25 réponses à ce sujet

[Boozehound Blue]

I've been playing around with the toolset again and have created some promising mockups of the Phlogiston/Wildspace/Crystal Spheres that, with the help of some custom content and novel design solutions, could provide a solid basis for those interested in building/playing space-piratey adventures. (*pirate emoticon here*)

Here are some screenshots with descriptions. I'll try to put something on the vault soon, perhaps start a project, in hopes that some able person(s) might take interest in developing the construct or otherwise adding some input. I don't have any particular story in mind fpr myself- a comedy of sorts, if anything.

What follows are my thoughts/attempts at joining all this together, while trying to maintain a 24x24 max area

The Ship. I used the grey ghost ship model (because the warship was backwards), applied as a model effect to my pc, to navigate. (Similar to Realms of Ultima: Overland Map Land and Sea Travel System- whose warship model appears unrotated still, dunno) This causes some problems with collisions, but hopefully a solution will present itself...

The Phlogiston. A rainbow sea with river-like flows connecting pearlesque, floating spheres. My mock-up utilized YATT and a colormap of a multi-colored, gaseous nebula to form a 2D overland map over which the ships traveled. There are a number of flow maps that one could locate spheres/flows by (and create a heightmap screen to dig them in.) Wormholes could connect multiple Phlogiston areas. The main challenge here (apart from encounters)  is balancing the scales (ships, spheres, existing vfxs) with camera distance and pitch/yaw for optimal presentation. Not satisfied as yet.

The Spheres.  For my mock-up of Realmspace, I created a bowl-shaped heightmap on black terrain and added a area-wide walkmesh at height 0m which bisects all celestial bodies. A black skybox with no light/fog enabled the use of a player-adjustable camera. I used spherical container fillers with various texture swaps, UV scrolling and some custom vfxs for most bodies, and what standard placeables for others I could find. Scaling the ship down very small allowed me to maintain reasonable proportions within the 24x24 area constraint.. The ship can approach every body, most likely triggering a conversation to explore further (if only superficially).

The Celestial Bodies.. Exploring any in depth can be done in a traditional area sense. In the case of some spherical bodies, I may try to create an inverse-bowl heightmap, bake it, then create another- only smaller-without baking,  to give the impression one is orbiting/ entering atmosphere. This would most likely be overland-map style.

Encounters. Ship (or other hostile) encounters are wonky because enemies rush bow-long into one another and, because of their collision dimensions, become one. I'm not sure of the best/most viable solution to this problem, but I would say that the PC could somehow fight on the current map in ship form and/or jump to a stationary-ship area to stage a ranged (cannon) attack and/or board/be boarded for 'hand-to-hand' combat. A single area could accomodate both stationary stages with some clever separation/fades/etc Several area sets could accomodate multiple encounter types (PC v. Cargo, v. Warship, v. Creature, etc.)

Ship Interiors. RWS pocket ship interiors.

Placeables/Creatures. Multiverse takes all kinds, but ships would be nice- as would being able to simply polymorph into one...

VFXs. I've combed through and desconstructed many in attempts to build a sun, ship-bubble, colorspray shipwake, planetary discs, and more- not all successfully. What a headache. Wish those things scaled.

Notes. The celestial bodies don't have to be stationary. They can orbit their parents by de/spawning at (or in some case prehaps walking) waypoints based on the date. (in the case of Realmspace, I've already created an astronomy system based upon our own) I might also add that a navigation system might be warranted in the spheres- beams or markers to guide the way...

Anyway, lots to consider. Let me know if you're interested or have some input. The only thing I can't do is model. Effects are arduous and my scripting is sloppy, tho eventually effective.

[Banshe]

It looks pretty sweet in those screenshots. If you have a good texture/color combination for making those areas, one of the multibrushes we're looking for is the Realmspace ones. Look for the contest thread in the toolset forums.

[dunniteowl]

I am simply astounded by the work you have already done. I never actually played any of the Spelljammer stuff, either in PnP or the one adventure that was out there, Pirates of Realmspace in computer format. So I have no way to tell how effective your work is.

That said, see my first sentence. Again. One more time. And another. Okay, I think you get it, I am astounded.

Would Gadzooks! be out of line here?

I marvel at the level of effort and creative output this Community apparently routinely displays. You, sir, should be awarded -- something.

dno

[BigfootNZ]

Ummm just a suggestion... dont line the planets up like that... its very un-natural, even for Spelljammer (unless its a sphere where theirs a permanent celestial conjunction where each planet only thinks theres only 1 or 2 other planets in existance ), it also means the rest of the map has a purpose to travel too/across.



Id also tone down the Flows color scheme a little (i personally always envisaged the Flow as just a rehash of the Ethereal with non-Jammer travel restrictions in play, predominatly blues and purples streaked with flammable proto-matter of many different hues)... eye bleed can cause irreversible retinal damage. Also try and get some vertical variation into things, planatary orbits are never 100% on a plane.



I always wondered if it would be possible to create a sort of Star Command esque turn based battle system in NWN2, i know there was a system done by someone like it in NWN1. Damn it now youve got me thinking of Spelljammer again... hard enough ping ponging around stuff without another distraction... **gets an urge to model a Beholder hive ship**

[kamalpoe]

Woah!



There is a turn based battle system for NWN2, in fact I think the author requested help testing it recently.

[Boozehound Blue]

Thanks dunnitowel. I've never actually played the
Spelljammer series (or any other, or MoTB, SoZ- or any Bioware game
besides NWN, though I co-own them all), but I did a lot of reading about
it when researching my astronomy/astrology UI, and I think there's
strong appeal to that sort of fantasy/sci-fi mix. I'm actually kind of
suprised this hasn't already been attempted with the NWN2 toolset, and I
hope having a construct in place will inspire some c.c. to round it
out.
Perhaps I could be awarded some help.

BigfootNZ wrote...



Ummm
just a suggestion... dont line the planets up like that... its very
un-natural, even for Spelljammer (unless its a sphere where theirs a
permanent celestial conjunction where each planet only thinks theres
only 1 or 2 other planets in existance ), it also means the rest of
the map has a purpose to travel too/across.



Id also tone down
the Flows color scheme a little (i personally always envisaged the Flow
as just a rehash of the Ethereal with non-Jammer travel restrictions in
play, predominatly blues and purples streaked with flammable
proto-matter of many different hues)... eye bleed can cause irreversible
retinal damage. Also try and get some vertical variation into things,
planatary orbits are never 100% on a plane.



I always wondered if
it would be possible to create a sort of Star Command esque turn based
battle system in NWN2, i know there was a system done by someone like it
in NWN1. Damn it now youve got me thinking of Spelljammer again... hard
enough ping ponging around stuff without another distraction... **gets
an urge to model a Beholder hive ship**

Yes, the planets
will ultimately not be so perfectly aligned. Even if they don't
dynamically change position, it is quite possible to set their positions
based upon any module start time (given a reference point/date and
generalizing orbits based on the given data). Out-of-plane orbits
present a particular challenge if the PC is going to be able to
physically travel towards/between them.

As for the flow, without
having a definitive idea/map of the sphere locations, it's much easier
to pull an image off the web and work with it rather than paint
something, but I understand your point. (I don't however know what the Ethereal looks like).

Originally,
I was trying to create create a hexagonal grid-type overland map (with
hexagonal triggers- the idea being to create something of a gameboard.)
Unfortunately, a full-screen grid UI overlay would track with the pc (I
believe), so triggers on the map wouldn't correspond to the grid; and
burning a grid in as a colormap didn't look very good (b/c of the fine
detail limitations of painting terrain)- leaving perhaps an area-wide
billboard VFX. Grid notwithstanding, if I could settle on a flowmap and
build an aread from it, perhaps I could take a picture and use that in
conjunction with a UI.

Additionally, I could mock up a cutscene
of traversing the flow- an over-the-shoulder perspective of the PC (or
npc) at the helm- with vfxs and random/non-random encounters coming into
view. Consider a concealed ship-deck stage in every flow/sphere area
(negelecting overland map camera problems for the moment). The PC could
opt to either steer- lauching a real or staged cutscene, or free travel-
or give control to the first mate while they go about ship business.
This combination could help illustrate the long voyages and solve for
some collision/encounter issues.

Hell, all of it could be staged
with the ship never actually moving at all. This might be helped with
the creation of a soundstage tileset. It would be nice to not have to
build/jump to so many different areas, when they could otherwise be
mocked with a script set that read from builder variables and/or 2da. Instead of the ship going to everything, everything comes to the ship. In the void of  black space, it looks the same...

kamalpoe wrote...

Woah!

There is a turn based battle system for NWN2, in fact I think the author requested help testing it recently.

I'll take a look at it.

Modifié par Boozehound Blue, 09 octobre 2010 - 03:15 .

[BigfootNZ]

Boozehound Blue wrote...

As for the flow, without
having a definitive idea/map of the sphere locations, it's much easier
to pull an image off the web and work with it rather than paint
something, but I understand your point. (I don't however know what the Ethereal looks like).

I could link you up with a map of the Spheres I have a number of PDFs for the Spelljammer campaign setting i bought a number of years back, im pretty sure theirs a Flow map in the main manual somewhere, ill give it a look ive got the main campaign manual 'Adventures in Space' , 'War Captians Companion' and the Complete Starfarers Handbook and the Practical Planatology manual so if you need any information you might be missing send me a PM and ill see what i can fill in.

Boozehound Blue wrote...

Additionally, I could mock up a cutscene
of traversing the flow- an over-the-shoulder perspective of the PC (or
npc) at the helm- with vfxs and random/non-random encounters coming into
view. Consider a concealed ship-deck stage in every flow/sphere area
(negelecting overland map camera problems for the moment). The PC could
opt to either steer- lauching a real or staged cutscene, or free travel-
or give control to the first mate while they go about ship business.
This combination could help illustrate the long voyages and solve for
some collision/encounter issues.

Yeah the Flow is fairly stale in terms of what can happen in it (I mean any pyrotechnics result in a immolation of epic proportions, PUT THAT DAMN PIPE OUT!... **wooosh, and up goes the ship in a cloud of fire**)... its more like the 'Rest area' between exploring the Spheres, the jamming speeds in the Flow are also huge compared to the speeds involved in Wildspace so running into others is prety slim. Yeah a map like the lobby in SoZ would be a good 'Flow' map, a chance to talk to passangers, advance plot, rest and organise things and choose where to go next.

Edit:- Also I made you a new Sun model yesterday just finnishing it up and animating it since your original is a little to 'bright'... i also did a quick Beholder Nations Hive ship model ill finnish up today, bake and get ingame then send you. Oh how big are your sun models in relation to a standard human?... just so I can get its scale right with the Partical effects for minor changes in scale in the toolset.

i would have finnished yesterday but my keyboard died in the afternoon and the C and D keys stopped working when in conjunction with the shift key, and this caused my Windows interface to bug out with the Start button litterally vanishing and the search window poping up rapidly over and over on reboots ... it also seemed to corrupt my nwn2 mod (which I managed to repair eventually, turns out it was one of my Haks that was corrupted).

At least I got it sortted, even though it scared the poop out of me... must... backup.

Modifié par BigfootNZ, 09 octobre 2010 - 11:03 .

[Friar]

I LOVE spelljammer! bookmarking this page!

[Hellfire_RWS]

I made MANY models for NWN1 Converting them should be simple for a budding modeler

[kamalpoe]

Boozehound Blue wrote...
- leaving perhaps an area-wide
billboard VFX.

This works very well, I have done it over large areas to make an "overland map". Main thing to note is the vfx doesn't show up on the minimap, so if you're displaying a minimap you still need to have some kind of texturing or color underneath. Wyrin figured it out before I came up with the idea, and he wrote up exactly how to do it on his blog.

[Boozehound Blue]

[quote]BigfootNZ wrote...
[/quote]

Yeah the Flow is fairly
stale in terms of what can happen in it (I mean any pyrotechnics result
in a immolation of epic proportions, PUT THAT DAMN PIPE OUT!...
**wooosh, and up goes the ship in a cloud of fire**)... its more like
the 'Rest area' between exploring the Spheres, the jamming speeds in the
Flow are also huge compared to the speeds involved in Wildspace so
running into others is prety slim. Yeah a map like the lobby in SoZ
would be a good 'Flow' map, a chance to talk to passangers, advance
plot, rest and organise things and choose where to go next.

Edit:-
Also I made you a new Sun model yesterday just finnishing it up and
animating it since your original is a little to 'bright'... i also did a
quick Beholder Nations Hive ship model ill finnish up today, bake and
get ingame then send you. Oh how big are your sun models in relation to a
standard human?... just so I can get its scale right with the Partical
effects for minor changes in scale in the toolset.

[/quote]

Awesome. Thanks

The
sun is scaled 10x (the spherical container filler)- about as tall as a
10x human. I have two fx files associated with it (fx_fire3.tga for
flames, fx_blurry_dot.tga for the the flares). I also put a yellow glow
map on it. Yeah, it's big and bright! I kept toying with scales. I guess it's big enough, though nowhere near scale. Coliar by contrast is 4x and Anadia is 0.5x.

[quote]Hellfire_RWS wrote...

I made MANY models for NWN1 Converting them should be simple for a budding modeler[/quote]

I saw that on the vault- been meaning to break out NWN1 and take a look. Quite inspirng. (I see you got my RWS forum pm)

[quote]kamalpoe wrote...

[quote]Boozehound Blue wrote...
- leaving perhaps an area-wide
billboard VFX. [/quote]
This works very well, I have done it over large areas to make an "overland map". Main thing to note is the vfx doesn't show up on the minimap, so if you're displaying a minimap you still need to have some kind of texturing or color underneath. Wyrin figured it out before I came up with the idea, and he wrote up exactly how to do it on his blog.
[/quote]

I fond that blog, and it works great. I've settled on Charles Taylor's Map of the Flow and am trying to divide it up into area chunks. Whether or not the flow is to be physically explorable, it's easy enough to create. Right now I'm trying to settle on a good base look and figure out how to map the flow. I took my original colormap and screened out the brighter colors- blending it to a darker mix of purple and blue. As for the actual flows, I dunno. Been experimenting with the WaterMill plugin, considering vfxs (projected textures) or scrolling evironmental placeable...

I'm also wondering how to texture the sphere's. Right now I'm using the container filler transluscent swaps (without vfxs). Haven't seen how they look. I imagine them as looking pearlesque, but, again, I dunno....

Modifié par Boozehound Blue, 10 octobre 2010 - 01:58 .

[Boozehound Blue]

I created Project and Group pages...

[The Fred]

Wow. Nice.

[Hellfire_RWS]

Booze, check your Pm on the RWS site please

[Friar]

The realmspace screenshots look terrific. Did you use an invisible surface and then add a skydome backdrop with constellations? Or did you paint the surface to look like star clusters and such?

[Hellfire_RWS]

I have already made star terrain textures if anyone needs them.

[Boozehound Blue]

Hellfire_RWS wrote...

Booze, check your Pm on the RWS site please

Those look awsome!  How far along are you in conversion?

Also, what is the star terrain?

koundog1 wrote...

The realmspace screenshots look terrific. Did you use an invisible surface and then add a skydome backdrop with constellations? Or did you paint the surface to look like star clusters and such?

I used an all black skydome, with all black terrain and no lighting/fog, so Realmspace is entirely 3D with models. The overland map of the Flow was this image as a colormap with VFXs and lights added for celestial bodies.


I'm still trying to figure out a proper super-area layout for the Flow map. Since I know each 'sector' will be 24x (241 pixels), I can layout a grid, but then it is a matter of scaling the map (and offsetting the grid) to ecompass various sectors smartly- the smaller the scale, the more spheres I can fit into each area; which will decrease the scale of everything placed in each map area. Even if I don't have actual areas, I think there should still be a collection of UI maps- which should be both readable (768 pixels square?) and relate to an actual map area (should it exist).

Once that is figured out, I need to path the flow separately (Gimp tool) to possibly create height/texture maps. (I'm thinking of swelling the flow rivers up and using Watermill to texture.

I think, if flow areas are to exist, each individual sector area (or several) would be in a module with their contained spheres.

If anyone wants to take a crack at modifying/gridding out that map, I can build from it. I don't know much about the Spelljammer campaigns to determine spheres/sectors that should be grouped together, apart from what I can glean visually from the map. Perhaps I'm thinking too much about it, though...

Anyway, I put some files up on the project page, including a shpere area template if anyone wants to build one.  I've also included the beginings of an excel spreadsheet that tries to consolidate what info is out there about the spheres/bodies. Apart from a good info resource, I thought portions could be used by some undetermined script-system; but I'm not sure how best to set the spreadsheet(s) up, and I'd hate to move a bunch of data around after compiling it. (info includes encounter tables, resources, travel times, ports of call, etc.- mostly pulled from www.spelljammer.org/) So, if anyone would like to setup some workbooks, I can work to fill those in.

Modifié par Boozehound Blue, 11 octobre 2010 - 01:21 .

[Boozehound Blue]

I think I may be able to use interior areas instead (at least for the spheres). As for the flow, I'm not sure if an area billboard of my colormap will cause any performance problems, but the area file sizes are way smaller. (Finally turned on my speakers- gonna have to figure out something to do about the footstep sounds.) I pulled the Fake Exteriors tiles off the vault and made it black. Unsure about using the skydome placeable that came with it- would like to maybe mock the sphere wall if possible, but I can't seem to get a texture for it to appear. Also tried cloning the skydome and moon in the NWN2/Models folder. Couldn't get anything to appear...

Still haven't figured out the limit of scaling down the PC.

I 'm gonna try to grid the flow map to create billboards, then maybe I can put them all together as an interior area set. Should I go ahead and make the areas 32x? That way I can have some extra space for sets.

Also made polar coordinate and hexagonal grid billboards to help with layout.

Modifié par Boozehound Blue, 11 octobre 2010 - 11:54 .

[Hellfire_RWS]

My initial idea was an invisible interrior tile with a full shpere skydome with a start field texture.

I have enver tested the idea to see how well it works.

[BigfootNZ]

Hmm pardon my delay I tried installing Sandboxie and upgrading Comodo and switching to MSE yesterday and well.. it borked my PC somewhat (The damn thing wont warm restart properly now it gets to the point where it SHOULD reboot but it never does and just sits there for half a minute attempts to reboot with lights flickering on but no post then goes back to prereboot limbo with the monitor on standby and does that over and over until i hard shutdown and cold reboot... I can at least Cold Boot just fine thank god and it doesnt seem to have caused any issues inside of windows, I managed to Backup all my work the day before thankfully also).

I checked my Spelljammer manual pdfs and unfortunately they dont have any map of the flow i was sure they did (they do have wildspace table top mats and the spelljammer stat boards).

Also do you want some nice meteor group placeables?... i could whip those up in no time flat. Also It seems model  Glow (not glow maps) isnt additive in NWN2, ie if you have a nested sphere that uses a glowmap inside a copy of that sphere that is set to 'Glow' with the expotron exporter the interior spheres glowmap isnt rendered... which is most frustrating.

Modifié par BigfootNZ, 11 octobre 2010 - 10:18 .

[dunniteowl]

I was thinking about the planets at different points in the plane. You could make a few "Flow Routes" to cover that pretty easily and make a decent, gentle ramp that goes from one sphere to the next or have a Jamming Lane where the Spell Jamming Ship has to leave a sphere and return to the trade route before going on to the next sphere.

In this way, you could put spheres at different elevations and make the ramps all join together to a central lane. You could even set spheres below the level and increase that whole '3D' effect. With a star/flow map background, everything black with no light/fog, then it would (or should) still look like you're travelling in Realm Space and allow you to visually see the Spell Jammers going up and down in gradient.

Would that be relatively easy to work in?

dno

[Boozehound Blue]

I guess it comes down to a determination as to whether both/either the sphere interiors/phlogiston should be built as exterior or interior areas. An overland map camera would hide the apparent in-plane orbits. Or, triggers could be placed on the walkmesh under/over the out-of-plane orbits (in lieu of clicking on them to open a conversation), but with a free-camera you wouldn't have the visual effect of centering-in on the planet as you approached.

Keeping in mind that (many) planets will be moving (de/spawned based on time sphere entered, at least), it seems complicated to envision a definitive jamming lane inside the spheres (radial paths from sun to sphere wall portals marked buy glowing buoys?. It's also my understanding that navigation inside the spheres is not affected by any 'fast lanes' like flow rivers, so the best course is simply a straight one) Building pathways and gentle gradients on an exterior terrain is quite possible, but I'm worried about possible line of sight issues too (i.e. view of other bodies obscured by black hills/valleys.

The sphere interiors are going to look wonky in 3D however the approach. I'll probably mock-up several options and reach some consensus about which is best

I was also thinking about a hex-grid style map for these areas- making it turn-based with the help of a UI, triggers and immobilization. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to make an invisible tile with a repeatable hexagonal pattern. (I'm not sure how to make the texture invisible-I may have but forgot to change the area lighting- but it would take a rectangular metatile to get adjoined tiles aligned properly.)

Bigfoot and Hellfire, if there are any files you might want to share now, you may be able to host them through the project group or pm me.

Modifié par Boozehound Blue, 12 octobre 2010 - 12:17 .

[Hellfire_RWS]

I can post some stuff for you. I will upload what I have already made in the next day or so (real busy IRL).  Sorry if you have stated this, but are you making a module?
There are turn based Spelljammer scripts on the vault with the old team I used to be with
Turned based Spelljammer NWN1

Arcane Space TIleset NWN1


I can help with a few simple models here and there but nothing big.   Since I have so many ship already modeled, which are you interested in otehr than the three I have converted already?

[Boozehound Blue]

Hellfire_RWS wrote...

I can post some stuff for you. I will upload what I have already made in the next day or so (real busy IRL).  Sorry if you have stated this, but are you making a module?
There are turn based Spelljammer scripts on the vault with the old team I used to be with
Turned based Spelljammer NWN1

Arcane Space TIleset NWN1


I can help with a few simple models here and there but nothing big.   Since I have so many ship already modeled, which are you interested in otehr than the three I have converted already?

Yes, I will be building a module- something of a demo for starters.

I'll take a look and the models tonight and let you know. I'm not sure what the learning curve is for conversion, but I'm willing to take a shot at it (using open source software).If my efforts towards all of the above turn out worth a crap, hopefully it will generate some more development. I'm comfortable working with what I can for now.

[Boozehound Blue]

Hellfire, I tried tried out that mod and took a look at the ship blueprints in the toolset that were on the palette. In what I tested, navigation and combat were pretty wonky, which is understandable given the toolset limitations; but I liked the concept, and I think that (at least) a combat UI and overland map style will help the system greatly.

I'd like to be able to have the ship itself be a companion, with its own feats and such. Surely that's possible. Since there is one ship creature, using it (with perhaps model vfxs for other ship- turning the alpha to 0.01) will maintain proper collision for the most part- grey ghost notwithstanding.

As for your models, I can't think of any in particular to ask for that you haven't already converted. I am interested in the celestial bodies, particularly the planets. The sphere I'm using has 16 sides, and the textures are simply those I've scoured from online.

I also might mention that I've been experimenting with hexagonal-grid and invisible terrain/tile. Invisible terrain seems only possible in exterior areas- and only then if a walkmesh helper penetrates a built up terrain, like a dome. The ship was able to pass through the terrain, into the void underneath, where the default skybox (at least) was mirrored. Kind of a neat effect. I also found a process by which to lower the terrain while keeping a different heightmap. Haven't tried it. Wish there was a simple plugin for that!

I've had success in getting this hex pattern (inside the rectangle) to square pretty decently in a cloned model of the Fake Exteriors tile, either by stacking the pattern or bisecting it (requiring two clones currently) to form roughly a square. The problem is that the pattern is repeated thrice in each tile, so the hexagons are either too small (stacked) or the pattern gets broken up. I guess this is due to the UV map. If someone could alter that tile so it would stretch the pattern over its entirety,  and perhaps enable it to be rotated- it would allow for a standard design (and the possible creation of other game boards.

As it stands, I think my demo will concentrate around Realmspace. While there are many spheres mention online, the information/resources concerning them is piecemeal by comparison. It's a hell of a lot easier to create when you don't have to fill in the blanks about all that stuff...

Modifié par Boozehound Blue, 15 octobre 2010 - 01:31 .