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From Dragon Age Toolset Wiki
Revision as of 21:13, 17 July 2009 by BryanDerksen (Talk | contribs) (trimming down the main page a bit by moving that big list to its own page.)

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Welcome to the Dragon Age Toolset documentation wiki!

Note: there is a known issue right now preventing some logged-in users from editing. This is being investigated.

The documentation for the toolset is still being worked on so some of the material here may be incomplete or somewhat out-of-date. The contents of this site will eventually be refined and released to the general public; if you wish to contribute toward that (either by adding your own material or by highlighting holes) you are most welcome and your efforts will be incorporated into the finished product.

  • For general comments, discussion, suggestions, and questions, click the "Discussion" link at the top of the page.

In the meantime the contents of this wiki are covered by non-disclosure agreements, so please don't spread it around beyond this site and the designated private fora.

Getting started with the toolset

  • Known issues with the current version of the toolset
  • Common Problems - Little things that most people will need to know but that are not necessarily obvious.
    • If you run into a problem that the documentation doesn't cover and that you can't fix, contact toolsetsupport@bioware.com

Tutorials and how-tos

Editing this wiki

Resources

The Dragon Age toolset has two main classes of resource; designer resources that are stored in a database and art resources that are stored as files in your filesystem.

  • The resource list contains a complete list of both resource types.
  • The resource palette details the main interface for selecting designer resources for editing.
  • String editor - A tool that allows quick and easy access to all text that might be presented to the player in the game.
  • Builder to builder - The mechanisms used by the toolset that allow packages of game resources to be shared between multiple collaborating builders. This is not intended for builder to player packaging, a separate system will be added to the toolset for this at a later time.

Scripting and 2DAs

Scripting in Dragon Age is a very powerful tool; most of the game's rules and AI are done via scripts and can be overridden at a low level.

  • 2DA files (2-Dimensional Arrays) contain much of the raw data used by the game. They are generated from Microsoft Excel files. If you want to add new basic creature types, new treasure types, and so forth, you'll need to create new 2DA files.

Art tools

Art resources are files saved separately from the database. They need to be processed by the toolset (posted to local) to be visible to the designer tools and usable in-game.

Technical information

The material in this section is about technical features underlying the toolset, not normally important for routine usage.

  • File types - currently just a list of file format extensions.
  • Database - database schema and other related information.
  • Console - a window for entering console commands. Caution, some of these are intended to work with an installed copy of the Dragon Age game and will crash the toolset when used in its current state.

Third party tools

  • Web Application - A sample web application that allows you to search and view scripts, search and view conversations, and translate strings. By Adam Miller.