14 réponses à ce sujet

[Friar]

Aside from Aurora, I have never seen a better toolkit for a game that allows you countless options to create 3D RPG worlds. Electron lets you adjust the sizes of 3D objects; allowing you to stretch it any which way you want. It is really a very powerful game engine and it would be great if it let me create my adventures and stories.

I guess this is my rant of frusteration after several years of trying to learn this thing and get it to do what I want.

After a break from trying to create Al-Qadim I tried some other game toolkits. I keep coming back to this one and I don't know why. I try to do a simple thing such as trigger a conversation when the PC opens a door and the trigger doesn't fire. But if I go and look where the trigger worked fine in my interior area I see no difference. I used to think I wasn't experienced enough to make things like this happen. O always knew there were bugs but I have cared too much about what I could do and not about what I can't do. I see where I have made things happen before and then fall hard finding that I cannot recreate the same effect someplace else. I've seen people accomplish what I want to accomplish, but for me it doesn't happen! It doesn't happen because this is the worst toolset I have ever seen! lol!

But it's not just the situation of a door failing to respond correctly to the somewhat obscure script gp_talk_door. It's everything that involves being able to create some of the places I dream about. It's about creating places that exist nowhere on this planet and then trying to make a fun adventure in them and then realizing I'll never being able to share it with anyone.

I hate this toolkit and whats worse is it might be the best toolkit ever. Why do I keep coming back?

Arrrrrrgggggg! frusteration!

[Friar]

Password you always have such a optimistic way of looking at it all.

As far as the door you're probably right about it needing to be locked it's just that if it isn't the door then it's something else.

I wanted originally to fire off a conversation with a static camera looking in through gate doors once they open.

But I probably have been too rigid with my use of the toolset. I try to be flexible but it seems like it kills the mood or spirit from which the story flows.

[Lugaid of the Red Stripes]

koundog1 wrote...
But I probably have been too rigid with my use of the toolset. I try to be flexible but it seems like it kills the mood or spirit from which the story flows.

I can sympathize with this.  It's fun to tell the story/create the game you want, and stretch and bend the toolset to make it work.  Once you've mastered the basics, though, there's a tendency to just to tell the story that the toolset lets you tell.

If you keep with it, though, you'll reach a place where you can draw your inspiration from the toolset itself, the possiblities you see and how you could build a story around them.  Then things flow with a lot less frustration.

In general, though, Electron is an odd, misbegotten creation.  Aurora had a clear purpose as a 3D DnD module maker, but when it's limits became too appearant (graph-paper exteriors), they tacked on some extra capabilities.  But the toolset, and moreso the scripts, are filled with bits and pieces stretching all the way back to 2001, things that never quite worked right and were pasted over with new kludgey solutions that fail a little bit less often. 

Parly because it's such an open, kludgey, mess, it's also the most versitle toolset out there.  All the more rationally designed toolsets try to keep things simple and keep the user from doing anything too dangerous.

[Dann-J]

I frequently have scripts running off unlocked doors. You have to keep in mind that different objects and different script slots require different script functions in order to get the character that triggered the script.

For painted-down triggers it'd be GetEnteringObject for an OnEnter script.

For usable placeables or doors, GetLastUsedBy retreives the user for an OnUsed script (or an OnOpen script for a door), while GetClickingObject retrieves the user for an OnClick script (which runs as soon as you click on something, instead of waiting for the character to run up to it).

For locked doors, you might want to fire the script from the OnFailedToOpen script slot. It's useful for starting a conversation with the door that explains something about a special lock, or asks you to enter some sort of code or speak a password to open it.

[andysks]

I know what you mean with the confussion and all. I myself am no master of the toolset and for the first year I couldn't go anywhere without the guides. Yesterday, I spent hours staring at the ceiling trying to figure out how to do something, which I am certain for some people is quite easy. One example is, that I have a tavern, with people sitting and drinking... a simple hb script. I put this on another tavern and they don't do it. I rebake, I recreate the NPC I change placeables to no avail. Then, as password said... I say screw this. If you don't wanna sit down... stand on your feet you moronic tavern patron!

[Friar]

Thanks Lugaid, and I still greatly appreciate your modules. I actually replayed both Dana'an back in July while waiting for Shadowrun Returns to release on steam.

The door situation is fixed I used yet another speak trigger coupled with a open door script in the conversation. It achieved what I needed but like I said it's just so frustrating running into so many bumps.

If it's not something small like the door then it is something big like making my bridge cross-able. You lay down walkmesh helpers then you lay down walkmesh cutters then you decide to scrap it and just raise the ground to where its barely underneath the bridge. Then you can't get past the fact that you compromised on something you really wanted in the environment.

The environment is the last thing I'd expect to have problems with, but it just goes to show this is the worst toolset I've ever been so fortunate to use!

By the way Password, do you still have that script that makes a "bard play the drum with one hand and the flute with the other whilst sitting on the bar in the tavern watching the barmaid dancing."???
lol!

