15 réponses à ce sujet

[XtopherWa]

I have started building an adventure for Dragon Age and am wondering what the general opinion is on re-using areas from the official campaign?

Personally I would think that the "star" areas are worth building new, but when it comes to things like odd country roads and such one could save a lot of time using existing assets.  Same goes for filling in small rooms and shops.  In the end, as much time as possible should be spent on "fun" rather than re-inventing the wheel.

Anyone care to comment?  Thanks!

[lowrez01]

XtopherWa wrote...

I have started building an adventure for Dragon Age and am wondering what the general opinion is on re-using areas from the official campaign?

Personally I would think that the "star" areas are worth building new, but when it comes to things like odd country roads and such one could save a lot of time using existing assets.  Same goes for filling in small rooms and shops.  In the end, as much time as possible should be spent on "fun" rather than re-inventing the wheel.

Anyone care to comment?  Thanks!

What exactly is there to comment on? Use them in whatever manner you wish. Make a kick ass mod. Have us adore your brilliant talent when you release it.

[XtopherWa]

>What exactly is there to comment on?



Mostly I was looking to get the temperature of the community on this one. it seems like the kind of thing that would be a no brainer good deal, or a political firestorm.

[KalDurenik]

Honestly i don't think anyone care. If you do find someone that care just ignore them and move on.

[Qkrch]

I care xD, Just ignore me.



One of the points of building a new module is to be original. Using the same areas all over the way won't help, and many people will reuse them again and again, depending on the modders strength and knowledge. The 3D assets you use for building an area will also be repetitive at some time. Finally i'll found 20 modules with the Ostagar temple named differently.



But all of that depends on your immersion with modding and the result you wan't to have. If you want to make an awesome mod with new areas, models, convos, cool evented scripts, VO and all hell you'll probably need more people in your project (a lot more). If you're all alone, just make it you way, focus on your best skills and don't try something epic.

[Flobulon]

One way to get around this will be available once Adinos releases the next version of his model viewer - it will allow you to alter the texture filepaths. This means that it will possible to duplicate all of the existing models in a module and edit their textures without affecting the OC. I have a strong suspicion BioWare will be doing this for Return to Ostagar - simply adding snow to textures.



It could drastically change the look of an area, even it was just a simple recolour.

[Awildawn]

Also, this depends on which areas you plan to reuse. The OC is full of areas that are well done but serve a minimal purpose (one ambush, one fight with the darkspawns...).

If you reuse Ostagar, and call it Wostagar, people may feel cheated but if it's nameless area 1, and you use it well in your mod, I don't think anybody will care.

[Qutayba]

I think your instinct is correct that "star" areas should feel original, but if you want to reuse the landscape from "Country Road Encounter #4", that just makes your module building more efficient. I anticipate that there will be modders who enjoy the landscaping and will be making "prefabs" for just this purpose. So that may be another solution.

[AnTeevY]

Well it would be efficient to take a level from the main campaign and change some textures here and there, add new models, adjust the terrain... but that's not possible without us having the .lvl files.

[BryanDerksen]

A lot of our random encounter areas are reused in different random encounters, redressed by having the player appear at a different start point and by using a few strategic placeables as barriers to change which spots are accessible. So the "pros" do it sometimes too.



At some point we're going to release the sources for the game's levels, so you'll be able to use those as a basis for more extensive modification and reuse. I don't know when that's planned for. When the time comes, a caveat to bear in mind is that we use a different lightmapper internally than the one that ships with the toolset so the level lighting won't look the same and may need to be redone.

[Nithrakis Arcanius]

BryanDerksen wrote...
At some point we're going to release the sources for the game's levels, so you'll be able to use those as a basis for more extensive modification and reuse. I don't know when that's planned for. When the time comes, a caveat to bear in mind is that we use a different lightmapper internally than the one that ships with the toolset so the level lighting won't look the same and may need to be redone.

Excellent! I'm looking forward to ripping apart Cousland keep

[XtopherWa]

Thanks everyone, and especially BryanDerksen! I'm glad to see people thinking along these lines. As you said, "the pros do it sometimes too" which is exactly why I was asking. I've been in the game industry for years, and have recently gone indie so I finally have time to make a short module, which I've wanted to do for a long time. Art is always the longest part of the pipeline, so avoiding as much of it as possible without getting cheesy is the key.



FWIW, I noticed a lot of the random encounters were using the same areas, and was impressed with the way you got so much mileage out of them. That was the sort of approach I was considering, as even changing textures and such is enough of a time sink to defeat the original purpose of adding more value to the game without adding time. I'm hoping that changing time of day and the set dressing of an area will get me a long way, but wanted to make sure there wasn't some legal/tech issue or unspoken social rule I didn't know about.



Thanks again everyone! I'm looking forward to all the great content on the way.

[XtopherWa]

Oh, and a quick clarification... I think it's awesome people are going to do extensive art/texture rework. It just doesn't fit into my personal schedule right now.

[Adaram]

Xtopher -- I am with you. When I build a mod, I plan on reusing as much of the OC as I can ... in fact, my mod will hopefully be a little bit like DLC, where you can just add it right into the OC and keep playing (at least that's what I hope to do). Personally, I am more interested in adding my own thoughts and stories within the DA setting, so re-using the existing assets provided in game only makes sense to me.

[Languard]

BryanDerksen wrote...

A lot of our random encounter areas are reused in different random encounters, redressed by having the player appear at a different start point and by using a few strategic placeables as barriers to change which spots are accessible. So the "pros" do it sometimes too.

At some point we're going to release the sources for the game's levels, so you'll be able to use those as a basis for more extensive modification and reuse. I don't know when that's planned for. When the time comes, a caveat to bear in mind is that we use a different lightmapper internally than the one that ships with the toolset so the level lighting won't look the same and may need to be redone.

Slightly off-topic, but why was the rendering solution changed?  I can't speak for others, but I'm more than willing to let my computer crunch on a level for a day or two if time was the only concern

[Strike1987]

Languard, bioware used a commercial lightmapper and they weren't allowed to release it to the public so they had to create another one.