A little bit of scripting...

After finishing all my work (at around 9:45), I fiddled around in the toolset for another 45 minutes or so, mostly doing scripting and some VFX experimentation. I must say that scripting, while easy, is not the part of the job I enjoy most. :P

A little more writing

I did just a bit more writing today...not much though, what with classes and all (details!). I may do a little more tonight...it depends on homework, really. The picture above (Calvin & Hobbes = da bomb) is how you should imagine me sitting in class, brainstorming module ideas during lessons. ;)

Even more screenies...

I did a bit of decoration work and added some nice special effects/scripts to the area. And I got pi'tures to prove it! ;) Also did a bit of area design and decoration for The Lynncairen Saga, but didn't take any screenies of that. After doing the area design, I did a ton of writing for The Star Mounts and other stuff; I think that some of the Star Mounts writing I did may be some of my best writing to date. It's just descriptive text, but I just think it really captures the mood from the screenies below... :)

More screenshots & development

I made solid progress today on The Star Mounts--build an entire outdoor area (albeit a small one) and tested the first sequence, which now is completely working the way I want it to. I added sounds & music & lighting & other such stuff to the new area, so it's basically done. I took a few screenshots for your enjoyment as well.

Hectic...

Today was another completely hectic, non-stop day. After classes, I wrote the 2nd page of my 10 page history paper due Tuesday before deciding to go play a game of pickup Ultimate with my friends at 2:30. That turned into a full-fledged game, which was followed by a speed/workout run of (for me) 2 miles, an entire ab workout, and 40 pushups. My whole body hurts. :) Then, I came home and sat down at around 7:00 to keep doing history. I wrote basically at a rate of 2 pages per hour; by 10:00 I had the 9+ pages required for the assignment, and it's good writing too. So I'm excited...that's what I was worried was going to eat up my weekend, but now it's out of the way!

Anyhow, I ran a test of the static camera work I did, and aside from a little twitching between nodes (which I think I know how to fix), everything worked nicely. I took another screenshot, which I've posted here for you enjoyment. I don't plan on doing a lot tonight on TSM--perhaps a teeny bit of conversation writing and fixing that static camera bug. I'll probably go to bed early.

EDIT: It's 1:00am tomorrow, but I just finished fooling around with some more VFX's that are new to NWN2 and I just wanted to post here to say that they're AWESOME! If nothing else, rest assured that you'll be treated to plenty of eye-candy in TSM. ;)

Indoor Track done!

Well, that's it--yesterday was my last indoor track meet of my high school career. We were pulverized by our rival, Exeter, but it was still a good time; I ran the anchor leg of the 4x4, meaning I was the last person on the entire team to run this season. :) Exeter's track is pretty crappy--in fact, it's dirt. Yes, that's right: dirt. I feel like the old-school runners who wore penny-loafers on outdoor dirt circuits, like in the movie Gallipoli. Anyhow, it was an interesting experience to run on dirt...times were slow, unfortunately, but it was educational regardless.

I had no time at all to do anything yesterday--it was crazy-go-nuts busy, and I only got to bed at 11:30 (an hour and a half later than usual). Now I have to catch up on some homework I didn't finish... :( Still, I should have way more time for the next few weeks to do development work now that I don't have practice after school every day. :)

2006 NWN Module of the Year - My Predictions

I was just over reading my buddy Berliad's blog and I saw that he had a little preview of what promises to be something worth following in the upcoming weeks: The 2006 NWN Module of the Year contest.

I've only played 7 of the modules on the list...and 4 of them are my own. :) I have the most miniscule of hopes that I might get a bronze award with one of my mods (AoD or PtD most likely, I think)...I don't think I stand a chance against the big ringers like Darkness over Daggerford, AL3, ROE2 or Wyvern Crown. Still, one can always dream, right...?

Anyhow, I figured I think that Daggerford is going to take this contest by storm. I'm not sure about 2nd place, but I wouldn't be surprised to see Rose of Eternity 2 finishing strong in the rankings...I don't think Wyvern Crown will, but that's just me. AL3 will be an interesting one to watch...it was an extremely enjoyable module up until the ending, which (understandably--and that's another story for another time) sort of was a let-down. Still, what was there was just as good as anything from Daggerford, imo.

