560 réponses à ce sujet

[ColorsFade]

I always remember being level 3 at the end of the prologue. But I tended to play dark elves the last couple times through, so that skews it.

I would like to get to level 20 for my campaign. In another one of my spreadsheets (yeah, I use a lot of 'em) I had it all kind of mapped out, as far as the four acts, where the player had to go, what they had to do, etc. Twenty levels seems doable and appropriate given the story and content.

It's just going to take time. The trick, I think, is being consistent; making sure I dedicate some time, every day, to the building process, whether it's 15 minutes or an hour, just being able to dive into the toolset and get something done.

And the other thing is learning all the shortcuts. Figuring out the fastest way to do task X, and then documenting that so the next time I have to do something similar, I know the fast way to do it.

[Friar]

ColorsFade wrote...

And the other thing is learning all the shortcuts. Figuring out the fastest way to do task X, and then documenting that so the next time I have to do something similar, I know the fast way to do it.

I too would benefit from documenting how I have done things. It is good you are so organized. I don't keep a spread sheet, but I scribble in a notebook. I have to do that or I will forget ideas I really like.

[ColorsFade]

koundog1 wrote...

I too would benefit from documenting how I have done things. It is good you are so organized. I don't keep a spread sheet, but I scribble in a notebook. I have to do that or I will forget ideas I really like.

I cannot recommend strongly enough keeping an electronic journal/spreadsheet of some kind with your notes, discoveries and techniques when developing mods. Mine has been invaluable and has saved me countless hours re-learning how to do something or digging up old documentation that I've already read once and now forgotten. 

Modifié par ColorsFade, 28 octobre 2013 - 12:25 .

[ColorsFade]

Journal Entry

Ah, success! 

So happy... figured out how to make two things work that I really wanted to do. 

First up: NPC's walking from one random building to another within town. 

This was something I wanted to do for a while to liven up the town. I have some guards walking waypoints, and then some commoners with their X2_L_SPAWN_USE_AMBIENT=1 variables set. so they will wander within a small radius. And that's all well and good. 

But what I really wanted was for NPC's to spawn at the doorstep of certain buildings (so it looks like they just came out), and then purposefully walk to another door at another building and then disappear again. This makes some of the NPC's look a bit more purposful, and it just adds to the ambience a bit, I think. 

Making it work was relatively easy, but the process of figuring out how to do it was not. 

At first, I thought I'd try a walk-waypoint system such as what my guards do. But this does not work well because the NPC's will walk the waypoints in between their current waypoint and their destination. So, for example, if the NPC is at waypoint 2 and you want them to go directly to waypoint 7, they will walk all the waypoints in between (duh, really, it's the walk waypoint system). That ends up not working so well because it looks dumb when an NPC walks up to a door and then quickly turns away. Not very purposeful. 

In the end, it was a bit simpler. Like the walk waypoint system, I have several waypoints all named the same, and sequentially, like WP_NPC_1, WP_NPC_2, etc. But instead of using a walk waypoint script, I use a Heartbeat script on the NPC. 

The HB script first checks a local variable on the NPC to see if a destination WP has been selected. If none has been selected, it choose one of the designated waypoints at random. 

Once the NPC has a selected a waypoint to travel to, we use the Move command, being careful to clear all actions beforehand.

Sidebar: I have UserDefined Percption scripts for most commoners and guards so they will bark certain dialog lines (but not at the PC, because that stops the PC from running). The problem with this is that a guard can cause a purposeful NPC to stop and not resume their walking, unless you ClearAllActions(). 

So, the NPC walks on his merry way. When the NPC gets within 1.0f of the waypoint, we then switch to the ForceExit command. The NPC then disappears on the doorstep of whatever building they've arrived at, making it look like they just went inside. 

The Area HB script, meanwhile, monitors the area for the number of spawned NPC's who are purposeful. The Area has a variable that tells it what creature TAG to look for, and it monitors the count of those creatures. The Area also has variables for MAX and MIN number of creatures that should be spawned at any given time. The HB runs, checks the count, and if too few NPC's exist, it spawns new ones at random waypoints. Once spawned, the NPC's HB scripts does the rest. 

What I like is that most of the important data is contained with 5 variables on the Area itself (easily exported and imported) and since the HB script relies on a tag to look for a particular blueprint, this can work for more than just commoners (I have 4 commoner blueprints right now, and will be adding a bunch more; they are named sequentially, and the script knows to look for sequentially named blueprints of a certain tag, because that TAG is set on the Area Variables. Change the tag, and the scripting system would use a different set of creaures).

So it was pretty cool to see if finally work, and to watch these NPC's spawn and walk to a building, and to watch guards hail them when they got close.

The second thing was seated guards.

I  have a barracks that the player visits quite a bit in this first act, the proloque. Triel is a small mott and bailey town, and the barracks is a key point if interest for quests and such. I have a couple tables and some benches setup, and I wanted some of the guards to be seated there. 

I tried a number of methods and looked at just about every thread on here. In the end, I opted for another HB script on a special guard blueprint. 

The benches I set to static and walkable, and then I placed several waypoints at each of the places where I wanted seated guards to spawn and sit. Each time the PC enters the area, the OnClient fires and the script randomly selects a couple of the sitting locations (there are 8 possible) and spawns guards. Their HB scripts cause them to sit. 

The cool part is that every time the PC zones into the area there are different guards in different seats, so it just makes it a little less static. You're not entering the barracks and saying, "Damn, those three guys are ALWAYS there...). It's a small thing, but I like it. And now that it's setup it's even easier to do next time I want to. 

The other thing I did was use a walkmesh cutter to create a barrier around the tables and benches so the player can't walk through the benches or mess anything up. 

Pretty happy getting all that done. The town seems a bit more alive now.

[Dann-J]

ColorsFade wrote...

At first, I thought I'd try a walk-waypoint system such as what my guards do. But this does not work well because the NPC's will walk the waypoints in between their current waypoint and their destination.

That doesn't have to be the case. Scripted waypoints can send the NPC off to any other waypoint you want, without having to walk those in between. I used a system like that in the temple of Dugmaren Brightmantle in Isle of Shrines. It's great for randomising wandering, since you never know what path they'll take if there are non-walkable areas or other NPCs in the way.

ColorsFade wrote...

The benches I set to static and walkable, and then I placed several waypoints at each of the places where I wanted seated guards to spawn and sit. Each time the PC enters the area, the OnClient fires and the script randomly selects a couple of the sitting locations (there are 8 possible) and spawns guards. Their HB scripts cause them to sit.

I'm currently using a slightly different technique. I've made sittable objects usable so the player can click on them and sit down as well. I also have an ipoint running a HB script that randomly selects nearby NPCs, checks that they're not currently doing anything other than wandering, checks for an available seat, then tells them to stop walking waypoints and commands them to run up and use the seat placeable. The seat's own scripts then take care of the sitting, until the ipoint HB decides their time is up. Then their walk waypoint system is turned back on, and they dutifully stand up and walk away of their own accord.

The tricky part was checking whether the usable placeable was still available by the time they got there, since the player could potentially bird-dog their seat. I made sure the ipoint HB constantly checked that the seat they were to use was unoccupied, and changed the target to another seat if necessary.

[ColorsFade]

[quote]DannJ wrote...

That doesn't have to be the case. Scripted waypoints can send the NPC off to any other waypoint you want, without having to walk those in between. I used a system like that in the temple of Dugmaren Brightmantle in Isle of Shrines. It's great for randomising wandering, since you never know what path they'll take if there are non-walkable areas or other NPCs in the way.

[/quote]

I will have to check that out. 

[quote]DannJ wrote...
I'm currently using a slightly different technique. I've made sittable objects usable so the player can click on them and sit down as well. I also have an ipoint running a HB script that randomly selects nearby NPCs, checks that they're not currently doing anything other than wandering, checks for an available seat, then tells them to stop walking waypoints and commands them to run up and use the seat placeable. The seat's own scripts then take care of the sitting, until the ipoint HB decides their time is up. Then their walk waypoint system is turned back on, and they dutifully stand up and walk away of their own accord.

The tricky part was checking whether the usable placeable was still available by the time they got there, since the player could potentially bird-dog their seat. I made sure the ipoint HB constantly checked that the seat they were to use was unoccupied, and changed the target to another seat if necessary.[/quote]

I tried several systems off the vault for sittable chairs and none of them worked. I could never get my NPC to sit down. 
[/quote]

I'd be interested in see your code regarding this. 

Modifié par ColorsFade, 31 octobre 2013 - 04:55 .

[Dann-J]

Chair OnUse script:
http://pastebin.com/w9eFSte1 

Chair HB script:
http://pastebin.com/1Ybkvqdv 

The scripts use my Handy VFX.

Modifié par DannJ, 30 octobre 2013 - 10:14 .

[ColorsFade]

Thank you DannJ!

I'll give that a try and see if I can make it work.

[ColorsFade]

Journal Entry

You gotta love weekends!

I often find myself staring at my to-do list and seeing certain things on the list that are pretty big. And as Tchos mentioned in his latest journal entry, sometimes things are daunting enough they prevent you from wanting to start a session in the toolkit. 

I like weekends because there more contiguous time so I can actually tackle some of the bigger stuff. 

I am down the final areas for the prologue, and one of those areas I had created in a very broad stroke, but I had not done anything else. The spawn-in script had not been written, nothing had been scripted, etc. I wanted to open this area up with a nice cut-scene to setup the encounter, then do the encounter, then close it off with another cut-scene. And to me, cut-scenes just mean "work". There's the whole conversation which has to be done right and flow correctly, and then there's the actor setup, and any movement (which there was in this case), etc. It's just a bit of work to get it done and I often find myself avoiding an entire area and encounter because I know cut-scenes are involved. 

But this weekend I had time, contiguous time, so I dug in got to work. And it was pretty cool to work on this encounter and area. As I kept working on it and working on it, I kept adding more stuff to the area, and coming up with little details to make it look and feel better. I know I've written about this before, but that whole organic process of creation is very good. I start out with one idea, and it doesn't change, per se, but it grows, and that always seems to make the area and encounters better. They look better, they feel better. 

So this area is almost done now, and with some of the other time I had left this weekend I kept picking off small things from the to-do list and getting those done. 

I did spend a considerable amount of time trying to get POST_ and NIGHT_ waypoints to work across areas, but alas, they just don't.

I have several "Caravan Driver" NPC's wandering around inside the gates of Triel (spawned at their individual POST_ waypoints), with their caravans parked and such. It's a great look for the daytime, and when they're wandering around interacting with each other and firing off barkstrings at each other (courtesy of the X2_L_SPAWN_USE_AMBIENT variable) it all looks very neat and lively. But what I wanted them to do was travel to the inn at night and visit their NIGHT_ waypoints.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work (even with the X2_SWITCH_CROSSAREA_WALKWAYPOINTS variable turned on for the module). 

I started thinking about how I could script it out, and while it's doable, it seemed like way too much time and effort for something that wasn't crucial to the story. So, I gave them campfires that light up and night and called it good. 

I still may revisit this... we'll see. The issue is that any script written isn't going to be as generic as I'd like. I can make it generic, but then every NPC is going to need about four varaibles on their creature to make it work. But... I hate feeling defeated. I know I can do this. So... we'll see. 

Anyway, a good weekend of modding. There's only one last "area" (which will probably end up being one exterior and two interiors) left for the prologue. I'm fairly excited about that. The prologue is coming to a close. 

And then the real fun begins. I have to create Scornubel. 

[kamal_]

I want to say there's a Scornubel prefab on the Vault, but don't remember for sure.

