is the amount of time in seconds a scene should not be visible before it should be unloaded from memory. This can be used to unload scenes that were shown once that will not be needed again anytime soon. The next time the scene is requested, it will be loaded from disk. This makes it possible to sometimes do quick testing of GUI changes by setting a short idleexpiretime, closing the window, then reopening it to see what it looks like with the new changes on disk.
     
    autolayout
    This attribute is only of interest in message-box style GUI screens. If enabled, the engine will attempt to automatically position the text, the 'okay', and the 'cancel' button in a classic message box layout. If left false, then the engine will not attempt to arrange any of the contents of the messagebox when the message box is requested. It is false by default.
     
    modal
    If set to true, then this UI scene will block access to the game or any underlying GUI screens until the window is closed. It is false by default. Note that scripts that bring up GUIs can override this parameter based on the parameters passed in to the script function.
     
    fadein
    The time in seconds this scene should take to fade in completely when opened.
     
    fadeout
    The time in seconds this scene should take to fade out completely when closed.
     
    minwidth
    This attribute is defunct and no longer does anything.
     
    minheight
    This attribute is defunct and no longer does anything.
     
    scriptloadable
    In order for a server script to have any control over this GUI at all, this attribute must exist in the UIScene tag and must be set to true. It is false by default. If false, than all script functions that attempt to manipulate a user's GUI will fail.
     
    backoutkey
    If this attribute is set true, then use of the backout key ('Esc' key by default) will cause this window to close. The backout key follows a defined set of logic for determining what to do when it is used. First it closes any open 'windows' in the reverse order that they were opened (Most recent window opened is closed first). If there are no windows to close, it clears the player's target. If the player has nothing targetted, it brings up the in-game options screen.
  14. Rob McGinnis

    UIPane

    By Rob McGinnis,

    UIPane is the generic 'container' for other UI Objects. Panes can't be rendered, but they can contain 'child' objects which can be renderable objects.
     
    Every scene has a 'rootpane', which is automatically defined by the engine when a new UIScene is loaded from a XML file.
     
    Child objects within a pane will be positioned with their x,y origin relative to the origin of the UI Pane that contains the child. UIPanes can also simulate buttons with the tupple attribute, so many of the attributes for UIPane are similar to those found under UIButton.
     
    The following attributes are supported by UI Pane:
     
    MouseDownSFX
    Sound effect to be played when the Pane is clicked on. This only means anything if the Pane is a tupple style pane.
     
    MouseUpSFX
    Similar to a button up sound effect, this only means anything if the Pane is a tupple style pane.
     
    MouseDragSFX
    Sound effect for dragging a tupple style UI Pane object.
     
    MouseDropSFX
    Sound effect when releasing a dragged tupple style UI Pane object.
     
    tupple
    Setting this attribute to true makes the entire UI Pane behave like a button rather than just a container. This makes it possible to design more complicated buttons than normal, default UIButton tag allows for such as having a defined layout or multiple icons within the same button, etc. Once a Pane becomes a tupple, it can be clicked on, gain focus, lose focus, become enabled, become disabled, etc., just like a normal button. Note that it is still possible to place buttons within a tupple style pane that should work fine. So you could have a listbox row that is a tupple style pane that also has a toggle button on every row, for example.
     
    OnLeftClick
    The callback to be executed when a tupple style UI Pane is left clicked on.
     
    OnLeftDoubleClick
    The callback to be executed when a tupple style UI Pane is double left clicked on.
     
    OnRightClick
    The callback to be executed when a tupple style UI Pane is right clicked on.
     
    OnRightDoubleClick
    The callback to be executed when a tupple style UI pane is double right clicked on.
  15. Rob McGinnis

    UIButton

    By Rob McGinnis,

    UIButton is the generic, clickable object one expects to find on any PC game interface. It also acts as a 'restricted' container of sorts, as it can contain specific UI objects within it.
     
    A button is made up of several child objects contained in a single pane. These pieces can be defined explicitly or left up to the engine to define.
     
    The child objects that a UIButton can contain are:
    Up to 1 UIText field. If a UIText object is not defined as a child object in the XML, the engine will create one automatically when creating the UIButton.
     
