Got bored and have no new games at the moment...

[Arkan]

...so I decided to finally play IWD with all the add-ons.

 

My only question: Is there any way to restore the original avatar animations (Ala BG1?) that were changed to the crappy BG2 avatars? I thought the reason for "upgrading" them was to make use of dual-wielding, but I see no option to dual-wield. I would much rather have the classic BG avatars.

[Nightshape]

... Those BG2 avatars really are s***.

[Slowtrain]

The BG2 plate mail armored human looks like he ate too many marshmellows.

 

The BG1/IWD plate mail lhuman looked much better.

[Gorgon]

You want this back

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I dunno what to say to that.

[Gorgon]

Finally getting rid of those hideous ragdolls , was it IWD2 or before that, was a blessing.

Edited June 14, 2009 by Gorgon

[Gorgon]

Ohh wait, he means avatar animations, I gotta learn to read. Yes there is, download this there is an option to chose your appearance if it works like the previous ones, you could even play the game as Irenicus or Bhodi, although that gets old pretty fast. One problem with it is that it makes it a little too easy to cheat when that sword you like is only a mouse click away. You gotta show some discipline or you will wind up making the game too easy. Heh.

Edited June 14, 2009 by Gorgon

[Arkan]

Ohh wait, he means avatar animations, I gotta learn to read. Yes there is, download this there is an option to chose your appearance if it works like the previous ones, you could even play the game as Irenicus or Bhodi, although that gets old pretty fast. One problem with it is that it makes it a little too easy to cheat when that sword you like is only a mouse click away. You gotta show some discipline or you will wind up making the game too easy. Heh.

 

How do I use Dalekeeper (which I got to essentially eliminate race/class restrictions only) to help use old avatar animations?

 

I tried changing Appearance (under Characteristics tab) to male fighter low (low res?) But that didn't do anything.

Edited June 15, 2009 by Arkan

[Humodour]

...so I decided to finally play IWD with all the add-ons.

 

My only question: Is there any way to restore the original avatar animations (Ala BG1?) that were changed to the crappy BG2 avatars? I thought the reason for "upgrading" them was to make use of dual-wielding, but I see no option to dual-wield. I would much rather have the classic BG avatars.

 

I agree - I much prefer the old avatars. Seems like the only way is to not install HoW. You could maybe replace the bifs in your override directory but I'm not sure if that'd make the game crash or not (probably not, since there's no dual-wielding?)

[Gorgon]

Ohh i seem to remember if you didn't have a shield your character would wail both his sword hand and his empty hand around, is that what you mean. Use a buckler or something.

Edited June 15, 2009 by Gorgon

[Walsingham]

Must... resist... urge... to... play... Baldur's Gate... again!

[213374U]

Must... resist... urge... to... play... Baldur's Gate... again!

I already failed my will save for that.

[samm]

Gorgon, what are you talking about bucklers? They do not change the fact that BG2's animations are only one-sided. Could you tell us where that can be changed in Dalekeeper?

 

Krezack: That would be unfortunate

[Gorgon]

I dunno if that's possible, probably not since Dalekeeper references the animation sets for race gender and class which you can apply to your character, and if the sets themselves have been changed...

Edited June 15, 2009 by Gorgon

[Arkan]

...so I decided to finally play IWD with all the add-ons.

 

My only question: Is there any way to restore the original avatar animations (Ala BG1?) that were changed to the crappy BG2 avatars? I thought the reason for "upgrading" them was to make use of dual-wielding, but I see no option to dual-wield. I would much rather have the classic BG avatars.

 

I agree - I much prefer the old avatars. Seems like the only way is to not install HoW. You could maybe replace the bifs in your override directory but I'm not sure if that'd make the game crash or not (probably not, since there's no dual-wielding?)

 

Do you know which files those would be? I could try by installing vanilla IWD to a different directory and copying them over. Worth a shot, since it would make the game much more enjoyable. Hell, if i worked for IWD, it could probably work for BG2, but then you have the dual-wielding problem.

