423 réponses à ce sujet

[Pstemarie]

The Amethyst Dragon wrote...

Is the CEP really such a complicated thing that it requires tools designed for multiple software developers to manage?

It's just a (big) set of haks, a .tlk file, and a starter module.

Why not do something simpler?

Made a fix?  Added something via 2da?  Submitting something brand new?  Just zip/rar/7z it up, attach it to an email, and send it to nwncep@gmail.com.  I download it into my "CEP Pending" folder, do an online backup (I've got like 198 extra GB on my website account I already pay for), get things merged in, and backup the merged haks.  Every once in a while post an update on the new Vault.

I looked at Dropbox, but a free account is only 2 GB and I don't feel like spending money for a "premium" account.  While the 7z-compressed CEP (currently) comes in at under 800 MB, I could see multiple people putting stuff in the dropbox account quickly swelling it beyond the limit.

I tend to agree with you once again. The only reason I suggested some kind of tracker was so other people looking at submitting fixes or addons have some idea what others are working on. This could be as simple as a table on a wiki where users submit basic information about what they are doing. However, the bottom-line is that, despite the best intentions of everyone posting in this thread, TAD will most likely be the person doing ALL the fixes and addons. I have no doubt people will step-up to help, but, in my expereinces, the majority of them will wander off to personal higher-interest projects after a short-time or get recalled by real-life priorities.

The reality of the NWN CC Community is that we are a conglomerate of individuals with our own pet projects that will take precedence over anything else we do. For me its my LAN world and Project Q; for TAD its Aenea; For Henesua its Vives Reborn; for Barry1066 it was Annoklia, etc. etc. 

[Tiberius_Morguhn]

Tarot Redhand wrote...

Sorry about this but I think I just realised another (but at least in part, easier to solve) problem. It has to do with textures and other images within the CEP. The thing is that a number of models use the same texture or to put it another way one texture may be used by 2 or more models. Not only that but some outside projects (I'm thinking of the CCP here as an example) use textures from within the CEP and will not work properly without them.

So before any models and associated textures are stored, in whatever manner, I think someone will need to write some sort of program to go through all of the models to find out which textures they use and to produce a report on it so that fixing something in one place doesn't break something else that appeared to be working before. Not only that but it might be well mannered to include the CCP in this process. And that doesn't even cover the icons and portraits...

TR

I did a quick and dirty export of all textures from CEP 2.1 (the latest I have) - converting DDS to TGA.  I did an md5sum on each image file and then just compared them to every other image file.  I only found ~72 duplicated image files (ie. files that are named different but have the same data - I did spot check several of these visually to make sure....).  I didn't calculate the amount of space/file sizes, but this probably isn't a whole lot of savings.

To help decode (since I did some shorthand), the number\\\\ (ie. 0\\\\) indicates CEP core0 file.  So 1\\\\ indicates CEP core1 file and so on.

