Greetings and welcome. So I'll try to be short here, if that's even possible.

This guide will offer information on using the DOS2's Editor and helpful tricks to better the usage of the program.
I am a modder for Divinity Original Sin 1 and 2. I have nearly 2K hours spent using the games editor and have learned a great deal in my time. Hopefully, this will help prove that I know what I'm talking about. if not, take it with a grain of salt and test it out yourself.


Now do be aware, this is just a simplified basic guide of using the game editor, I am not a skilled coder nor do I make scripts well. There are other guides and modders who are far more skilled with that. I'll leave that stuff to them. Have questions for complex stuff? Ask within the DOS2 Larion discord. Have questions about my guide? Ask below in the comments


I've noticed over a long time that, modding guides is just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ non-existent for this game series. Either be it official or unofficial. Finding information to mod this game or use the games editor is rare if not barren for most areas.

While the Official Larion discord does have some helpful information of modding and a few helpful people, it's just not active.

If not we, then who?

Alrighty then, welcome aboard on my boat, SS blocks of cheese! It's time we set sail on this little journey of ours.

First, let's begin with acquiring the editor.

Thankfully, there's no need to install it from any third party programs or websites like Epic Launcher. If you own Divinity Original Sin 2, classic or DE, then congrats! You also have the editor. All you need to do is search through your steam library of owned games and tools and you can find the editor.

Simply install it anywhere that's not a basic root location like C:\blank and absolutely make sure it's installed on a SSD. You'll thank me with a vastly better experience than using a HDD. Thankfully, the editor doesn't take a huge amount of space so it's easy to have installed at all times.

Once you're finished with all of that, time to hit the start button on it.

Let it run and you'll be given two options of running the program. Run the classic or DE version. Choose whatever fits your DOS2 game you have installed.

Then you'll be greeted by a large menu, fear not! I shall guide your weary hand.

Look at the top left side of the screen, you'll see three tabs that are in order of
Projects, New Project and save games.

Any off your own mods will show up in the projects tab as well as the mods you've most recently edited.

If you wish to make your own mod or make your own GM campagin map? Click the New Project tab and you'll see two big blocks. Adventure and Addon.

Addon is for making any basic mod like adding a sheap shear or adding a tree onto a map. This will be primarily what most people use.

Adventure is for making your own hand made maps and quests by scratch. Mainly used for GM mode.


Now look to the far bottom left side, you'll see your little options for these two choices. If you wanna make a mod for add on, you can load assets from the story campaign, arena mode and GM mode. Now you do have to select which option to load assets from, an enabled option will turn orange and gray is disabled.

Then you'll notice the target project for choice. That depends on your mod, is it for the campaign so you'd hit story. Arena mode or GM, then you'd select one of them.


Once you're all finished with that, give the editor some time to load everything up. There's gonna be a lot of UI you won't understand for now and thats okay!

Once the load is done, you'll be given more options with brand new menu.
Now, you have three new tabs at the top left.
Levels, New Levels and Save Games.

On the levels tab, you can see any levels you've recently edited and open any existing level in the game. Simply look at the top right bar saying show inherited levels. Click that and you'll see tons more levels of the game. Many of these are debug levels used by the game devs but you can also edit the main levels of the game yourself. Say, you wanna add a custom skillbook of yours in the tutorial ship. Easy, simply find the level called The Hold(TUT_Tutorial_A) and click to load it.

Now onto the new level tab, here you can make your own custom levels. I'd highly suggest trying this out first so you can ♥♥♥♥ around with the editor as you understand it better. Also having a debug level for your mods is helpful. The four options for your level template are, Basic, Empty, Copy and Sandbox. All are simple as they have their own explanation of what they do.



Alright, so let's go with the hypothetical situation you just opened up The Hold level! The editor will take some time to process and load it all, time gets longer the bigger the map is but it shouldn't take long.

As a quick warning, this program is a game devkit. It will use a large portion of resources from your computer, a little more than the standard game would. That's to be expected as the devkit allows you to edit and view the game in real time unlike other editors.


