11 replies to this topic

[dunniteowl]

Well, with the new forums comes new opportunities:

We have a plethora (Jefe?  Yes, El Guapo?  What, is a plethora?  Why, El Guapo?) of pearls of wisdom spread throughout many topics, sometimes repeated, other times updated, sometimes different pending how you're doing what you're doing.

It is time, and this is the perfect opportunity for it, to rebuild our FAQ lists for Toolset Tips, Tricks and Techniques as well as for our Toolset Troubleshooting FAQ.

Please, take the time to place in here things you know operate properly or steps to make things work correctly in the tooslet.  Also, things we know to be functionally dependant whether it's OS related, Plugin related, or Hardware related, these would also be useful to have collected in here.  Please, at the header of your post, inform your dear moderator what type of item it is, in order to make searching through more efficient for me.

As it builds, I will update and sanity check the FAQs for the Toolset Forums.  Also, feel free to do the same for useful tutorials or snippets therefrom as long as proper credit is given and links provided where possible.

Thank you,
best regards,
dunniteowl

[The Fred]

Well, since I'm the first one to post, I'll just get the ball rolling with the very basic. And before anyone scorns me for this, it took me a loooooong time to discover this, and it's vital for newbie.

By the way, I don't know what the format should be for this, but how's this?

Type of post: Important thing to know
Topic: General toolset usage, area creation
Title: How to scroll the camera
In the area viewer, the camera can be scrolled by holding CTRL and clicking and dragging with the left mouse button. Holding CTRL and clicking and dragging with the right mouse button will rotate the camera.
Holding SHIFT while clicking and dragging with the right mouse button will rotate selected objects.

Really, having this at the top of an FAQ when I started would have been a real lifesaver.

[The Fred]

This maybe should go in the tech support, but it pertains to the toolset too (move it if you want, though).

For Windows Vista users
Type of post: Important thing to know, troubleshooting
Topic: General toolset usage, area creation
Title: How to make the terrain panel readable in Vista
When trying to use the terrain painting stuff (by default, terrain buttons are located in the same window as blueprints, on a different tab) in Vista, all the writing goes horrid and you can only read the buttons if you mouse over them. This is easily fixed.
Go to your NWN install directory and find the actual toolset application, NWN2ToolsetLauncher. Right click it and go to properties. Select the Compatability tab. Under settings, the is a check box labeled "Disable visual themes". Check it.
This will make the title bar less cool-looking, but it will make the terrain pane readable.

Afaik this still applies, but I'm writing this from memory because I'm on Win7 now.

[kamalpoe]

Turn off autosave. Save your work in directory mode instead of as a .mod until you are ready for release. Both autosave and toolset crashes while working in .mod format can mean losing all your work (you did have a backup save right?).

[PJ156]

This one has come up once or twice.

Q: Help! My toolbars are gone!
Q: Help! My other windows are gone!
A: Click on the View menu and choose Options.... On the left side, choose Windows. Click the Reset button, then click OK. Close the toolset, and reopen it.

If this doesn't correct the issue, or if your menu bar is gone, close the toolset. Open up Windows Explorer, and paste this text into the Address bar:

Windows XP: %USERPROFILE%\\Local Settings\\Application Data
Windows Vista: %USERPROFILE%\\AppData\\Local

Hit Enter. From there, delete the folder named NWN2 Toolset. That will reset everything for when you next launch the toolset

[Alupinu]

Swopping out companions in a party
Here’s a list of scripts to use and what they do for people would like to swop npc’s in their party through a conversation
Definition: Hangout: This is the place where the npc may be found for the pc to add to his party. This spot is marked with a waypoint . You may have as many waypoints as you want for an individual npc as long as there is only one waypoint per module and that all the wp_tags are the same for that one npc hangout.
@You should be able to find all these scripts in your toolset. All these scripts should be used in a conversation written accordingly.