[ColorsFade]

kamal_ wrote...

I want to say there's a Scornubel prefab on the Vault, but don't remember for sure.

Adam Miller did a mod named Shadowlord that takes place around there. I'll check it out and see how much I want to use. 

I've spent quite a bit of time looking at maps and such and have an idea in my head... So I may try and use it (with permission) or may not. 

[rjshae]

ColorsFade wrote...

I have several "Caravan Driver" NPC's wandering around inside the gates of Triel (spawned at their individual POST_ waypoints), with their caravans parked and such. It's a great look for the daytime, and when they're wandering around interacting with each other and firing off barkstrings at each other (courtesy of the X2_L_SPAWN_USE_AMBIENT variable) it all looks very neat and lively. But what I wanted them to do was travel to the inn at night and visit their NIGHT_ waypoints.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work (even with the X2_SWITCH_CROSSAREA_WALKWAYPOINTS variable turned on for the module). 

I started thinking about how I could script it out, and while it's doable, it seemed like way too much time and effort for something that wasn't crucial to the story. So, I gave them campfires that light up and night and called it good. 

Yes, it does take quite a bit of extra effort to get NPC scheduled behavior working. I've got it set up for a town area and it required a fair amount of script tweaking and refinement to make something passable. (The X2_SWITCH_CROSSAREA_WALKWAYPOINTS didn't work properly for me either--part of it is a dependence on which area the PC is in when it runs.)

[andysks]

Tried it as well, it doesn't work. Had the same feeling of defeat. You could give a try to kamal's commoner AI. I only use the generics, but I think there are more. It's a heavy system if you're going to use it though.
I also tried stuff like NPCs walking to the end of the road and disappearing, NPCs walk towards a street musician and seem like leaving some gold, and the musician on his turn thanking... many things. So I guess, even if you got half the stuff you want right, your city is going to be alive.
It seems we always set the bar really high, but maybe in our subconsciousness we know we can only get half things working. So the defeating feeling is not so bad when these things work. Imagine if the bar was not high... and also nothing worked .

[kamal_]

rjshae wrote...

ColorsFade wrote...

I have several "Caravan Driver" NPC's wandering around inside the gates of Triel (spawned at their individual POST_ waypoints), with their caravans parked and such. It's a great look for the daytime, and when they're wandering around interacting with each other and firing off barkstrings at each other (courtesy of the X2_L_SPAWN_USE_AMBIENT variable) it all looks very neat and lively. But what I wanted them to do was travel to the inn at night and visit their NIGHT_ waypoints.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work (even with the X2_SWITCH_CROSSAREA_WALKWAYPOINTS variable turned on for the module). 

I started thinking about how I could script it out, and while it's doable, it seemed like way too much time and effort for something that wasn't crucial to the story. So, I gave them campfires that light up and night and called it good. 

Yes, it does take quite a bit of extra effort to get NPC scheduled behavior working. I've got it set up for a town area and it required a fair amount of script tweaking and refinement to make something passable. (The X2_SWITCH_CROSSAREA_WALKWAYPOINTS didn't work properly for me either--part of it is a dependence on which area the PC is in when it runs.)

Uncle FB's ai scripts do cross area movement iirc. It was something of his I removed.

[PJ156]

< Agreeing with Kamal_ >

I use FB's scripts in my mod, they do everything you need and more. Sure you can write your own or you can use his and get on with Scournubel

PJ

[ColorsFade]

PJ156 wrote...

< Agreeing with Kamal_ >

I use FB's scripts in my mod, they do everything you need and more. Sure you can write your own or you can use his and get on with Scournubel

PJ

I'll have to check out Uncle FB's. 