[Humodour]

...so I decided to finally play IWD with all the add-ons.

 

My only question: Is there any way to restore the original avatar animations (Ala BG1?) that were changed to the crappy BG2 avatars? I thought the reason for "upgrading" them was to make use of dual-wielding, but I see no option to dual-wield. I would much rather have the classic BG avatars.

 

I agree - I much prefer the old avatars. Seems like the only way is to not install HoW. You could maybe replace the bifs in your override directory but I'm not sure if that'd make the game crash or not (probably not, since there's no dual-wielding?)

 

Do you know which files those would be? I could try by installing vanilla IWD to a different directory and copying them over. Worth a shot, since it would make the game much more enjoyable. Hell, if i worked for IWD, it could probably work for BG2, but then you have the dual-wielding problem.

 

Hmm. I don't have IWD1 installed, sorry. But I think they'd be easy to find because I recall they had intuitive filenames. What's the TeamBG programme that unpacks the chitin.key file and lets you extract the spell/avatar/weapon/etc bif/bam files (animation files)? Let me check...

 

OK, it's called WinBIFF, download it here: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IEmodding/index.php

 

Edit: download Bamworkshop on the same page to view the animations to confirm they are what you want.

 

Edit 2: I just checked and I do have IWD1 installed. I can see the bams for Arundel and bats and stuff but character avatars aren't immediately obvious...

 

Edit 3: OK, found them. They're under data\CHRAnim.bif in the chitin.key file. I guess you'd just extract that entire part of the chitin.key file to your override directory once you've installed HoW? No guarentees. There could be hard-coded animation frame count differences between IWD1 and HoW.

 

Edit 3: Supposing you get bored and want to make your own spells or items, the IEEP tool on that page is a gem for that. DaleKeeper can detect any items/spell you make and add to the Override directory, too, if you can't be bothered using the console in game (I couldn't!).

Edited June 15, 2009 by Krezack

[Arkan]

...so I decided to finally play IWD with all the add-ons.

 

My only question: Is there any way to restore the original avatar animations (Ala BG1?) that were changed to the crappy BG2 avatars? I thought the reason for "upgrading" them was to make use of dual-wielding, but I see no option to dual-wield. I would much rather have the classic BG avatars.

 

I agree - I much prefer the old avatars. Seems like the only way is to not install HoW. You could maybe replace the bifs in your override directory but I'm not sure if that'd make the game crash or not (probably not, since there's no dual-wielding?)

 

Do you know which files those would be? I could try by installing vanilla IWD to a different directory and copying them over. Worth a shot, since it would make the game much more enjoyable. Hell, if i worked for IWD, it could probably work for BG2, but then you have the dual-wielding problem.

 

Hmm. I don't have IWD1 installed, sorry. But I think they'd be easy to find because I recall they had intuitive filenames. What's the TeamBG programme that unpacks the chitin.key file and lets you extract the spell/avatar/weapon/etc bif/bam files (animation files)? Let me check...

 

OK, it's called WinBIFF, download it here: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IEmodding/index.php

 

Edit: download Bamworkshop on the same page to view the animations to confirm they are what you want.

 

Edit 2: I just checked and I do have IWD1 installed. I can see the bams for Arundel and bats and stuff but character avatars aren't immediately obvious...

 

Edit 3: OK, found them. They're under data\CHRAnim.bif in the chitin.key file. I guess you'd just extract that entire part of the chitin.key file to your override directory once you've installed HoW? No guarentees. There could be hard-coded animation frame count differences between IWD1 and HoW.

 

Edit 3: Supposing you get bored and want to make your own spells or items, the IEEP tool on that page is a gem for that. DaleKeeper can detect any items/spell you make and add to the Override directory, too, if you can't be bothered using the console in game (I couldn't!).

 

 

Thanks Krez!