@Conditional scripts:

*gc_is_in_party* obviously to separate ‘in party’ nodes from ‘out of party’ nods.
*gc_num_comps* this sets the number (size) you want the party to be. Example, I wanted my party to have 3 npc’s so I set the variable to ‘’ or up to three. If there are less than 3 party members (npc’s) the conditional is true and the npc will join the party. If party is 3 then the conditional is false and the conv will skip down to the refuse to join the party nod. The variable for this script should be consistent for all your playable npc’s.
*gc_module* this script determines what module the party is in and compares is to string variable (module_tag). I could not figure out how to get the npc to travel between modules on its own so I used this script instead. True and the npc will leave the party. False and the npc will tell the pc to take them back to the mod of their hangout.

@Action:

*ga_rm_set_hangout* this finds the tag of a waypoint that you want the npc to return to when not in the party. This script should be installed just before or just after the ‘npc join party scripts’.
*ga_rm_go_to_hangout* this script kicks the npc out of the party and returns them to their hangout. WARNING: if the pc kicks the npc out of the party in a module that does not have a set hangout, the npc will vanish and no longer be accessible to the player in game. (Use ‘gc_module’)

Good Luck

Edited by Alupinu, 25 July 2010 - 08:11 AM.

[diophant]

Topic: Documentation about NWN file formats

Information about all NWN file formats can be found here. It's for NWN1, but most of it hasn't changed since then. It is mainly interesting for plugin development, but it also contains useful information for modders (e.g. some of the mysterious 2DA entries are explained, and I used it for understanding the calculation of item cost).

[rjshae]

Refrigerator light trick

For a little environmental atmosphere, you can create a light that will activate when a door is opened and turn off when the door is closed. (Much like a refrigerator light.) This is good for a door that transitions to an area with a different lighting level, such as an interior door that leads outside.

To do this, you create a light template that matches the illumination for the new area. Hence, you'd use a natural hue for an outdoor light source, such as a pale yellow or maybe a gray with a tinge of blue. I made the light bright (2) but limited in radius (5-7), then gave it a decent level of shadow generation (0.5 or higher). Make sure the light is initially turned off. The light can go right on the door's handle, so it is the nearest light source to the door.

Next, you then set up a pair of scripts; one for the door's Open script slot and one for the Close slot. The open script can do a check for daylight, find the nearest light object (to work around the light tag bug), then turn the light on or off depending on the condition. I'd recommend applying a 0.2f second delay before the light goes on. For the close, a 0.5f second delay seems to work.

Once you have the light source and the working scripts set up, you can easily apply the same method to every building in your campaign. Setting up multiple lights to reflect the exterior environment can be done, but is a little more tricky. You would need to give the lights local variables, then loop through the list until you find the right one (while turning all the others off).

Edited by rjshae, 23 April 2012 - 06:17 PM.

[rjshae]

Locale-specific sleep ambush

For the NX1 sleep system, I want to be able to tailor the ambush based on the location within a dungeon. To do this, I create a copy of the 'gb_restsys_ambush' script in the campaign and add a check for the stWMInfo.sTable string to see if it is set to "INVALID_TABLE". If so, it branches off into a subroutine that returns a value for the "WM_AMBUSH" local variable on the PC. This variable is a comma-separated list of creature resource refs that will be spawned in the ambush.

To vary the ambush, I create a set of custom Waypoints that I organize under "Ambush" in the blueprint tree. Each waypoint has a tag of "wp_ambush" and up to five local variables that provide an "WM_AMBUSH" value. (I always set the ambush flag color to black so it is easy to identify in the area.) The subroutine first searches for the nearest waypoint with the tag "wp_ambush". Next it randomly selects among the non-null variables and returns that string.

There you go; you can create a set of ambush waypoints and place them in different parts of an area. For the area, I just set the day and night table variables to the "INVALID_TABLE" setting. On an ambush, the game engine will select the nearest ambush waypoint and use that to generate the enemies.

Edited by rjshae, 02 July 2012 - 06:48 PM.

