Relocation Theory.

SorceressAshura · Relocation Theory.

Hello friends,

Wow, the forums haven't been as active anymore. I wanted to inform you all, that no, I'm not giving up on the Rhydin Planes. I was looking at a few PWs and I was putting together a list of things that I noticed as a "reoccuring" theme with them. Most of them are pretty good in terms of design and quality, however I've noticed that they all had the same "look". Mountain terrains, grasslands, cities by the sea.. all nice, and wonderful ideas... but I can't help but to think that people are mimicing others... Starting off adventurers in port towns, and the like. While that was my own inital thought as well for starting off in Rhydin... I began to realize that was becoming very boring.

I'd like to start work on building a desert. And with the many tents the oc has supplied me.. I think it would be very feasible to start this world on the Draconis continent. ... I was going to leave that continent as the last place discovered... I'm thinking of making it the first. Its a continent engualfed by raging hot deserts, treacherous canyons, and long forgotten civilizations. Water, and plant life is very rare... which will introduce a fatigue system I've been tinkering with... But first off, I'd like to get some input... I'm not very familar with that type of terrain besides.. lots of sand and mountains.. so I'd like you all to help choose placables, creatures, clothing... maybe some themes? Even real life pictures of eygpt and the sahara desert would help. Let me know what you all think about this idea of relocating. I'm opening this idea to suggestions.

Nathraiben

1) I'm all for non-standard-western areas, so of course I like the idea Smile

2) "Lots of sand and mountains" - this sounds like you want both sand and stone deserts, so both clothing and building styles will vary a lot - living in a stone desert and living in a sand desert are two completely different things, and that will reflect in many building decisions.

I'm by far no expert, but generally speaking it seems like sand deserts are more harsh to their inhabitants - sand working like emery paper on both buildings and creatures (especially during sandstorms), no vegetation other than around the few water holes, no shadow to hide in, no durable landmarks due to shifting sand dunes, ...

While stone deserts seem to be a bit "easier" on living creatures: whenever there are rocks and cliffs there's shadow, you have landmarks to go by, the stable ground allows for a sparse vegetation, cliffs and high rocks make for nice shields against harsher weather conditions, ...

So, when a desert consists of both sand and rocky parts, people might prefer the latter for their settlements. Though, of course, the main reason for settling at a certain spot would be a source of water. A well (mostly in rocky parts, I guess), a lake (room for the stereotyped oasis Very Happy

) or a large river (a "neverending" source of water, so best for whole cities).

The main problem would be not to make your areas too boring, so it's probably best to go with lots of rocky parts of sand deserts - there's just simply more space for variation than with plain sand dunes, yet still for most people a sandy ground gives off more "desert" vibes than rock does.

Also, the buildings might prove kind of problematic. While there are a couple of nice "rich riverside estates" that look perfect for large desert city, I don't remember any placeables that would make for clay buildings. The only small buildings seem to be the rural and the swamp houses, and both are not quite fit for a desert Rolling Eyes

But you could go with the rich houses and the merchant row houses for the "better" parts of the cities, with tents for the rest (and of course for the oasis "settlements") and then simply with caves in a cliff for small villages around a small well.

(Okay, that was quite a long speech for someone who's never even been to a desert... Rolling Eyes

)

IskatuMesk

In MoM you'd be starting off in the middle of an enormous piece of used tofu. I'm not kidding, either. Used Tofu is considered the epicenter of the power of Evil, and the Loladins must fight with every ounce of their strength to defeat its sinister powers. Branching from that, you have an enormous ocean of frozen stuff, the Mansion of Madness itself (complete with a giant bar filled with man-eating robots and giant mutant badgers, a huge steam room filled with reactors more than likely to explode at the slightest touch, an underwater cave filled with demonically-possessed tables...), then you have the Stormspire, which is giant and glowy, and the Moon, which is made out of cheese, and the Sun, which is a frozen wasteland, and... well, you get the idea. If you want out of the ordinary, you've come to the right place.

I've always liked Deserts more than jungles. They have a feel to them that is at home yet otherworldly. One thing to consider is that while they are extremely hot during the day, they are freezing at night.

SorceressAshura

Good to see you are liking the idea. I was coming across pictures of oasis, and I think I'll be able to craft something similar. I was also thinking of making cities into the cliff sides of canyons.

Now as far as culture goes, I wanted to introduce the Tal'Muhari tribe. A tribe one of my characters is from. They are a desert people, who believe in spirits as their "gods". What makes them different is that they are a race who descended from a mythic creature, the Phoenix. With the help from a goddess spirit, during the last reincarnation of the bird. Two humanoid forms rose from the ashes. The skin is bronze, hair like fire, and eyes green like sparkling emeralds. They're resistant to fire, their blood has regenative/healing properties, and they have high constitution.

A rival tribe to the Tal'Muhari is the Dae'Leva. An ambitious culture who strive on reaping the resources for themselves. Killing and maiming the Tal'Muhari to harvest their blood. They are in cahoots with forces of the undead, using anyone to their advantage. Even resorting to cannibalism during harsh times of drought. They've got dark almost black skin, hair like black night, and grey eyes. They worship the blood spirits, entities that dwell in the desert nights. They appear like swarms of insects, specifically created to use as "blood drainers" against the Tal'Muhari.