    Up to 11 UIFrames. A UIFrame contained within a button must have a state attribute that only applies when specifically contained within a button. The following arguments are valid for the state attribute:
     
    up
    down
    disabled
    focused
    hilited
    hifocus
    header
    hiheader
    downheader
    base
     
    These states can mean different things depending on the context of the button, so I'll just make some notes about a few of them. 'header', 'hiheader', and 'downheader' are the states for a button that is to be the header of a UICollapsable object, which will be explained further in a later article. 'base' is useful for when using state frames that leave some of the 'base' button visible, such as hotbar button icons.
     
    An unlimited number of UIIcons that will be added to the 'overlay' list for that button. Overlays are extra icons that can be made visible by the engine that stay with the button. At this time, there is no way to manipulate these overlays via script.
     
    UIButton supports the following attributes:
     
    style
    This is a 'style' name from the stylesheet.xml file that this button should adopt for its default parameters. At this time there is not support for custom styles.
     
    repeatcallback
    If this attribute is set to true, the OnLeftClick callback will get executed every frame as long as the left mouse button is held down on it. On the first update the OnLeftClick will execute on the mousedown. There will then be a 0.5 second pause, then after that the OnLeftClick callback will be executed every frame until the left mouse button is released.
     
    OnSelected
    This callback is applicable to radio buttons and toggle boxes. If the button is a toggle box, this callback is executed when the toggle box is activated. If the button is a radio button, this callback is executed when the button becomes the selected radio button.
     
    OnUnselected
    This callback is applicable to radio buttons and toggle boxes. If the button is a toggle box, this callback is executed when the toggle box is de-activated. If the button is a radio button, this callback is executed if thi sbutton was the selected radio button, but now another radio button has been selected.
     
    groupid
    This is a group number for radio buttons. Group IDs are global for the entire XML file that contains the button. That is to say, there can only be one group of radio buttons with the group id of '1', or '2', etc. All buttons that share the same group id form a 'set' of radio buttons. Only one button in that set can be selected at a time, all the rest are non-selected. Selecting any one button in the set will unselect the previously selected radio button.
     
    groupmemberid
    This gives the UI Button a unique within a set of radio buttons. There should only be one button with a specific groupmemberid in a set of buttons. Ideally these IDs should start with 1 and increment from there, but that is not completely necessary.
     
    buttontype
    This attribute accepts only 'radio' or 'check' as arguments, defining the button as a radio button or checkbox style button.
     
    color
    This attribute accepts color strings. These colors will blend with any other colors found in the textures of the button. So setting this to grey, for example, will make a grey-scale style icon for the button.
     
    disabledcolor
    This attribute accepts color strings. This will be the blending color for when the button is put into a disabled state.
     
    disabledtextcolor
    This attribute accepts color strings. This color will change the color of any text contained in the button's text field if the button is put into a disabled state.
     
    strref
    This is a STRREF that represents the string that should appear in the button.
     
    text
    This is hard coded text that should appear in the button. It overrides the strref attribute if it is present.
  16. Rob McGinnis
    Q: How long can a variable name be? How long can a string be?
     
    A: While the runtime virtual machine doesn't have any limits that we could find, the compiler will reject tokens that are longer than 512 characters. So that would probably be the de facto limits of variable or hard coded string length.
     
     
     
    Q: What effect information do different values for the Idx parameter give back for GetEffectInteger()? There doesn't appear to be many comments on this function that I can find.
     
    A: The problem is that the Idx values will return different information for every single different kind of effect. While it would be nice if we could document all of that, doing so is outside the scope of answering just this question. If there is a specific spell we need to look into, let us know.
     
     
     
    Q: Are the values for SetEffectSpellID limited to valid SpellID values only? I tried setting a high order value (maxinteger value - 500 or so) and failed to read back what I set. I was hoping to use this a a unique Efffect Identifier for effects applied outside spell scripts, so that I could unquely ID and remove that effect at a later point.
     
