1056 réponses à ce sujet

[Tchos]

Even an octagonal tower would be better than a square, in my opinion. I was going to approach it that way until I found these pieces, in fact. You can use mine as a basis for yours if you want, or ask me any questions you may have about my construction of it after you see it in person.

It sounds like you're more of what they call a "discovery writer" on Writing Excuses, while I'm more of an "outliner" by preference when it comes to modules. Though even with an outline, a writer is free to improvise between the outlined events. Both are valid approaches, and a fusion of the two is also possible.

The casks you mention in the provision storage room will be explained in the DM area text. They're actually casks of fresh water, which is why the invaders haven't already consumed them. Also, in this lighthouse, there are three lighthouse keepers living there to combat loneliness.

[Tchos]

I wrote a little gc_ script just to check a dialogue owner's tag. Another simple thing that seems like it should have been in the toolset already. I did it so I could use a generic conversation script for all my townsfolk's one-liner barks, but have specific lines for specific NPCs by just adding a node in the generic conversation instead of making a separate conversation file. It works similarly to what Lugaid of the Red Stripes achieves brilliantly in that generic conversation script, though in this case I'm trading convenience for elegance. This kind of check would likely be impractical for large quantities of unique barks, since it would become a very inefficient long list of "if" filters, whereas Lugaid's narrows things down from broad to narrow, eliminating many checks each time. I could emulate some of that by using a separate conversation file for each general region if I wanted to, but I don't expect to use this conversation much, and this is mainly just a quickie solution until I get a chance to sit down and really examine Lugaid's script.

The SoZ campaign already had the opposite script to the one I wrote, gc_speaker_tag, which instead checks the tag of the PC speaker. That's useful for SoZ companion conversations (the companions that I supply for the player to recruit), to give any of those companions their own special lines in dialogue without having to do compound checks to rule out the other party members.

As the pirate crew is largely made up of ogres, I wanted them to be a bit differentiated, but the included resources are very limited for providing that differentiation. However, there are two resources I've found that would serve that purpose. One is Avlis 2 Dynamic Lizard, Ogre, Pixie, and the other is Evil Edison's Hill Giants.

The Hill Giants pack provides several very different heads, and seems to use the ogre skeleton and animation, so they should pass for ogres, but they were designed to be hill giants. Other modders have used them as hill giants, and perhaps some have also used them as ogres, but I don't want to dilute their recognisability as hill giants by using them for something else, regardless of their skeletons, because as much as I want diversity within a monster species, I also want diversity of monster species.

The Avlis 2 dynamic ogres offer a wide range of armour parts and tintability, as well as numerous different heads. The head differences are distinct, though they may not be as noticeable as I'd like when viewed from an exploration mode distance, or when viewed outside of a group.

In a comment, I saw that Shaughn did the work that I would have done with that pack (which in its original form puts the extra ogre options in a playable race), and also offered that content openly for other builders, so I'll open up the Risen Hero campaign and see what I need to extract to implement the dynamic ogres.

Modifié par Tchos, 02 août 2012 - 10:26 .

[Tchos]

I think you'll appreciate that all the custom content is actually in the campaign folder, neatly sequestered in separate, clearly-named subfolders for easy extraction for your own purposes. The hak pack will be very small (currently 2.7 MB), as it only contains 2DA files.

The campaign folder is currently 285 MB uncompressed (79 MB compressed). I don't think it should be getting too much bigger, as there's not much more to add (at least as far as I can see) that I haven't already added with this latest ogre addition.

[Dorateen]

Tchos wrote...

The SoZ campaign already had the opposite script to the one I wrote, gc_speaker_tag, which instead checks the tag of the PC speaker. That's useful for SoZ companion conversations (the companions that I supply for the player to recruit), to give any of those companions their own special lines in dialogue without having to do compound checks to rule out the other party members.

Wow, do I wish I knew about that! I had been looking for a gc_ script that would do exactly that to give the companion in Edinmoor his own lines. Completely overlooked that one. I ended up doing just as you said, flagging certain conditionals such as alignment, class and deity, which pretty much excluded other party members save the companion.

One learns a lot from this development diary. Thanks!

[Tchos]

@Tsongo: Almost everything can go in the campaign folder.  The only thing that really seems to need to go in a hak is the 2DA files.  And only if those are meant to override any of the vanilla 2DAs like placeables.2da or tilesets.2da.  I have the actual tileset files and placeable files other than the 2DAs (MDBs, textures, etc.) in my campaign folder, as well as files that override existing models, textures, and tints.  The big advantages are that you can organise the files in folders and subfolders, and easily add and remove things without having to pack, extract, and repack, which is enough of a bother with the 2DAs.  I'd hate to have to do that with 2000 more files!

@Dorateen: I'm always glad when my own voyage of discovery can be of use to you and others!  I learned of that script while exploring the SoZ conversations to see how their conditions were set up, and then I forgot about it until I rediscovered it yesterday.  ; 

Now I'm going through both the MotB and SoZ campaign folders and pulling out the useful scripts as well as some of the item and creature blueprints.  If you do the same, be sure to look at not only the ga_ and gc_ scripts, (generic action and generic check/condition), but also the ka_ and kc_ (kampaign action and kampaign check/condition).  Most of them in SoZ are indeed campaign-specific and have to do with trading, but some are related to cohort management and other useful things.

Modifié par Tchos, 03 août 2012 - 07:06 .

[Shaughn78]

Tchos wrote...
As the pirate crew is largely made up of ogres, I wanted them to be a bit differentiated, but the included resources are very limited for providing that differentiation. However, there are two resources I've found that would serve that purpose. One is Avlis 2 Dynamic Lizard, Ogre, Pixie, and the other is Evil Edison's Hill Giants.

...

In a comment, I saw that Shaughn did the work that I would have done with that pack (which in its original form puts the extra ogre options in a playable race), and also offered that content openly for other builders, so I'll open up the Risen Hero campaign and see what I need to extract to implement the dynamic ogres.

You won't find too much in the campaign folder. Just the Hill giant blueprints, I have a few more ogre blueprints but they are with  chapter 2 right now. The appearance.2da is in the 2da hak. I did not use the reserved lines for all the content so it is a bit disorganized. The Racialsubtypes.2da is not required unless you want to have them as a playable race. For the models and animation it would be easier to take them from the A2 release as they are lumped in with the model hak.

[Tchos]

Thanks, Shaughn. I've worked it out. More details in a couple of hours.

[Tchos]

It took a couple of hours to figure out which files I needed, and which I didn't, to get the customisable ogres into my module. I narrowed it down to 118 armour pieces, 10 textures, 70 body parts, 9 heads, and 1 line in the appearance.2da. It probably could have been done without changing the 2da if the parts were renamed to be appended to the vanilla resources, but either the Avlis 2 team or Shaughn chose to make a separate ogre appearance rather than edit the existing one, and it works, so I just left it that way.  I didn't import any blueprints, but I only found one anyway.

After looking through what's available here, I must say it seems more extensive than I had previously surmised, and I'm quite happy with it. Some of the heads should be noticeably different than the others even at a distance, especially the female ones. Yes, this includes female ogres! The bodies are the same as the male ones, but the heads at least show a distinct morphology. Scaling and colouration could also be used to create a dimorphism as is commonly seen in real-life biology. I don't know if there's any established precedent for size and colouration of female ogres in the D&D lore, though.

They all include optional facial hair, which in most cases are beards (for the males), and in the rest of the cases are a pair of deadlocks framing the face. The only thing missing is separately tintable hair. The skin tint affects the hair as well as the skin.

With all the tintable armour pieces and armour types, I don't think there's any more danger of fighting an army of ogre clones!

This amount of variation also bodes very well for a second module that I've been mulling over to follow some time after this one, which would heavily involve monster races as NPCs.

I spent several more hours creating blueprints for various classes of ogre, using these variations and armour pieces. I have the custom monster blueprint sets made by Storyteller, but his pack that included ogres had only one ogre variant -- probably because of the lack of customisation options in the model. So I made my own set, in the spirit of those made by Storyteller for other monsters. I started with barbarians, and made three variations on ogre barbarians conforming to the stats outlined for ogres with 4 barbarian levels in the Monster Manual.

Then I tested them out with my level 10 party of 5 for the module. Unfortunately, ogres (even CR 7 ogre barbarian-4s) are more or less trivial cannon fodder for a level 10 party of 5. I started by fighting the recommend 4 ogres at once, and I barely had a scratch on me at the end of it. They seem to go down with 3 or 4 good hits.

I tried again after placing twice as many of them in the lighthouse, and this time I did end up losing about half of my HP on my two tank characters, with the rest of my party being pretty much untouched. I'm not sure about this. I may have to lower the recommended player level to level 8 or so, and maybe suggest (but not enforce) keeping the party size at 4 members. I do all my testing on the hardest difficulty, using characters who have level-appropriate gear, and I want it to be at least reasonably difficult at that setting.