There is also a dragon tribe in Draconis. While they remain neutral between the two tribes, they have tendencies to lend aid to both sides. So the balance is kept on the continent. The tribe is made up of dragons of course, but they've also got some humanoid forms. They don't have much tolerance to anyone outside their tribe unless a particular situation calls for it. They are the guardians that hold the secrets to the ancient empires that once ruled over Draconis. However most of them would gladly die before they tell their stories.

IskatuMesk

SorceressAshura

With the houses Nathraiben has suggested, the merchant row ones. I think I can pull off the effect. I'm going to start on the layouts now. .. As for the areas I made already, I'll probably release them as an area pack for the vault. No sence in wasting all that hard work. I'll keep some areas though, but most of the exteriors will have to go. If anyone wants to help me build some deserts, I wouldn't protest. =)

IskatuMesk

I totally would except I still can't use the editor due to the bugs it has. I need some deserts for mars and the Valley of Bones so I'll see what I can do when 1.05 comes out and hopefully fixes it.

Is it possible to have seamless transitions between areas? I remember reading somewhere you could, because the Valley of Bones would be like 8 32x32 maps and it would be retarded to have to have some kind of block-off point at every sector.

Nathraiben

Seemless transitions... oh sweet rhapsody... Embarassed

One of the few things I REALLY miss about Oblivion (together with the breathtaking beauty of the graphics)

Sorceress, I'm quite short of time right now (okay... constantly), but what would you need? A good desert area sounds like a nice challenge!

SorceressAshura

Anything will do.. I've never really done deserts before. So I'm not sure what to ask for. Perhaps design some oasises? Maybe some canyons? Or just a "Death Valley" kind of desert? I'm stepping outside my box of terrains concepts... so I'm as new clueless to this as anyone else.

Seamless Transitions.. That would be awesome... I wouldn't know where to begin though.. With the toolset's limitations it just doesn't seem "doable"... I think when they said "seamless" that they mean areas that connect "visually" together. Like,.. for instance the edge of a forest next to a town, when you use the map transition they move you into the forest, that has the edge of the town and vise versa. At least thats what I think. They've have to rewrite the source code of the toolset I think to make it "seamless" like in WoW, or Oblivion. IF they did make it like that, then wow,.. bravo. Way over my head.

IskatuMesk

Well my Valley of Bones was basically going to be a huge stretch of valley filled with, well, bones (Wait, those placeables don't exist - check one.), and the walls were going to be huge craggy sandstone (Also doesn't exist yet, check two). For the towns managed by the not-so-friendly neighbors, there would be partly-buried sandstone fortresses within these cliffs that send out attack parties after each other and fight for control of oil and iron and stuff (Check mate - nothing like that exists yet, either).

I think the availability of models for this kind of thing is non-existent, though, so it's a "I wish I could do it but probably won't be able to" kind of thing, at least for the first couple of years until CC starts appearing. Same thing for my freezing ocean of ghost ships, interiors of starships, and so on. Kind of depressing, really.

As far as actual deserts are concerned, only one or two textures looked really suiting for that kind of environment. To actually make a whole zone on it would require me having considerably more resources than there is. Perhaps others are more resourceful than I am, though. I'm still left wondering why in gods name they picked such a silly 3d engine that pretty much restricts importing/exporting on a game they were expecting to be heavily modded. Why couldn't they have just stuck with good ol' 3ds max, or even Maya? Now we have to deal with retarded subformats and this silly granny 3d thing.

Maybe it explains why virtually every single animation of the game is used by at least 10 other models - even OE couldn't stand dealing with it to make actually unique animations, or even half-assed animations to begin with.

SorceressAshura

I'll be using the texture packs found on the vault. I've found quite an extensive variety ( http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2Textures.Detail&id=9 ) So I'm not worried about that particular part. As for your starship interiors... I think the best thing you can do, is to take the tilesets they already have, and simply re-skin them with motherboard textures.. or wires..

IskatuMesk

Heh. Well, I think I could get by reskinning one of the interiors for the Lolhammer's interior, but for the interior of an Isadorian ship, something more extensive is going to be needed. (A cinematic involving an Isadorian supership involves a bunch of lazy co-workers drinking coffee on top of the reactor, playing poker, ect. and then a bunch of Loladins run in and hit them with hammers screaming religious inanities about pie and moldy tofu).

Those textures you linked will definately come in use.

Nathraiben

Okay, gave it a try - and, darn, that's quite the challenge Laughing

It's not easy to keep the area interesting while giving it that bleak desert vibes... and I failed miserably at doing so. Also, it's not easy to hide the blockyness that comes with the textures (they are just too small not to literally scream "Hey, I'm a repeating texture!"). Tried to work against this by using the RuinValor Sand Pack, but again the result was sub-par.

