Whoa, just noticed this had been bumped back up after like a week.
The reason I was offering to make a creatures guide is that such a thing doesn't yet exist and EVERYONE starts on items, so I thought EVERYONE knew about items and was bored of making them already...
Memnoch, what do u mean ppl have to search for opcodes? The opcodes (in this case for spell effects) have all been given comprehensive names by Todd (TL) and are listed in alphabetical order in SpellMaker and ItemMaker. How much easier could it get?? Or do u mean someone should make a glossary type thing where a person can say:" I want to make FIRE damage" and it would be under fire and would tell u to use the "fixed/random damage spell effect". Or I want to make my weapon "pulsate with a blue light" and it would be under glowing effects in the glossary, telling u to use the sparkling colours spell effect? Is that what u mean?
Maevar, how it started was with some dedicated people going through all the standarad infinity engine file formats with a hex editor, changing bits and noting down what they did. Reading the .ids and .2da files which are in text format also helps to gain knowledge. These people have a website that lists which hex offsets in the the different file types affect what.
Some other dedicated people, like TeamBG, looked at this website for info. TL wrote SpellMaker in Visual Basic which edits the individual bytes of the files for you, to save you hex-editing and all this with a user-friendly interface. TL also wrote ItemMaker and StoreMaker and Dialog.tlk editor and invented the TBG file format and the IAP file format as well, for automoatically editing string references in the files and adding the strings to the dialog.tlk file for you. He put all this stuff together in what is called IEEP.
Other programs exist written by Ken and Cat who make up the rest of TeamBG.
Hehe if u wanna write the whole plot yourself....that is A LOT of work. Many unofficial MODs are being developed now which have their own storylines, many following on from BG2 after Irenicus' death. It involves editing the areas involved, the scripts and the dialogs of all creatures in the game. Of course these MODs are also gonna include new types of kits and creatures, check out my site for info on one I am involved in.
Bottom line is, I WAS gonna make an in-depth creature editor cos most ppl who are getting into editing can make items. Don't worry this WILL start at beginner level and take you up to intermediate/advanced (ie. the boundary of what we can edit). It will also cover info on how to edit the bits that are not covered by editors at the moment.
But if ppl let me know what they want out of an item tutorial, then I can make one, I just really thought there was no need for one.
I thought no one thought this was a good idea, as I have not got any feedback in the guest book on my site, where I asked for opinions....so I haven't thought about it since I started this thread, as I said, I've only just noticed that this has been bumped....
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And still I see no changes, all I see is racist faces, misplaced hate makes disgraced the races. We under, I wonder what it takes to make this, one better place, let's erase the wastin...
Fortress Vaskéz