I ended up writing my own script this morning. It worked. It wasn't overly hard to setup. The NPC's just need one HB script and two variables assigned to their blueprint. It's flexible enough I could use it elsewhere. The HB script checks the time of day to determine if they are in the correct area or not. If they need to move, they start moving to a "transition" waypoint (local variable) and when they reach it, they jump to the other transition waypoint. Then they finish walking to their assigned WP. So the caravan drivers walk from their caravan cart to the front door of the inn, jump iside the inn, and walk to a waypoint somewhere in the inn. Then, since they have the animations turned on, they all start interacting. Morning comes and they wall walk out. To keep them from flooding the doorway though, I added some randomness to their start. Once they realize they are not located where they are supposed to be, they randomly decide,"Should I go now?" If not, then next heartbeat, and so forth. Keeps them from looking like a marching mob. That said, it's pretty cool to see nightfall and watch them head for the inn. 

However, I'll take a look at Uncle FB's, because if his doesn't it better then I want to use that. I want a consistent system for the cities. 

The mods I found that have Scornubel areas were all NWN1. I found The Red Prison mod for NWN2 and it uses the Scornubel Market prefab and one other area. Neither were quite what I was envisioning for the city or its docks, so I'm going to go it from scratch and go with what I have in my head, because I like that better. It will be fun to setup.

And we'll see if we can't make use of some RWS stuff for the undercity and the Crypt of Wondermen... (insert evil laugh). 

[ColorsFade]

andysks wrote...

So I guess, even if you got half the stuff you want right, your city is going to be alive.

That's the thing right there. It doesn't need to mimic real life, but it needs to be active enough to bring the city to life. And the other consideration I have is I want stuff that is easily repeatible. I want to be able to set this up in other areas/cities with ease, because there are at least two more prominent cities in this campaign that need to feel alive. 

andysks wrote...
It seems we always set the bar really high, but maybe in our subconsciousness we know we can only get half things working. So the defeating feeling is not so bad when these things work. Imagine if the bar was not high... and also nothing worked .

Well, if we wanted to play a low-bar mod there are plenty out there I think we set the bar high because we know there is more the toolset can do, and if we're going to devote years of our lives to making games, we should make something worthwhile. 

I just keep thinking about the experience I want the player to have when it's done. My number one goal is to make this thing as bug-free as possible. Hence all my test scripts and extensive testing that I do on conversations, encounters, etc. 

The second thing is I just want to give players something fun. I want people to play the campaign, get an hour into it, and not want to turn it off. That's a lofty goal, but I think an admirable one. 

[ColorsFade]

Journal Entry

Some cool stuff happening the last couple of days. 

Cut-Scene Party Movement

For starters, I finally got a script working to move the whole party at once during a cut-scene. This was super cool because there is at least one other place where I need to use this. Happy to have it working. 

Companion Management

I've documented this here before, and I've gone back and forth so frequently: do I use the roster GUI to manage the party, or conversation? Well, after a lot of experimentation and digging around and understanding what scripts are using what calls, I've changed it back to converasations. 

Conversations are pretty darn easy. I don't enjoy the copy-paste between all the companion dialogs to make sure they all work, but I do enjoy the benefits of doing it this way. I enjoy having the companions who are NOT in the group show up at their hangout waypoints in the inns and other locations in the game. That's nice and takes minimal effort. 

Also, it was easier to setup once I understood what function calls to use. 

I did some digging around in the scripts and such and learned that in the OC they were making a call where they were, at the start of the module, adding all the companions to the roster. From there, you can use a couple really simple conventions and script calls to make it all work nicely. 

I ended up writing a short function called PutCompanionsInPlace(). It iterates through the companions in my campaign, and makes a call to a second function I wrote called PutCompanionInPlace. That function checks to see if the companion is already in the party. If they aren't, it calls SpawnNonPartyRosterMemberAtHangout() and that places them where they need to be. 

I did quite a bit of testing with asking companions to enter and leave the group, zoning out, coming back in, seeing them there, etc. I like it because if you happen to be in the inn when you dismiss a party member, they walk to their hangout spot, which is nice as well. 

So, conversations it is. 

Stronghold

One of the things I like about going to conversations and having the companions hangout in various locations is that it's going to breath some life into the player's stronghold. 