    A: I couldn't find any limits to the SetEffectSpellID parameter. I also looked for areas where maybe the value would be stored as something that wouldn't accommodate a large number (such as a WORD), but couldn't find anything like that in the code either.
    I would recommend trying this with a smaller number than something near MAXINT to see if you get the results you expect.
     
     
     
     
  17. Rob McGinnis
    Q: Is there a way that you can filter the domains available when taking the first level of cleric, based on the deity the player chooses? Torm, for example, might only offer the Good, Sun, War and Healing domains. Is this possible?
     
    A: It is not currently possible to restrict domains based on deity selection.
     
    The Domain GUI code has no knowledge of your deity selection, nor is there any data loaded up on a deity-by-deity basis on what domains are in that deity's portfolio. Also, default package domain selection has no knowledge of deity selection either.
     
     
    Q: Creating new skills require not only modifying skills.2da (which is straight-forward enough), but also a set of GUIs in chargen_skills.xml and characterscreen.xml. In both of these, each individual skill carries its own UIPane: does this mean that all skills are hard-coded, and that it is not possible for us to add new ones?
     
    A: Not without some extra work. The mentioned GUI screens will have to be changed to reflect the new Skills you have added. The good news is that you can simply override the old GUI screens by turning your module into a campaign and placing your new GUI screens in the campaign directory.
     
    There also seems to be some internal coding that needs to be changed. Updates soon.
  18. Rob McGinnis
    Q: In walkmeshes, each face has a 32-bit flag. We have seen the values 0x0, 0x9, 0x11, 0x21, 0x41 and 0x101. The bottom bit seems to indicate whether the face is walkable or not, but what do the other bits mean?
     
    A: The bit assignments for the walkmesh face flags are: bit 0: walk bit ( 1 = walk, 0 = no walk ) bit 1 - 2: reserved bit 3 - 13: material ( used for footstep sounds, etc... I dont know what will happen if more than one of these are set at the same time. I dont recommend it. )... bit 3: dirt bit 4: grass bit 5: stone bit 6: wood bit 7: carpet bit 8: metal bit 9: swamp bit 10: mud bit 11: leaves bit 12: water bit 13: puddles bits 14 - 31: reserved
     
     
    Q: I would like to know how I can import mp3's and such into the game to use as background sound for my module. I have NO idea how to do this, and I haven't been able to find a tutorial that dumbs things down for those of us who don't know what we're doing; most of the sound tutorials seem fairly advanced. All I know is that I need a hak-pak, and that I need to edit a 2da file and convernt my mp3's to bmu's. I don't know how to do this or even how to begin doing this, so if anyone has a good link to a tutorial for us beginners, or can explain it here, I would TREMENDOUSLY appreciate it. Thanks!
     
    A: The way it should work in NWN2 is identical to NWN1. There is also a brief tutorial on NWN1 at http://nwn.bioware.com/builders/sounds_bmu.html
    with links on how to do additional sounds.
     
    NWN2 can take and play uncompressed WAV file in the Override, but that would be pretty huge in size.
     
    Basically, we use an APP called "Lame" that takes a .Wav file, converts it to MP3 (changing some header information) and rename it back to a .Wav extension.
     
    Click Here
     
    So automate it some you can make a .bat file (assuming they are using LAME) that will basically convert a WAV file, make it an MP3, rename it a Wav file, then delete the old MP3's with the following commands.
     
    lame -S --quiet -t %1.wav %1.mp3
    echo BMU V1.0 > "\WavFolder\%1.wav"
    type %1.mp3 >> \DifferentWaveFolder\%1.wav"
    del /f /q %1.mp3
     
     
    Q: How do I use custom terrain-texures from a hak pak?
    I've tried placing a modified "terrainmaterials.2da"-file with the extra entries plus the corresponding dds-files in a hak pak which I then added to the module. There is no obvious way, however, to select the custom terrain-textures within the toolset. I used "Bioware Hak Pak Editor v 1.0.2.0" Any help will be appreciated.
     
