bic parsing/editting in C

[Lokey]

This is the only app I know of that has done it Angelo Cossa's racial system. Does anyone have the source code for this project?

Would be redundant if someone is making a C* conversion of Red Golem's Java system (see Telstar's post here).

Would be interested in writing one if necessary, but not sure where to start. Can someone point me to a C* ITP parse/edit library?

Obvious uses would be to pull base values (abilities, skill ranks) directly from the bic. Can be done from NWNscript, but the best system I've come up with is to copy the object (player in my case), strip items and effects, then delay command whatever check code so that the copy's effects will update (and still not sure that I have all the feats that make changes that GetSkillRank() will include). That took maybe 20 hours of code and testing to make, but it's still an expensive way to do it and still requires tracking of selections by level persistently since there's no way to review the level history (track classes, figure out the new one on level up and same for stats and skills...getting less confident in my NWN code now, lol). Again, much easier just to go to the last entry in the level table and pull the data from there.

Somewhat easy to build a subrace system with a few basic editting functions (either pass commands to NWNx to perform or pull character mod templates from another file and apply them). Or make your own leveling system...

Of course after 2 years of cursing the darkness, is it too late to light a candle?
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Neversummer PW NWNx powered mayhem

[Papillon]

What about nwnx-leto ?
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Papillon

[Lokey]

With RCO/SCO for NWNx, it's becoming less attractive to have another app running in the chain of passing information/commands NWN-> NWNx-> LETO-Moneo/Unicorn and vice versa. Also think dragonsong said there's some commands that will break going from Moneo to his new language...but the interface is probably fast enough not to worry about.

OK, I'll start messing with NWNx-LETO then but would like to know if the source for any NWNx modules is available.
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[JeroenB]

Yes, all plugins for NWNX must be open source. That's because it is released under the GPL.

[Lokey]

Sorry, meant the source for an NWNx module as described in the first post. Angelo didn't put the source in the package on NWVault
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[Primogenitor]

Id have to say Letoscript is the way to do it, but then I'm probably a bit biased as Ive used it for ages One place to start if letoscript is looking too daunting is to pull my letoscript includes from the ConvoCC ( http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/scripts/data/1097822211000.shtml ) or from my script compilation ( http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/scripts/data/1089893598000.shtml ) The advantage if those is that you can do NWscript like:

StackedLetoscript(SetWings(3));
StackedLetoscript(AdjustAbility(ABILITY_DEXTERITY, 6));
RunStackedLetoscriptOnObject(oPC);

and it does the rest (booting the player, changing the bic, etc) for you. And then once you have letoscript, you can do all sorts of other things too. Change names for example At the moment it is based of build 18 and Dragonsong will probably have an updated version soon (or sometime this year at least ) but because its all in includes, Ill probably release an updated version and you can just swap one include for another.

DAR is the original subrace system that used letoscript, but thats broken since 1.64 when bioware stopped PCs having special abilities.

Oh, and one major problem with copying the PC is that the epic ability geats (e.g Great Strength X) are applied again to the copy. Damn bioware script bugs

[Xildjian]

I've been playing with modifying a char bic file as a plugin to add wings to a character. So far I have found it's not to hard to parse through the file to find the location of interest. In this case the wings value.

Currently, I'm stuck as I can't figure out why I can't write a new value to the wings entry in the file. Tracing through my code and looking at the file with a hex viewer I appear to be hitting the right location, but I can't get the plugin to actually write a new value. I can even change the value in the hex viewer that my code is trying to change, the character has wings in game. Just can't seem to get the code to do it.

And yes, I'm booting the charater off the server before I try to change the value. If someone would like to assist me in this I could write my plugin to be more general in what you want to read or change on a character bic file.
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Member Shadow of Iniquity development team

[dragonsong]

I've always been happy to assist others in their endeavors at writing a BIC engine, in whatever language. (Even helped write the foundation for a Perl engine once. That was a neat exercise. )

I have some sagely advice to give, though: be prepared for a project of considerably proportions. Writing a simple GFF engine is one thing, but it gets real complex real quick. I'm flattered if others recommend Leto(Script) because they like it. If I'm going to recommend LetoScript myself, it's because I think it'll save most people the experience of tearing out most their hair and spending weeks and weeks developing a new engine from scratch.

