137 réponses à ce sujet

[The Amethyst Dragon]

Thanks OldTimeRadio.

Checked out NWN Explorer Reborn.  It doesn't seem to be able to handle the metallic alpha channel as shininess for me, instead showing as transparency.  I'll have to fiddle with the settings a few more times, just to be sure.

Using Aurora + Photoshop has been working so far.  Set a model appearance, take screenshot, paste into Photoshop, rename layer to part number/color (such as "t 1 7" for top part 1 color 7), jump back to toolset and repeat (without closing item properties window, so viewing aspect always stays the same)...

Then I end up with a stack of up to 80ish layers for each weapon piece (such as the top "blade") in a single psd file that I can remove the grey background from, do any cropping/resizing needed, and everything stays lined up.  I create a guide image so that I can exactly match up cropping between the psd for each of the three parts of each weapon.  That way when I get to cropping and resizing, everything is done exactly the same so they still line up.

On the katana: Yeah, the toolset doesn't always produce the cleanest images when an item is on the ground.  It's just an issue with the screenshot.  The toolset doesn't appreciate curves like the full game does.  Even the original toolset image (before BioWare social shrinkage to 540 pixels) shows them.  Probably doesn't help that I had the "show area lighting" turned on for that pic.

The toolset provides shots that a) look like the weapons in-game and don't use anti-aliasing.  Makes it much better for cutting into top/middle/bottom parts if there's no blurry edges to start with.

The screenshots I use get copied directly into a Photoshop image instead of saved to a tga that I then have to load into Photoshop.  Saves on images on my hard drive that I don't really need.

An advantage to using a layered image...you can use the same selection for at least 10 icons (each color of the same part) for cutting out the background and the same alpha channel image for 10 finished icons.

I believe I made about 920 models this time around (between all of the default parts+colors and the extra colors and models for my PW).  That's what happens when you group together most of the swords, which have lots of options to start with.

On top of it all, I'm working on buying and moving into a different house.  Trying to bang out as much NWN productivity as possible before I get sidelined by closing, painting, repairs to new house, moving, unpacking, and renting out current house.

Hey!  Who drank my Diet Dew?  I'm the only one awake here, but I don't remember finishing the can...

[The Amethyst Dragon]

Wow, that last post was longer than I anticipated. Hopefully there's something helpful in there for others that want to make new weapons and matching icons. If not...um...sorry.

[OldTimeRadio]

Yeah, definitely. Thanks for the mini-tutorial/workflow! Inventory icons have sort of been a bane for me so I appreciate the info.

[Carcerian]

Nice trick to know!

@ OTR Inventory Icons are a pain for sure...



If you widen an area, move the items to the new area, then undo, the items stay when the area is changed back, thus giving you a clear area to screenshot...

My Workflow for making simple transparent inventory items:

1. Use Windows Paint to paint the mask area null black (0,0,0), save as BMP.
2. Use PaintShopPro to create the alpha channel using Mask Menu > New > From Image > Any Non-0 Value.
3. Again in PSP, Mask Menu  > Save to Alpha Channel, finally saving as TGA,

The only thing you have to watch for is pure black were you don't want it, so make a custom black if needed 1,0,0 to paint black areas you don't want transparent.

Modifié par Carcerian, 30 juillet 2012 - 12:23 .

[Carcerian]

@ The Crystalline Entity

Great looking new weapons!

Modifié par Carcerian, 29 juillet 2012 - 07:09 .

[The Amethyst Dragon]

I've finally finished with all of the work for the "heavy blades", and my PW players are now enjoying them. A month or so and they'll be available on the Vault. I've even got them all pre-packaged, just waiting on me making a demo module and taking some promotional screenshots for the Vault page.

Buying a house and moving has been a major drain on my NWN time. I'm hoping things get settled down soon so I can dedicate some extra time to this project and others.

This means I'm done with 6 of the 8 parts to Project Reforged.

Next on the agenda is a group of weapons I call the "unusual weapons"...kama, sickle, whip, dart, and shuriken. Basically weapons that didn't really fit in the other categories and may have something odd about them. For instance, darts and shuriken are not 3-part weapon models; they are simple 1-part models. Whips are a whole mess of animations and pieces and skinmeshing. Sickles and kamas are so limited in variety in the default resources (and in real life examples) that they shouldn't take long at all to reforge...kind of like kukris in that regards.

After these, then final group will be the "ranged weapons"....bows, crossbows, and slings. Weapons that launch other weapons at distant targets.

