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Nathraiben
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 Posted: Sat Jan 27, 2007 10:39 pm Post subject: Leth'Ver Academy |
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I thought I'ld provide screenshots of a couple of key scenes in my story, so I started up the toolset, despaired, gave up, downloaded some tutorials, started up again, despaired again, gave up again - and decided I just simply don't like how NWN2 handles clothes 
(That was the only thing I almost liked about NWN1...)
But since I already had the toolset running and had begun to model the "background" for those screenshots, I decided to simply create the areas I'm using in my stories.
Heck, does it always take that long to make areas? 
Spent hours on the gardens alone, and I'm like... halfways done? 
Anyway, took some screenshot of what the area looks like right now - I'm not sure you'll be able to make use of it?
(If not, that's okay... it was fun and I learned quite a lot about the toolset, at least)
           
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SorceressAshura
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| Posted: Sun Jan 28, 2007 3:19 am Post subject: |
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Oh wow, those are beautiful Nathraiben. Bravo! You have that "nack" of placing things harmoniously together. I love those screen shots, and very proud to have them posted here. Its really hard to pick a favorite from those... The randomization of flora and funa is delicately held together by the carved hills, and grassy knolls. Very nice work. Oh my heart is just captivated. PLEASE don't stop, continue your work.
| Quote: | Heck, does it always take that long to make areas?
Spent hours on the gardens alone, and I'm like... halfways done? |
LOL, I know what you mean. There so much customization features when it comes to exteriors. Once you get going, its hard to put it down becuase this drive starts to build... and you think.. WOW, people are gonna flip when they see this area. So you continue to add alittle more,.. then tint alittle more, re-adjust all the heights... OH! then you find a placable you haven't noticed before.. so you start to put new things into it to compliment the placable. Why stop there?... The sky's colors don't fit exactly right.. so you go and tweak the clouds, and fog... ... LOL.. I could go on and on and on... And you haven't even begun to work on the creatures of that area.. or the special visual effects... What use to take 10 minutes to do in NWN1, takes an entire day. I'm lucky if I can finish the "basics" of an area in one day. ... Hehe now you all see why I'm desperately seeking area builders. And just "Molding" out the land period, helps subtract countless hours. And from looking at those areas, I'd be a fool not to ask. So will you help me build areas!?!?!?   
A few tips that I'm not sure you are aware of about designing exteriors.
Trees, its recommended that you use only 4 to 5 tree types per area. (that includes the shrubs) Any more, and it's laaaaggg city. A good way to work around that limitation, is to use the Random Seed, in the properties window of each tree type. That number you see in there?.. Try changing that number, from anything to 1 - 99999999 It causes that tree model to alter its branches. So that you can place 100 copies of that single tree type, yet each of them will look different. It won't lag becuase its using the same tree type. Just renders it differently depending on the number.
Buildings, use textures to "engrave" them into the earth. Like outlining their base. This isn't very important, becuase usually a builder will place grass, crates, brushes/trees, etc,.. around it. But for the careful eye of some players, it looks like the building was carelessly "placed" there.. And not looking like it was "built" there.
Coloring,... In the terrain tab, if you click "Color" then scroll down to the color box. You can choose a color from there to "accent" your textures. Since there is a limit of 6 textures per tile, the Color tool brush is a great work around.
Stones, dont forget to add stones! ..This applies to me more then anyone else. For some reason stones, and boulders are always the last thing I think about when designing an exterior. Thought I throw it in there, just in case.
The premade visual effects, mostly the Window Beams, fire, and fog. The others are okay, but you guys know me,. I like to make own. Hehe Remember to use them, and dont be stingy! Especially with the fog. Since you can't really see wind, except with the trees ... fog on the ground in random places really livens things up.