0\\\\c_trollwara_be.tga matches: 0\\\\c_trollwarb_be.tga,0\\\\c_trollwarc_be.tga,
0\\\\c_trollwara_fo.tga matches: 0\\\\c_trollwarb_fo.tga,
0\\\\c_trollwara_hl.tga matches: 0\\\\c_trollwarb_hl.tga,0\\\\c_trollwarc_hl.tga,
0\\\\c_trollwara_le.tga matches: 0\\\\c_trollwarb_le.tga,0\\\\c_trollwarc_le.tga,
0\\\\c_trollwarb_be.tga matches: 0\\\\c_trollwarc_be.tga,
0\\\\c_trollwarb_hl.tga matches: 0\\\\c_trollwarc_hl.tga,
0\\\\c_trollwarb_hr.tga matches: 0\\\\c_trollwarc_hr.tga,
0\\\\c_trollwarb_le.tga matches: 0\\\\c_trollwarc_le.tga,
0\\\\f_ayala_hair.tga matches: 1\\\\f_ayala_hair.tga,
0\\\\f_ayala_head.tga matches: 1\\\\f_ayala_head.tga,
0\\\\f_f_robe_001.tga matches: 1\\\\f_f_robe_001.tga,
0\\\\f_irb_fur.tga matches: 1\\\\f_irb_fur.tga,
0\\\\pdag_black.tga matches: 0\\\\wmb_blackback.tga,
0\\\\wmi_c1ar0100_r.tga matches: 0\\\\wmi_c1ar0100_r2.tga,
0\\\\wmi_c1ar0500.tga matches: 0\\\\wmi_c1ar0500_r.tga,
1\\\\aged_steel_dk.tga matches: 1\\\\aged_steel_dk_bu.tga,
1\\\\Ant_legs2.tga matches: 1\\\\c_wasp_legs2.tga,
1\\\\arthur_forer.tga matches: 1\\\\tyr_forer.tga,
1\\\\arthur_shinr.tga matches: 1\\\\tyr_shinr.tga,
1\\\\AShLw_RB.tga matches: 1\\\\texbuck.tga,
1\\\\bay_tail.tga matches: 1\\\\blackhrse_tail.tga,
1\\\\bzm_fore.tga matches: 1\\\\gzom_fore.tga,
1\\\\bzm_hands.tga matches: 1\\\\gzom_hands.tga,
1\\\\bzm_neck.tga matches: 1\\\\gzom_neck.tga,
1\\\\c_orca_frun.tga matches: 1\\\\c_orcb_frun.tga,
1\\\\c_pudding-wht.tga matches: 1\\\\c_slithtrack.tga,
1\\\\c_sf_Kakkuu.tga matches: 1\\\\c_sf_Spithriku.tga,
1\\\\c_visage.tga matches: 2\\\\c_shadow.tga,
1\\\\cc_gntfireadpa.tga matches: 1\\\\cc_gntfiresora.tga,
1\\\\cc_gntfireadpb.tga matches: 1\\\\cc_gntfiresorb.tga,
1\\\\cc_gntfireadpc.tga matches: 1\\\\cc_gntfiresorc.tga,
1\\\\cc_gntfrostadpa.tga matches: 1\\\\cc_gntfrostsora.tga,
1\\\\cc_gntfrostadpb.tga matches: 1\\\\cc_gntfrostsorb.tga,
1\\\\cc_gntfrostadpc.tga matches: 1\\\\cc_gntfrostsorc.tga,
1\\\\dk_water01.tga matches: 1\\\\water.tga,
1\\\\Drid_Abody.tga matches: 1\\\\Drid_FBodyC.tga,1\\\\Drid_Mbody-C.tga,
1\\\\Drid_ACbicep.tga matches: 1\\\\Drid_FbiceplA.tga,
1\\\\Drid_ACBody.tga matches: 1\\\\Drid_FBodyA.tga,1\\\\Drid_Mbody.tga,
1\\\\Drid_ACchest.tga matches: 1\\\\Drid_FchestA.tga,
1\\\\Drid_ACfhead.tga matches: 1\\\\Drid_FheadA.tga,
1\\\\Drid_ACfore.tga matches: 1\\\\Drid_FforerA.tga,
1\\\\Drid_AChand.tga matches: 1\\\\Drid_FhandrA.tga,
1\\\\Drid_AChelm.tga matches: 1\\\\Drid_Ahelm.tga,
1\\\\Drid_ACpelvis.tga matches: 1\\\\Drid_FpelvisA.tga,
1\\\\Drid_FBodyA.tga matches: 1\\\\Drid_Mbody.tga,
1\\\\Drid_FBodyC.tga matches: 1\\\\Drid_Mbody-C.tga,
1\\\\fleebitten_tail.tga matches: 1\\\\greyhrse_tail.tga,1\\\\whitehrse_tail.tga,
1\\\\fxpa_deawea_bla.tga matches: 2\\\\c_dea_staff.tga,
1\\\\fxpa_flame00.tga matches: pheno2\\\\fxpa_flame00.tga,
1\\\\fxpa_flamegd.tga matches: pheno2\\\\fxpa_flamegd.tga,
1\\\\gd_cav.tga matches: pheno2\\\\gd_cav.tga,
1\\\\greyhrse_tail.tga matches: 1\\\\whitehrse_tail.tga,
1\\\\leopardapp_tail.tga matches: 1\\\\quagga_tail.tga,
1\\\\lupinal_bicep.tga matches: 1\\\\lupinal_hoof.tga,1\\\\lupinal_shin.tga,
1\\\\lupinal_hoof.tga matches: 1\\\\lupinal_shin.tga,
1\\\\marl_tail3b.tga matches: 1\\\\marl_tail4b.tga,1\\\\marl_tail5b.tga,
1\\\\marl_tail3c.tga matches: 1\\\\marl_tail4c.tga,1\\\\marl_tail5c.tga,
1\\\\marl_tail4b.tga matches: 1\\\\marl_tail5b.tga,
1\\\\marl_tail4c.tga matches: 1\\\\marl_tail5c.tga,
1\\\\nm_cav.tga matches: pheno2\\\\nm_cav.tga,
1\\\\sella.tga matches: pheno2\\\\sella.tga,
1\\\\sella_1.tga matches: pheno2\\\\sella_1.tga,
2\\\\c_elemash.tga matches: 2\\\\c_elemsmoke.tga,

One thing that was more concerning is that in several cases the TGA version of a texture is in a higher order hak than the corresponding DDS version.  For example c_ginger is found as a large DDS in CEP core 1, but the smaller TGA is found in CEP core 2.  The ordering of the haks for CEP is descending so conetent in core 2 overrides core 1, etc.  I don't know how that affects DDS versus TGA though since the engine is supposed to use DDS first.  May require some testing.......

[Zarathustra217]

Pstemarie wrote...
I tend to agree with you once again. The only reason I suggested some kind of tracker was so other people looking at submitting fixes or addons have some idea what others are working on. This could be as simple as a table on a wiki where users submit basic information about what they are doing. However, the bottom-line is that, despite the best intentions of everyone posting in this thread, TAD will most likely be the person doing ALL the fixes and addons. I have no doubt people will step-up to help, but, in my expereinces, the majority of them will wander off to personal higher-interest projects after a short-time or get recalled by real-life priorities.

The reality of the NWN CC Community is that we are a conglomerate of individuals with our own pet projects that will take precedence over anything else we do. For me its my LAN world and Project Q; for TAD its Aenea; For Henesua its Vives Reborn; for Barry1066 it was Annoklia, etc. etc. 

Well, my hope is that if it's made a lot easier to contribute and take part in the development, more people are likely to contribute and continue to do so. Speaking for myself, I likely wouldn't have time to take part in the large central tasks (should they be undertaken), but I can definitely contribute with correcting the shadows or a stretched texture on a model. And I know many members of our PW community already are doing the same.

I might be naive though, and perhaps a SVN repository wouldn't affect how much people contribute - but then again, I don't see any loss in trying. I expect it would be much easier for TAD to even manage his own work that way, especially since it's so simple and easy to use.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. I'll try to send in any fixes I have no matter what. But if you want to try setting up a SVN and tortioseSVN locally, I'm sure quite many of us (myself included) would be ready and willing to help.

Modifié par Zarathustra217, 23 janvier 2014 - 01:36 .

[Tarot Redhand]

@Tiberius_Morguhn I think you may have misunderstood what I was getting at. To be honest I hadn't even thought about duplicate image files. What I am worried about are those image files that are used by more than one model - the old 1 to n problem. Where more than one model uses the same texture. Say someone comes along and quite legitimately, in an effort to improve the placeable or whatever, alters a texture which in turn ruins the look of some other model because both models were using the same texture.

TR

Modifié par Tarot Redhand, 23 janvier 2014 - 02:27 .

[henesua]

Pstemarie wrote...
The reality of the NWN CC Community is that we are a conglomerate of individuals with our own pet projects that will take precedence over anything else we do. For me its my LAN world and Project Q; for TAD its Aenea; For Henesua its Vives Reborn; for Barry1066 it was Annoklia, etc. etc.

This is one reason why I put forth both of my proposals: a more inclusive CEP group with a low bar to participation, and an actual modular approach to CEP in which each HAK can stand alone without the others. One of The the goals is to increase participation, and to reduce the amount of work required on each project.

Obviously no one is having it, and I suppose thats fine. But if anyone puts forth an idea that at least takes a baby step towards those goals, I'm going to cheer, because it makes it easier for me to help.

Modifié par henesua, 23 janvier 2014 - 02:57 .

[Pstemarie]

One thing that just occurred to me is the amount of discussion focused on the subject. That in and of itself should be taken as a sign of just how vibrant CEP remains in the eye of the Community. I've also shown this thread to my wife - who has never ventured onto the BioWare forums or into the realm of CC making. She is just a player. She did offer this...

"You folks do realize that you'll still be discussing this the day TAD posts the CEP Update for download."