At least I managed to get a working cave entrance without using the cave entrance placeable (only the gods know why that one's not tintable...), though I'm sure one can do a better job by using the stones from the 2nd foilage pack. Well, if OE stay true to their word to include the str_ref vs. label feature in the next patch, first thing I'll do is make a padded 2da with both packs and throw everything into an easy to use hak pack... Rolling Eyes

IskatuMesk

Looks like a good start to me.

Having a VFX for sandy wind and stuff would be benificial as well.

SorceressAshura

Those screen shots look incredible. My favorite is the canyon ones. Was that just one area? Please continue with your work.. with your help, I can really make up for lost time.

Here's what I got so far. Its just the oasis, and a few dunes.. plan on building a village here.

Thats a good idea, blowing sand. I think I can pull it off as well. I was already thinking of making "heat waves" and scripting them to only appear during the day.

Nathraiben

Thanks, both of you, but really: That's just sort of the "Best Of" (or rather "Less Worst Of"), the rest of it is really lacking.

SorceressAshura

That is a great area. When you finish with it, send it on over. I'll put it to good use. The cool thing about deserts is that nothingness is the point. I won't have to worry to much about trees, and in the end they cause the majority of lag anyway. Sharp edges,... they're real hard to work with, I know. Getting them to look right can be a real hassle. Its just one of those quirks of the toolset. Shading with colors, and different textures help. You could even put some placeables to cover up the more noticable edges.

As far as the oasis, I had to scrap it. I made the area to small, the oasis was taking up most of the room. I plan on doing a canyon city first. Just something to start all the players in, right off the bat. Then build out from there. Now, just so everyone knows. the entire pw wont be just deserts, I'd like to throw in a jungle as well. And not just a heavy dense forest. I mean a realistic rainforest. Think of exotic places, where wastelands meet dark jungles. Like the old Indiana Jones movies. That kind of setting.

Nathraiben

That should be another challenge, but definitely doable! *starts drooling*

Btw: Any chance there are pyramids involved with one of the desert civilisations? Laughing

IskatuMesk

SorceressAshura

Oooh wow, thats incredible!! I love those pyramids!. Very interesting use of the terrain tools. Keep'em coming... I can imagine building a city like Cairo, with those in the background. Oooh and just think of the crypt-dungeons inside of those things... Ooooh.. And the OC has supplied mummies... Ooooh this is gonna kick ass! lol

Nathraiben

Hm, for putting them into the background of a city, you'ld have to make a HUGE area - those things are about 20 elves high Laughing

Btw, you can always tell when I'm not feeling well - that's when I'm lying/sitting in my bed, creating areas...

Have to admit, I cheated big time with these - made some of the non (or only partly) tintable placeables fully customizable:

And there's still this $%"$%"$%"% problem with the tiles/textures being NOT seamless at all Evil or Very Mad

IskatuMesk

Hmmm, when I was messing with the editor, I never saw that, just lighting glitches.

If you can make one of those aztec-style pyramid-ish temples that you can walk up and there's this area on top you can have stuff on and all that crazy shazzam it would be totally awesome (and I'd definately have to nick it from you for when I can use the editor again).

The bigger the better! (That's my crazy motto as shown with the Stormspire which is probably about 20x the size of those pyramids).

Dragoncleric

Holyshite. Shocked

I've just been looking through all these screenies, and I'm impressed.
It's flash as mate.

Nathraiben

I'm really glad you all like the pyramids, but with the jungle I really have to admit utter defeat Crying or Very sad

Even if there were appropriate trees (with bright green, wide-spread cannopies, vines, parasitic plants, properly colored trunks, etc.), an area trying to recreate a lush jungle would surely kill even the most up-to-date system Rolling Eyes

The two main features of jungle vegetation are simply as NWN2 unfriendly as it can get: a huge diversity of different plants (forget the 6-types-per-area rule of thumb) and a 95% ground coverage (that's a LOT of shrubs to place). And you can't even cheat by using a ground texture, since the typical jungle undergrowth is about waist-high... Laughing

Tell you, I'm REALLY frustrated right now Rolling Eyes

IskatuMesk

My computer would take it.

Failing that, my new computer would be able to take it. Go for it. I'll be doing stuff like that when I can get the editor working again. As I always say, there's no point in sacrificing quality for performance in this day and age, especially when the game just came out. The better it looks, the better off it'll be. Take the game to its absolute fullest.

My Forest of Forestiness is pretty well populated, and although not complete yet, it doesn't really have any performance difference than an empty, open area.

Besides, I'm pretty sure Mars will be able to outdo a forest in performance chewage. As soon as I get some oil fires...

riuthamus

Hi, my name is Riuthamus, im the creator of the RV Sand pack.. i know its a bit out of date, but thats because i have been out in the middle of the ocean... no way to upload some of the new updates i have made to the lava pack and to the sand textures. Those textures were from the Closed Beta testing of NWN2 and since then i have learned all the techs.. to create a truley amazing texture.

When and if i get the chance ill upload some of my shots of the new textures so you can all see them... and if any of you have questions or requests please ask so that I can help you to make them...

Anyway just was bored while out in the middle of the ocean and searching google for the word "RuinValor" and this website showed up.. read up a bit and saw that you were having issues with my texture and felt it was a good idea to respond.