Overview
This tool was originally developed for the testing and debugging
purposes of BG2 add-on CZ TC - Dalelands: Nemesis of the Black
Knight. However, I've decided to put it public because it
can be useful for other modders/players.
I know that other tools such as DLTCEP or Near Infinity can
manage all the stuff what Variable checker does. But none
of these tools can do it in compact, direct and fast way as
Variable Checker does - it was the reason why I've developed
it, for fast and comfortable check and edit all game variables.
I hope that I've managed to fulfill that goal with this piece
of my work.
Features
Variable checker can load and edit all game variables
from saved games of the following games: BG2, IWD1, PST and
BG1: TotSC. It can handle variables from .gam file (GLOBAL
variables and LOCALS variables of characters stored in .gam
- mostly the characters that are/can be in party) and .sav
file (AREA variables and LOCALS variables of NPCs).
Variable checker remembers the last opened save game, so you
have fast and direct access to your testing save game position.
Opened files are immediately saved with .bak
extension after their loading in Variable Checker. If any
problems occur (corrupting the files or just undesired changing
of values), you will have the possibility to restore original
files.
The area NPCs have displayed their "Actor's
Name" as is in IESDP called the 32-byte character array
on the offset 0x0 of each actor in actor's section in .are
file. It seems that in this array is really stored some "description"
or "name" of the area actor - but in normal .are.
In .are files stored in .sav it looks like the death variable
of the actor is stored in this field. As we know, many creatures
have set their death variable to NONE what is quite confusing
for browsing. Because of that, I've implemented the possibility
to switch NPC list to the mode where are displayed actors'
.cre resources - .cre resource explains the creature generally
better than death variable. To switch the mod of displaying
NPCs check the checkbox in Setting menu or just press ALT+C.
Variable checker can run a simple analysis
of Global variables in saved game - there is a possibility
to compare Globals of two saved games. You can run this feature
from 'File->Compare files' menu or by ALT+R.
Installation
First of all, you have to have Java Runtime Environment
(JRE) installed. It doesn't matter whether the latest 1.5
version or older 1.4.2 (or even 1.4.1 should work).
You can get JRE here: http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp
If you are not sure whether you have JRE installed, you can
test your PC for Java compatibility on the page mentioned
above.
Then just extract varchecker.zip archive
to desired directory (as you've probably already did ;) and
keep the directory structure. No other actions are necessary.
Don't try to extract varchecker.jar file - yes, it is really
archive but not designed to extracting, it is Java executable
file and must remain compressed.
To run Variable checker, double-click to varchecker.jar file.
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