Lights, put them in the obvious places. Torches, lamp posts, camp fires.. And if your looking to reserve memory for players.. Remember to remove their Cast Shadows, in the properties window. People who have average to low end computers probably wont see them anyway becuase they turned off the feature in the Video Options. And on a PW, People usually play using the minimal specs, just so they have the advantage of running at top speed. At least I do, anyway. The "baked" light on the ground and objects around the light source usually does the trick. Shadows is just the icing on the cake, or at least I think so.
| Quote: | I thought I'ld provide screenshots of a couple of key scenes in my story, so I started up the toolset, despaired, gave up, downloaded some tutorials, started up again, despaired again, gave up again - and decided I just simply don't like how NWN2 handles clothes
(That was the only thing I almost liked about NWN1...) |
Can't agree with you more on that. I HATE the crafting system in NWN2, compared to NWN1's system. I mean I sorta like that you need to find materials.. and use recipes... but the fact that you cant change the appearance of armor/clothing on the fly at any moment.. REALLY ERKS ME. I wont even go into the fact that there isn't much of a variety for women's garments... or femine armor. The only thing that looks decent is the warlock outfit... and you JUST KNOW, every girl player will be wearing one of those. THANK GOD For Aleanne though, she's come to our rescue on that. ... Just wish she'd stop making the outfits so sleezy, and skankish. But she's the only one tackling the issue for the moment so I will set aside my diginity for now and go strut around in the Red Slave Harness. ROFL.
Hopefully as the NWN2 Modding community grows more experienced, and larger numbers.. we can get someone to overwrite that fuc...err... fustrating crafting system. 
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Nathraiben
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 8:01 pm Post subject: |
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| SorceressAshura wrote: | | Oh wow, those are beautiful Nathraiben. Bravo! You have that "nack" of placing things harmoniously together. I love those screen shots, and very proud to have them posted here. Its really hard to pick a favorite from those... The randomization of flora and funa is delicately held together by the carved hills, and grassy knolls. Very nice work. Oh my heart is just captivated. PLEASE don't stop, continue your work. |
Really? Thanks, that's so good to hear!
Whenever I walk through the area, I find lots and lots of details I don't like - I'm a terrible perfectionist, so I'll be forever deprived of the joy of actually liking something I did myself. 
It's always good to see there's at least one person who likes it, though (feels less futile this way )
| Quote: | | LOL, I know what you mean. There so much customization features when it comes to exteriors. Once you get going, its hard to put it down becuase this drive starts to build... and you think.. WOW, people are gonna flip when they see this area. So you continue to add alittle more,.. then tint alittle more, re-adjust all the heights... OH! then you find a placable you haven't noticed before.. so you start to put new things into it to compliment the placable. Why stop there?... The sky's colors don't fit exactly right.. so you go and tweak the clouds, and fog... ... LOL.. I could go on and on and on... And you haven't even begun to work on the creatures of that area.. or the special visual effects... What use to take 10 minutes to do in NWN1, takes an entire day. I'm lucky if I can finish the "basics" of an area in one day. ... |
True... so true!
Back then you simply chose one of the few square tiles, added some placeables (only few, because everything above 50 would make your area unplayable, anyway) and done you were. It was uggly and you kept having dejy vus ("Strange how Farmer Joe keeps his garbage at the EXACT same location as John Smith does. Then again, they DID have the same architect, too, didn't they?"), but you really could do it in 10 minutes...
And I really, really hated doing it!
| Quote: | | Hehe now you all see why I'm desperately seeking area builders. |
Yes, I definitely can see where you're coming from, now! Never imagined it would be this complex (and yet fun!) to do. Just picturing I'ld have to do all the areas I did for NWN1 with the new toolset gives me the creeps.
| Quote: | | And just "Molding" out the land period, helps subtract countless hours. |
I just read about how you could utilize World Machine thanks to the YATT plugin, and I'll really have to give it a try. Always used World Machine for my Terragen renders, since you could get GREAT terrains out of it, so I'm quite looking forward to how it can help with NWN2.
| Quote: | | And from looking at those areas, I'd be a fool not to ask. So will you help me build areas!?!?!? |
I will/would quite gladly do so, but there's still the problem of my limited spare time
Maybe you could just give me less important areas that could wait the couple of weeks it will probably take me to build them?
I don't have the time to do any of the countless mod ideas I wrote down since the very day I purchased the game (or some that date back to my NWN1 era), so I'ld really love contribute what little time I have to Rhydin!
Strange - I swore to never again open something with the name "toolset" on it, and still I feel quite enthusiastic about area building right now...
