Hello all. It’s time for another fortnightly update at the studio.

One less flaming flaw
Erephine has updated the Flaming Swords for the standalone and combination One Pixel Productions modification so that it no longer crashes your system under specific conditions. This is a must if you are in love with flaming steel. Get it here.

The beauty of pixels
Erephine has done it again, this time tweaking the human female unarmoured character animation to improve its sartorial outlook. If you are one to leer at the child of Bhaal with as much as lust as a posing Oblivion protagonist, then Human Unarmoured Female (HFB1) for One Pixel Productions is for you. Get it here.

Rolles (sic) Royce in your items
In value, that is. With Rolles, you will be able to upgrade various items into their more powerful counterparts in Shadows of Amn. The most recent version 3 introduces the translation a la francais. Check it out here. I feel like wearing my bouree already.

Serpentine goodness a la francais
The French translations continue with an addition into vilkacis’ Slithering Menace modification, updating it to version 3.2. Go and get it here before you get ‘rolled’ by baguettes!

Tools for modding mania
Mary Sues aside, there is another world of complexities associated with making NPC modifications for Baldur’s Gate games. To make the technical aspects a ltitle easier for you, K’aeloree has written tutorials on the specific use of a scripting trigger in ‘Using CD_STATE_NOTVALID’, as well as the ‘Coding of friendships and romances’. Check them out here and here, respectively.

In our continued efforts to make SHS a better place for modders, the IE tutorials section has been revamped. Gone are the sub-forums acting as somewhat illogical categories, and we have reverted to a more traditional style of one forum for all tutorials.

Additionally, we’d like to unveil our comprehensive IE tutorials index, which contains links to all tutorials on SHS, but also on other sites. It is currently the most extensive listing available on the internet, and we think it will become a valuable tool for anyone wishing to create mods for the IE engine.

The links in the index are divided into categories and have brief descriptions, as well as both recommendations for specifically useful tutorials and warning labels for tutorials which are a little bit outdated or have other minor flaws. We’ve tried to be neutral with the categorizations and classifications; feel free to post in the thread or contact me with any comments you may have.

We also hope to post new tutorials covering a large variety of subjects in the near future. Meanwhile, tutorial requests go into this thread.

Good luck modding!

Keeping a project like this a secret--for five years is a difficult feat for most of us, but not for resident area-guru Yovaneth, who has done just that!

Fishing for Trouble (otherwise known as FFT) is a large quest-mod introducing a staggering amount of new areas to explore; five new major areas and almost 100 smaller areas, containing hundreds of new characters to interact with and a huge non-linear plot. With a number of new quests and subquests, as well as new items, spells and stores, FFT is certainly on my wish-list!

You can check out FFT’s forum here, it’s website page here and a website with a large number of fantastic screenshots here.

We’ve got a number of new additions to SHS coming up in the coming week, so stay tuned!

Cheers, and have a great week everyone!

From the stark evil to the abjectly inane to the indescribably ...um, indescribable, this fortnight shall overcome the bastion of stolidity and send you into a psychedelic state of impending doom, hilarious fits of cacophony, or a lustful shield-desiring leer. The following updates are not for the straight-hearted. So take care, and may the Force with you.

Sounds, portraits, banters and barbarians for the Dark Side
That’s enough to turn the entire galaxy far, far away upside down. These changes have taken place in the Dark Side of the Sword Coast for Baldur’s Gate Trilogy modification, bringing it to version 205. Check out the update here, download it here

Oh no! A sharp and pointy Noober!
Ever have nightmares of a frisky young man come to utter devil’s breath incessantly into your ear? Well, it only get worse when the spirit of Noober is imbued into a weapon! BalanceRD promises to expose the vulgarities of giggling school girls within the deepest crevices of your limbic system with version 1.0 of the Sword of Noober modification. Flush your cheeks red here.

Odd-even kit versioning to be final
Zyraen has stated that his Hidden Kits modification shall more or less be the final release of this kit modification at version 0.95 beta. Be sure to read the announcement here, taste the effervescence of vintage finality here, and don’t forget to tip five cents when you leave.

Heaven’s gonna burn your eyes
What that has to do with Legacy Medium Shields for Baldur’s Gate II is something yet to be explained by Erephine, except that this is another instalment of fantastic eye-candy for your aesthetic pleasure. This modification replaces the graphics of medium shields to that of variation and vibrancy. Check out the screenshots and get these cute medium toys here.

Now go play some modifications, and draw up your family tree so you can prove Darth Vader is really not your father but an imposter. Till next time.

Busy as ever, our PS:T guru Qwinn has just made a round of updates to his Planescape: Torment mods!

The major changes from the first versions are English, Spanish and German translations (with Italian on the way), and the Fixpack has 36 new fixes.

The Planescape: Torment Fixpack is a comprehensive WeiDU Fixpack for Black Isle’s classic Planescape: Torment CRPG. Fixing literally hundreds of bugs and thousands of typos, thereby restoring a lot of lost and inactive content, the PS:T Fixpack (along with PS:T Unfinished Business and Qwinn’s PS:T Tweak Pack) provides a completely new Planescape: Torment experience! Click here for a list of the most important fixes, as well as further information on the mod itself.

Planescape: Torment Unfinished Business takes the almost-but-not-quite-finished content that shipped with Black Isle’s classic Planescape: Torment CRPG and polishes, bugfixes and finishes it so you can see and enjoy the new content in your game! With 14 components in the first release, this mod is a must-have for anyone interested in seeing what the developers didn’t get time to do--or even if you’re just looking for some new content! Click here for information on each of the compenents and further information on the mod itself.

Qwinn’s Planescape: Torment Tweaks adds a few ease-of-use tweaks to your Planescape: Torment install, as well as one or two must-have components! Including a banter accelerator, ease-of-use tweaks and several content changes, this is an extremely useful mod for any player. Click here for information on each of the compenents and further information on the mod itself.

Before downloading the new version of the fixpack, read the updating instructions! They’re very important. If you don’t follow them it’s quite possible your game may get fubared!

Related Links:

• Download Links: PS:T Fixpack v1 - PS:T Unfinished Business v1 - Qwinn’s PS:T Tweaks v1
• Website: PS:T Fixpack - PS:T Unfinished Business - Qwinn’s PS:T Tweaks
• Forums: PS:T Fixpack forum - PS:T Unfinished Business forum - Qwinn’s PS:T Tweaks forum
• Readme Links: PS:T Fixpack Readme - PS:T Unfinished Business Readme - Qwinn’s PS:T Tweaks