[rjshae]

There's an easy way to make unimportant NPCs respond to the PC in a unique manner. When you create a conversation with a single entry, the NPC will speak that line as a bark string. However, if you leave the line empty, the action script(s) will still be run. This means you could, for example, have the NPC silently perform an animation, equip an item, or run away. The condition script(s) can likewise be used to create separate responses based on the circumstances.

[PJ156]

Topic: Selecting lines in a conversation.

You can select multiple lines in a conversation by ctrl+click each one. Once you have them slected you can change the properties of all selected lines at ones. Thus you could select all lines spoken by Nelly and associated these lines with her in just one action.

You can also do this for tiles and change all the tints together provied they are all tinted the same, or all the testures if they all have the same texture. Similar with blueprints.

[MokahTGS]

[Tutorial] Raising Terrain Using TerraCoppa
 
After releasing some information and screenshots of my upcoming module Jabberwocky, I had a bunch of questions from builders as to how the area in question was made.  Terra Coppa is the main tool used and I wanted to post a bit of a how to and open it up to questions and other tips from builders to help future builders.

For example, here is what you can do to an area by raising the terrain:

• https://dl.dropboxus...2912_102345.jpg
• https://dl.dropboxus...ky/u_rocks2.jpg

First and foremost you can download TerraCoppa here.  I will not cover how to install or run plugins as this is more of a 201 to 301 level course in using the toolset.  There are numerous tutorials on the Vault for basic toolset knowledge.

Step One
Open Terra Coppa from the plugins menu.  Select the area you have open in the drop down box.  Areas have to be open in the toolset for the Terra Coppa tool to be able to see them.

• https://dl.dropboxus...a Tut/step1.jpg

Step Two

Select the same area in the drop down box in the "Destination Area" box.  You can pick different areas and transfer sections of one area to another.  This allows all sorts of fun between areas.  It works well for taking areas of a large prefab and making smaller areas.

• https://dl.dropboxus...a Tut/step2.jpg

Step Three

Highlight the area you want to raise in the "Source Area" box.  The grid squares correspond to the area grid in the toolset.  Also make sure the "Raise area" checkbox is checked!  A duplicate highlight will appear in the "Destination Area" box.  You can move it with your mouse cursor.

• https://dl.dropboxus...a Tut/step3.jpg

Step Four

Make sure the highlighted areas match up by moving the destination area highlight to match the source.

• https://dl.dropboxus...a Tut/step4.jpg

Step Five

Move the height slider to the desired height.  This works in units and can go up or down.  The default in the toolset places the area height at 0 units.  Terra Coppa can only move sections up or down at a max of 30 units at a time.  The areas in Jabberwocky are raised around 100-300 units.  There is some wierdness that can happen when moving water as it doesn't seem to follow the same unit rules as the terrain.  But with enough fiddling you can get it to work.  Water and land can be moved seperately if you wish/need to.

• https://dl.dropboxus...a Tut/step5.jpg

Step Six

Check your work by seeing if the raised area is where you want it.  Continue raising or lowering as needed.

• https://dl.dropboxus...a Tut/step6.jpg

Step Seven

When you are done moving sections around, make sure to rebake the area so the walkmesh will work correctly.  I have successfully put bridges between raised sections and the walkmesh works as you would expect it too.  The toolset does not seem to care that you have raised sections of the terrain mesh.

• https://dl.dropboxus...a Tut/step7.jpg

You should be able to mold raised terrain with a few exceptions:

• The Flatten tool has a max height of 100 units up or down.  Flattening raised terrain has mixed results and is not suggested.
• Raising or lowering terrain works as usually as long as you stay away from the edges.  The toolset wants to join raised terrain back up with the non-raised sections.
• Water has a max height of 100 units up or down and will do weird things if you try to paint water on raised terrain.  It works best to raise section with water after you have finished painting them.

As always, your mileage may vary but this allows for some unique building options if used creatively.