Alright, now your editor is loaded up and confusing things are ALL over your screen! What do you do?
Hit A to scream and run around!

Hit B to click to the next section!

Wonderful, you were smart enough to hit B!

Welcome to the section of ,"Understanding the UI!"
Let's get started shall we?


Let's look at the big menus blocking the screen first BEFORE doing anything else.

On the bottom, that menu will be your notification/errors page. Any issues or occurrences popping up can be found here. Now, it gets more complicated as not all errors are made equal. Some don't matter and others do. Generally, you don't need this up at all times and better to simply open it if you need to. So let's look to the far top right of the messages board. There will be a small indent pointing down, a tiny pin and an X.
Hitting the X will simply close it, hitting the pin will pin the message menu onto the screen. Click the small indent will give access to even more options.

Float, dock, docked as tabbed, auto hide and hide

Float makes the menu unattached to anything so you can easily drag it around.
Dock simply will slap itself down to an available side of the screen,
Dock as tabbed will take up the entire screen as an alt tabbed choice to the games screen.
Auto hide will make the menu vanish.
Hide will also make the menu vanish.

Now you can choose to hide the messages menu, we got a lot more to go through without making this a novel sized text dump.


Now let's look at the big menu that is our Root Template Manager.This baby will be used 99% of the time you're doing any kind of modding.

The root template manager, contains ALL assets from the game and they can all be found here.There's probably a few million assets to be found here so it's not easy to find what exactly you want.

So let's use our mouse and drag the RTM for short to become bigger. Now you'll see far more of it along with it's categories and legend. You're probably looking at all of this terrified, it's new and overwhelming. Sorry friend, you can't hide from this so let's begin.

The categories are the small folder icons on the far left of the menu and they each have their own assets within them.Say the door folder, will have different kinds of door assets inside it. Surprising yeah? Only, the categories are kinda pointless as they're barely filled. So you can't fully rely on them making finding what you want easy.


However, you have the search bar. That will allow you to find whatever you're looking for. Say, you searched in Boil. Your found results are a poisoned boiled potato, boiled potato, boiled stardust potion, boiling pot and two boiling water effects. Some items have strange names so it can be weird looking for certain things. But generally, it's simple to use.

The good news is, you can make your own category folder. So any assets you need quite often or hard to find ones, can easily be added into your new folder. Simply by clicking the create new icon above the categories and naming it. To add an asset into it, just drag the asset from the right into the folder and voila. This will save a ♥♥♥♥ ton of time and effort by keeping a few custom categories and makes the process less headachey.


Now let's get into the legend which is found to the right of the search bar within the RTM menu. It'll be the different colored icons.

So you have the legends, in order of
1. Item
2. Scenery
3. Character
4. Trigger
5. light
6. Light probe
7. Prefab
8. Wall Construction
9. Decal
10. Spline
11. Dummy
12. projectile
13. surface
14. level template

Obvious to their names, they direct what assets are which.

Item assets are items you can find and place on the map like a 2h greatsword or a spellbook. Pretty easy yeah?

Scenery assets are your meat and butter structures. Think building parts like walls, roofs, floor foundations, tents and much more. Anything you think would be used to decorate an environment or create a structure can be found here.

Character assets are all of the NPC's and AI enemy, neutral and allies in the game. Say you wanna add a new paladin somewhere on the map? Easy as pie. You can find em here


Triggers are much more complicated as I'll get into this subject as a future section so don't worry too much for now. Think of triggers as to make certain actions happen within the game. Say, you add a soundpoint trigger and select a sound from it somewhere in the map. Now you have a new sound playing! This example is super basic but I won't get into it far more right now.


Light assets are in the name, unique lights that can placed or made on the map with each their own effects.

Light probe is basic and complex at the same time. Essentially, the light probe when placed in certain locations will directly adjust the local lighting making it much better. Say you made a custom room kitted with a bed, chest, table and a candle stick? Yet it's too dark? Slap a light probe down and the light from the candle will be modified to look better and reach further while illuminating the room a little better. Its effectiveness isn't always guaranteed and slapping too many of them down in one location doesn't give any bonuses. Only use if you know what you're doing.

