Might and Magic 6, 7, 8 merge based on mm8 engine. [upd. 05.11.2023]

[SpectralDragon]

Hi.

As per necessity to not make this even more complicated, I have 2 questions for you:

-> What is the standard resolution for paperdolls and portraits?
This info is needed in order to properly scale both down, so that you don't have even more work than you'd usually have.

-> Can you send me a sheet/textfile describing which expression do Dracolich portraits exhibit as per their code number (30-50+) you have them in the source files?
Needed in order to properly edit them if necessary, so that I don't muck this up ... and will be really nice for Minotaur Lich portraits as well, since them thing will need to be redrawn over different angles and so on.

[DaveHer]

@Templayer
The setting you gave me did not work. I also tried by making a short cut to the desk top of MM8.exe and going into properties and added the line fullscreen=false. That did not work ether. I am using GOG version of MM8.

[Crusader_bin]

I have dgvodoo settings in window mode and it did not work. I disabled dgvodoo and in the launcher clicked for window mode and it did not work Thanks any way. David

Did you try F4 in the game?
dgVoodoo is bypassed by the patch unless SupportTrueColor is set to 0, because dgVoodoo just slows things down when my patch does the HD mode.

Oooooh man! I've been living a lie! NOW I am truly using dgvoodoo and the difference is really there now Huge thanks for the tip! I made a super short comparison (first without dgvoodoo, after with SupportTrueColo=0 to enable dgvoodoo).
Man, even in the guide for dgvoodoo for merged that part is not mentioned at all!
No pixels now, no jaggies

Check it out, might take a sec for youtube to process higher resolution, I just uploaded it:
https://youtu.be/8ZF1JMi0tGQ

I tried doing the same using the patche's config file, but I failed to do so and didn't really notice any slowdowns using dgvoodoo2 (6400x4800 res, a bit of a joke, heh)

[Templayer]

Anyway, a Dragon Lich is only something that you will get if you explicitly want to have it (without the unlocker and specifically choosing to do so, you won't ever see it. This is for people that really like diversity in their games, which does include mine. I love making insane combinations! I mean I could play as a party of 5 identical human knights each using the same equipment, but... I choose the other extreme of that!).

&@All
I really love that I was told that nobody would be interested in for example various additional Lich variations (and zombie ones, and vampire ones,...) by Rodril, and yet now we have whole thread pages filled with people that are interested in it and aren't me!

Like me and hey, since MM games are based on Wizardry games and these being based on D&D games, which has skeletal Minotaurs and Dracoliches, then why the hell not (even if back then, beings like Dragotha were called 'Undead Dragon' instead. ). Heck, such combinations would make single-class parties even more insane, since well, at least we won't be stuck having people Liches all the time, ha ha ha ha ha!! Gotta have some diversity, even if it might not be seen at all in 'usual' game, heck one of my ideas when I was little was a monster sprite for a Dragon that is basically Gold Dragon, but it's having orange belly and a wing membrane ... and would act as a questgiver as well as being able to be chatted with like you'd chat with a Peasant unless you attack it ... in MM6.

I USED THE SAME EXACT ARGUMENT (that MM 6-8 are basically based on D&D) AND I GOT TOLD THAT ARE NOT (2d8 MY SHINY ***)!

[Templayer]

Hi.

As per necessity to not make this even more complicated, I have 2 questions for you:

-> What is the standard resolution for paperdolls and portraits?
This info is needed in order to properly scale both down, so that you don't have even more work than you'd usually have.

-> Can you send me a sheet/textfile describing which expression do Dracolich portraits exhibit as per their code number (30-50+) you have them in the source files?
Needed in order to properly edit them if necessary, so that I don't muck this up ... and will be really nice for Minotaur Lich portraits as well, since them thing will need to be redrawn over different angles and so on.

DUDE. Could you do me a solid? Write everything down about these processes. So that I can make an article about it in the Tutorials section on the tracker. People keep asking me about these things and I have to keep telling them to go ask other people than me!

@Templayer
The setting you gave me did not work. I also tried by making a short cut to the desk top of MM8.exe and going into properties and added the line fullscreen=false. That did not work ether. I am using GOG version of MM8.

I'm almost afraid to ask ... where did you put those? And did you try using F4, as told by the creator of the patch that you are actually using?

[Dess]

Does anyone know exactly how bolster monsters work? I made a new playthrough and cranked it up to 200% figuring things would get harder, but sofar having done the first round of promotion quests in erathia and then jumping to enroth I havent noticed anything in particular.

