Ironworks Gaming Forum - View Single Post - Anyone interested in my BG2 spell effects mod?

Drawde1 · 08-10-2001, 03:28 PM

I was rather disappointed, after the impressive spell effects in IWD and Planescape:Torment, that most of the spell graphics in BG2 (even with ToB installed) were simply recycled from BG1. Even the new effects weren't that impressive-looking for the most part. However on looking into the BG2 files with Infinity Explorer I found that many of the spell graphics from IWD were present, but not used. By extracting and renaming these .BAM files I've managed to get them working in BG2, and I have to say that it looks a lot better.
Is anyone interested in hosting this add-on if I e-mail it to them? It's about 1.5MB zipped.

The effects changed are (might have forgotten a few):
All casting glows
Flamestrike
Glyph of Warding/Symbols
Grease
Globe of Invulnerability
Sanctuary
Acid damage
Call Lightning
Fireball
Ice Storm
Lightning Bolt
Prismatic Spray
Electrical damage

I might manage to find some others that can be changed/improved, I'm not sure at the minute. I have been unable to change the Web or Fire/Cold damage effects as the BG2 ones are greyscale and the IWD ones are 16-bit. Similarly I can't change Chromatic Orb as the BG2 one has a shadow animation and the IWD one doesn't, so copying the IWD effect over makes it look like you're firing two orbs simultaneously (the shadow uses the normal orb bitmap)

08-10-2001, 03:28 PM	#1
Drawde1 The Magister Join Date: May 25, 2001 Location: Cookham,Berkshire,UK Posts: 104	I was rather disappointed, after the impressive spell effects in IWD and Planescape:Torment, that most of the spell graphics in BG2 (even with ToB installed) were simply recycled from BG1. Even the new effects weren't that impressive-looking for the most part. However on looking into the BG2 files with Infinity Explorer I found that many of the spell graphics from IWD were present, but not used. By extracting and renaming these .BAM files I've managed to get them working in BG2, and I have to say that it looks a lot better. Is anyone interested in hosting this add-on if I e-mail it to them? It's about 1.5MB zipped. The effects changed are (might have forgotten a few): All casting glows Flamestrike Glyph of Warding/Symbols Grease Globe of Invulnerability Sanctuary Acid damage Call Lightning Fireball Ice Storm Lightning Bolt Prismatic Spray Electrical damage I might manage to find some others that can be changed/improved, I'm not sure at the minute. I have been unable to change the Web or Fire/Cold damage effects as the BG2 ones are greyscale and the IWD ones are 16-bit. Similarly I can't change Chromatic Orb as the BG2 one has a shadow animation and the IWD one doesn't, so copying the IWD effect over makes it look like you're firing two orbs simultaneously (the shadow uses the normal orb bitmap)