Anyone want to add more item graphics?

[Enraged Slith]

I just noticed that we can add new sheets of item graphics to the data folder. If anyone is interested, we could add a bunch of default item graphics. It would be really simple to do.

 

This also works for Scenario Icons, but getting graphics for those might be a little tricky.

[Niemand]

I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting here. Certainly, once BoA is installed we can add more graphics to the default graphics files/directories, but we can't change the contents of Jeff's installer, so they would be 'default' only for those of us who have added them, not for anyone who downloads and installs a fresh copy of BoA.

 

I assume the reason behind this is that items with non-built-in graphics can't be transferred among scenarios. (Sadly, it didn't occur to Jeff to cache the item graphics with the party data. This would have been really elegant on Mac OS, but ugly on Windows, I guess.) However, off of the top of my head I'm not sure exactly how the game determines that an item is using a custom graphic rather than a built-in, depending on how it does this merely adding a graphic to the built-in collection might not be enough to convince the game to preserve items using that graphic.

[Enraged Slith]

What I'm suggesting is a "mod" that adds more item graphics. It's as simple as adding extra sheets to the "Item Graphics" folder.

 

Obviously, players would have to manually update their data folder to play any scenarios using extra graphics, but it's incredibly easy to do and hardly unreasonable to require.

[Niemand]

Okay, now that I know exactly what you mean:

1) This requires more work on Mac OS: adding item graphics, for example, requires adding the sheets to the Item Graphics file, which requires software no one who isn't either a BoA designer or old-school mac programmer is likely to possess. So, to be cross platform you would need lengthier instructions or an installer program.

2) The game enforces this:

Quote:

When a party leaves a scenario, all of the items in their inventory come with them. The exception is that some items will be lost: . . .

Items that have custom graphics.

If it implements this by checking (it_floor_which_sheet<1000 || it_floor_which_sheet>1048), even if you add a new sheet to the games graphics collection, it will be treated as 'custom'. This is what I was trying to say above, but I didn't express it very well. Note also that I don't know that this is the how it works, it's just a worst-case scenario guess. Testing is necessary to know for sure.

[Enraged Slith]

EDIT: Disregard that, it works.

[Enraged Slith]

The only other obstacle would be the Mac thing, I guess. Are the item graphics really not just contained in a simple folder?

[Niemand]

No they are not. They're stored in a very old-fashioned way: Each sheet is a separate PICT resource (image) stored in an alternative part of a file, the resource fork. Virtually no one uses this technique anymore, and while the OS still supports it (for now), there's very little modern software for working with data stored in this way.

 

Conceptually, it's about the same as if the images were in a folder, but practically it takes special software to manipulate them.

[Enraged Slith]

Would there be no way to replicate the file, add a new sheet or two, and then just "install" it by copying it over the old file?

[Niemand]

One certainly could do that, although that would mean that additions would be mutually exclusive. If you planned to have a single, authoritative, third-party patch that might be acceptable to you.

[Enraged Slith]

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by that, but I was just hoping for some input from others to see if they'd like to add anything. For convenience, it would have to be a single update. This isn't something that has to happen, but if others were interested, I wanted them to know that it's a possibility.

 

I've personally always hated the absence of maces and their ilk.

[Ishad Nha]

You can transfer items with custom graphics to another scenario, if you change the scenario data script so that all items use standard graphics. You could have an alternate data script like this, it is substituted for the usual script, just before you leave the game. This will require saving the game and then reloading it after the switching of the scripts.

In the new scenario you might or might not be able to exchange these items with items from the scenario that have custom graphics. Ascript is not all that flexible sometimes.

[Mistb0rn]

I would be happy to make some of the actual graphics, if you decide to go ahead with this project. I do have a few other things I'm working on atm, but none of them are very big or important and I'd be glad to supplement them with some graphics practice.

 

I'll have to look through the BoA files again to get a feel for the style, but if y'all can come up with a list of what items you'd like made, I'll see what I can do. :-)

[Celtic Minstrel]

There is a change I'd like to make to the default graphics, but it's not adding more. I don't remember the exact details, but it was something to do with the necklace and/or ring graphics.