Custom BG paperdoll locations?

[Lathlas]

Where are the paperdolls for BG items that differ from SI located?

In ES I can view and edit paperdolls from SI, TFL/Keyring, SI fixes & the Avatar Pack seamlessly, but I can't figure out where the unique graphics (like Chrysta's dresses and such) are.

I do have both BG and SI installed, and everything ingame displays correctly so the images are somewhere. Are they hardcoded into the Exult snapshots?

[Dominus]

in /data/exult_bg.flx

[Malignant Manor]

To be able to view all the bg paperdol shapes at once with Exult Studio, you can do one of the following.

If you build Exult, then in the source, ./data/bg/bg_paperdol.vga can be copied into the Ultima 7 static directory and renamed to paperdol.vga.

If you are using windows, you can download Exult Win32 Tools snapshot and move expack.exe to the data folder of Exult. Run expack.exe with the command line "-x exult_bg.flx" without the quotes. Then change 4.u7o to paperdol.vga and move it to the Ultima 7 static directory. Delete the extra .u7o files.

[Lathlas]

Thank you.

I expacked the paperdoll file for BG, and between the SI paperdoll, the BG paperdoll and the TFL paperdoll I have 3 files.

I have SI_fixes and TFL installed in the patch directory of their games instead of the mod directory so that they load as the default options. This also works out well in ES since it splices the *.vga files together correctly.

I also made a copy of the SI paperdoll file for my BG directory as it was mostly accurate.

My question is, is there a way for ES to correctly splice together the SI paperdol.vga, the BG paperdoll from exult_bg.flx, AND the paperdol.vga from TFLs patch directory so that when I click on the paperdol.vga file in ES it displays all of the shapes correctly?

I can make it display any combination of two correctly but I'd like to be able to browse all of the paperdolls at once.

[Malignant Manor]

Unfortunately, you need to change the source in order to do that. You can have multiple instances of ES open or have different named .vga files in the static directory of Ultima 7 or patch directory of TFLl. Also, remember there are several cases where the exult_bg.flx overwrites the SI paperdols.

[marzo]

My question is, is there a way for ES to correctly splice together the SI paperdol.vga, the BG paperdoll from exult_bg.flx, AND the paperdol.vga from TFLs patch directory so that when I click on the paperdol.vga file in ES it displays all of the shapes correctly?

Malignant Manor is correct: it would require changing the ES source. I didn't do it when I put BG paperdoll data in exult_bg.flx because it would require escape cases for editing BG data when SI is not installed (and I would wager this is more or less why ES never loaded SI paperdol.vga in the first place). Is there any particular reason why you want to do that, by the way?

[On an aside: if you notice, the paperdoll tabs of shape information do not display paperdoll graphics like some of the other tabs (e.g., explosion or container gump tabs). The fact that ES never loaded paperdol.vga for BG is the reason for that.]

And please note: one of the files embedded in exult_bg.flx (and exult_si.flx, for that matter) tells Exult what files to open for paperdolls (and a few things more). If ES were to merge the files together, it should do it according to this same file. This means, for example, that Exult does not load static/paperdol.vga for BG, even if ES does. ES doesn't currently load this file, which is a problem. Also, the file in question is "data/{bg,si}/shape_files.txt", and a file with that name in the patch dir will override this.

[Malignant Manor]

I think that fo BG, paperdol.vga from the exult_bg.flx should be loaded after the SI static/paperdol.vga (when present) and before the patch directory into Exult Studio for easier editing and reference.

[marzo]

I think that fo BG, paperdol.vga from the exult_bg.flx should be loaded after the SI static/paperdol.vga (when present) and before the patch directory into Exult Studio for easier editing and reference.

Like I said:

one of the files embedded in exult_bg.flx [...] tells Exult what files to open for paperdolls

This can be overridden in the patch (I also said that) for, say, a mod. It was done this way to prevent this behavior from being hard-coded and exclusive to BG; ES should also do it this way or no way at all.

[Malignant Manor]

That works.

[marzo]

By the way: I wouldn't recommend wasting any effort in doing this just yet; the changes I am making will make any such patches obsolete.