    A: If you are trying to load a hak pack up in the toolset, this does not currently work. They are only loaded in when the module is run inside the game. So a Hak Pak will do you no good in the editor. To make it work in the editor you have to place the textures and edited 2DA file in your override folder.
  19. Rob McGinnis
    Q: Currently I am working on a community download pack containg a large variety of foilage placeables (ferns, shrubs, weeds, flowers, small trees etc.). I am using alpha layers in my textures, and currently have tried dxt5 interpolated alpha (this is what format I use for my foilage in other engines such as UT2003/4) and also dxt1 with alpha, but I get no transparency in the toolset. My models and textures are showing up in the toolset just fine, but the engine seems to ignore the alpha on my diffuse, and uses the alpha on my normal for glossyness/shinyness to an extent. I verified this when I omitted the normal map. I have tried assigning the materials to the models in every way I can think of, even left off the normal map so I am at my wits end.
     
    What dds format is used on textures with alpha for transparencies? (Exp: SpeedTree tex are using alpha transparency)
    Is there some setting in the MDB file itself that tells the engine it has transparency, and if so it would be the next gap filled in the work of those who are making the MDB utilites that allow us to get our new models in the toolset if this information was made available?
    If the setting for transparency in a texture of a model isn't in the MDB file, where is and what values need to be applied to get it working properly?
     
    DXT5 is the recommended dds format for alpha-masked transparency textures, though DXT3 and DXT1,1-bit alpha also work. We use DXT5 because it yields cleaner masking and edge quality for things like plant fronds and grass. The mask goes in the alpha channel of the diffuse texture. Any model utilizing transparency needs to be flagged as such before it is exported. Information regarding the public release of our model exporter is not currently available, but we intend to make it available in the near future.
     
    You can see a good example here: Click Here
     
     
  20. Rob McGinnis
    Q: Ranges.2da has 2 columns labeled 'PrimaryRange' and 'SecondaryRange' which are apparently only used for perception ranges... Which of these columns affects the seeing range and which hearing (I assume 'Primary' is hearing based on my tests, but I'm not sure)? What values does the PercepRngDefault use? It uses the usual **** entries for default values, but where is that value defined?
     
    A: Primary Range is the Spot range (Visual range)
    Secondary Range is the Listen range (Hearing range)
     
    If something is flaged as PercepRngDefault, instead of reading the values from the columns on that row, it looks up the creature's Appearance in Appearance.2da and uses the PERCEPTIONDIST column to find out what row creatures with that appearance are supposed to use. PERCEPTIONDIST in appearances.2da should reference back to a row in ranges.2da from which to read the values in from.
     
    If all else fails, a creature will be assigned the values stored in the PercepRngMin row.
  21. Rob McGinnis

    MDB File Bitflags

    By Rob McGinnis,

    Q: Some of the blocks in a MDB file have a 32-bit field in front of the vertex count field, which we assume is a flag bit vector. In most cases it has a value of 0, but occasionally some bits are set. What do they indicate?
     
    A: The bitflags are as follows for skin and rigid packets:
     
    const DWORD NWN2_ALPHA_TEST = 1 << 0;
    const DWORD NWN2_ALPHA_BLEND = 1 << 1; // #### SHOULD NOT BE USED
    const DWORD NWN2_ADDITIVE_BLEND = 1 << 2; // #### SHOULD NOT BE USED
    const DWORD NWN2_ENVIRONMENT_MAPPED = 1 << 3;
    const DWORD NWN2_CUTSCENE_MESH = 1 << 4;
    const DWORD NWN2_GLOW = 1 << 5;
    const DWORD NWN2_NO_CAST_SHADOWS = 1 << 6;
    const DWORD NWN2_PROJECTED_TEXTURES = 1 << 7;
     
    Most of them are pretty straightforward. The projected texture flag means that the model will accept UI projected textures such as the spell targeting cursor.
  22. Rob McGinnis

    Welcome!

    By Rob McGinnis,

    Welcome to the Neverwinter Nights 2 Blog!
     
    Here you will find answers to questions asked on the official Neverwinter Nights 2 Forums and some additional information put out by some of the developers at Obsidian.
     
    With these Blogs we hope to give you some insight into the workings of the game and answer some of the more difficult questions
×
×
  • Create New...