Now prefabs, they're essentially pre made assets. So let's say you've got a fully made tent as a prefab which you can place down on the map. Same thing as Scenery assets but prefabs just have more individual assets included into one. Beware, when they are placed, you can't move or delete the entire thing as if it is its own singular item. You'll have to manually edit all of the included assets for it which can be a hassle.


Wall construction assets are basically the same as Scenery assets but they're more individualized parts of buildings within the game. Not all of them are completely useful and they come with an odd quirk. Some of these WC assets will change when pulled into the game to be used. Some of them switch to different versions of that asset, some don't. So lots of toying around here.


Grid assets, do not mess with unless you know absolutely what you're doing. More on this later.


Splines, oh my lovely splines. Okay, let's talk splines. Splines are placed and adjustable triggers that directly influence where and how fast an AI will move. Say you want a npc guard in a garden? Slap a spline down and add the guards GUI to it. The guard will start following the spline and move around as directed. if you design the spline well enough, you can make extremely well done behaviors for AI's that's on par with random roaming. Animations can also be added like having a guard looking around shiftily as if he's trying to find a thief or have an npc interact with local object, like a table or chair. Lots of options here


Dummy assets, do not mess with unless you know what you're doing. More on this later.


Projectile assets, don't mess if you don't know what you are doing. Essentially, any projectile in the game like arrows, spells and grenades are found here. They can be adjusted but it's complicated.


Surface assets, again don't mess with unless if you don't know what you're doing. Allows one to edit any surface element in the game, say making the cursed fire surface deal more damage or something.


Level templates, do NOT mess with even if you know what you're doing. Just don't, you can easily ♥♥♥♥ your game with any accidents or mistakes.


Okay, now that we are done with legends. We can start on the even more complicated stuff. The side bar!

The side bar essentially allows one to adjust nearly anything about an NPC or asset with a great deal of options and choices. All you have to do is left click an item, hit right click and then press the second first choice saying," open selected objects for edit. ALL campaign assets will require you to enable them to be edited first. Things from the RTM added into the map won't require this.
On its own, the side bar does nothing until you click on an ingame asset.

Back onto the Side Bar and having something selected, Once you have something clicked, it'll turn a light purple color with green arrows on the edges of the, well whatever you've got selected. You'll see an odd light green, dark blue and red showing within the asset depending on the size of it.

With this little three arrow tool, you can freely move objects around easily.

The green arrow will move the object up and down.

The blue arrow will move the object left and right

The red arrow will move the object forwards and backwards

You can combine two of the arrow movements by clicking within that tricky 3 surfaced cube in the middle. Click with your mouse directly on the center lines that connect each color. Say, click and hold on the green line/blue line will make the object move in nearly all directions. Super helpful for wanting to carefully line up objects and ensuring nothing floats.

Let's talk about the little symbols on the side of the SIdebar and gizmos.

Do you see the little bar right below the mods name and resolution, on the top right side of the ingame screen?

The first column are actions you can choose for your mouse when you select an object or multiple.











As you can see in the screenshot,
First symbol is your neutral zone for object selection,

Second symbol enables/disables the tri colored arrows for movement,

third symbol allows full degree rotation of movement, SPIN BABY SPIN!

fourth symbol adds three red squared sticks which allow for size adjustment.

Fifth symbol can allow you to(with a little bit of setting adjustment) easily duplicate objects and other settings when right clicked on.

Six symbol allows for editing border bounds for certain objects and triggers.

Seven symbol opens some settings to look at and adjust. Don't disable/enable things here unless you know what you are doing!



Below this small column is another one with more symbols.

These are your gizmo tools and allows a lot of options that most basic modders don't use. The most important one for all to know is the first symbol which enables/disables the viewing of all triggers and gizmos. Say you want to take a screenshot in the editor? Turn on the triggers/gizmos from here and voila. Or you want to ensure an object or chair is facing the right way when placed? Simply turn on the second option show items using gizmos and voila.