 

I'll give it a try after uninstalling IWD+HOW+TotL and report back.

 

Edit 1: Ok, I extracted ALL the files from CHRAnim.bif into the override directory. I didn't really want to fuss with searching for each individual one because there are so damn many. Here goes nothing.

 

Edit 2: Well, that didn't work. I didn't get any error messages or anything, just that nothing was changed

Edited June 16, 2009 by Arkan

[Humodour]

...so I decided to finally play IWD with all the add-ons.

 

My only question: Is there any way to restore the original avatar animations (Ala BG1?) that were changed to the crappy BG2 avatars? I thought the reason for "upgrading" them was to make use of dual-wielding, but I see no option to dual-wield. I would much rather have the classic BG avatars.

 

I agree - I much prefer the old avatars. Seems like the only way is to not install HoW. You could maybe replace the bifs in your override directory but I'm not sure if that'd make the game crash or not (probably not, since there's no dual-wielding?)

 

Do you know which files those would be? I could try by installing vanilla IWD to a different directory and copying them over. Worth a shot, since it would make the game much more enjoyable. Hell, if i worked for IWD, it could probably work for BG2, but then you have the dual-wielding problem.

 

Hmm. I don't have IWD1 installed, sorry. But I think they'd be easy to find because I recall they had intuitive filenames. What's the TeamBG programme that unpacks the chitin.key file and lets you extract the spell/avatar/weapon/etc bif/bam files (animation files)? Let me check...

 

OK, it's called WinBIFF, download it here: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IEmodding/index.php

 

Edit: download Bamworkshop on the same page to view the animations to confirm they are what you want.

 

Edit 2: I just checked and I do have IWD1 installed. I can see the bams for Arundel and bats and stuff but character avatars aren't immediately obvious...

 

Edit 3: OK, found them. They're under data\CHRAnim.bif in the chitin.key file. I guess you'd just extract that entire part of the chitin.key file to your override directory once you've installed HoW? No guarentees. There could be hard-coded animation frame count differences between IWD1 and HoW.

 

Edit 3: Supposing you get bored and want to make your own spells or items, the IEEP tool on that page is a gem for that. DaleKeeper can detect any items/spell you make and add to the Override directory, too, if you can't be bothered using the console in game (I couldn't!).

 

 

Thanks Krez!

 

I'll give it a try after uninstalling IWD+HOW+TotL and report back.

 

Edit 1: Ok, I extracted ALL the files from CHRAnim.bif into the override directory. I didn't really want to fuss with searching for each individual one because there are so damn many. Here goes nothing.

 

Edit 2: Well, that didn't work. I didn't get any error messages or anything, just that nothing was changed

 

WTF. That's exactly what's NOT meant to happen. Try this: delete that entire directory from the chitin.key file using WinBiff (also delete those override files you extracted( and see if anything changes (hopefully it should crash because there's no animation files - if not, we've got the wrong suspect).

 

Report back here with what your findings, soldier!

[Arkan]

...so I decided to finally play IWD with all the add-ons.

 

My only question: Is there any way to restore the original avatar animations (Ala BG1?) that were changed to the crappy BG2 avatars? I thought the reason for "upgrading" them was to make use of dual-wielding, but I see no option to dual-wield. I would much rather have the classic BG avatars.

 

I agree - I much prefer the old avatars. Seems like the only way is to not install HoW. You could maybe replace the bifs in your override directory but I'm not sure if that'd make the game crash or not (probably not, since there's no dual-wielding?)

 

Do you know which files those would be? I could try by installing vanilla IWD to a different directory and copying them over. Worth a shot, since it would make the game much more enjoyable. Hell, if i worked for IWD, it could probably work for BG2, but then you have the dual-wielding problem.

 

Hmm. I don't have IWD1 installed, sorry. But I think they'd be easy to find because I recall they had intuitive filenames. What's the TeamBG programme that unpacks the chitin.key file and lets you extract the spell/avatar/weapon/etc bif/bam files (animation files)? Let me check...