[Borden Haelven]

The Amethyst Dragon wrote...

I've finally finished with all of the work for the "heavy blades", and my PW players are now enjoying them. A month or so and they'll be available on the Vault. I've even got them all pre-packaged, just waiting on me making a demo module and taking some promotional screenshots for the Vault page.

Buying a house and moving has been a major drain on my NWN time. I'm hoping things get settled down soon so I can dedicate some extra time to this project and others.

This means I'm done with 6 of the 8 parts to Project Reforged.

Next on the agenda is a group of weapons I call the "unusual weapons"...kama, sickle, whip, dart, and shuriken. Basically weapons that didn't really fit in the other categories and may have something odd about them. For instance, darts and shuriken are not 3-part weapon models; they are simple 1-part models. Whips are a whole mess of animations and pieces and skinmeshing. Sickles and kamas are so limited in variety in the default resources (and in real life examples) that they shouldn't take long at all to reforge...kind of like kukris in that regards.

After these, then final group will be the "ranged weapons"....bows, crossbows, and slings. Weapons that launch other weapons at distant targets.

Good luck in your new home, feel free to use the high quality steel produced in my foundry   for any further additions. At a special discount of course...

[The Amethyst Dragon]

Starting work on reforging the whip.  What a pain in the posterior.  This thing has built-in animations (a lot of them), and the whole thing is a skin-mesh.  To top it off, it's only got 8 or 9 bones for the whole thing, so right now it look very blocky when it's supposed to be looped up and held in hand.

I'm strongly considering working from scratch on the thing, with 24-36 segments, dumping the skinmesh, and remaking all of the animations.  I'd start with a straight whip though, instead of the curled mess that's the start of the default whip's animations.

Hopefully my fire whip from a previous month's CCC is the only whip that uses the default whip as a supermodel for animations.

Sickles are done, and are getting a big update in shape...instead of a handle with a little hook on the end, they will actually look like sickles (short handle, large curved blade).  Now, more than half the weapon is the blade.  With the change in shape, I also had to redo the VFX models.  Not tested in-game yet, but I don't think just cloning emitters causes too much trouble (it didn't with my fire whip). A lot of work just to give druids a proper weapon.
<_<

Kamas are also done.  Nothing groundbreaking on those.  It's a basic kama, just with an improved shape and textures.

Darts are done and getting a major makeover.  First, they will be looking like actual ancient darts.  Basically, short, heavy arrows (they predate arrows), with a smaller head, longer shaft, and fletching at the end.  Second, they are being turned around 180 degrees, so that they look right with the default dart-throwing animations.

Shuriken are not yet done, but those shouldn't take very long.  I'm going to be modeling them after some of my Improved Shuriken, just with new (and further improved) models & textures (and inventory icons).

Haven't done any inventory icons yet.  Those are just tedious, so I save all of them for the end of a group of weapons.

The end of the project is in sight.  I finish this group, then the ranged weapons (like bows and crossbows), and I'm done.

[henesua]

That sounds great.

Unfortuantely I'll miss out on these as I am wrapping up Arnheim's expanded HAKs, but maybe a patch later for those whips is in order.

[OldTimeRadio]

I salute you for attemping an overhaul on those whips!  I'd like to throw out a request that when you're done with them you write up a little post-mortem about how you approached animating them.  I have no flippin' idea how those were even done except possibly with the bones as items attached to a spline path which was then manipulated to get that crazy coiling/uncoiling effect.

[The Amethyst Dragon]

The animations look like they are matched up to creature animations, so when the PC performs a certain animation, the matching one fires off for the whip.

Watching them in gmax, they're pretty straight forward. There's just a lot of them. And most of them are only a few frames in duration.

For making my own animations, I plan to work off the original whip model (wwhip_m_011.mdl). I'm going to push the old bones off to the side a little, then use them as a guide for doing my own animations. Once I'm done, I want to get rid of the old bones/animations, leaving just my new ones in place.

Last night I just made a new set of "braid" textures for these things, to replace the tiny spot they were using from w_metal_tex. It looks much better, especially wrapped around the segments I'm making (36 cylinders: 4.5 cm long, 1 cm radius, 8 sides)

[henesua]

TAD,
I'm noticing an issue with your heavy flail. The light flail's animation looks great. But the heavy flail doesn't fully animate. It starts off looking good in the starting position. But it doesn't hang and swing like the light flail does.

Anyone else noticing this?

