3 réponses à ce sujet

[Metari]

I owned, and attempted once to mod, NWN. I have downloaded and installed the DA:O toolset and I've started reading the wiki and will probably continue to do so at nights and on weekends.

The first question is: is this toolset and modding, be it full on campaigns or cutscenes or what have you, something that a first timer can hope to achieve?

The second question is: are there other tools that I need to create custom content?

My goal:

I have been attempting to write a fantasy based novella for about 10 years. I view this game as a great way to allow other people to play in my world. Ultimately I would love to have a team of other creators working with me, but for now I want to know that I can create some things on my own.

Thanks, and from the participation I've seen from the community so far I look forward to your responses.

[Rothmer]

start small.. create a simple area and build from there.. add in monsters, placeables, npcs ect. it lets you get a handle of the toolset

[Bibdy]

I'm essentially a first-timer myself. I never really got into the NWN Toolset (well, mostly I couldn't get into the game itself, so felt like modding it was a waste of time) and haven't done any kind of modding work since the original UnrealED and the only thing I ever released was a CTF map for Unreal Tournament.

About the only useful piece of knowledge I have in my belt is a course in C++ object oriented programming. I'm certainly not a programmer by trade and I'm still able to come up with some rudimentary scripts.

I think one of the easiest ways to learn this kind of stuff is by example and reverse-engineering, and fortunately you have absolutely everything the developers used to make this game at your disposal to dissect and understand. The tough part is sorting through all of the information to figure out which pieces are relevant to the one you're trying to take a look at. My suggestion is to start small, and work your way up.

The easiest thing to create is a level layout and I seriously suggest downloading and browsing through the files in this project to get a good understanding of how levels are put together. It also gives you an idea of what kind of objects are meant to go in a level, and what are meant to go in an Area (basically, everything that isn't usable).

In the 2 months of free time I've devoted to this thing I spent about 90% messing with gigantic levels, letting my inner perfectionist take over and pump out a few levels which look totally awesome. Only in the last couple of weeks have I really taken a look at Areas, Creatures, basic Scripts, Cutscenes, Conversations, Head Morphs and all of the other things that go into a level and I already feel confident enough in all of them that the only thing slowing me down on finishing the kind of adventure I want to create is time.

If it weren't for all of the examples and source code that the devs have given us, I wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of any of this stuff. So, my suggestion is look at the source code, pull out the tweezers and go to town.

[Metari]

Thanks for the replies, that really gives me hope to get started.