I think that a dark horse in this contest is going to be Prophet - Chapter 1 by Baldecaran. I'm not sure how many people have played that, but I think it must be the best mod I've played all-time, rivaled only by AL2. I know that my vote will go to Prophet...I would urge anyone who hasn't played it to place it at the forefront of their pre-voting playlists. It's truly outstanding.

The other mod I played that hasn't already been mentioned is Almraiven. When I say played, I don't mean finished, unfortunately--never did get to the end of this one. I was supposed to be a beta tester (and I was, sort of), but I did a pretty crappy job because I was still building on my own at the time. Still, what I saw of the module was pretty darn good, especially in terms of visuals. Not sure if visuals alone will be able to pull this one to the top...but you never know. :)

A few others I think will do well: Fall of Aielund Pt. 2 was at the top of the lists for, like, forever when it was released; if Savant's fans are still around, this one could do really well. I also think the A Dance With Rogues modules may perform well, despite (or perhaps because of) their extreme content.

Without further ado, my predictions:

1) Darkness over Daggerford
2) Rose of Eternity 2
3) Wyvern Crown of Cormyr
4) AL3
5) Fall of Aielund Pt. 2
6) ...ah, who cares at this point? :)

Static camera work

Today, I learned how static cameras work (again, with some preliminary pointers from Challseus) and I implemented a few into my two latest conversation/cutscenes. I also edited some flavor text to make it a little more descriptive/flavorful. ;)

I've got a few screenshots lined up which I've added here at the end of the post which I hope you'll enjoy--a few of NWN2's nice new vfx's feature in them, so enjoy!

Before the battle...

After the battle...

Stuff happens part 1...

Stuff happens part 2...

Stuff happens part 3... (personal fav)

Stuff happens part 4... ;)

Fun with the Visual Effects Editor Plugin

Thanks to a tip-off from my friend Challseus, I set up and played around with the built-in VFX editor/previewer in the NWN2 toolset for about an hour today. One of the things about NWN2 that I wasn't so keen on was the fact they left all the old VFX constants in the scripting language (so as to not mess up previous scripts imported from NWN1)--of course, this doesn't really matter, since the vast majority of the constants aren't hooked up to an actual VFX anyways!

So, the process of trial and error to see if certain VFX's still worked was getting aggravating...then Challseus saved the day. Now, I'm using the new method EffectSpecialNWN2EffectFile() which allows me to specify one of NWN2's new VFX constants...so, eye-candy lovers are saved, and you can bet that TSM is going to be filled with it!

The VFX plugin allows you to preview the built-in NWN2 effects in a toolset-like environment (like all other windows, this one can be minimized and allows for awesome versatility in the toolset between scripts, convos, and the plugin itself). So, I looked through like 50 to see what they did, and I came away with a few real winners. :) I didn't post screenshots, but I will in-game when I see them firing "for real" for the first time (I've got them in certain in-game scripts, now, so they should be working...).

Those scripts, by the way, are new ones I wrote today; I did some scripting, as well as a teeny bit of NPC design and conversation writing. Overall, good day, especially for one during which I had homework to finish as well.

The Lynncairen Saga gets a little love

I did a bit more development today on The Lynncairen Saga--mostly bug-fixing and cutscene testing from the little bit of it I played. I must admit that its graphics are pretty darn spiffy, even compared to NWN2. Not as detailed, admittedly, as the areas I've been able to make in TSM, but still really nice looking relative to other NWN1 mods. Enjoy the pics I took of the new areas! Most of them are in the Beldar Peaks, though a few are from a cutscene that occurs elsewhere during the player's eventful trek to Kranomyrr, Lynncair's capital...

Good work on an assortment of things

I was extremely productive today in a variety of different venues. English papers, programming contests, cutscene-design, writing--you name it, I did it, for both NWN1 and NWN2. :) I'll have some screenshots tomorrow, maybe, of my new NWN1 area(s)...believe it or not, they're almost as pretty as my NWN2 ones!

What the heck :)

I decided that what the heck, I had a little bit of free time, so I went and did a little area work in the toolset, and I took a whole slew of pictures. Enjoy! It's all still of the same area, but hopefully the screenies will still be entertaining. :)

Been busy

I've had a lot of homework over the past few days--really haven't had much time to do work on The Star Mounts (heck, I even missed yesterday's update!). However, I hope to do some more development today after school. Expect more screenshots soon, I hope.

Snow and Hail

So we got a ton of snow and hail today--the drive to school took longer than an hour both ways, more than twice the time it usually takes. As the branches of the trees were weighed-down with the fluffy white stuff, I was weighed-down with WORK. I'm just about done at the time of this writing, but I still have a bit to do.

During the day, I did manage to sneak in a teensy bit of development. I tweaked a cutscene-ish script, and I added bigger mountains to the backdrop of an area to make it feel more realistic and "in the mountains"-y. Hopefully I succeeded.

Anyhow, more tomorrow, though it's going to be another day full of homework and snow.

More good work

I didn't do quite as much today with The Star Mounts, but what I did do is good. :) I can't post any screenies (don't have'em, and they're spoilers), but I'm pretty pleased with it. Today was mostly homework, sadly.

Polishing and a new area finished.

After returning from today's excursion (we decided to visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum, a really cool place), I spent a good deal of time testing a polishing the game's opening sequence. It's not ground-breaking in terms of plot, but it gets things going right away in a pretty environment. Once I have an actual intro movie playing before-hand to get the plot going, I think it'll work very nicely.

After doing that polish work, I moved on to the next area, and I'm proud to say that it's DONE! :) That's right, I did terrain, texturing, grass, trees, music, sound, sky and fog for the next area, and I'm extremely pleased with the result. I took a bunch of screenshots, and I've posted them here for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy! Comments are welcome.

All is not lost

Well, I tinkered around a bit more, and finally (somehow--don't ask how) managed to get the grass to start painting again, as well as being able to do a little bit of texturing to make the seams less visible (they're still there, though, and they look awful). So, the "overgrown meadow" now looks a bit more like an overgrown meadow, as opposed to a well-mowed lawn. :) However, the grass is not quite so enormous as it was originally, so lag is significantly better.

I've decided that I despise the new NWN2-style conversations with their ugly black bars and auto-camera setups... yes, I know, they're supposed to be cool and I know I can control which kind of camera shot each speaker receives which could add a lot to an interaction, but I'm going to stick with the good 'ol NWN1-style ones for now.

I also fixed a bug this morning where a trigger wasn't firing correctly... it was giving me a huge headache, until I realized I hadn't assigned it a script at all in the OnEnter event. Does anyone need some "stupid", 'cause I seem to have plenty to spare...

Anyhow, I'm going to be away from the computer for some time today, which is probably a good thing... I'm making a butt-indentation on this chair. :) Still, I hope to do some area-building (NO MORE OF THIS AREA--I'M DONE WITH IT FOH_EVAH!!1!1!) when I get home, so that I have more than one in the module... ;)

First Conversation

Well, I spent all day messing around in the toolset. Ultimately, I encountered various degrees of success.

In terms of conversations, I'm now completely at ease working with them (largely thanks to some help from my friend Challseus). Same is true with scripts, and the new parameter passing that NWN2 uses in conversations to handle those many journal entries/local ints/conditional scripts.

However, it seems the toolset is bugged as of the new patch. I encountered a few nasty bugs when I was working with my area; the terrain and texturing and grass is cut off along the seams of the area, and sometimes just don't do anything at all. This is VERY annoying, and I hope it will be fixed soon...I meant to make the area look more realistic without lagging so heavily (making the grass shorter all around), but then I ran into these bugs, so it looks like a finely-mowed square surrounded by nicely-overgrown hills and mountains. I really want to fix it and add more grass... :(

Anyhow, busy day, but pretty productive. Check out the screenies for some convo shots. :)

Long weekend

Well folks, it's a long weekend! I spent some time yesterday finishing up the first conversation in The Star Mounts, and today, I hope to add scripts and animations to it. Then, I'll have to do a bit more scripting to get the subsequent scenario working and terminating correctly.

After that, it's on to the next area: the Star Mounts themselves. The Mounts will be split up into three major areas: the lower slopes, the upper slopes, and the peaks themselves. Then there will be the secret peak, as per the module description, of course... the one where the secret moonlight ceremony is said to take place. ;)

I'll have one cutscene to script in the upcoming Star Mount areas, which, depending on NWN2's capabilities, may or may not be completely awesome. In theory, it could make a really effective cutscene... but I'm not sure whether or not the new toolset allows me to do what I want to.

I also want to learn to do journal entries today, since those are a key part of any mod builder's repertoire, and it's always better to learn to do things like that earlier rather than later. I'm not anticipating too much difficulty.

Anyhow, I'll hopefully have some screenshots of those new areas by Monday at the latest. We'll see!

Work continues

I created several additional NPC's and have written a rather long first conversation; I hope that I'm succeeding in giving my creations real personalities, which are something I felt was lacking in past mods of mine. I want this game to be a true roleplaying, story-driven experience, not just focused on fighting to advance the plot like ToM and PtD were. Art of Death did a better job at that, but I think this has the potential to be a really good game overall. :)

I'll post more screenshots when I get the chance; tomorrow I hope to create my next area in the mod.

A few more screenshots...

I just messed around a little bit more tweaking this first area... here are a few more screenshots:

Some progress made...

I created my first NPC, wrote a flavor text script, and removed some grass from that exterior area in order to reduce lag a bit. The area is designed to be "overgrown", so I'm not going to remove too much of the vegetation, but there was some excess stuff, and there's more that I will chop away in the near future. Here are a few more screenshots for your viewing enjoyment. :)

I must say that I'm a pretty big fan of the purple & white sky I designed...I'll have to mess around more with that when I have some time. The available color combinations are infinite, and funky skyboxes were something that I always wanted more of in NWN1...

Breakthrough!

I finally got in touch with my inner "landscape artist" this morning and after less than an hour of work came out with a really good-looking (in my opinion) wilderness area. Here are some screenshots...compare them to the ones a few entries ago and you'll see what I mean. Everything is relative... :)

Back to my roots...

So I installed NWN1 on the new laptop last night, just to see how it would run; let me tell ya, there's a significant difference both in and outside of the toolset. WoRm's tilesets, which I'm using in The Lynncairen Saga, are super-resource-intensive, and they lagged my old machine a lot; on this one, though, it's smooth as can be to scroll through one of those gorgeous NWN2-esque areas. Anyhow, I was inspired, and I went through two cutscenes, tweaking them and fixing them--they're perfect now, though both required some serious revisions in terms of camera work and pacing. Felt good to go back to my roots in the nice familiar toolset though, after my recent foray into NWN2's.

One thing I feel must be mentioned is that NWN2 looks like crap on my new machine. In the toolset, it's fantastic; the water, the trees, the leaves, everything looks great...but as soon as I fire up the game, it comes out looking worse than Dungeon Siege II for crying out loud! And I have the best videocard this laptop could come with! I've messed with settings--textures are on highest and resolution is good too...so I'm just not sure what to do. It just doesn't look that good. NWN1 looks better, for goodness' sake, or crisper, at the very least!
Hopefully I'll get the hang of building areas in this new beast relatively quickly...I'm really excited about the stories I'll be able to tell with it (the easy part). The areas are all that are standing between me and The Star Mounts...

By the way, check out the air-borne hawk in the 2nd screenshot, upper left-hand corner. Cool, eh? :)

More screenshots

I messed a bit more with the one area I've made so far, and took a few more screenies for your enjoyment.

The Star Mounts begins... sort of.

Well, I spent some time last night fiddling around in the NWN2 toolset with the terrain editor. It's pretty easy to get used to in terms of building--it's the post-creation aspect of the toolset that I find really difficult to get used to. For example, I can't for the life of me figure out how to change fog color or distance; it was so easy in NWN1, but here it's hidden amidst a myriad of little TRUE/FALSE switches, half of which I don't even know what they mean.

Still, I'm pretty pleased with my first little area...it's not great, but it's something. Perhaps I'll hire on an area builder to help me make TSM a reality, while I do all the writing, scripting, and...well, everything other than the area building. We'll see. In the meantime, I've got a few (admittedly bare-boned and rather simplistic) screenshots to share. Enjoy...?

Day Off!

In line with an old Andover tradition, our head of school called "Head of School Day" this evening, meaning that tomorrow will be a day with no classes, sports, rehearsals or anything at all. It's just a day to catch up on sleep, work, play, or anything else one might want or need to get done.

I personally plan on sleeping late, then getting ahead on work, doing a bit of playing (Oblivion or Dungeon Siege II, depending on my mood), then spending some time in the toolset. Perhaps I'll have some screenshots to post on The Star Mounts in the near future... or maybe not... we'll see. :)