Whilst doing this testing, I found a bug that would have been terrible if I hadn't caught it here and now. It was possible to cast spells at the enemies on the other side of a wall in the lighthouse. I checked the 2DA, and confirmed that all of the wall pieces were set to block line of sight, but the wooden beams and posts were not. So I set the posts to block line of sight in the 2DA, and it functioned properly on the second test.



Due to the no-ceiling build of this area, though, the player can see what enemies are lying in wait for them, when they shouldn't be able to. I'll use a trigger to make them visible only once the players have gotten within at least another room's distance, in a way that won't put stealthy characters at a disadvantage.

Then I went through the SoZ and MotB folders to collect any useful scripts I might find there. I had collected some other resources from SoZ, and the campaign mod scripts, but not the generic scripts. And it was also interesting to go through the ones that I couldn't directly use, because you never know where you might find some function or routine similar to what you wanted to accomplish for a quest.

Next I made a couple of ogre shaman healers. I don't have any staves long enough for them to hold them 2-handed, though. Any suggestions?



Here's the current lineup. We have 3 barbarians, 2 shamans, and the bosses First Mate Scoursinge of the Fifty Lashes and Bosun Fiercejaw the Shrill. Ideally, Scoursinge would wield a whip, but since those don't exist in NWN2, I gave him a flail as the nearest available approximation.

Next I need to design some ogre rogues and fighters, and I think that's all I need as far as ogres go. Better grab your ogre-slaying knife! It's got a +9 against ogres!

Modifié par Tchos, 03 août 2012 - 10:27 .

[Shaughn78]

For your ogre weapons you could add the halberd (anchor pole-arm) from Evil Edison's Hill Giants. It may not be a staff but it would fit your nautical theme.

[Tchos]

True indeed, and it does fit the theme...do you think it would suffice as a healer's staff rather than a mêlée weapon?

[Shaughn78]

Sure, they'd be healer-butchers. If they run out of spells or are forced into melee they have 1d10 + str bonus. Just think of the attack of opportunity they could deliver against the player, especially if you add a few buff spells in their arsenal.

[Tchos]

I could do that, or I might want to save the anchor halberds for the ogre warpriest of Vaprak I realise I also want to have (though I'd recategorise it as a staff, for class purposes). Either way, I'll put it in.

Modifié par Tchos, 03 août 2012 - 11:51 .

[Tchos]

It was a P&P session day, but I got some work done anyway.

I designed a warpriest of Vaprak after reading of this god worshiped by ogres, and what their priests wear.

Next I set about writing a script that I had been putting off, which is kind of a cutscene script, except I'm doing it in the manner as is done in Valve games, as they have them in the Portal games, the Half-Life 2 games, and the Left 4 Dead games -- the approach is to not take control away from the player in order to show a movie. This is important to me. Instead, the scene occurs in the world in realtime, and the player can choose to either watch just as passively as s/he would in a normal cutscene, or walk around and choose different vantage points at leisure, perhaps RPing actual participation, or even leaving if preferred. It's strange to me that in role-playing games, arguably the genre of game most concerned with player agency, choice, and control, so many of them nevertheless frequently remove that control in the name of narrative, turning the player into a passive observer. It was especially bizarre in things like the NWN2 OC, where cutscenes would often show scenes that happen nowhere near the player, in secret, and in so doing they separate the player from the character, and reveal information that the PC should not know.

I prefer Valve's approach much more. The information you obtain is only information that is revealed in your direct presence, and you are never separated from your PC, nor is your control taken away unless the character itself is physically incapacitated in some way. I understand Skyrim takes an approach like this, though I haven't played it. As I've expressed before, I dislike that the majority of games have instead taken the path away from player agency toward passive entertainment, like movies, to relay certain information. That's why I'm relaying all information in other ways.

So, knowing what I wanted to accomplish, the task became to determine how to accomplish it. I first looked at the built-in scripts for scripted waypoints. While partially illuminating for other purposes, I decided they weren't very well-suited to this particular task.

I also looked into commands like AssignCutsceneActionToObject() and AssignCommand(), and all the commands that begin with the word "Action", because my understanding is that those commands are put into an NPC's action queue to be executed one at a time, as they are completed, rather than all at once as quickly as possible.

So I made a script that gets fired after closing the conversation with the player after completing a quest. I started by just writing comment lines of what things I wanted to happen, in the correct order, and then I set about looking for the right commands to make those happen. I filled out the script with a list of action commands to carry out, with walking, animation, spoken lines, emotes, and a special effect, and finally updating the journal after it was complete. These generally worked, though I needed to adjust the timing a couple of times with ActionWait(), and certain commands tended to interrupt the sequence and make it fail to complete. Another trouble was that I couldn't find a way to assign the journal-updating command to an action, so it kept updating immediately. I threw in a DelayCommand() to make it update after an estimated amount of time for the actions to be completed, but that's a non-optimal solution, since the assigned actions can take more or less time depending on whether anything's in the NPCs path when she's walking from one place to another. Also, one of the PlayVoiceChat() constants (the "cheer" one) did nothing, while another one worked.