[edit]
I take it back... i loaded the reforged chain HAK on its own in a new mod and am not noticing this problem. I'll try to track down the source of the problem with my other content.

Modifié par henesua, 08 septembre 2012 - 07:49 .

[The Amethyst Dragon]

For the flails, make sure you copy in the non-visible _010 models (I think it's _010, it could be _000, I don't remember)...especially if using the override version or combining with other haks. They now contain the animations and are used by the others as a supermodel. They don't show up in-game (no icon), but that model doesn't have to be visible to be referenced by other models for animations.

Modifié par The Amethyst Dragon, 08 septembre 2012 - 08:18 .

[henesua]

Sorry to have bothered you with this. I just found the problem. It was my tweaked baseitems.2da.
Rather than **** in weapon wield I had it as 4. Don't know when that happened. Perhaps recently.

I am very sorry to have distracted everyone over my stupid mistake.

Carry on.


[edit]
oh and it is top model part 001 for the heavy flail (and light flails) that has all those animations in it.
I did check that first because I had moved models around (I am using project q), which lead to some text changes in there. But that file is fine. All the animations work now that I changed the baseitems.2da

Modifié par henesua, 08 septembre 2012 - 08:22 .

[The Amethyst Dragon]

gmax and I are not getting along, it seems. It doesn't want to save both the default animations and my new animations along with in the same model...which makes it basically impossible to line the new ones up right.

Rather than waste several more hours, y'all are just gettin' a new skinmesh for the whips, plus new handles and decorations. Sorry to disappoint. Who really uses the things, anyway?

Modifié par The Amethyst Dragon, 11 septembre 2012 - 05:59 .

[henesua]

I did two things to make whips a viable choice for players:
(1) Allow players to equip a whip in either or both hands. This enables sword and whip combos.
(2) Make the whip available for rogues and bards. Bards and rogues should have use of a whip without having to invest in the exotic weapon proficiency.

It is too bad that in NWN whips don't have greater range than any other melee weapon, but once you enable use in either hand, their usefulness increases dramatically.

In otherwords, I am disappointed that your awesome new whip animations won't make it into the prime time. But I am still excited that you'll be giving them a facelift. I already LOVE your fire whip.

[The Amethyst Dragon]

Applying the skinmesh to the whip is going to be a pain, too.  The default state is coiled up, so it's a minor tangle of bones that influence the skin of the whip.  It'll be a matter of adjusting weights for individual vertices.

Individual vertices I'm currently in the process of welding together...turning 35 individual cylinders into a single coiled tube-ish object.

The new animations were supposed to look pretty much like the old ones, except with 36 segments instead of 8.  The new whip will still look better coiled up than the old one, even without brand new animations.

If using a hak, your whip-users will be getting some more variety out of this.  Instead of a single color of whip (black), we'll end up with four colors for the whip part (top), four for the handle decor (middle), and four for the handle's grip (bottom).  The default color will be brown instead of black (since most whips seem to be made from plain leather, not dyed leather).

Enlarged view of the new braid textures:


I may reduce the color saturation on the golden braiding a little before I'm finished, depending on how it looks in-game.

[gutwrench66kg]

looks great!

[Bard Simpson]

You're doing great things here, TAD. I especially appreciate the work on whips, what with a character I'm currently trying to develop (an RP concept somewhat simulating a balrog). This is beautiful work; thank you, oh Great Drake!

[The Amethyst Dragon]

Finally done with model work for the next group of weapons.  Now I need to work on inventory icons for them. Here's a little preview, showing the default (parts 1, color 1) for whips, sickles, and kamas, and appearance 11 for darts.



Link for full 800 pixel sized image.

[Just a ghost]

Very nice! With that whip you can show off at Kinky Kingdom!

[The Amethyst Dragon]

I finished with part 7 of 8 a few days ago.  Onto the final (8th) part: Missile Weapons (short bow, longbow, light crossbow, heavy crossbow, sling, arrows, bolts, and bullets).

The launchers will be getting all new models.  The ammunition will be getting new ground models, with their updated inventory icons based on the ground models.

Now, just to whet your appetite for new content, here's an in-game test of my new longbow, which worked on the first try, animations and all.

[OldTimeRadio]

Great work!  Clearly a huge improvement over the older models yet stil looking perfectly natural and not out of place.  Very nice.

[NWN_baba yaga]

thats what i call a perfect bow AD:)

[dusty.lane]

Great work AD! I can't wait until you're finished, hehe!

PS, your texture pack was quite useful in not having to be forced to use the default crappy textures of crappiness.