[Tiberius_Morguhn]

Pstemarie wrote...

One thing that just occurred to me is the amount of discussion focused on the subject. That in and of itself should be taken as a sign of just how vibrant CEP remains in the eye of the Community. I've also shown this thread to my wife - who has never ventured onto the BioWare forums or into the realm of CC making. She is just a player. She did offer this...

"You folks do realize that you'll still be discussing this the day TAD posts the CEP Update for download."

The age old problem of "management by committee"....

[Tiberius_Morguhn]

Tarot Redhand wrote...

@Tiberius_Morguhn I think you may have misunderstood what I was getting at. To be honest I hadn't even thought about duplicate image files. What I am worried about are those image files that are used by more than one model - the old 1 to n problem. Where more than one model uses the same texture. Say someone comes along and quite legitimately, in an effort to improve the placeable or whatever, alters a texture which in turn ruins the look of some other model because both models were using the same texture.

TR

No worries...I was working on both actually.  I've got to export the mdl files and do a quick inventory of the bitmap calls and get them to a text file/something for reference like you want. 

[The Amethyst Dragon]

Pstemarie wrote...
...my wife...She did offer this...

"You folks do realize that you'll still be discussing this the day TAD posts the CEP Update for download."

[Zarathustra217]

One thing that for certain won't get more people involved is already priorly making up your mind that they won't.

It's not impossible. NWNx has some central people working on the core, but quite many people have done minor contributions to it.

On the other hand, why the scepticism at all? What's the loss?

[Pstemarie]

Zarathustra217 wrote...

One thing that for certain won't get more people involved is already priorly making up your mind that they won't.

It's not impossible. NWNx has some central people working on the core, but quite many people have done minor contributions to it.

On the other hand, why the scepticism at all? What's the loss?

The quote from my wife wasn't put in there to show skepticism. I included it to point out the simple fact that I - like her - have little doubt that TAD has already begun to work on a CEP update. I'm also certain that other people have already started working on the bits and pieces to which they can contribute. I viewed her words as somewhat humerous - because they're probably true - and thought this thread could use a little brevity at the time. My mistake and it certainly won't happen again.

Modifié par Pstemarie, 24 janvier 2014 - 11:37 .

[Tarot Redhand]

I think I have identified another 4 tools (or even better a utility that has all my proposed tools included in it) that would be useful for not only maintaining the CEP but also for anyone (such as pw admins) maintaining haks with large numbers of models and textures.

1. A tool that simply goes through all the models placed in a folder and tests each one to see whether they are compiled or not. It should have the ability to move those it identifies as compiled to another folder for decompiling. As a side note, the identification is easy as all that you need to do is to test the 1st byte. If it is nul (i.e. hex 00), it is compiled otherwise not.

2. A tool that goes through a folder containing both models and textures and identifies orphaned (textures that are not used by any model) and missing textures, outputting the result to a report. It is all too easy when creating a hak to leave what I personally call "fossils" (i.e. remnants of earlier builds) in a hak and this particular tool would help to identify such. As a side note, I have already built such a tool for my own use that only outputs to screen called orphanHunter. An improved version of this (but more complicated of course) would also have the ability to identify identical textures with different names. This improved version would have the option to rename some (or maybe all) the textures and the entries for these textures in the models that use them.

3. This next tool is probably the most complex. It would go through a folder containing both models and 2da files in order to identify any orphaned or (even rarer) missing models. The way this would work is that it would need to have as a further input a text file which identified which lines in which 2da files to use to do this test.

4. A simple cataloguing tool that will go through a folder containing 2das, models and textures and produce an sql database of the contents of that folder. An enhanced version of this would include the information of what woks/pwks and textures are associated with which models.

Why do these as tools? Well some degree of automation should reduce the workload of anyone doing the maintenance and hopefully reduce the possibility of errors. Anyway, that is what I think.

TR

[MerricksDad]

I gotta stop reading this before I start incorporating these tools into the other tools I am working, before getting those other tools done.

[Frith5]

Nah. Lightheartedness is always preferred, at least to me.

I love this community, and all the passion people bring to it. But of course, it has to be fun, right?