 

OK, it's called WinBIFF, download it here: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IEmodding/index.php

 

Edit: download Bamworkshop on the same page to view the animations to confirm they are what you want.

 

Edit 2: I just checked and I do have IWD1 installed. I can see the bams for Arundel and bats and stuff but character avatars aren't immediately obvious...

 

Edit 3: OK, found them. They're under data\CHRAnim.bif in the chitin.key file. I guess you'd just extract that entire part of the chitin.key file to your override directory once you've installed HoW? No guarentees. There could be hard-coded animation frame count differences between IWD1 and HoW.

 

Edit 3: Supposing you get bored and want to make your own spells or items, the IEEP tool on that page is a gem for that. DaleKeeper can detect any items/spell you make and add to the Override directory, too, if you can't be bothered using the console in game (I couldn't!).

 

 

Thanks Krez!

 

I'll give it a try after uninstalling IWD+HOW+TotL and report back.

 

Edit 1: Ok, I extracted ALL the files from CHRAnim.bif into the override directory. I didn't really want to fuss with searching for each individual one because there are so damn many. Here goes nothing.

 

Edit 2: Well, that didn't work. I didn't get any error messages or anything, just that nothing was changed

 

WTF. That's exactly what's NOT meant to happen. Try this: delete that entire directory from the chitin.key file using WinBiff (also delete those override files you extracted( and see if anything changes (hopefully it should crash because there's no animation files - if not, we've got the wrong suspect).

 

Report back here with what your findings, soldier!

 

 

What do you mean when you say "delete that entire directory from the chitin.key file"? Do you mean delete all of the .bams or just delete the CHRAnim.bif?

Edited June 16, 2009 by Arkan

[Humodour]

...so I decided to finally play IWD with all the add-ons.

 

My only question: Is there any way to restore the original avatar animations (Ala BG1?) that were changed to the crappy BG2 avatars? I thought the reason for "upgrading" them was to make use of dual-wielding, but I see no option to dual-wield. I would much rather have the classic BG avatars.

 

I agree - I much prefer the old avatars. Seems like the only way is to not install HoW. You could maybe replace the bifs in your override directory but I'm not sure if that'd make the game crash or not (probably not, since there's no dual-wielding?)

 

Do you know which files those would be? I could try by installing vanilla IWD to a different directory and copying them over. Worth a shot, since it would make the game much more enjoyable. Hell, if i worked for IWD, it could probably work for BG2, but then you have the dual-wielding problem.

 

Hmm. I don't have IWD1 installed, sorry. But I think they'd be easy to find because I recall they had intuitive filenames. What's the TeamBG programme that unpacks the chitin.key file and lets you extract the spell/avatar/weapon/etc bif/bam files (animation files)? Let me check...

 

OK, it's called WinBIFF, download it here: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IEmodding/index.php

 

Edit: download Bamworkshop on the same page to view the animations to confirm they are what you want.

 

Edit 2: I just checked and I do have IWD1 installed. I can see the bams for Arundel and bats and stuff but character avatars aren't immediately obvious...

 

Edit 3: OK, found them. They're under data\CHRAnim.bif in the chitin.key file. I guess you'd just extract that entire part of the chitin.key file to your override directory once you've installed HoW? No guarentees. There could be hard-coded animation frame count differences between IWD1 and HoW.

 

Edit 3: Supposing you get bored and want to make your own spells or items, the IEEP tool on that page is a gem for that. DaleKeeper can detect any items/spell you make and add to the Override directory, too, if you can't be bothered using the console in game (I couldn't!).

 

 

Thanks Krez!

 

I'll give it a try after uninstalling IWD+HOW+TotL and report back.

 

Edit 1: Ok, I extracted ALL the files from CHRAnim.bif into the override directory. I didn't really want to fuss with searching for each individual one because there are so damn many. Here goes nothing.