Okay, we've got the simple stuff done and out of the way. Let's go tackle the more challenging ones then. This will be a long one and will have a part 2 in the guide.


Okay,



Yeah, you're gonna have to click on the image to zoom in. Apologies folks.

Let's get this in order. You've got the (and this is in order going from left first, all to the right side for the end.

Terrain panal
Enables you to edit the maps terrain in various ways with some settings, along with a feature to create your own patch of land terrain that can be mixed with different materials.

AI GRID panal
Okay, despite my own anger at this one, I'll help ya out. This allows one to generate the AI Grid Pathing for the map enabling AI and players to go to new structures or new terrain. Also allows one to paint/disable movement, players vision grid and paint surfaces like cursed fire or frozen water. Say you wanna pain the world red with blood? It's literally never been easier than here.

Decal Painter Decal
Be careful with this tool but it does allow to change materials and decals, use it if you know what you are doing.

Instance/ Mesh Painter
Really handy dandy tool for filling out empty maps, enables to spawn a large selection of assets at once. Say you wanna spawn 100 bushes in this one island? Of course, it's easy!

Working Atmosphere Settings
Allows one to edit the maps atmosphere setting. Lots of debug ones in here to play around with

Combat Group Panal
More in line of keeping enemy encounters working smoothly, use if you know what you are doing.

Invalid Objects
I honestly don't know, never seen anything be placed in here and never had an issue with it. Be careful with it

Alignment Editor
neat little tool to adjust alignments for npcs, like who're they are neutral, allied and bloody thirsty aggressive to. Be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ careful with it, you can ♥♥♥♥ up with your mod badly.

Show Grid
Super simple, shows white grid over the map.

World Map Renderer
Allows you to update the map and minimap for your level design. Say you add a new building on your level and want it to show up on yer map? This is the tool for ya

Voice Bark Editor
I've not been able to find ANYTHING that explains what this does, be careful with it.


Material Editor
Enables the editing of ingame material assets, (think like textures and stuff)don't ♥♥♥♥ with this unless you know how to use it

Script Editor
Enables editing of ingame scripts, tons of options. Good lord, do not ♥♥♥♥ with this unless you have the know how.

Effect Editor
Visual effects, enables the editing of it.

Story Editor
Editing the story scripts and more, DO NOT ♥♥♥♥ WITH THIS. Unless you know how to

Dialog Editor
Wide variety of options of editing and creating your own dialogue for various things. Ingame dialogues are not enabled and have to be mined from the games data folders

Translated StingKey
Really handy tool to allow creating or editing notes, books and the line ingame.

Texture Atlas Editor
Don't ♥♥♥♥ with this, I have no information on what this even does.

Tag Editor
Edits the ingame tags all characters have, be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ careful with it.

Journal Editor
Allows one to edit and preview the games journal. Only issue, any edit can not be saved. From what I found, it HAS to be done outside of the editor with some scripting.

Stats Editor
Really awesome tool, allows to edit and create stats for npcs of all kinds. This allows one to make new npcs with custom stats, new skills, new summons and more. Be careful though.

Teasure/ Experience Analyser
Allows one to simulate loot/xp gameplay on your map, be it custom or vanilla. So you can see how the map fares. Be careful, it has a bad habit of crashing when used.



This stuff was already covered in the earlier chapter, go back and reread it just in case.
Characters
Items
Lights
Light Probes
Decals
Splines
Dummies
References
Triggers
WallConstruction
LevelTemplates

Okay, this part of the guide is more loose and features an array of stuff I've learned that can be used to better your modding knowledge and capabilities. More and better knowledge to all keeps a healthy community and only seeds new and better modders.




Let's start off with something easy, how can one select multiple objects other than annoyingly hold clicking a giant green square over everything?

Simple, press your left ctrl and left click on an asset, say a wooden crate. Now you can press those two buttons at the same time and select other assets so they all turn purple as they are selected. This is far easier and more precise to use, making moving things around a breeze.








