Topic: Importing Character sheets (Rolemaster Office)

[Kiesnowski]

I have found the Rolemaster Office tool very handy for generating characters for my campaigns but I would really like to find a way to import the characters generated into Fantasy Grounds Unity.  Has anyone figured out a way to do this?

[Dakadin]

I don't know of a way to do it but do you have a sample character.  I am curious how it looks and if it would even be possible.

[Kiesnowski]

I will set up a character at multiple levels so you can see how it changes.  I'll export all of the available file types and see if i can figure out the upload.  I'll try to do that after work today.

[Hurin]

I too would like to see how that looks!

[Kiesnowski]

Here are a couple of files that i generated with the program.  Just entered for a level one fighter ect and then used the NPC generator to level them.  I also included a PDF for one of the formatting option for a character sheet.

Hmm I cant seem to upload the file type do to the forum rules...

[Kiesnowski]

You can find the program easy enough by searching for Rolemaster Office.

[Kiesnowski]

Dakadin.  Can't seem to upload files due to restrictions.  Email me and i will be happy to provide you with some test files.  Appreciate all of your work on the game.

[Hurin]

Dakadin.  Can't seem to upload files due to restrictions. 

The approval process just takes a very long time.

[Boromir]

The approval process for Downloads seems to be "offline" - there has not been a file approved since January 2020 from the "Recent Downloads" page.  From Colin's comments elsewhere in the forum, an alternative process is in the works.

[Dakadin]

Hi Kiesnowski,

I did send you an email on 9/1 and a PM today.  Hopefully you got them.

Dakadin

[Hurin]

The approval process for Downloads seems to be "offline" - there has not been a file approved since January 2020 from the "Recent Downloads" page.  From Colin's comments elsewhere in the forum, an alternative process is in the works.

I didnt know it had been that long. Thx for the update!

[Kiesnowski]

Danikin i sent you an email tonight with some files generated by the program for your evaluation.  Lev me know if you get them.  Hope it helps with your evaluation.

[Dakadin]

I just replied to your email but to keep everyone else informed below is what I sent:

I looked at the files and while it might be possible, it would be a ton of work to do a conversion for it.  The save files are actually like XML files so that part would work well for doing the conversion.  The issue is RM Office stores quite a bit of the information just using ID numbers for the items.  So here is what a skill looks like:

Code: [Select]

  <skillRanks>
    <entry>
      <int>64</int>
      <rank>
        <id>64</id>
        <rank>4</rank>
        <favorite>true</favorite>
      </rank>
    </entry>
The issue is it really doesn’t have all the information that you would need and you would have to have a way to convert the IDs to the actual skill name.  I did find the file that has the ID numbers.  The site has a locale.properties file that you can download that has all the IDs and some other information in it.  Here is a section that includes the skill in the example above:

Code: [Select]

skill.63=Languages
skill.64=Body Development
skill.65=Ventriloquism
So that would tell us that the skill is Body Development and the character has 4 ranks in it.  Then because it is Body Development, you would need to track down the race ID:

Code: [Select]

  <raceId>34</raceId>
This becomes a problem because the file doesn’t have any IDs for the races that I could find.  I know by looking at the PDF that it is a High Man but it is listed as this:

Code: [Select]

race.base.man.high=Man, High
It isn’t the 34th entry so that is telling me the program is using some internal numbering.  It would be possible to track all those down but then you hit other issues like the Body Development progression isn’t stored anywhere that I could find.

Basically, it looks like it would be easier to use the program to create characters and just manually enter the information form the PDF.  Sorry to provide you with the bad news.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

[jdale]

Is there an import format that *would* work? For a character generation tool or spreadsheet, creating an export in some arbitrary format is not too hard if the desired format is known.

[Dakadin]

If it is in Excel, I could write a VBA script to export the characters in an XML format that could be imported into FG. 

If you have FG, you can always export a character to see the XML format.  Please let me know if you want me to post a sample.

[jdale]

If you have FG, you can always export a character to see the XML format.  Please let me know if you want me to post a sample.

Assuming you can import such a file back into FG, yes, I think that would be useful.

[Kiesnowski]

Now that would be interesting. If there was a way to import the information then I wouldn't mind generating my characters with rolemaster office and then doing the data entry into a Excel file as long as I could import that information into fantasy grounds. It is a long way of doing it but at least I could get the data entry to work better.

[Dakadin]

Can you guys provide me an Excel document with a character entered?  It will give me something to work with so I can create an export module using VBA.  The resulting file then could be imported directly into FG.  I might even be able to create code to import a character into Excel from a FG export.  I just haven't tried doing it that way in the past so would have to research reading XML using VBA.

The attachment is a FG export of a level 11 Mentalist from my current campaign.  You will just need to unzip it to see the XML since I can't upload an XML file.