(Then, again, I also swore to never again touch anything with the words "Neverwinter Nights" in it's name, and yet I already played through the OC twice... )
| Quote: | | A few tips that I'm not sure you are aware of about designing exteriors. |
I'm thankfull for any tips you can spare me! 
| Quote: | | Trees, its recommended that you use only 4 to 5 tree types per area. (that includes the shrubs) Any more, and it's laaaaggg city. A good way to work around that limitation, is to use the Random Seed, in the properties window of each tree type. That number you see in there?.. Try changing that number, from anything to 1 - 99999999 It causes that tree model to alter its branches. So that you can place 100 copies of that single tree type, yet each of them will look different. It won't lag becuase its using the same tree type. Just renders it differently depending on the number. |
To be true, I grew tired of placing trees rather fast (mostly because of those ridiculous bounding boxes they have - after a while it's impossible to select certain trees, because their bounding boxes are overlapping with all the others), so I deleted all the trees I had so far and simply used the tree generator plugin
Worked perfectly for the distant land trees, and only had to tweak the trees of the actual area (here the bounding box problem kicked in again, but since about half the trees were okay the way they were, it still was a lot less frustrating).
| Quote: | | Buildings, use textures to "engrave" them into the earth. Like outlining their base. This isn't very important, becuase usually a builder will place grass, crates, brushes/trees, etc,.. around it. But for the careful eye of some players, it looks like the building was carelessly "placed" there.. And not looking like it was "built" there. |
Hm... I'm not sure I'm getting that one
Right now, I simply raised the terrain a bit and placed the buildings a tad below ground, to make it look like it has a fundament (blame it on my European heritage - we simply cannot imagine buildings without solid subsurface fundaments ). Then raised parts of the terrain again to make it look like earth heaped up against the walls.
| Quote: | | Coloring,... In the terrain tab, if you click "Color" then scroll down to the color box. You can choose a color from there to "accent" your textures. Since there is a limit of 6 textures per tile, the Color tool brush is a great work around. |
Whoah, thanks! That's right what I'm working on right now, and I didn't know you could color the textures!
| Quote: | | Stones, dont forget to add stones! ..This applies to me more then anyone else. For some reason stones, and boulders are always the last thing I think about when designing an exterior. Thought I throw it in there, just in case. |
I just wished there was something like the tree algorithm for stones... I placed some of them along the cliffs, but ran out of different stones and boulders quite fast. Feels like the NWN1 deja vu thingy again
| Quote: | | The premade visual effects, mostly the Window Beams, fire, and fog. The others are okay, but you guys know me,. I like to make own. Hehe Remember to use them, and dont be stingy! Especially with the fog. Since you can't really see wind, except with the trees ... fog on the ground in random places really livens things up. |
I'm soooooooo looking forward to those! Hm... now I only have to figure out how to include .haks - asigning them to the module properties always breakes my saves
| Quote: | | Lights, put them in the obvious places. Torches, lamp posts, camp fires.. And if your looking to reserve memory for players.. Remember to remove their Cast Shadows, in the properties window. People who have average to low end computers probably wont see them anyway becuase they turned off the feature in the Video Options. And on a PW, People usually play using the minimal specs, just so they have the advantage of running at top speed. At least I do, anyway. The "baked" light on the ground and objects around the light source usually does the trick. Shadows is just the icing on the cake, or at least I think so. |
So, at least it wouldn't hurt to leave those properties in, since low end computer will remove them through settings anyway?
(Although - are those the strange, almost black, very choppy und really unrealistic shadows?)
| Quote: | | Can't agree with you more on that. I HATE the crafting system in NWN2, compared to NWN1's system. I mean I sorta like that you need to find materials.. and use recipes... but the fact that you cant change the appearance of armor/clothing on the fly at any moment.. REALLY ERKS ME. |
Ah - not, that's not what I was complaining about
(To be true, I really hated NWN1, so I never got the expansions - thus I never experienced the NWN1 crafting system, it was all static and buy-only for me back then.)
| Quote: | | I wont even go into the fact that there isn't much of a variety for women's garments... or femine armor. |
That's more what I was talking about
Though it's only part of the problem - there are too few different outfits, but the main reason is that you cannot customize outfits much. I'ld love to have back the NWN1 system on throwing together different parts - take the chestpart from this one, add the upper arms from this and then those lower arms, then the same for the legs and of course don't forget the neck.
That way, though there were actuall less models than we have now, the possibilities were near endless (and then there came Lisa... ).