Wanna make teleportation doors, stairs or ladders in your game?

Without scripting? Especially without complicated scripting? I was sent this from a very nice guy on Discord named King(not giving the full name, don't want him to get spammed with messages). Huge props to ya!

Follow this super simple youtube video and teleporting will be a breeze in your custom or vanilla map. Disregard the classic part of the video title, It works flawlessly for the DE version as well.

https://youtu.be/2Gzbz-6IQT4?si=emqAAqHExVLOT5JS










Okay, let's get into a far more difficult one. Custom voiced dialogue.
This does require a little bit of scripting but nothing major and you mainly just have to copy/paste how it's been done. This allows one to use custom voice lines and add it to an npcs dialogue. So your custom npc will not be mute.

I was given this extremely detailed guide on my Discord by a very nice guy and major kudos to him for his help.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oORzEUSuqKhU2opLKCfiItfCVnOyCThbUpPFaAjtu24/edit#heading=h.45xg26rdjz95

Okay, we've talked a great deal on the abilities and features of the editor, now it's time to talk about the issues.


First and biggest problem, the editor has a memory leak problem. No way to fix it without the devs involving themselves. Once the programs memory usage becomes higher, usually around the 40-60% mark will the editor basically start ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ itself. It'll start freezing up a lot, stuttering or straight up crashes. I personally find myself having to restart the editor often because of this problem. Which certainly slows down progress on making mods.



Secondly, camera problems can occur every now and then. For some reason, the editor will legit YEEET your camera light years away from where you where originally looking. Or it removes the ability to stop your camera as if you were infinitely scrolling. The last issue, it can also shoot your camera view straight into the atmosphere for no reason. I've yet to figure out why this even occurs, it was an issue in the DOS1 editor too. Though, it's a very rare problem so be thankful for that.


Almost done here but, placing objects onto the maps floor doesn't always work. Let me explain, sometimes you think you placed an item down say a poor plate onto a table or a large tree on a patch of land. Well, you did do that but the item is actually floating above the ground. Your camera point of view can be very funky with this issue so I always have my camera at a low and close angle to fix this problem. It's not a huge issue but do beware of it.


Almost forgot to add this but this games engine is single floor only for the editor. You can not have two pathways or two floors inside a house on top of each other. Really lowers the possibilities for the game but oh well. You can still make them but the top one can only be for pure decoration.


Lastly and the biggest problem, the outdated grid pathing due to the Armor sets Gift bag add on.

This issue can be fixed by the devs, but the truth of them actually fixing it mixed.
Mainly, the levels which have edits made by this gift bag are afflicted specifically the ARX and Fort Joy level. This problem either breaks and or ♥♥♥♥♥ around with modifying the vanilla grid pathing.

This mainly causes the player, when ingame unable to move around in certain areas. As this effects my own mod, I am on the hunt of figuring out what exactly causes this problem and why.
Having more than one mod that change the same AI grid pathing seems to almost always causes problems, not 100% of the time. No ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ clue why.

The load order of the mod with altered grid pathing has a major effect on the grid pathing working so experimenting is often required.

The way the mod has changed the grid pathing is also important to solving and/or alleviating the problem. Some structures within the Editor refuse to work with the grid pathing so lots of toying around to lower this problem.

Ensuring changed structures and new/altered terrains are seed generated and placed SEED triggers if required. Ya know the ol did you try turning off yer computer troubleshooting problem? Yeah. Only change the computer part to the Editor program. Saving altered terrain or structure differences then restarting the editor, THEN generating the AI pathing seems to help in my own experience.

DO NOT SPAM SEED TRIGGERS,
this will worsen the problem. Only use the SEED triggers sparingly and only if required.

Thank you all for taking the time to read this simple guide. Hopefully it'll be a little helpful to y'all.


I'm happy to add more to the guide depending on how much I know about it.

If I made any mistakes or forgot to add something, feel free to point it out and I'll work on it.

As of 3/31/24, I'll be working on an addition to this guide that'll completely cover creating dialogue which will contain lots of helpful info.