20 réponses à ce sujet

[Inhuman one]

I have always been very fond of the Neverwinter Nights toolset, I still am. Its still the best toolset I ever saw for any game.

Why? because it is very accesable, if it where any user friendlier it would ask me how my day was when I start it up in the evening. Anyone can use it, and it does allow some complex things for those more experienced with it. Those that are not experienced with it can also learn quite a few things by doing without needing a tutorial.

I am very disappointed in the Dragon Age toolset, it does not make any sense to me, I have no idea what to do with it. I figured if any toolset is going to top the NWN toolset it will be this one, but instead it is useless to the common gamer and keeps the use of it reserved to modders.

Why cant they just recapture some of Neverwinter Nights's brilliance for once? It almost looks like they are making a point out of not using anything that made Neverwinter Nights great in any games they produced afterwards.

To me the strongest points of Neverwinter Nights are:

-the userfriendly and powerfull toolset that anyone can use.

-armor customization piece by piece and many colors, allowing an almost infinite amount of combinations (in above mentioned toolset)

-great multiplayer. (made possible through worlds made by the above mentioned toolset)

I do hope my opinion might change in times to come, but at the moment I think the dragon age toolset is less than dirt compared to the vastly superiour toolset used for Neverwinter Nights.

Modifié par Inhuman one, 29 novembre 2009 - 05:59 .

[Taltherion]

I also used the NVN toolset a lot and had fun with it. Yes, this one here is much more complicated and while I can see reasons for and benefits of that in many areas, in other areas I find the DAO toolset leaves something to be desired. Come on ... less armor and weapon customization than NVN (without importing new models etc)?



No house-placeables that I can simply drop into an area? I must design a level from scratch first with a house? ... Or have I just not found the right buttons? Yes ... this IS more difficult and complicated.

[FalloutBoy]

I enjoyed working with NWN too, but I never shipped a module for it because I wasn't happy with what I made. It looked identical to every other module out there. Boring.
NWN 2 and now DA allows you to model terrain by hand to make something that looks unique and interesting. If don't like this, you could stick to making tile-based worlds with NWN if you want. People still play it.

No house-placeables that I can simply drop into an area? I must design
a level from scratch first with a house? ... Or have I just not found
the right buttons? Yes ... this IS more difficult and complicated.

You will find "house placeables" under Models. Place them in the level editor. I don't know if there is an easy way to take a model and make it a placeable (the difference being that models are static and placeables are interactable).

Modifié par FalloutBoy, 28 novembre 2009 - 07:30 .

[Inhuman one]

Many things where possible with Neverwinter Nights actually. with the right objects, music and lighting you can do a great many things with a single tileset.



I havent been capable of creating any kind of terrain in the dragon age toolset, I cant even figure that out.

[Taltherion]

FalloutBoy ... yes, that's the point: As far as I can see, you have to create a level from scratch to place a house placeable ... you cannot take an existing area and put a house in it (see, that's an example of how complicated it is ... levels and areas).

[Qkrch]

It's not so complicated if you all come from a nwn perspective.



Yeah, you have house models that you can mix to create a big house, allowing different variations (if you knew the BCK hak for nwn2, is the same thing.. so is something people actually asked for that).



I can however admit that is not as simple as Aurora was, 7 years have passed and the technologies have increased... also the knowledge of those who have to use it. Fairly, we won't ever see an easy NWN1 toolset again (ey but i've remembered that the first time i lunched it.. i was lost too ), as i won't ever see again the "Stunts Racing 3D" editor

[Beerfish]

I think a person has to give it a bit more time to compare the two. After one month of having NWN1 I wasn't exactly fling out modules left and right. Though the tileset aspect is certainly easier to use you are comparing a totally known quantity that you know very well to something new that you don't know. The multiplayer comment is totally irrevalent to the toolset as it has been know for a long long time that DA was single player.

[GhoXen]

The most user-friendly and relatively powerful toolset I can think of is Warcraft III's toolset. I was hoping that I could settle with DAO, but now it seems I must wait and see how Starcraft 2's editor turns out.

[Inhuman one]

I refered to multiplayer because it is the easy to use toolset that made it stand out above any other multiplayer experience.



I know technology moves on and all that, but you cant tell me that before and after the release of neverwinter nights its not possible to make a user friendly toolset. It cant be reserved for such a short timespan. At which similar editors like that of morrowind and Dungeon Siege where difficult to use in comparison as well.