[SpectralDragon]

I USED THE SAME EXACT ARGUMENT (that MM 6-8 are basically based on D&D) AND I GOT TOLD THAT ARE NOT (2d8 MY SHINY ***)!

Sure, their lore is different than D&D lore, but with that we need to know about Heroes of Might and Magic series lore as well, especially III that has I dunno, GHOST DRAGONS and whatnot even before Horn of the Abyss fan expansion that can very well be canon as well adds such creatures like Haspids and such ... and since "Undead Dragon" is a basic term for well, all Dragon-based undead, which "Dracolich" is ... Let's also not forget we have Minotaur Warlocks and Gnoll Witches in Heroes III lore as well (mentioned it because MM6 is based on Heroes II and MM7 is based on Heroes III), thus a Minotaur Lich is as possible as anything can be, especially in Jadame that is basically like a huge blind spot in the lore with many stuff being different from Enroth (continent) and Erathia with Dark Elves and Dark Dwarves and all ... and let's also not forget, dude doing the Lich promotion in Jadame before becoming an adventurer, Vetrinus Taleshire, is said to be an heir to the throne of Shadowspire's Necromancer's Guild, which is led by SANDRO nonetheless, thus I have no doubt in my mind that he knows how stuff works when it comes to the transformation of beings like Minotaurs and whatnot (if his skills don't tell that enough because seriously, all elemental magic on Grandmaster when he's age 19-21 according to his stats??? )

Was thinking that Ghost Dragon would be a Zombie condition for Dragons due to that, which reminds me: anyone did Dwarf Zombies yet?

[Templayer]

Does anyone know exactly how bolster monsters work? I made a new playthrough and cranked it up to 200% figuring things would get harder, but sofar having done the first round of promotion quests in erathia and then jumping to enroth I havent noticed anything in particular.

From what I know Monster Bolster is supposed to be triggered for example if you finish one entire continent, so that the new continent you are going to play in isn't a pushover.
So I presume it starts scaling when you are at the level that you would normally be when finishing a continent. I think.

This would be nice to know if it was inside the Features tracker on the Tracker. Could somebody provide more detailed info?

I USED THE SAME EXACT ARGUMENT (that MM 6-8 are basically based on D&D) AND I GOT TOLD THAT ARE NOT (2d8 MY SHINY ***)!

Sure, their lore is different than D&D lore, but with that we need to know about Heroes of Might and Magic series lore as well, especially III that has I dunno, GHOST DRAGONS and whatnot even before Horn of the Abyss fan expansion that can very well be canon as well adds such creatures like Haspids and such ... and since "Undead Dragon" is a basic term for well, all Dragon-based undead, which "Dracolich" is ... Let's also not forget we have Minotaur Warlocks and Gnoll Witches in Heroes III lore as well (mentioned it because MM6 is based on Heroes II and MM7 is based on Heroes III), thus a Minotaur Lich is as possible as anything can be, especially in Jadame that is basically like a huge blind spot in the lore with many stuff being different from Enroth (continent) and Erathia with Dark Elves and Dark Dwarves and all ... and let's also not forget, dude doing the Lich promotion in Jadame before becoming an adventurer, Vetrinus Taleshire, is said to be an heir to the throne of Shadowspire's Necromancer's Guild, which is led by SANDRO nonetheless, thus I have no doubt in my mind that he knows how stuff works when it comes to the transformation of beings like Minotaurs and whatnot (if his skills don't tell that enough because seriously, all elemental magic on Grandmaster when he's age 19-21 according to his stats??? )

Was thinking that Ghost Dragon would be a Zombie condition for Dragons due to that, which reminds me: anyone did Dwarf Zombies yet?

Agreed. And yet when someone wanted to make a Minotaur Sorcerer (I believe it was) waaay back in this thread before I made the Character Creation Unlocker, he was told that such a thing doesn't exist in the lore by some purist. It seems to me like people who are against adding further options to the game which are using the argument that "no such thing exists in the lore" tend not to know the lore very well.

My stand on this is - make it an optional content then. Even if our Dracoliches are added to the base Merge as it is, a "purist" will never see them, because he would have to use the unlocker and specifically make a Dragon Necromancer or a Dragon Sorcerer.... (same for all the other variations, except possibly for dwarf liches and all the zombie variations. Since in the current version a dragon becomes humanoid upon zombification. AND THAT IS PROBABLY NOT IN THE LORE. )

Jamesx did Dwarf Liches, but there are no Dwarf Zombies. Which is another oversight that I didn't even thought of - so if you get your Dwarf zombified in vanilla MM6, he gains height. Unless he is already a Liche.