I mean, seemless sleaves are great and all, but I'ld happy trade them for the old system (though I'm hoping for the CCC, too - they could make the base models chest-only and add the different parts through the armor add-on slots, just the way it was back then).
| Quote: | | The only thing that looks decent is the warlock outfit... and you JUST KNOW, every girl player will be wearing one of those. THANK GOD For Aleanne though, she's come to our rescue on that. ... Just wish she'd stop making the outfits so sleezy, and skankish. But she's the only one tackling the issue for the moment so I will set aside my diginity for now and go strut around in the Red Slave Harness. ROFL. |
Yeah, same here
Already thought about reskinning a couple of outfits, I'm just now sure I really want to learn the whole .2da thing all over again.
| Quote: | | Hopefully as the NWN2 Modding community grows more experienced, and larger numbers.. we can get someone to overwrite that fuc...err... fustrating crafting system. |
*hehe*
Well, I worked for a couple of UO freeshards (back then when I still had the time to do so *poor li'l Nathraiben*), and what I REALLY missed when I started working on our PW, was the possibility to dye clothes....
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SorceressAshura
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| Posted: Mon Jan 29, 2007 9:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | To be true, I grew tired of placing trees rather fast (mostly because of those ridiculous bounding boxes they have - after a while it's impossible to select certain trees, because their bounding boxes are overlapping with all the others), so I deleted all the trees I had so far and simply used the tree generator plugin
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Another tip that helps that particular issue is the feature to Show/Hide objects in the toolset. It brings down a list of selectable objects to hide so that issues like overlapping green boxes doesn't happen to often. Its primarily how I build, personally. The first thing I do is hide everything, then I start to mold out the terrain. I dont like map generators, becuase then I feel like I'm not making it "personal" enough. Once that is done, I go to part one of texturing. Craving out the mountain sides, outline the roads, fill in the river, or lake beds. Then I select Show Placeables, and I start putting in the important placeables down. Like if its a town, then all the buildings I think I'm going to use. Arranging them, and then tweaking the terrian around them. I unHide the trees by selecting Show Trees, and place the important ones down. Basically the ones that I know the player will see up close and move around. After that I hide them again. At this point, I use the Color Brush to engrave the placeables. Just like molding the terrian around the houses, I use the color brush to darken the bases. To me, it gives it a more "engraved" look. Like the building was really "built in" there. Once all that is done, I finish coloring in all the other textures, like the edges of roads. Color variation in the fields of grass. Darkening the bottoms of cliff sides. I also darken the bases of the trees, so that when I Hide them, I'll know where they are without having to deal with readjusting them when they overlap something. Thats usually when I remember to add stones, and placing trees in the background. Then after I got the basic look of an area I go back and retexture different parts. To give it a more refined look.
As far as building areas for me. Take your time, I'm in no rush. They can be anything you want. When they are finished, I'll put them in places where they make the most sence. The terrains could be anything to forests, to farmlands, to mountain ranges, even interiors.
| Quote: |
About the Lights tip;
So, at least it wouldn't hurt to leave those properties in, since low end computer will remove them through settings anyway?
(Although - are those the strange, almost black, very choppy und really unrealistic shadows?) |
Well the reason I suggest turning off the shadows is becuase it helps unload the area quicker when in the toolset, and when "zoning in" during game play. Becuase even though they turned off the feature, when they load the area. It goes through the process of loading them "as is" they were placed by the builder. If that makes any sense.. Which extends the time it would take for them to zone between areas. When the feature is removed on your end in the toolset. It skips it all together during the load process, making it faster to zone.
| Quote: | | I'm soooooooo looking forward to those! Hm... now I only have to figure out how to include .haks - asigning them to the module properties always breakes my saves |
Haks aren't as hard as everyone thinks when the new toolset. Its just handled a different way. Hak files, when using Erfinder tool (found on the vault) you can extract the files from haks and place the files in both Override directories of the C:My documents/Neverwinter Nights 2/, and the C:/Program Files/Atari/Neverwinter Nights 2/Overide/. And thats all there is to it. Just putting the files in those 2 folders. Doing it the first time is a little unnerving but you'll get the hang of it. Erfs are easier to use in my opinion. Just "Import" them and it places all the files in the appropriate folders.
