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Joined: Jul 2014
Noaloha Offline OP
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Greetings everyone. I'm a complete modding virgin and I want to make a little adventure story in the Divinity Editor. I've pored through the official tutorial videos and read this forum from front to back. I'd like to say that I'm swimming in useful information, but the (metaphorical) reality is that I'm drowning in it. There's so much to absorb and I think I'm especially getting hung up on whether the information applies only to modding the main campaign or whether it can be applied in general to a stand-alone module, not to mention whether an idea of mine can be achieved through Divinity Engine's story editor, or if I need to mess around unpacking stuff in the LSTool and tinkering blindly.

With that out of the way, I was hoping to appeal to any kind souls out there who might be willing to throw complete newbies a bone. I (and I'd like to think many others) would find it incredibly freeing if there was an idiot-proof guide covering (and aggregating!) the basics involved in making a complete, theoretically publishable, stand-alone module.

Here's my pitch:

*The module contains a five minute 'adventure'. The adventure is single-player, with no character creation process. You play a pre-determined character named Bob; he's a level 5 ranger with no equipment apart from a piece of cheese. Bob is also rather smelly, so he has the 'Stench' trait.
*You start in a simple room with a locked door. In the locked room with you is a gravestone. If you use the cheese on the gravestone, a basket appears. Inside the basket is the key to the locked door. You leave the room and there's a cave entrance outside. When you enter the cave, the game ends. Adventure complete!!


The purpose of having such a simple scenario spelled out in step-by-step basics is that it would provide a much appreciated understanding of critical underlying workflows and systems, leaving the more complex interactions to be extrapolated by the pupil from these basics. For example, once the wannabe modder understands how to add 'Stench', she then has a solid foundation from which to play around with customising all manner of character traits and statistics. Once he is shown how to pre-determine the contents of a single container (ie. circumvent the randomised loot tables), they're set to apply that in all sorts of creative ways in their narrative. Once they know the basics of setting up a module that boots properly and concludes cleanly, they will be a damn sight more positive about working on the stuff in between. Once they know how to use a piece of cheese on a gravestone in order to make something else happen... well, damn! The world is suddenly a pool of endless possibilities. And etc. and etc.

Let me finish by saying that I'm certain that many, if not all, the answers are already out there/here in one form or another, but I maintain that the answers are in such a piecemeal state, and skewed so much in favour of the experienced modder, that it's a real swampy mountain of info to reach the summit of. I honestly don't mind climbing the mountain myself (I'm edging up it right now with the module I'm working on), but I feel like myself and other newcomers could at least do with a guiding hand getting through the initial swampy bit (with all the elusive and countless swirly buzzing fact-flies that cause headaches and dizzy spells).

Suffice to say, to Larian devs and talented modder-peoples both, please ignore this and accept my apologies if what I'm asking for is completely unrealistic and outrageously cheeky. smile


Escape From Smalcatraz: Steam/Nexus. Forum thread.
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Nice worded post!

I'll add that I'm in the same boat. I wish I knew more about modding as it seems fun and this being an RPG has such great potential. I'm trying on my own as much as I possibly can by researching every post and watching every video multiple times, but it is challenging with my low knowledge level and not understanding what can and can't be done in terms of main campaign and stand alone mod. Any help would be appreciated.

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Totally agree with this. If bob needed to talk to an npc along the way, I think that would be very helpful as well.

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I made a video tutorial covering this. It's uh, it's not very good and about three times as long as needs to be, but it also is conveys very well the experience of using The Divinity Engine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UExcQhpALQ

Hopefully, it'll help someone out there.

Joined: Jul 2014
Noaloha Offline OP
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Daaamn son! Just finished watching, great stuff roguelike. Seriously, thanks a ton for putting time into doing that. Even aside from the edumacational aspect, that was simply a fun little video. The wrestling match you had with the wall/door pieces at the start was pretty funny.

So yeah, thanks. A lot of little gaps and uncertainties were cleared up there and it was just a very, hm, reassuring/calming process watching someone play around and experiment with the tools with a simple goal in mind. My (personal) main takeaways from the video are the Osiris parts (I've been getting completely wound up and lost when trying to maintain the '__Story'-dependancy arrangement, which I guess isn't nearly as mandatory as I assumed) and, especially, just seeing someone else's install and use-process for the LSTools stuff. Super useful. I'm been having a hard time figuring out just how to arrange/place the files once unpakked. I think I was missing the part about them going in 'Public'. I'm looking forward to making some actual meaningful progress now on my own dumb little adventure.

Also, the BASKET FROM GOD ended up looking pretty baller.

Last edited by Noaloha; 26/07/14 11:48 AM.

Escape From Smalcatraz: Steam/Nexus. Forum thread.
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Thanks Rogue! Video was awesome.

I broke down and got the lstools to work and it has made a big difference. I'm seeing now the file references that I need to work with. Like Noaloha said concerning the tutorial, it was great to see someone else play around with it. You have a nice/easy way going about it which made learning easy.

If you do have some extra time can you make another with a couple combat scenes? Maybe against a NPC and then some rats in a cellar or something. Anything with combat would be helpful.

Cheers and keep up the good work!

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you're doing God's work, roguelike! mucho thanks!

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I've been lurking in the forums now since the release looking for toolkit instruction. I created an account just now to simply say: Thank you Roguelike for being so helpful to people like me. I look forward to more of your tutorials and explanations.


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