I know, I know, I should have written Leto in C. Sometimes I still think about it. For a few minutes.

Okay, pontificating aside.

Lokey: Unicorn will eventually supplant Moneo is every functional aspect. Perhaps the only thing that won't come over are the FPT functions, but those will be obsoleted by NWNX's SCORCO plugins. Build 23 (due this weekend) should mark a point where very, very few things you could do in Phoenix you still can't do in Unicorn. There are also now about 5 ways to do anything you could, before.

But tell me what you mean by "another app running" as far as the NWNx hook chain? The only thing really extra about NWNX-Leto is the C++ -> Delphi bridge, which means one extra DLL and very little overhead (proven). Or do you mean you're looking for a standalone app? (Moneo is?)

I want to accomodate you finding the best solution for your needs, and I can tell you if NWNX-Leto is not it, if you tell me exactly what you're trying to do.

Xildjian: Do you know for sure your plugin is opening the file and editing it? (The file's last-modified changes?) Does the file get changed at all? Could you possibly build an offline version that you can use to test without NWNX? (Testing NWNX-Leto with a live running server was always such a pain in the rump that I developed an offline version of NWNX-Leto, even.)
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- dragonsong

[Lokey]

Have Moneo and NWNx-LETO now and Alia for good measure That and I should probably worry less about CPU...bandwidth is the limiting factor for many things NWN, at least here at NS (when there's time use those Player/DM Client Apps that came with the toolset). You can have a few ms to make the impossible possible DS

For now thinking player subraces and bic querying for base values. I've seen Primogenitor's posts on weathersong as well and should grab his PRC subrace implementation. See if I come up with something that could be vaguely useful. Next might be PnP polymorphing (i.e. possible to cast spells if you have hands and voice), and much cursing at Bioware for ripping out adding monster abilities to PCs probably.

Updated my versions of all things NWNx today (I was still in the dark ages of 2004) and have everything running nicely along with NWNx-LETO now, the above shouldn't take long to do for at least a proof of concept and be less hacky than my work-arounds in NWScript.

On the C side, there's a gff structure declared in one of Fast French's files (NWNxFF), but didn't follow too much where it was going (looking for something else, and comments in Francais are a hurdle for me).

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Xildjian, could you be assigning a data type that doesn't match the field? I.e. signed int when the field is defined as unsigned? Quick check in Alia: DS says it should be a byte as opposed to int.
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[Xildjian]

dragonsong: Yea I can very easily see how playing with bic file can become an overwhellming experience. This is why I'm trying to keep the stuff I'm interested in pretty simple, and I define simple a just going in and changing a value that doesn't require having to load the entire file, recalculate all the offsets, and write the file out again. That's more time and effort I don't want to really put in.

So far my approach has been to use what I know about the bic format, I search for a specific label, find out what it's index is, then search the field section for the field that uses a lable at that index. Seems to be a nice quick simple way to search the file without having to load the entire file.

As for my current boggle: Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm opening the file and finding the correct location. Or at least debug info I print to a log file matches what I see in the file with a hex viewer. I haven't done anything outside of nwn as I have so far been successful doing things I game, but now might be a good time to try this approach.

As for the datatypes: The value I'm trying to write is defined as a UINT8 or unsigned char if you prefer primitives. I have even tried a UINT32 as the wings setting is defined within the context of their field structure which is as 32 bit area. (going off bioware's gff file format http://nwn.bioware.com/developers/) .

My current theory on what is happening is that the file is not getting opened as read/write in binary (r+b). And, I'm not sure how to test for this. My fwrite returns a 1 for 1 byte written tho. I know this is going to be something really simple I overlooked to be giving me this much trouble, it always is.

Would anyone object to taking a look at the code if I post the file? Maybe I've been looking at it for to long and just need another set of eyes.

Thanks for the help.
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[dragonsong]

[Xildjian]

[dragonsong]

[Xildjian]

[dragonsong]

Really...? Odd. Your log shouldn't have even been getting as far as "FieldWithWings: X" - and now it should. I did notice something else potentially dangerous: