131 réponses à ce sujet

[M. Rieder]

Whoa! Great screenshot! Is that a custom skydome in the background?




...just kidding, but that was my initial reaction before looking closer. I like the idea and I think it would work well on the toolset.

[Arkalezth]

The module "A Fairy Tale" has a similar area, if you want to take a look.

[kamal_]

I did terraced rice fields by alternating flooded fields with fallow fields to get around the water limits. Obviously you need to take care with the field design, but it can be done.

[Arkalezth]

In Path of Evil? I don't remember them.

[kamal_]

Arkalezth wrote...

In Path of Evil? I don't remember them.

The Ekkathys Fields, before you enter the Pass of Reth. There is no quest content in them, just fields to look around in, so probably not memorable.

[Arkalezth]

I'll take a look next time I play, I think I know where you mean.
BTW, kamal, you're missing a "d" in your sig.

Sorry for the off-topic.

Modifié par Arkalezth, 01 juin 2011 - 12:06 .

[Banshe]

@ The Fred: Fair enough. I think it does offer some interesting ideas (the dreamscape) so I'm certainly interested and looking forward to trying it out.

[The Fred]

Yeah, I'm flitting between projects quite a bit at the moment. It's kind of typical that the time I get back into full building swing on this is also the time I have a bunch of other projects on the table (at least atm they're all fun things rather than real-life work).

The dream stuff is kind of just a bit of fun at the moment, but I really want to add some non-combat ways of doing things, and this would add an interesting option. I want people to be able to think up an interesting way of doing things without too much prompting and actually be able to do it (the main failing of PC RPGs vs PnP, from what I hear from PnP people). Enchantments and hopefully soon Divination spells will finally get some use.

I'm going to take a look at some of those other rice field areas and do a bit more on them when I get chance. The area is quite a minor one but I'm going to want rice field areas elsewhere so it's worth spending some time on (and I could re-use the area for the Farmer starting story, too).

[The Fred]

A couple more screenshots:





The pools need a bit of touch-up around the edges, and the rest of the area needs a bit more texturing and some trees and placeables and so forth, but I quite like the way these are looking.

Lugaid, I did look at your area and it's pretty cool. I noticed you had your crops planted in sensible rows, something I might copy (or maybe my farmers are less advanced than yours). The issue I have is wanting to try and put this on the side of a hill, though I may just have a big flat bit nearby to save myself some bother.

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

One trick might be to do some smaller, more irregular terraces outside the walkable area, where the player can't get close enough to realize there's no water in them. Then you have the larger terraces like you do above that the player can see up close. You can also use a placeable water plane with a UV scroll, or a VFX to simulate water. Placed fog also helps obscure exactly what's going with the water.

[Banshe]

The paddies look great but the area in between not so much (as you pointed out). For those parts, I think you should make the paddies closer together. I think these farmers used stones to hold up the edges of the paddies and didn't waste any space.

As for the two levels of water in a single tile problem, have you tried Tanita's watermill. I believe you can do it with that.

[kamal_]

Ricefields of Evil: I used Mulsantir walls to separate my paddies. You can see manmade separator walls in pics like http://www.istockpho...rice-fields.jpg I alternated fallow (no water) and active fields to get around the water limits. And I purposely laid things out in a curving form to replicate the hillside paddies seen in real life.

600x300http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3879894/poe_ricefields.JPG[/img]

[The Fred]

I did wonder about Tanita's Watermill, and I'm thinking of trying it out anyway, but I kind of wanted to be able to do the area without it.

In those shots, all the fields you can see are on different levels, so the gaps between them form water-containing dykes. They do need to be textured a bit better and so forth, though.

Kamal, your area looks great, but it does give a somewhat more "industrial" feel. The farms I'm making a pretty rural, and I think I actually want them to look a little rough-and-ready, because these are people carving out their own existance with not all that much help from the Empire - in some ways, flatlands paddies would have made more sense, but there you have it. I just think that it might actually be a little better if they weren't too sophisticated.

In other news, I've been doing a little bit of this and that elsewhere in the game, too. I've started on a nice ambient system where students and scholars in the Iron Circle (more on these guys later) will go to bed at night (need to work on sleeping animations and things really, though) and on a bit of a whim, started to set up my alcohol system (what would this place be without rice wine, after all?).

[kamal_]

You could have ricefields in natural hollows or depressions in the land. That would allow "prettier", more organic shaped fields while keeping a non industrial look. Indeed, my fields are in a developed area.

One thing I remember from seeing plenty of ricefields in Asia is none had fences, unlike your fields. Maybe your farmers need to keep the goblins out though.

[M. Rieder]

If you are still interested in suggestions, perhaps you could have an area that if primarily shallow water with only a few small paths separating the paddies, like this picture:

400x300http://toyotaworld.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Bali-Rice-Paddy.jpg[/img]

[Banshe]

Nice pic, M. Rieder. I like that style and so long as the water is walkable, you won't have walkmesh issues.

