Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Mods Editor Tutorials: 1 - Minimal mod template

Hi

In this tutorial I’ll try to show how to start making your new adventure using the set of files I have prepared.

NOTE: This tutorial will be helpful if you are making a standalone module, not for DOSEE campaign modding.

This is what we get in the result: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=664042663

So what is included in minimal project?

Levels:
CharacterCreation - well, it’s for character creation =) - it’s a copy of the main campaign character creation level

Menuscreen_Cyseal - this one is used as a scene in various menus - like main menu, options etc. (There will be separate tutorial about this level, and how you can make your own)

You will be able to modify those levels to make them look as you want, if it’s a part of your campaign development. Or replace them with yours, or leave them just as they are. Depends on what you want to do.

Story:
Story in minimal project is based on story scripts that are used for main campaign. These files include a lot of very useful systems: like dialogues registration, generic reaction, various types of triggers and such. I very recommend to use those systems in your campaign scripting. I removed all files that are related directly to DOSEE campaign and only left Shared files, that contains campaign independent “system” files.

Keywords (dialogs)
Incudes dialogue templates and generic dialogues (there will be separate tutorial how to play with those)

Journal

This includes journal excel file, that is used for creating quests in your log and exported files that are used by engine. I cleaned it up from DOS stuff, only left couple things as examples, but they can be removed any time. There will be tutorial how to create log updates for your quests.

Alignments

Well, alignments are used to define relationships between different factions in the game. I included cleaned up, ready to use file, that includes basic alignments as Good, Evil NPC etc. but cleaned up from DOS stuff

Scripts

Basically all helpful scripts from Shared

Stats
All stats excels from the game. You will be able to (relatively easy) create new skills, characters stats etc. You will be able to override/modify existing stats. There will be tutorials about that.

Ok let’s start making your new campaign!

Open editor
Select File - New module...

In the window that appear enter the name of your mod. Checkboxes are fine, don’t modify those.



Hit create

Now your new module is created. We will need to do some manual copy pasting to prepare our module, so it’s make sense to close your editor for now.

Download minimal mod data archive.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwnG474z1AoMN2o5d3NzZHVHT0E/view?usp=sharing

First of all browse to your game data (should be something like \steamapps\common\Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition\Data)

Copy folders from Mod folder in archive into the Mods/YourModName



2. Copy you mod name into the clipboard (you can select it, hit F2 and the ctrl+c) we will need it in the moment.

Go back to Data folder and navigate to Data\Editor\Mods folder. Probably there is no folder with your mod name (this one appear automatically when you create your first level in the editor, so if you still have blank project it’s not yet created). You need to create a new folder, rename it to your mod name (should be in your clipboard). Inside the folder that you created copy Levels folder from archive Editor folder.



3. Last part - navigate to Data/Public/YourModName and copy content from Public folder from archive into it.

Ok, so files for your adventure is prepared. We can start editor now.

Before we can test if it works, we need to do couple small things.

In your mod select Modding/Module Settings



In the Startup Level dropdown select CharacterCreation (this is the level that will be opened when campaign starts)
In the Menu Level drop down select Menuscreen_Cyseal - as I already said it’s used for main menu scene.

Save all your settings.

Now open Story editor (Black S icon on the editor toolbar) Select File / Generate Definitions and build. This will build story

Now you can start the game and in Mods select in drop down Shared and mark check box near your mod. Hit activate. You should be able to start new campaign in your mod. (It’s not going further than character creation though, for now)

It’s all probably kinda messy and hard to understand, I’ll appreciate if you will ask question, so I can make this tutorial easier to understand.

<reserved for update>

Useful guide and files! A bit questionable why this kind of thing wasn't integrated in the editor itself, but this works for me.

I'm a bit confused about the Mods folder in the Editor folder. For me, the Mods folder is just in the main Data directory, not the Editor folder (though, admittedly, I did make the Mods folder there a while back for Scales), and all the data seems to go there fine. Might that be creating issues for me?

Either way, IMO, it'd probably be easier if you just had people make a level in their mod so the Mods folder is made instead of manually making it.

This is more a bug that ought to be solved, but perhaps you could include the icons in your template so you can view them in editor.

Also, these are actual, official tutorials, right? People might trust your authority more (and actually appreciate the official support) if you had a moderator status or something. Just a recommendation if you're actually working for Larian.

Not sure if I understand your question correctly.

There is a specific way how mod files are organized in the editor. Let's say we treat Data folder as a root folder for game data. Then all your files organization will look like something like this:

Data/Editor/Mods/YourMod/Levels -> Some Levels
This folder mostly store terrain geometry and AI grid data

Data/Mods/YourMod/
--> Story
--> Globals
--> Levels
etc.
This folder for osiris files, levels, global objects and such

Data/Public/YourMod/
--> Stats
--> Scripts
etc
This folder for stat files, root templates and such

Data/Mod/YourMod and Data/Public/YourMod folders are created automatically when mod is created, but Editor folder in created only when some level is created. I made tutorial for the case of blank mod, that's why I told to create it manually.

Which icons do you mean?

Ah, I forgot the terrain/AI stuff was stored in the Editor/Mods folder. Suppose it makes sense that we should just manually make it then so you don't have to explain about making a terrain this tutorial.

For icons, I mean all of them, basically. If you try and preview them in the editor (say, in the sidebar of a character), it gives a "Can't load texture file for preview of icon!" error. If I recall, if the icons were put in the proper location in the mods folder, they'd show up for previewing. Kind of a small thing, but still kind of annoying if you're trying to give a character or item a special icon and you have to refer to the icons by opening the files directly (entailing an extraction of the .pak files.)

Baardvark is talking about this, already pointed by Sniper (with solution and everything) in the "EE Editor Problems/Bugs" thread:



I also think is a good move to include that in your template.

BTW, great tutorials! I always planned to do something like this in classic editor but, well, didnt. Keep it coming!

I tried out following this tutorial for my existing project that is only a level with just a few globals for scripts. I followed the tutorial and when I hit the generate definitions and build, I get the error:

Line
7029

Message
Auto-define Osiris query "WarningDialog"(): failed: type of parameter 2 unknown

Script File
_Attitude

Does anyone here know how to fix this?

Could you try to save everything and restart editor. Generate definitions works a bit weird for new projects

When I open a level in this minimal mod, there is lot of error messages:

and so on.

Is it ok at this step or something wrong with my setup?

Nope. Just a minor problem with the root templates. Those books by default look for the text data in those entries listed to populate them.

You can just live with the errors. But errors on startup drive me crazy so it's possible to fix them too.

You can fix those errors by finding the translated string key entries in MAIN and copying them to your mod.

Unfortunately you need to use a PAK extractor to do this.
http://larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=572322#Post572322

Use that tool, extract the main.pak file, and then in the extracted files go to MODS\MAIN\Localization
and find the files books.lsb and books2.lsb. Copy those to the localization folder in your mod using the same folder structure.