Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Question about modding and adding 3D content

Hi Larian/all,

There's entirely too much about your game I could endlessly gush about, but the thing that really seals it for me is the editor. As someone with a fair amount of modding history both behind and ahead of him, I love that this type of game is going to support modding. Which brings me to my question: I was wondering what programs/formats the game uses for its art assets -- models, textures, character animations, and so on.

I would primarily be interested in modding new environment art (props, terrain stuff, etc.), but if adding things like weapons/equipment/items and monsters/npcs is possible then I'd certainly like to give all of that a shot too!

I guess, to put this into a few concrete questions:
What programs are the developers themselves using to make the art content for the game?
What file formats for models, textures, etc. are used? Proprietary formats of Larian's making, or something commonly used?
If a modder like myself was a user of Autodesk Maya, would they be able to export 3D meshes for use in the game via the modding tools, or would an intermediate program for format conversion be necessary?

I assure you a larian staff will accommodate your question later on.

I also like the idea of the editor. It's like they are handing out their prized possession to the consumer. It's where Mount and Blade Warband (and its predecessor) and Total war Medieval II got its strong community from.

Currently we're using granny as a 3D format - http://www.radgametools.com/granny.html . We still need to discuss with RadGameTools what we can do in terms of giving people exporters but if that doesn't work out, we'll come up with something else for sure. At Larian, most art assets are made in 3DSMax.

I am more worried about the modding system. Will be similar to NWN where we need to compile each module for one simple change? Or Baldur’s Gate, NWN2 and Dragon Age with an Override folder? Or (IMO the best system) Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim with a mod manager that overwrites only which mod is selected? Or some else folder replacement system like most games? Because an easy system reinforces more people willing to mod.

I'd love to read more about the editor in a future update on Kickstarter, maybe towards the end of the campaign when people have a clearer grasp on gameplay and such. A couple things are not clear to me and granted, I haven't checked all channels. This could be used for some hype, like "You've seen what the game is like -- now we show you what else you can do", highlighting the vast possibilities of user-generated content, also in relation to stretch goals. "If we reach that stretch goal, you can do the following with the editor" ... "Make your own game!", "Unlimited adventures!", ...


Following are some questions I've been wondering about.


1. Type of modding (see Destello's post above)
- Can we enhance and expand the original game by modding like in Morrowind etc.?
- Can we make our own adventures like in NWN2?
- Are Total Conversions possible? This brings questions of its own...

2. What can be modded / scripted?
- UI?
- Types of Skills, Talents, Attributes and their effects?
- How many players are supported? Could you in theory do a mod that extends D:OS to four main characters (and 1 henchman each)?

3. Stretch goals & the Editor -- How would the various stretch goals affect the editor capabilities?
- it was mentioned that schedules should be an entire system, which would, I imagine, require special programming. So, without the schedule stretch goal -- no schedules in mods either?
- could we in theory make custom personality traits with or without that stretch goal?


From what I read so far, we get the same tools you used to make the game, but if some things are hardcoded in the executable, it sort of limits what can be done. In Morrowind (one of the few editors I have tried) it was fairly easy to expand the actual game, but hard if you wanted to do something completely new.

Yes. This was confirmed within The Editor video showing the toolset in use but we knew this before then too.

FYI this could also be done in NWN1...



I'm going to guess here and say yes. Modders for Neverwinter Nights 1 added 24/7 schedules for NPC's in custom mods. It's all down to scripting. This means they would need to add in their own day and night system though if Larian doesn't...

But come on Larian that should be a feature regardless. Divine Divinity had it...

inb4 Middle Earth mod!

inb4 Beyond Divinity Protagonist mod...

GoT mod.

LMK mod (or official addon? =^.^=)

Hi, and thanks for the reply!
Is Granny 3D the .gr2 format specifically? Or is there a newer format you're using?
From what I understand, there are a number of other games that use this format (apparently Age of Empires 3 and Neverwinter Nights 2, from the little bit of searching around I've done) and there do appear to be exporters to this format for both Max and Maya, so this is very good news if it is the .gr2 format.

I'm particularly interested in all this, though it'll be a complex task.
Given the fact we can't use Granny 3D (unless you're rich), I guess Havok Animation is the best solution at the moment.
What about special effect, anyway, such as spells ? Will we be able to import our own particules/effects to the game ? I know I might sounds stupid to ask this, I don't know much about modding (creating a 3D model and animating it, I mean), but are these kind of things considered 3D objects (animated), or classified as a different thing which require another format ? If yes, which software (and format) does it require ?

I am a blender user so I would hope to see some kind of plugin or file converter/exporter I can use.
Also I have yet to see much on the scripting system. Is there a proprietary scripting language I will need to pick up or is it simple plane english. I want to prepare so I can dive right into modding this fall.

From the kickstarter comments, the scripting language is "...custom made for making RPG stories. It's based on prolog and allows all kinds of logic manipulations which works well for storytelling (which is heavily event driven). There's also a scripting component for the more procedural things (like npc schedules). The coolest part (imho) is that it all works in multiplayer too."

After someone gave an example of how to write a query in Prolog, the response was:

"It's a bit more friendly than that. It's based on the ideas of Prolog but it's not really Prolog. You write statements like IF CharacterUsedItem(_,ITEM_CYS_SkeletonBook) THEN GlobalSetEvent("CYS_WatcherStatues"); ITEM_CYS_SkeletonBook identifies a book _ means it can be any character "CYS_WatcherStatues" is a string that is posted on an event blackboard I'm not going to put a manual here right now, but promised, there'll be an update with more focus on the editor"


Welcome to the forum.

It's been such a long time since I last used prolog, I barely remember anything. If I remember correctly in prolog you set a goal and some rules and the program reached that goal on its own based on those rules. This could really be helpful in setting npc behaviour for example.

I guess there will be some imperative programming ideas a well. A dialogue afterall is normally a set of if clauses and flag setting.