Dann, I have used the locked door script to fire a speak trigger. Thats why I was so frusterated before because it seemed to work fine there but when I wanted a conversation to start when I opened a gate it wouldn't work. In the scene I'm using; it wouldn't make sense for the gate to be locked. But it works fine just a little bump when I have a very long story to implement.
I don't like running into these kinds of problems when I'm not even past my prologue. I'd understand if I were in Act I or Act II but I'm just trying to get off my feet in the prologue.

Andysks, good luck with your mod. I've stared at the ceiling a lot too. We'd probably agree that the electron toolset helps us get to sleep. I've taken so many naps thanks to this piece of work.

[kamal_]

koundog1 wrote...
If it's not something small like the door then it is something big like making my bridge cross-able. You lay down walkmesh helpers then you lay down walkmesh cutters then you decide to scrap it and just raise the ground to where its barely underneath the bridge. Then you can't get past the fact that you compromised on something you really wanted in the environment.

By the way Password, do you still have that script that makes a "bard play the drum with one hand and the flute with the other whilst sitting on the bar in the tavern watching the barmaid dancing."???
lol!

How to do almost whatever you want with a walkmesh. kamalpoe.blogspot.com/2012/08/making-walkmesh-and-ground-be-two.html

Handle pretty much all your environmental ai needs, musicians for each instrument, several varieties of dancers, etc, all completely via pre-written heartbeat scripts: nwvault.ign.com/View.php

For non-"standard" settings such as al-Qadim, it's not so much a problem of geography (the toolset does deserts just fine), as lack of placeables (particularly buildings, but also general stuff) for different cultures.

[Friar]

@Password, setplayer use imagination? Thats awesome

Thank Kamal, you know I get so worried about playing too much with the walkmesh. You make a good point of backing up files which is why now I've created templates of areas.

You know the non standard setting hasn't turned out to be as much of a problem as I cried about 6 months ago. Then when I lost my skydome and a couple of standard textures somehow fiddling with my hak pak I decided to take a break.

So, I've been using RWS_adobe. I don't think anyone could realize the potential in some of these tiny placeables had they not been as obsessed with this project as I have been. Which is one reason why this is the best toolset ever. Im tempted to post some pics of the spiraling minarets I created using simple household items but I'll hold out and use it as incentive for me finishing. So yeah, this is the best toolset ever, but I loathe it!

I can build beautiful Arabian cities finally and I can take an inventory item that brings up a .tga map allowing the player to not have to run to every location if they don't want to, and then I can say it is a magic flying carpet and it seems to all work until I test the mod! I can combine haks to allow hatsplosion and adobe building, slithering Nagas and gelatinous cubes. I can finally complete the hak I need to make everything I think I will need and then I can get into the toolkit and find textures missing. I have finished dialogue that spans for nearly three acts with a journal taboot but I think I will have to re write it because I can't do half the things I wanted it to do. It's all there but I can't do it! I hate this thing. But its so cool too.

This might be insanity. But to preserve my dignity I will call it art instead.

[MokahTGS]

I have never really found another game/toolkit that gives me the options and capabilities that NWN2 does. This includes NWN. No toolset will ever be perfect, but the tools in this toolkit are the most abundant.

Also...always post pictures...pictures inspire other authors.

[Friar]

[Friar]

That's my interpretation of Huzuz, the City of Delights. Because it is the biggest and best city in the Forgotten Realms of Zakhara I decided to only allow players to see it at a distance and preserve their imagination with the wonders it holds. The city sparkles a little, but you can't tell in a measley screenshot. :/
Details on Huzuz found here:
Jeff Grubb (August 1992). Land of Fate (Adventurer's Guide to Zakhara), p. 63-69. TSR, Inc.

This is at the beginning of the game. Players will actually leave here and go to their family's home in Halwa. Halwa is a little more dusty and austere, but it has a bustling trade because its where the Al-Badia nomads and Al-Hadhar city folk merge. It is also experiencing some steep political upheaval which is where your character comes in.
Anyway, Halwa is detailed here:
Jeff Grubb (August 1992). Land of Fate (Adventurer's Guide to Zakhara), p. 58-60.

Basically, your PC is returning home at a bad time. The good news is that if he makes it through these tough times and helps his hometown then he will eventually become a mighty corsair traveling the seas and finding stranger and more wonderful islands than what you might have remembered in:
A Genie's Curse. Strategic Simulations Inc., Cyberlore Studios, 1994.

I like trilogies and there is probably too much for three titles but I don't have any business talking about that since title one hits so many bumps. Its pathetic, I've been at this, off and on, for almost seven years trying to learn this thing.

Modifié par koundog1, 13 septembre 2013 - 10:28 .

[rjshae]

Yeah, the toolset can be a pain in the buns sometimes. I seem to spend 80% of my time getting that final 20% to work properly. Some things I really wanted to do, I had to give up just because it would have taken so much effort to achieve that it just wouldn't be worth it. Still, it remains a very powerful tool with infinite possibilities.

[kevL]

I just wish the pain i get in my gut when I click "Load toolset" would go away...

but yeah, it's the only one out there.