More recent games seem to have easier to use toolsets than Dragon Age however, Oblivion is one example and I am affraid that even the NWN2 toolset despite its many flaws is better, mostly because of the remnants of the NWN1 toolset. I am guessing Fallout3 has a similar toolset to Oblivion but I dont have the pc version of that so cant say for certain.



So if Bethesda can be consistent in being user friendly with their toolset through the years, why can't Bioware, who made an editor in the past that makes any Bethesda toolset look like garbage?



I personly cant do that much with the bethesda toolsets like creating new buildings and all that, but at least I can edit NPC's, place some objects and simple stuff like that.



With Neverwinter Nights I could create entire worlds however, beautifully decorated areas made to amaze those that would walk through it. Area transitions I could do as well, setting up stores, conversations, and putting a sit script on chairs. And of course making unique armor designs using the many possible armor colors and part combinations.



Sorry if I sound pissed, but I kind of am because this toolset is out of my league. I would have prefered it if it was released a month later with it being tweaked to be more accesable. Its a seperate download afterall.

[R3v3r3nD420]

There isnt much "tweaking" they can do to this toolset to make it that much easier to use for the average user. I agree this is a difficult toolset to wrap your brain around on first impression, but it certainly does get a little bit easier as you get more familiar with its functions, and most importantly, how to access those functions. I just wish there were more included actual examples of scripts for us to pick apart, to help the programming noobs such as myself. The wiki is coming along nicely, albeit slower than all of us would like it to I'm sure!

If this toolset had come with a clear instruction manual, or even just gave us access to the OC files to see how BioWare did things, then getting the hang of this toolset would come alot more quickly to the community.

That being said, do as most of the rest of us have done:
Start simple. Dont expect to go in making anything super complicated from the start.

Look around in the toolset. A lot of the answers to your questions are usually already in the toolset. You just need to find them/know where to look. Dont be afraid to poke around in the games folders, and the toolsets folders, both in the toolset and in windows explorer.

Research. Start with the wiki. Look in the forums, obviously starting here at the social site, but other popular modding sites as well. Others are finding things and figuring things out, and for the most part are pumping out the information as fast as they can. There are some great tutorials for starting out in the wiki and third-party blog sites.

Ask questions. After doing your research, if you are still unable to find your answer, ask! Most people here are more than willing to help out if they have the knowledge and ability to. Still yet, others may have the same question as well, so your asking could help others!

Post your findings. Even if nobody is able to answer your question, or doesnt take the time to (hopefully someone would), post the results of your trials, whether they be successes or failures. They would certainly help somebody if they were successful, and possibly help lead somebody else to an answer even if they failed.


Yes, there is a lot more work to be done to be able to use this toolset to its full functionality. But dumbing it down too much would lessen the quality of final products, and limit the abilities of modders in creating more unique custom mods. Also the hit in performance would probably be severe on the engine side.

I too wish it were simpler. But I respect it is the way it is for a reason.

Modifié par R3v3r3nD420, 29 novembre 2009 - 12:06 .

[Scarmiglion]

Well one thing to remember is that DAO development was focused around the game, not the toolset itself. NWN (and in turn NWN2) was much more toolset oriented from the get-go. Even Oblivion was designed to be modded.

There are a lot of bits of the toolset that could have been improved from an end-user standpoint. I don't think anybody is arguing that. However it was built around BW's development processes, and optimized for it. The end result is a powerful toolset that is designed first for their own development team and then had to get parts of it (the DB, and lightmapper for instance) re-geared for an end-user system, which are some of the main issues people are encountering.

The toolset has a pretty steep learning curve but it's really just a matter of practice and trial and error. It definitely takes a lot of patience. Jumping in isn't a bad thing but there are definitely parts of the tools that are easier to learn. Conversations are very similar to NWN.

For a long time I was in the same boat when I was learning the Fallout 3 toolset. You're definitely not alone in your frustration. But for every person that will give you a hard time for asking what they believe are stupid questions, there is another here that is willing to help.

Edit: Plus everything R3v3r3nD420  said

Modifié par Scarmiglion, 29 novembre 2009 - 12:08 .

[R3v3r3nD420]

Scarmiglion wrote...
Edit: Plus everything R3v3r3nD420  said

LOL! And ditto to what you said!

