17 réponses à ce sujet

[PDubulous]

I finally have the flowing water system worked out.  It looked like Mercury at first and then made its way through several iterations to the final BETA version seen here:

http://dragonlanceni...ng-water-check/

I am hoping to have a few people test it out in their various building techniques and see how it works.  More to come on my blog on that topic.  Let me know it you are interested.

Enjoy the video.

[Dann-J]

You can simulate flowing water in NWN2 by changing the X and Y scroll directions and rates of the three layers of water textures. By default the three layers all scroll in opposing directions, making the water seem turbulent. If you make all three layers scroll in the same direction then you get a flowing effect.

The downside is that each terrain tile can only have water flowing in a single direction, so you can't follow small winding stream paths with any detail (unlike your system). It's fine for straighter sections of waterway though, especially wide rivers.

[c i p h e r]

The rushing water looks great PD. Is that a visual effect or something else?

[PDubulous]

Yeah thats the drawback of the NWN2 stock water. It also doesn't flow down hills very well. The water in this video uses the stock water to add turbulence and reflection and refraction, but it also can be used without the stock water too. Its made up of a combination of placeable objects, much like the system used in Skyrim. Right now there aren't many small features like they use at Bethesda, but as you can see, there are large features. I tried using SEFs but they are too costly. This system works a couple of ways. First there is a base of rock bed. These are non-uniform placeables that are tintable and have a nice, wet specular map. On top of these I place some rocks. Just some simple, placeable rocks. Then I lay down a layer of UV scrolling rapids with variations in transparency. These have a lot of noise in the height of the model which can increased or decreased to serve as a turbidity scale in the rapids. These are also nonuniform placeables. Lastly I lay down the stock water. Care must be taken to try and set your height changes along the lines of the mega-tiles in the terrain. You can adjust the water from here. You can use the x/y scroll to supplement, but its really not necessary. A: Because the motion of the UV scroll on the texture accomplishes all the needed motion and B: Because the x/y scroll on the water must be uniform across the mega-tile. If the rapids placeable is above the water-line, it looks like slight froth depending on the amount of transparency you use and if its below the water-line, it looks like turbulent and foaming rapids. Its really handy for waterfalls especially. The tumbling rapids and waterfalls are made from several models and effects and are still a work in progress.

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

Doooood, I would love to test this out for you. I've wished for something like this for a long long time now!

[M. Rieder]

Good to have you around PD. The work you are doing is fantastic.

[Alupinu]

Me, me, me! I'll test it out! I have lots of rivers and streams in Fanglewood and I'm thinking that water-flow would be perfact.

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

Any chance on this getting released any time soon?  Really excited for this.


I could really use a good stream beside my temple of Sheela Peryroyl.  The current water just wont cut it as It's in a really rocky/hilly area and this would look 1000% better than a standard flat stream.


Also, this would be a huge improvement to the stream through my Forest of Wyrms.

Modifié par IAmDeathComeForThee, 03 mai 2012 - 03:35 .

[PDubulous]

Nice Screens! I like those huge tree trunks. I just added some info on release of the water system:

http://dragonlancenights.com/

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

Awesome, thanks!  Cant wait.
And man, I must say Solace is looking incredible.  I admire you work, you are an artist.  Can I ask what type of system you're running the area on?  I'm curious if its a lower end system causing you these headaches or the engine itself as you seem to be conserving your poly's quite well.  I have a feeling it's just the engine not doing well with 32x32 areas.<_<.

Also, how are you connecting all your walkmeshes platform to platform etc?  Are you able to do it easily in the toolset or are you just creating really large placeables?

[PDubulous]

http://dragonlanceni...rials/walkmesh/

Made a quick post.  I think its the 32x32 areas.  Its running great in the 16x16 areas.  So much so that I starting jacking my textures back up.  My system is starting to get a bit old, but its still pretty robust:

nVidia GTX 285 x 2
Quad Core 3.2
1550 Watt PSU
8GB of DDR3
5TBs of server storage
Thermaltake Mozart Tx Case

Modifié par PDubulous, 04 mai 2012 - 12:51 .

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

Yea, that system is showing some age, but it's still a beast for this engine.

Looking forward to more of what you have to say about walkmeshes. I haven't built any modular pieces that are supposed to fit together myself, I just know things like BCK don't work very well, especially when there are more than one to fit together in a tile.

[PDubulous]

The walkmesh helper is a nice tool as well. For a bunch of flat surfaces on the same level, I think its the best approach. I still don't know the magical formula for walkmesh though. A few pieces I have still don't quite want to work together.

[MokahTGS]

 As far as releasing this stuff to the community, please do release it on the Vault, but also release it on the Nexus so it has a wide community appeal.  The Nexus is brand new for NWN 1&2 but has much better hosting for modding.

http://www.neverwint...s.com/index.php 

Also, have you reserved ranges for the placeables.2da on the NWN2 Wiki?  If not, I would encourage you to do so.  Not only does it keep things organized, it helps with future compatibility issues and hak pack merging.  I don't know many builders out there that just use one pack.  I've seen far too many CC packs released that use the lines right after the SoZ lines.  It then becomes frustrating for people that aren't familiar with 2DA and HAK merging.

For those of us that are in the grove it isn't much trouble, but when there are a lot of placeables, then it becomes a frustrating chore.

Modifié par MokahTGS, 04 mai 2012 - 04:08 .

[PDubulous]

I discovered a way to make an effect create water ripples and refraction. Does anyone know how to orient a 2d texture flat at relative to flat terrain? I am not talking about projection a texture but more like getting a particle to face up, parallel to the ground, and then flow left or right, but not up and down. I don't know if I can get this to work but it would be brilliant if it did. The secret was in the frame buffer effect in the particle. If only there was some way to apply this entire effect to a model.

[M. Rieder]

PDubulous wrote...

The walkmesh helper is a nice tool as well. For a bunch of flat surfaces on the same level, I think its the best approach. I still don't know the magical formula for walkmesh though. A few pieces I have still don't quite want to work together.

I have had luck with alternating thicknessess of adjoining walkmeshes.  for example, try scaling the thickness at 10 or 100 to try to get a smooth transition between walkmesh helpers.  It has helped me in the past.

[rjshae]

More cool stuff!

I'll tell you what game has very slick running water though: The River of Time, finally out on DVD. Their foaming river water for the city of Nadoret looks fantastic. The city itself is also one of the best looking medieval city settings I've seen. Wish we had those models and f/x for NWN2...

The original Drakensang also had some slick swirling leaf effects in their streams that gave it a lot of life.

Modifié par rjshae, 02 juin 2012 - 04:15 .

[IAmDeathComeForThee]

Just a little bump. Still eagerly anticipating this release.