[GrayFace]

I have made Echo's Monstrosity compatible with Rodril's MM678 merge. Not all the textures were changed by Echo to make his mod. So I converted only those that were change. I converted the textures so that they would use existing palettes in the merge. This trick was accomplished with Corel Draw. No new palettes had to be created (which is good). At first I was going to create new palettes (using photo shop) for these textures, but the palettes created with photo shop did not work.

To add a palette to LOD just copy any bitmap that has it under the name palXXX, MMArchive will extract its palette. Corel Photo-Paint is great for working with palettes.

[GrayFace]

(not to even mention that little critters like Bestial Animalists cannot get hit by said thing from close quarters. Actually tested that many times. )

I've fixed it a long time ago.

[SpectralDragon]

Agreed. And yet when someone wanted to make a Minotaur Sorcerer (I believe it was) waaay back in this thread before I made the Character Creation Unlocker, he was told that such a thing doesn't exist in the lore by some purist. It seems to me like people who are against adding further options to the game which are using the argument that "no such thing exists in the lore" tend not to know the lore very well.

My stand on this is - make it an optional content then. Even if our Dracoliches are added to the base Merge as it is, a "purist" will never see them, because he would have to use the unlocker and specifically make a Dragon Necromancer or a Dragon Sorcerer.... (same for all the other variations, except possibly for dwarf liches and all the zombie variations. Since in the current version a dragon becomes humanoid upon zombification. AND THAT IS PROBABLY NOT IN THE LORE. )

Jamesx did Dwarf Liches, but there are no Dwarf Zombies. Which is another oversight that I didn't even thought of - so if you get your Dwarf zombified in vanilla MM6, he gains height. Unless he is already a Liche.

Yeah, exactly, and since I saw and heard in an interview with JVC that he intended for MM6-7 to be bloody spinoffs of Heroes games (II and III, respectfully), adding this lore to MM lore there is bloody essential, which ... yeah, already said. Sure, in order to become a Warlock, one needs to be a Druid and go to Hell/The Pit, but the lore still supports it because of Malekith and (maybe) Darkstrom, so there (those Minotaur Heroes were my favs due to how similar they are, Dace obviously being my fav, ha ha ha!)!

Yus, exactly, and EVEN THEN if you try to put a Dwarf or Minotaur stack into Skeleton Transformer in Heroes III ... Same with Dragons, only that they turn into either Bone or Ghost Dragons once out, thus my idea of a Ghost Dragon being a Zombie condition for Dragons.

Exactly and I bet that will be cakewalk for Jamesx as well, if he minds it, that is.

[DaveHer]

@Templayer
The setting you gave me were place in the mm8.ini file of the merge.
David

[Templayer]

Agreed. And yet when someone wanted to make a Minotaur Sorcerer (I believe it was) waaay back in this thread before I made the Character Creation Unlocker, he was told that such a thing doesn't exist in the lore by some purist. It seems to me like people who are against adding further options to the game which are using the argument that "no such thing exists in the lore" tend not to know the lore very well.

My stand on this is - make it an optional content then. Even if our Dracoliches are added to the base Merge as it is, a "purist" will never see them, because he would have to use the unlocker and specifically make a Dragon Necromancer or a Dragon Sorcerer.... (same for all the other variations, except possibly for dwarf liches and all the zombie variations. Since in the current version a dragon becomes humanoid upon zombification. AND THAT IS PROBABLY NOT IN THE LORE. )

Jamesx did Dwarf Liches, but there are no Dwarf Zombies. Which is another oversight that I didn't even thought of - so if you get your Dwarf zombified in vanilla MM6, he gains height. Unless he is already a Liche.

Yeah, exactly, and since I saw and heard in an interview with JVC that he intended for MM6-7 to be bloody spinoffs of Heroes games (II and III, respectfully), adding this lore to MM lore there is bloody essential, which ... yeah, already said. Sure, in order to become a Warlock, one needs to be a Druid and go to Hell/The Pit, but the lore still supports it because of Malekith and (maybe) Darkstrom, so there (those Minotaur Heroes were my favs due to how similar they are, Dace obviously being my fav, ha ha ha!)!