 

Edit 2: Well, that didn't work. I didn't get any error messages or anything, just that nothing was changed

 

WTF. That's exactly what's NOT meant to happen. Try this: delete that entire directory from the chitin.key file using WinBiff (also delete those override files you extracted( and see if anything changes (hopefully it should crash because there's no animation files - if not, we've got the wrong suspect).

 

Report back here with what your findings, soldier!

 

 

What do you mean when you say "delete that entire directory from the chitin.key file"? Do you mean delete all of the .bams or just delete the CHRAnim.bif?

 

Just CHRAnim.bif I think (so all the character avatars, hopefully). The whole idea is to (hopefully) break your IWD install so we know for sure that those are the correct files to edit. So do a backup, if you don't want to reinstall from scratch.

 

I might reinstall IWD1 sometimes soon myself and play a solo or duo squad, as I haven't done that before. I recall it being frustrating at first when I last tried, but I imagine I'll become overpowered eventually from all the extra XP.

[Arkan]

Just CHRAnim.bif I think (so all the character avatars, hopefully). The whole idea is to (hopefully) break your IWD install so we know for sure that those are the correct files to edit. So do a backup, if you don't want to reinstall from scratch.

 

I might reinstall IWD1 sometimes soon myself and play a solo or duo squad, as I haven't done that before. I recall it being frustrating at first when I last tried, but I imagine I'll become overpowered eventually from all the extra XP.

 

Ok, just removed CHRAnim.bif from chitin.key using WinBiff. I supposed I also could have just deleted the bif from the data directory? Anyway, I went to load my game and it just booted me to desktop saying the program has encountered an error, but nothing specific.

[Arkan]

Now I have a new problem. The stealth button for my fighter/thief is wonky. I will click it, and it become highlighted in red, but nothing happens. If I click it again, it says I'm leaving the shadows. The only way I can get it to stop doing this is to quicksave+quickload. Even then, I can only use stealth once before I have to quickload again, which is getting pretty tiresome.

[Slowtrain]

Now I have a new problem. The stealth button for my fighter/thief is wonky. I will click it, and it become highlighted in red, but nothing happens. If I click it again, it says I'm leaving the shadows. The only way I can get it to stop doing this is to quicksave+quickload. Even then, I can only use stealth once before I have to quickload again, which is getting pretty tiresome.

 

 

Wasn't stealth a little bugged in IWD? Haven't played it in a long time, but I seem to remember that.

[Arkan]

Now I have a new problem. The stealth button for my fighter/thief is wonky. I will click it, and it become highlighted in red, but nothing happens. If I click it again, it says I'm leaving the shadows. The only way I can get it to stop doing this is to quicksave+quickload. Even then, I can only use stealth once before I have to quickload again, which is getting pretty tiresome.

 

 

Wasn't stealth a little bugged in IWD? Haven't played it in a long time, but I seem to remember that.

 

Well that sucks. There goes my fighter thief character.

[Gorth]

Well that sucks. There goes my fighter thief character.

I finished IWD not that long ago with a team that included a Fighter/Thief. He did a great job of scouting ahead and being an advanced observer for the fireball flinging mage. I never really used him for the backstabbing part though. There was indeed something about him occasionally being stuck with the hide button unselectable. Small nuisance, but didn't make the game "unplayable" (I wondered if it was a Vista/DirectX thing).

[Arkan]

KREZACK:

 

A funny thing happened while I was playing around with the animations. I redid the override trick like you mentioned, and while the character avatars were the updated BG2 avatars, the animations were that of the original BG/IWD; spellcasting and attack animations, that is. The idle and walking animations were the ones from BG2. What wasn't changed was the weapon animations, therefore the weapons had the updated animations, and the avatars had the classic animations which, of course, looked extremely awkward together. So, in a sense, I'm halfway there, haha!

Edited June 21, 2009 by Arkan