I've been spending a lot of my evening walk time thinking about two things. One is Scornubel, and the other is the stronghold. I don't want to put a stronghold in the game just to have one; it needs a purpose, IMO. I have one, and I like it. But also having it as a convenient place for the companions to gather is going to be a boon as well. 

One Area Left

I have one area left for the prologue and then the thing is done. I probably have a couple more cut-scenes to script out, but I can feel the finish line for the prologue. 

Scornubel

I dug around a little bit and found one person who had created two areas for Scornubel. And they're nice areas and all, just not quite the way I imagined things. So I started going some work to map out how I am going to do it. 

Scornubel is going to be a big place, but it's a pretty major player in the game, as far as locations go. I have it mapped out as: 

• North Green (city center, Watch HQ, city leader, some other stuff; this is your first entrance)
• Docks
• The Walk (open air market)
• East Green (trading costers; necessary for some story elements as well)

Other locations of note: Sewers and The Crypt of Wondermen

There are actually three greens in Scornubel. The Green, the North Green, and the East Green. I decided to bunch up the North Green with the city center, and to only have one other green dedicated to trading costers, horse stables and paddocks. For story purposes it's enough, and it shouldn't hurt anyone's feelings that the Westernmost Green didn't make the cut. But it really is redundant. 

As I read about lore and location and all manner of other interesting things, I just got more and more excited to build this thing. I think this is part of the reason I'm pushing to get the prologue done. I want to put this city together. 

I opened up Kamal's Crimmor the other day so I could see what that looked like. Kamal has done a neat job with it (the dungeon master guide at the beginning is a real treat). Scornubel certainly is nothing like Crimmor, but it was inspirational to see the way he used some placeables and such. 

So... I'm excited to build those areas and to take what I've learned while building the prologue and apply it. Building the prologue has taught me a lot, and I've learned a lot of efficient ways to do things. I'm curious how much faster I can build Scornubel's areas now that I actually know what I'm doing. 

This is going to be a fun city to spend time in. 

[andysks]

Conversations are pretty darn easy. I don't enjoy the copy-paste between all the companion dialogs to make sure they all work, but I do enjoy the benefits of doing it this way. I enjoy having the companions who are NOT in the group show up at their hangout waypoints in the inns and other locations in the game. That's nice and takes minimal effort.

I would really be interested in hearing the whole thing here. I love this system, but I am not sure I really got what you do. Do you still have a global roster? I mean, can you for example add and remove companions while in a dungeon and so on, or just by finding them and talking?
In any case, I cannot express how much I would love a documentation on the system, provided you have some time of course .


 

Scornubel is going to be a big place

So far you got 2 huge cities if I get it right. Can't wait to explore them .

This is going to be a fun city to spend time in.

Keep up the exitement and fine work.

Andy.

Modifié par andysks, 08 novembre 2013 - 12:18 .

[kamal_]

ColorsFade wrote...
I opened up Kamal's Crimmor the other day so I could see what that looked like. Kamal has done a neat job with it (the dungeon master guide at the beginning is a real treat). Scornubel certainly is nothing like Crimmor, but it was inspirational to see the way he used some placeables and such.

I put the DM in the start area (I did the same in Path of Evil) to give the player an information dump on whatever topics I think they might have questions about, a sort of ingame FAQ to start the game. The DM also serves to tell the player about anything that's unique to the campaign and provide a basic tutorial on anything unique gameplay wise (for example, the Crimmor DM tells the player about the lockpicking and trick secret doors, and there are examples of these in the start area).

The player must talk to the DM to unlock the door leaving the area, so it guarantees that the player at least has a chance to get told this, and if they ignore it then it's the player's fault.

The stock toolset includes the DM, the npc is named Dungeon Master, and is modeled after the Dungeon Master character from the old DnD cartoon from the 80's.

[ColorsFade]

andysks wrote...