[Inhuman one]

It has been said quite early though that Dragon Age would have a toolset, that was said before console versions where announced I believe. The production time is not exactly short either, I think it started before Mass Effect's production even. Thats why I am also amazed at the low amount of armor models seeing how its mostly reskins of very few models but that is another subject.



Of course a toolset is far less relevant without a multiplayer option, but I do feel that they mentioned it often enough to draw the attention of casual gamers during production and not just experienced modders.



Easy acces to the main campaign would be a good improvement for starters, that way you can use what is there and make small changes, allowing you to learn from whats in place there. Starting with small and carefull steps, you could in time grow a little more bold and take small risks.



Thats pretty much all I want to do, make some small changes to the main campaign, mostly visual things to shape it a little more to my own opinion.



Like giving pretty much all male dwarves a decent beard with few exeptions, giving mother cousland an armor worthy of royalty, and similar changes that I feel would add to immersion.

[Scarmiglion]

Inhuman one wrote...
Easy acces to the main campaign would be a good improvement for starters, that way you can use what is there and make small changes, allowing you to learn from whats in place there. Starting with small and carefull steps, you could in time grow a little more bold and take small risks.

Oh yeah. I totally agree there.  Access to the OC would if nothing else make it a hell of a lot easier to plan mods.

[Hexenmeister Raven]

Inhuman one wrote:
Thats pretty much all I want to do, make some small changes to the main campaign, mostly visual things to shape it a little more to my own opinion.

Like giving pretty much all male dwarves a decent beard with few exeptions, giving mother cousland an armor worthy of royalty, and similar changes that I feel would add to immersion.

There are some "How to put items in the main game"-Tutorials in german forums, I'm pretty sure you can find some english ones too.

However, be a bit patient, even the modders are sometimes helpless, we have to figure out a lot of things that are not even in the Wiki yet and this takes time. Meanwhile you could learn a bit scripting or read through the Wiki to learn the beginners stuff written in there and when the time comes you can do all the things you want with the toolset.

The hair/beard- thing is not that easy... here I think we have to wait for 3D-Modellers who can do such stuff with the appropriate programs.

Modifié par Hexenmeister Raven, 29 novembre 2009 - 03:23 .

[R3v3r3nD420]

I think everyone agrees that the sooner we can look at the OC files and see how BioWare created it, the faster we will be able to make some quality content.



As for the armor models, think about this. There are plenty of armor models for the OC BioWare created. BioWare really doesnt need to give us any more. And why should they? It cost them more money to do that. They gave us a toolset to be able to import our own created models into the game. So really, they did even better than give us more armor models. They gave us the toolset.

[ModWriter]

It is advanced and it is terrible to handle for beginners. You need some skills more than working with the aurora-toolset... that's my opinion.

Edit: For modeler might this be usefull:

http://social.biowar...72/index/320619

Modifié par ModWriter, 29 novembre 2009 - 03:38 .

[Adinos]

Don't forget the fundamental difference. The NWN toolset was designed to be easy to use - and it was a major part of the design and marketing of NWN from the beginning.



This is not the case with DA: The toolset is not what was supposed to sell the game - BioWare decided at some point to give the community a significant part of the toolset they used .... but the toolset was not designed for inexperienced people - it is a toolset designed for professional game developers.

[Ainiana]

I actually far prefer the DA:O toolset thus far. In NWN 1+2 i felt limited often by the constraints of the toolset. In DA:O it is almost overwhelming at times in how much freedom you have. It 'does' take me far longer to produce a single area than it did in NWN2 and certainly NWN1, however the quality of those area's are far superior than i could ever have done in the older toolsets.

[Taltherion]

So ... despite being very careful (making a new module, no references to the single player campaign etc), my single player campaign is broken after creating a module of my own with the toolset. Either the toolset is



- broken (and in many cases, it actually is)

- too complicated

- there's a lack of tutorials for beginners (most of the tutorials were there before the toolset actually was released to the public, thus sometimes I have the feeling they're talking about another version of the toolset or never encountered the game-breaking problems of the toolset - thus not warning against them)

- all of the above.



I'm simply leaving the toolset until we get a version that doesn't take a programmer to install and that is more stable and less dangerous.

[Astorax]

While I understand the sentiment, there's already several unlocked threads about how the NWN toolset is better (or not, as the case may be) than the DA toolset.