| Quote: | | Quote: | Quote:
Can't agree with you more on that. I HATE the crafting system in NWN2, compared to NWN1's system. I mean I sorta like that you need to find materials.. and use recipes... but the fact that you cant change the appearance of armor/clothing on the fly at any moment.. REALLY ERKS ME. |
Ah - not, that's not what I was complaining about
(To be true, I really hated NWN1, so I never got the expansions - thus I never experienced the NWN1 crafting system, it was all static and buy-only for me back then.) |
Thats what I was trying to get at. The fact that you can manipulate each piece of the armor as you see fit during or at any time. I loved that about NWN1, and when the CEP came out. The beauty of true character customization blew the doors open.
| Quote: | Yeah, same here
Already thought about reskinning a couple of outfits, I'm just now sure I really want to learn the whole .2da thing all over again. |
If you have experience working with outfits for models.. Please reconsider. The community desperately needs artists of your skill. Even some of the male armors that NWN2 provides could look better on a female if there were only reskinned/or tintable.
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Nathraiben
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 3:11 am Post subject: |
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| SorceressAshura wrote: | | Another tip that helps that particular issue is the feature to Show/Hide objects in the toolset. |
Most of the time, I just disabled tree selection, so I could still see what it looks like when it's finished, yet didn't have the bounding boxes getting in my way.
The tough part, though, is working on the trees themselves (some kind of option do hide single trees would be nice) - and I still have to do that a lot (lots of trees with roots partly sticking out of the ground - I even managed to have one of those §$§"$%% messed up trees in TWO of my screenshots ).
| Quote: | | As far as building areas for me. Take your time, I'm in no rush. They can be anything you want. When they are finished, I'll put them in places where they make the most sence. The terrains could be anything to forests, to farmlands, to mountain ranges, even interiors. |
You've made this little bard quite happy now
| Quote: | | When the feature is removed on your end in the toolset. It skips it all together during the load process, making it faster to zone. |
Ah, okay! I'll make sure to turn it off then!
| Quote: | | Haks aren't as hard as everyone thinks when the new toolset. Its just handled a different way. Hak files, when using Erfinder tool (found on the vault) you can extract the files from haks and place the files in both Override directories of the C:My documents/Neverwinter Nights 2/, and the C:/Program Files/Atari/Neverwinter Nights 2/Overide/. And thats all there is to it. Just putting the files in those 2 folders. Doing it the first time is a little unnerving but you'll get the hang of it. Erfs are easier to use in my opinion. Just "Import" them and it places all the files in the appropriate folders. |
Ya, but that kind of defeats the purpose of using haks at all
I never used the override folder with NWN1, since with haks you can rest assured that every module looks exactly the way the builder intended to, while with overrides you end up changing ALL modules instead of only the one that was ment to utilize the hak.
And it SHOULD work by just assigning the haks to your module (there are already quite a lot of modules out that use haks instead of overrides), it's just MY toolset that messes things up
| Quote: | | Thats what I was trying to get at. The fact that you can manipulate each piece of the armor as you see fit during or at any time. I loved that about NWN1, and when the CEP came out. The beauty of true character customization blew the doors open. |
True! Awww, I spent so much time messing around with the .2da in order to get all those nice clothing haks to work together, and we ended up having lots and lots of different outfits - a friend of mine always claimed we were working on a girls-only server
| Quote: | | If you have experience working with outfits for models.. Please reconsider. The community desperately needs artists of your skill. Even some of the male armors that NWN2 provides could look better on a female if there were only reskinned/or tintable. |
Cleits tint pack was one of the haks I tried to get to work (for some strange reason I decided to give making the different robes for the academy another try - and I failed again, thanks to that hak bug ), so at least the tinting has been taken care of.
As for textures - ya, I did quite a lot of reskins for NWN1, but still the whole .2da thing is kind of turning me off - I don't know how NWN2 handles things in this regards, but if you still have to mess with the .2da in order to include new clothes, I'll have to be really bored to give it a try.
(ARGH! And of course, the very moment I write this, I'm feeling masochistic enough already... DARN! )
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Nathraiben
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:31 am Post subject: |
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NYAHAHAHAHA, no .2da involved this time - just a lot of renaming
(And no, of course that's not a finished texture )
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SorceressAshura
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| Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 10:11 pm Post subject: |
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Thats a great start. It kind of reminds me of a kimono. Dony stop, let me know if you reskin anythng else.
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Leth'Ver Academy