I would really be interested in hearing the whole thing here. I love this system, but I am not sure I really got what you do. Do you still have a global roster? I mean, can you for example add and remove companions while in a dungeon and so on, or just by finding them and talking?
In any case, I cannot express how much I would love a documentation on the system, provided you have some time of course .

I can probably put some documentation once it's in place. I only have thing I am unsure about and I want to test it first. 

andysks wrote...
So far you got 2 huge cities if I get it right. Can't wait to explore them .

Nah, just one big one and two smaller ones. 

Triel is a small fort town. It's got a big fence around it and two "hills". It has about 9 or 10 buildings in it. There's a lot to do there, for a prologue I think. Certainly more than what you had to do in the OC in West Harbor. But it's one zone. 

Scornubel is the biggie. Four outdoor zones, then the sewers, the Crypt of Wondermen, and then a bunch of interiors. There should be a lot to do here. 

The third spot is Hill's Edge. I'm undecided on quite how to do it, but I think it's just going to be a one-zone exterior with all the appropriate interiors. I saw a prefab that sparked my brain and I'm going to try and make it visually interesting... It's supposed to be a real den of thieves sort of town. Walled, lots of smiths and such, and a real hub for adventurers and monster hunters, which makes it quite different from Scornubel, which is more of a caravan town and exists for trade purposes. Hill's Edge should have, if I can do it right, a bit darker of an edge to it. But it won't be huge. Compared to Scornubel it's population is quite small. 

andysks wrote...
Keep up the exitement and fine work.

Thanks! I will!

[ColorsFade]

kamal_ wrote...
The DM also serves to tell the player about anything that's unique to the campaign and provide a basic tutorial on anything unique gameplay wise (for example, the Crimmor DM tells the player about the lockpicking and trick secret doors, and there are examples of these in the start area). 

That's what I thought was pretty cool. Crimmor has a lot of unique aspects to it, so the DM was incredibly useful to me for getting started. I thought it was pretty valuable that way. 

[ColorsFade]

andysks wrote...

Do you still have a global roster? I mean, can you for example add and remove companions while in a dungeon and so on, or just by finding them and talking?

Technically, yes. It uses the global roster. 

One of the companions you meet early in the prologue, you meet on the road. As you are headed to the town of Mapleshade, I check to see if it's your first time in Mapleshade. If it is, I divert the player to the road area and initiate the encounter. You can add the companion at that moment, after the encounter and the cut-scene is over, or you can decline to take them in your group, at which point they are despawned and saved out of the game. They then become available at the inn in Triel next time you visit. 

I believe the way I have it setup I can still use the roster GUI, but I haven't verified it via a real good test yet. That happens tomorrow or this weekend. 

[ColorsFade]

Exceedingly happy with one small thing this morning, and that is seated dynamic commoners in the inn.

Thanks to kamal's suggestion, I tried Apep's dynamic commoners, and it was just what I was looking for. It's a simple script and variable set and now I have dynamic commoners. I think what I liked most was that he went to the trouble to dynamically do their soundset too, which was a nice touch.

I modified my seated spawn script to be much more dynamic. Now all I need is a waypoint with a couple variables on it and for the waypoint to be named wp_seat. I spread those around my inn at all the benches and chairs, and bingo: randomized commoners sitting and chatting, drinking and eating. Really cool.

My script does some randomization of it's own, determining if it should use a male or female blueprint, and which of the six of Apep's to use. The percentage chance of a male/female, or of someone even being in the seat, is randomized and controlled by a variable on the waypoint. If the waypoint doesn't specify a particular variable I have default values to use. It's going to make it really easy later to have seated ladies in a brothel, for instance...

Dynamic Commoners though.. that is huge. I was not looking forward to generating all the blueprints I was going to need for a big city like Scornubel, or having to export commoners from someone else's work. This solves a problem in a quite good and easy way.

[andysks]

I wish I had found this some months ago, when I did almost 100 unique commoners that roam the Capital City of my campaign .