However, I took another look at the UncleFB tavern scripts, and this time I was able to understand more of what I was looking at. I think I'm beginning to understand what they're doing, and how, and why he chose to do them that way. I had originally shied away from doing anything with a heartbeat for this task, but UncleFB's scripts use a heartbeat with a switch and local variables to determine whether to perform a task, and if so, which one(s). It looks much more robust, and resistant to breaking due to interruptions, because I can have a command or series of commands in separate cases, and on each heartbeat each case would first check to see if the task had been accomplished. If not, continue to do the task, and if so, set the variable for the next case, which the heartbeat will pick up on its next pulse. If that's how it works, then it opens up a whole new world of possibilities for setting up my character interactions! I had no idea that things could be scripted in that way. Exciting times!

Added to that, I can use the SetCustomHeartbeat() command within the cases to either speed up the heartbeat while tasks are being undertaken, or slow it down when the character is idle.

I think I'll rewrite this script to use that method instead, with of course the default case being "do nothing".

[kamal_]

Do you want an actual cutscene, or just for npc's to take specific actions while you are in a given radius/trigger?

[Tchos]

Because I don't know how you define the term, I'll describe it instead: It is a particular series of scripted actions that a single character takes in sequence, once only, upon the fulfillment of certain conditions. When the sequence is complete, the character returns to position, indicates that she wishes to speak to you again, and resumes an idle state, but with new conversation the next time you speak to her.

Modifié par Tchos, 05 août 2012 - 12:04 .

[kamal_]

Tchos wrote...

Because I don't know how you define the term, I'll describe it instead: It is a particular series of scripted actions that a single character takes in sequence, once only, upon the fulfillment of certain conditions. When the sequence is complete, the character returns to position, indicates that she wishes to speak to you again, and resumes an idle state, but with new conversation the next time you speak to her.

Ok, sounds like what you want isn't a "cutscene", just a one time action. This is pretty easy to accomplish by putting down a trigger to start the action when the player enters (or via a timer trigger or however else you want to do this), and making it happen once via a local int on thr trigger or something equivalent. The scripting is straightforward (same as generally taking an action, except only do it once and then go to a post when done) and can be done entirely via stock functions. There are places this happens in SoZ, such as with some guards in the outside of Candlekeep. To update the conversation you'd need to have the action scripting set a local int on the npc's, and then check for that int in their conversation.

[Tchos]

I agree it is pretty straightforward. I'm not actually having what I would call a problem with it. I'm not sure which example you're talking about (and I assume you mean Crossroad Keep, as Candlekeep is a location in Baldur's Gate), but I can look around for it later. What I have the character doing is over a dozen actions in sequence, though, and it updates the conversation with journal changes, because it's part of a quest.

[kamal_]

err, yeah, Crossroads Keep.

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

Technically, to get NPCs to do exactly what you want, when you want, not only do you have to give them a script, usually a queue of actions or DelayCommands, you also have to prevent the NPCs from being side tracked by their standard event scripts. You have to tell them to ignore perceived enemies, or rather you have to tell them to respond to them in a particular way. The use of the heartbeat scripts is really just a backup, since so many other events can unexpectedly derail a set of scripted actions.

Artistically, though, you have a lot more to think about. I think the egregious use of cut-scenes isn't just to make games look as exciting as movies, but because the grammar and structure of movies is the default way to understand plot and character. Early movies struggled in the same way; it took time before they figured out a grammar and structure that was distinct from stage plays and novels. If you're ever really bored, really nervous, and have a high tolerance for the offensive, watch "Birth of a Nation" all the way through, and you'll see the whole idea of what a movie is slowly start to come together.

The point, of course, is that if you're thinking in terms of a cut-scene, and you're not satisfied with what a cut-scene is, then you have to sit back and think about what you want to accomplish artistically with the moment, and how you can better accomplish that with the tools organic to a video game. In movies, people stand around, talk about things awhile, look really emotional, shout at each other a little bit, and then they make some big decision and the music swells. That doesn't really work in video games, not that it even happens that often in real life. People stumbling through life, with tensions brewing, and then something happens, usually something that no one really noticed at the time, and then everything's different. So let your players stumble through, let them feel the tension, and then let them know that's something's different. Don't think that you have to have that big dramatic moment.

