Overrides outside the override folder (EE)?

Neverwinter Nights 1 Custom Content
1

I’m not sure to what extent this is a known fact to experienced modders already, but I as a player was completely oblivious to it until now: apparently the EE doesn’t just override default files with everything it finds in the “override” and “development” folders, it seems overrides can also be hidden in other folders like “music” and “ambient”, so just clearing your override folder might not remove all changes you made to the original game after all.

The two cases that made me realize this were:

  1. D20 Modern Haks 2.2, which puts a sound “it_materialcloth.wav” into the Documents/NWN/ambient folder that will replace the sound for equipping armour not only in modules using the D20 Modern haks, but globally in all modules (it’s the sound of a zipper).

  2. The Witcher music pack, which I installed as required project for a module I was testing and which apart from all the music files also contains an ambientmusic.2da that even when unpacked into the music folder, will globally change music for all modules.

As someone who likes to stay in control of overrides, I find that a bit worrying … Are there any other folders that allow the contained files to override default content?

2

That’s expected behavior left over from NWN v1.69 (and down).

  1. Music - adds music to the base game, functions similar to the override
  2. Ambient - adds ambient sound to the base game, functions similar to the override
  3. Override - works the same
  4. Development - added by EE, similar to the override
  5. DMVault - DM repository, not sure if it overrides
  6. LocalVault - Character repository, not sure if it overrides

I was not aware that 2DAs could be read from the Music folder but it makes sense that it would work that way. I’ll bet 2DAs can also be read from the Ambient folder.

1 Like
3

You can view the resource hierarchy in game using ctrl+shift+f12 which gives a good idea of what trumps what.

There are some exceptions, such as the convoluted rules for tga and dds textures.

4

In EE .mtr files apparently trump both to the extent that even if you put a hak containing them below one containing either TGA or DDS the mtr file will still be used. Also even if your .mtr points to TGA textures they will be used in preference to “loose” DDS files. At least, this is what I have experienced so far.

TR

5

The texture rules (according to one of the devs) prior to .mtr can be summarised as:

DDS in override >
TGA in override >
DDS in ERF (hak, patch-hak, texturepack) >
TGA in ERF (hak, patch-hak, texturepack) >
DDS in BIF >
TGA in BIF

New KTX mobile-friendly texture trumps DDS within each group.

6

Where exactly can I see it? Using Ctrl+shift+f12 seems to open a limited DebugMode device now with options I don’t fully understand, no extensive menu with several tabs like it used to.

7

Resman and then… no idea what next, I was able to see haks etc. but not specific resources.

I always used for this the conflict feature in toolset. (Module properties, custom content, check conflict)

8

Resman shows you which containers have priority (highest priority at the top). It doesn’t drill down to resource names within container.

By “container” I mean both folders and archives (hak, bif etc).

You can discover which containers hold resources of a given name using a decent file explorer like FreeCommander (if you don’t already know).

Once you know the hierarchy, you can immediately deduce which version of the resource will be used in game.

9

It’s interesting about the zipper sound. At first i thought Beamdog had done something in their update but then remembered that this started after playing Tupilak and when playing other games realized the changed equipping armor sound; (it sounds ridiculous in a non-modern setting!) and finally found the culprit .wav file and removed it.