Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 - The Modding Dungeon Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Modding General Get experience on modding

So I really want to get involved in the modding of D:OS 2.

Will it be worth to play and get experience with the previous editor ( The Divinity Engine Enhanced Edition ) on the previous game?

Will the game use the same technology of the previous title? Or is it better to wait for 14th of September?

It's the same engine roughly, but there will definitely be large differences. It's hard to say how much will change. The scripting language, both the story scripting and character scripting, seem to be largely the same. Dialog trees use a new tool, so don't bother with that. Terrain design will probably be fairly similar, hopefully with lots of quality of life improvements though.

I'd probably just wait to Sep 14th. Assuming the new editor will be released with good documentation, it should be a smoother learning process, and you won't necessarily gain a ton of experience with the old editor in a month anyway.

I might suggest taking a look at the Epic Encounters Develop edition, and seeing how the file structures work, the character scripting (Sandpie put lots of useful comments in), stat files, etc. You can also see what I did in my bard mod to get an idea of where those kind of stats are stored. I'll release a tutorial fairly soon after release unless Larian posts a very thorough tutorial themselves.

Thank you for the answer Baardvark. So I'll take a look to your mod and the Epic Encounters Develop edition as you suggest.

Terrain / area/ level design is totally my thing.
I cant judge on scripting or dialogue, but the "level design" with the DOS1 editor is almost like a dream come true, easy to use and very powerfull. I would even say it is "elegant".

You can't have powerfull tools without a certain level of complexity though, but still, if you have worked with terrain editors before you should be on your way with level design in DOS2 very quickly.
The DOS1 one is without a doubt the most amazing editor I have ever worked with, and I have worked with quite a few of them the past 20 years or so.

Huh, that's a very rare opinion. Terrain design was definitely powerful, but I found it very tedious and frustrating at times (No undo feature for textures = THE WORST). And yet, you're right that with power comes complexity, and I'm not entirely sure what kind of major changes would make it significantly easier to use besides stuff like texture undo, adding more textures to the texture tool at once.

Probably the most useful thing would just a bunch of videos by the main level designers (Nord!) about their process and little tips and tricks. Stuff like what paint level certain textures tend to clamp at best (e.g., grass looks good when applied at 50% rate on top of Sand at 75% application with a Base of X dirt.) Obviously a lot of it comes down to experimentation, but some jumping off points would help a lot of people ease into level design.

We can say the editor is powerful, yes. But I can absolutely confirm it's "NOT USER FRIENDLY" at all.

Buttons everywhere, a content browser where you select stuff like UE3, missing tooltips, no helpers, workspace never saved, missing undos.
I think it's worse than NWN2 ( a tool from 2006 ) in term of usability. But in NWN/NWN2 the goal was different.

I hope Larian will reiterate a bit more on UX for the D:OS 2 editor.

First off I probably should have said the DOS1:EE editor, as I have only used that one. I have never used the original editor.
I actually prefer the DOS1:EE "right click to erase texture" over an "undo", having both could be nice though.
One of the things I love about the editor is the way textures are handled, each being their own layer (with their order being important). Having multiple textures under the brush would not be very usefull for me, as I try to have as little overlapping textures as possible, but each his own I guess.
I can't think of anything that would significantly improve the ease of use either, not without the loss of functionality anyways, and I would hate anything like that.

I agree with that completely as I think the "preparation phase" (wich textures, vegetation and "placeables" to use to get a certain atmosphere) are the most time consuming of the proces. Once you have that sorted, the actual building can be done extremely fast.
I intend to do (and publish) some "studies" of my own once I get my hands on the editor.

Hopefully no, this time the editor is way less frustrating and broken.

I think the best way to upgrade the editor's functionality would be to have a couple camera modes available for use. The FPS camera causes me tons of frustration. Would love it if there was a camera mode available that operated like the camera in the game does. A toggle between both cameras would nice.

Wouldn't mind if they had a few preset textures for things like roads and beaches and other such things so we don't have to experiment quite so much to get a decent looking result, either. Would certainly expedite our workflow.

Camera modes are really interesting as an idea.

Couldn't possibly agree more.

D:OS 1's editor did have a camera toggle...
You could view in-editor exactly as you could in game. I think it's the 3d glasses icon on the bar but I'm going from memory.

I didn't find it very useful though. Like the game, it was way too zoomed in.


I've read a lot of feature requests and other ideas about 2's editor on here about things D:OS 1's editor already did. Which to me clearly indicates a presentation/accessibility issue more than anything. Options are buried in unintuitive menus. Obviously no real documentation.

I think he meant he wants to see that view while simultaneously being able to sculpt the land and paint the terrain. In the DoS1's editor, clicking the button you are speaking of 'tested' your level and let you control the player etc. -- NOT continue working on your environment in a much easier to navigate view.

Indeed.

Sniper is correct, the glasses change the editor view to be like the game view but still be in edit mode. The game test button was right next to that, the picture of the face.

I will have to check that out when I get the chance. Thanks for pointing that out gents, it'll save me some camera related frustrations.