In more prosaic terms, movies force us to look at certain things, through the camera. But with a game, you have to train the player to watch for things themselves. Combat works really well for this, as players tend to be really focused on combat and where the threats might come from, so it's relatively easy to play out a plot point using a battle, where the player navigates the battle and tries to understand its dynamics, who's winning and who's losing. Non-combat events can be harder, but the some logic applies. Give the player a meaningful way to navigate the situation, and they'll pay attention when something important changes. (and most of a cRPG really is just navigation, moving around in space, so you'll have to rely on space and movement to tell most of your story, not the emotional expressiveness of your NPC actors).

Sorry to be so long-winded, it's just that you seem to have a really strong artistic instinct about cut-scenes, and I hope you get that final push that gets you past them altogether.

[Tchos]

Firstly, I appreciate detailed replies, so there's no need to apologise for it.

I'm assuming you're talking about the 1915 silent film, and not the 1982 film, though I haven't seen either.  I did see Citizen Kane several times, though, once with Roger Ebert's commentary pointing out the innovations that became part of the standard visual language of film.

Now, it seems I was unclear about what I'm doing.  I'm not making cinematic cutscenes at all.  Maybe I should have linked to an example of the Valve method I was talking about, which is closer to what I'm doing.  I'll do that here, and tomorrow I should have a video of my version of that sort of thing.  A lot of my admiration for that style came from playing though the two Half-Life 2 episodes with developer commentary on, and listening to them explain their methods of communicating information to the player without taking their control away. Their whole design philosophy revolves around player control, according to the commentary.  Instead of cutscenes, they use what they call "vistas" and "gates" to guide the player's eye toward the necessary information, sometimes with NPCs helping along the way.

These are of course not RPGs, but games in which there is only one path through the whole thing, but I think the principle is ideal for an RPG.

If I need someone to notice something, instead of forcing them to look at it by using a camera, I'll have an NPC point at it and/or make a comment about it, maybe saying "Did you see that?" or something like that, with or without a voice emote.

At any rate, I think it should be clearer by tomorrow.

[PJ156]

This is an interesting concept and I look forward to your video. I use cutscenes a lot and I think they have a purpose. I can see what you are doing as being useful in passing on incidental information or fleshing out an area by having little cameos play out as the pc arrives. I will be interested to see if you can use it to pass on something plot critical.

For instance, I may be wrong but the first thing many player will do in a new area/location is hit the z key. If you have a chest in the room. I am willing to bet they will be looting that while your cameo is playing out  

I also believe that cut scenes have a powerful role in story development and immersion and thus perhaps both methods have a part to play. I read your comment that some cut scenes give information that the player should not have. May be so but as a player enjoying the story and becoming involved in it that is sometimes benificial. I like to use cutscenes before big battle where you hear the creatures perspective prior to the combat taking place. I think that adds depth to the encounter but it would not be available to the player in normal circumstances. People who have played my mods may disagree ...

Look forward to the vid to see what it is you have in mind.

PJ

[Tchos]

Well, I wasn't planning on using it to pass on plot-critical information, because unlike the Valve examples I was using, I also have several other methods available to use in NWN2 which I consider to be interactive. The most important information will always be transmitted through dialogue with characters, as well as a great deal of the background setting and flavour. I would say that the second most important method I'm using is readable notes and books, and other readables such as character and item descriptions, and pop-up DM text. So these optional scenes would rank third in importance, if that.

I would say that there's an opposite point of view regarding cutscenes and immersion, though, and that's that cutscenes can also interfere with immersion by pulling the character away from the player.

Allowing the player to go loot a chest while the scene is playing out, if that's what they would prefer to do with their character rather than sit and watch a passive cutscene, is exactly the sort of thing I want to do!

I agree that it's a good thing to allow a player to talk to an enemy before a big battle, just not to require it. Mainly because if it's a known enemy, such as the big boss, I want to make a preemptive strike with a stealthed character or open with a big AoE attack from a distance.

In this module, when the player approaches the bosses, if they have not yet been detected by the boss, then they will be given the option between calling for negotiations, rushing in "guns blazing" to try to catch them flat-footed, or the aforementioned sneak attacks or AoE. Unlike in the OC, where if you were scouting ahead with a super stealthy character, with your party waiting at a safe distance, once you got close to the boss, suddenly your entire party is teleported out into the open to be ambushed. Very irritating, and not what I would call immersive.

Modifié par Tchos, 05 août 2012 - 12:19 .