As for Tanita's watermill, definitely try it. It lets you paint water anywhere without restrictions.

[The Fred]

kamal_ wrote...
One thing I remember from seeing plenty of ricefields in Asia is none had fences, unlike your fields. Maybe your farmers need to keep the goblins out though.

They need to keep the players out of the non-walkable area.

[MasterChanger]

This would seem to be a good situation for using the WaterMill. However, I have to offer a few strong words of caution if you haven't used this before. I learned these the hard way when I had to modify an area that a different builder made using the WaterMill.

First and foremost, the WaterMill is not powered by water, as you might think. No, it's powered by its favorite food: RAM. It will eat all the RAM you offer it and ask for more. You thought baking called for tons of RAM? You don't know the half of it. Seriously, when the WaterMill is working, walk away from your computer. Grab a sandwich (preferably not a RAM one, because the WaterMill will smell it and get excited).

Second, there's a magic sequence of baking, saving, and using the WaterMill to get it to show your changes in-game. I don't recall which it was, and it certainly is not as simple as seeing your changes in the TS. If you start with something simple and figure out the sequence, please share.

Third, under no circumstances should you remove the texture that you use to paint the water's course or use it elsewhere (for those who don't know, the WaterMill works by specifying a texture that you'd like it to replace with a water "texture"). If you do this, any poor sod (yourself included!) who tries to change anything about the water will have to redo it entirely. Pick a texture you're not going to use for other aspects of your area, and you that only for the WaterMill.

Lastly, back up your area multiple times. I know this should go without saying, but it's so easy to mess things up with the WaterMill, so you'll want to be able to revert.

Good luck! The WaterMill can produce somer really awesome stuff that has a nice dynamic feeling! Even if you don't end up using it, your approach to terrain seems exciting!

Modifié par MasterChanger, 02 juin 2011 - 08:18 .

[The Fred]

Hmm, maybe I won't try the WaterMill just yet.

I noticed that in a lot of those shots, the grass is very distinct and bright, so I've retextured the area to be a bit more vibrant. I need to go over adding another layer of something else, though, since it's got that repeating pattern look you get from having one predominant texture. I may remove the fence and instead just have an earth bank and/or sheer drop, too.

[The Fred]

The Dragon Dynasty, now with added Rust Monsters!



I've re-done the Rust Monsters to use OnHit abilities, and take weapon materials into account. I made a bit of a judgement call on this - things like Mithral and Adamantine can still be destroyed by a Rust Monster, but grant a bonus to the reflex save a character is allowed to avoid the rust effects. This means that using the right equipment is even more important - your Samurai's +1 Ancestral Weapon might make all those DR/magic monsters a walk in the park, but it'd be a terrible shame if it got destroyed due to a little neglect...


This is another WIP shot of the farmlands. I think the brighter grass texture helps get the right feel. I haven't done much to it other than that, though.

[kamal_]

I'll remember to bring a quarterstaff.

[M. Rieder]

And I'll bring a can of Raid. Rust monsters are insects, right?

[The Fred]

Abberations, actually - see here.
Any wooden sort of weapon would do fine, but you can get weapons normally made from metal made out of other materials, too - in fact, Jade weapons will be very important for fighting Oni and other demons.
This being a custom setting, a part of me didn't want to include a critter as typically D&D as the Rust Monster, but I've always liked them and they add a nice mechanic. Throw in some oozes and flaming creatures and bad weapon selection won't just leave you struggling to overcome DR, it'll leave you digging deep into your pockets to buy replacement equipment, too.


My intention is to make as many of the foes you can encounter interesting in some way. Rust Monsters are a great example of this, because they're physically not that tough (a 1d3 bite and antenna which shouldn't do damage, according to PnP rules, but I've given 1d2, make the guy relatively unthreatening - you could probably beat him with your fists, but that's good because you may have to) but pose a very real other sort of danger.

[kamal_]

The Fred wrote...
 fighting Oni and other demons.

Real "ogre magii"! The original monster manuals had pictures of oni.

[The Fred]

Alas, I only have the 3rd ed Oriental Adventures. It details the plain giant-type Oni and the Shadowlands Oni (who are outsiders), the former of which are kinda like ogre magi and the latter a mixed bad of weird demons. Atm I'm going for somewhere in between - basic Oni will be like ogre or ogre magi, and there will be one or two rarer types, but they will all be outsiders (though I'm re-labelling "outsider" as "demon", anyway).

In addition to being able to start with a clean slate, as it were, I want to maintain the story-book, almost fairy-tale idea of Oni skulking about stealing children like some sort of fey creature. Yes, they are meant to be dangerous and scary, but I fancy they should also be able to be outdone by children with gingerbread swords and frog princes and things. ;-)
Possibly some sort of non-combat, "trick the Oni" quest is in order?

I haven't really gotten 'round to any actual story yet, but the Oni and/or other demons could end up becoming the main enemies in the game.