Yus, exactly, and EVEN THEN if you try to put a Dwarf or Minotaur stack into Skeleton Transformer in Heroes III ... Same with Dragons, only that they turn into either Bone or Ghost Dragons once out, thus my idea of a Ghost Dragon being a Zombie condition for Dragons.

Exactly and I bet that will be cakewalk for Jamesx as well, if he minds it, that is.

Let's notify him.

*did Dwarf Liche*

What about Zombie Dwarf?

@Templayer
The setting you gave me were place in the mm8.ini file of the merge.
David

I am going to ask a second time - did you try F4?

[DaveHer]

I have made Echo's Monstrosity compatible with Rodril's MM678 merge. Not all the textures were changed by Echo to make his mod. So I converted only those that were change. I converted the textures so that they would use existing palettes in the merge. This trick was accomplished with Corel Draw. No new palettes had to be created (which is good). At first I was going to create new palettes (using photo shop) for these textures, but the palettes created with photo shop did not work.

To add a palette to LOD just copy any bitmap that has it under the name palXXX, MMArchive will extract its palette. Corel Photo-Paint is great for working with palettes.

Like I said on the post. All textures were converted and placed in the merge bitmap.lod file except the textures of the crystal thing. I use corel draw to extract the palette from the textures of the crystals of the merge and then applied the palette to the textures of Echo’s Monstrosity. It did not work. Even though this procedure did work for the other textures. Echo’s Monstrosity is working find in the merge. I hate to sound like a dummy but I do not under stand your procedure ( copy any bitmap that has it under the name palXXX ). Do you mean to rename any bitmap with palXXX and then drag and drop into MMArchive. This is what I did and got access violation.
David

[DaveHer]

@Templayer
I am sincerely sorry and forgot all about F4. Yes this did work. Thanks for your help and hope you forgive an old man.
David

[GrayFace]

Do you mean to rename any bitmap with palXXX and then drag and drop into MMArchive. This is what I did and got access violation.

Yes, that's what I mean. Send me the file that produces access violation.

[DaveHer]

Do you mean to rename any bitmap with palXXX and then drag and drop into MMArchive. This is what I did and got access violation.

Yes, that's what I mean. Send me the file that produces access violation.

I checked to see if I had the latest version of the MMArchive. I did not. So I got the latest version and did the same procedure and this time I got nothing. I named the bitmap file "palXXX.bmp. I am going to try it again.

[DaveHer]

I tried it again in two different ways. First with "palXXX.bmp" and then with "palXXX" without the bmp. Nothing happen both times. Nothing that I could see. I been working with the editor and I noticed that the ground editing is similar to morrowind's construction set.That made it easier for me to learn.
David

[Rodril]

Hello, patch link have been updated. Thank you for reporting.

However, the following four houses with the next dark quests remain empty, and Archibald gives the option for becoming a sorcerer twice again, just like it was before. Trying to use the command multiple times didn't help, so progress is still stuck on my end. Using the command doesn't unlock the next main quests as it seems.

Send me your savegame file please. Try this command again after today's update.

Is there a limit as to how many sprites you can put into the over all game or per map?

I believe there is limit, but i almost did not use mm6 engine.

Speaking about bone dragons

This looks amazing! I've added this one for both dragon's zombie and lich form for now.

I got a bug: I can't take this paint for a quest (MM7, Barrow downs)

This can happen if you picked up portrait before. After map respawn, texture with portrait will come back, but you won't be able to pick it. Anyway, fixed in today's update.

- Sometimes when I get inside a house, I crash with the following console :
Seems to happen only in teachers house, and maybe only after I just train levels and spend skill points.

Should be fixed now, tell me if it is not.

Dragon melee is already implemented in the Merge, isn't it?

No. There's possibilty to make it just by editing text tables, if you want, but i've decided to keep orignal dragon's cheaty behaivor.

-> What is the standard resolution for paperdolls and portraits?
This info is needed in order to properly scale both down, so that you don't have even more work than you'd usually have.
-> Can you send me a sheet/textfile describing which expression do Dracolich portraits exhibit as per their code number (30-50+) you have them in the source files?

Here is all files that character portraits consist of, ahould be good example:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/k6tocouou5po ... cyPWa?dl=0

[Anerag]

How can I edit maps from 6 and 7 with the mod installed? Hitting alt+F1 and clicking internal map only lists maps from 8. I've also tried editing a map in 6 and 7 then moving the files over but that results in a crash.

There's also something wrong with compiling maps in 6 and I'd love if someone could reply to my post in the MMExtension thread.