-JFK

[Carcerian]

*Chimes in*

One Suggestion: Add in the missing generic doors for CTP referenced in the 2das, from the CTP doors pack: CTP Generic Doors

Another: change all the "reserved skybox" entries to **** to tidy up the toolset dropdown menu

As far as free cloud storage goes, Dropbox is 2 GB + 500 MB per person who joins dropbox, max 18 GB, Google Drive is 5 GB, and Skybox is 7 GB

(A more detailed comparison can be found here: http://www.hongkiat....drive-skydrive/)

Modifié par Carcerian, 24 janvier 2014 - 10:01 .

[Pstemarie]

Wow Skydrive is only 7 GB now. I've got like 40+ GB, but I've been a member since the day it was created.

[MerricksDad]

I'm having a blast with DropBox personally, and have had nothing but issues with Google Drive. So much so that I removed its program from my computer. I'm also having no issues with Barracuda Network's "Copy"

[Tarot Redhand]

@Carcerian I don't think that was so much missing as put in so that the ctp generic doors could be used in conjunction with the CEP. By that logic I would have to include the CEP into my stuff which I made CEP compatible by using their 2da's as a starting point. I did that to make my stuff compatible with the CEP.

TR

[Bannor Bloodfist]

*Chimes in*

One Suggestion: Add in the missing generic doors for CTP referenced in the 2das, from the CTP doors pack: CTP Generic Doors

Ummm... sorry, but there is a specific reason it was done the way it was. That reason is in the license from CTP regarding those files. You are allowed to reference them in a given mod etc, but you must use the haks and files as provided by the CTP on that page. That was done by specific request of specific folks during the time those doors were created. I can not change the rules on those files as I do not have permission to do so.

[Tarot Redhand]

Bannor hypothetical question (ie I don't intend on doing this I'm just curius) do those same rules preclude the possibility of the combination of the ctp generic doors into a community doors project as it were?

TR

[Zarathustra217]

Pstemarie wrote...

Zarathustra217 wrote...

One thing that for certain won't get more people involved is already priorly making up your mind that they won't.

It's not impossible. NWNx has some central people working on the core, but quite many people have done minor contributions to it.

On the other hand, why the scepticism at all? What's the loss?

The quote from my wife wasn't put in there to show skepticism. I included it to point out the simple fact that I - like her - have little doubt that TAD has already begun to work on a CEP update. I'm also certain that other people have already started working on the bits and pieces to which they can contribute. I viewed her words as somewhat humerous - because they're probably true - and thought this thread could use a little brevity at the time. My mistake and it certainly won't happen again.

I wasn't commenting specifically on the quote from your wife - the scepticism is apparent enough in your prior post. No matter what, there's no reason acting hurt - my point was not to simply reprove, but guinely to encourage some optimism.

Anyway, speaking of tools, wouldn't an obvious choice be to run stuff through OldManBeard's CleanModels3 for a quick way to solve a lot of issues? Anyone have experiences running mass-operations with that?

Modifié par Zarathustra217, 25 janvier 2014 - 07:55 .

[Estelindis]

Myself and other CTP members have plenty of experience doing that, but in the context of individual projects (i.e. all tiles in a specific set) that we knew quite well. You've got to be careful to use the right settings with CM3. It is a wonderful and powerful tool that shouldn't be thrown at things willy-nilly. One should break down CEP models into groups based on the different settings that would work well for them.

Modifié par Estelindis, 25 janvier 2014 - 01:38 .

[Tarot Redhand]

@Zarathustra217 It is my understanding that cm3 is designed to find and correct errors to be found within a model. As such it will not address the things (such as extraneous textures for example) that the tools that I propose will.

TR

[Pstemarie]

I'm bowing out of this conversation. I'm tired of having things read into my posts that just aren't there and I'm far too busy with stuff that matters to ME to worry about something I don't (and will never) use. Good luck TAD.

[KlatchainCoffee]

Pstemarie wrote...

I'm bowing out of this conversation. I'm tired of having things read into my posts that just aren't there and I'm far too busy with stuff that matters to ME to worry about something I don't (and will never) use. Good luck TAD.

But a lot of other people will, so any useful feedback and ideas are a good thing to have. And yes, miscommunication is frustrating, easily happens using this meduim and is probably the cause of half the problems experienced by internet communities in general.


Despite its many problems, past and present, CEP has a big part to play in how NWN is and will be used by existing and potentially new builders and world creators (at least until something substantially better than Aurora toolset comes along). I would have liked to see it properly re-organised -and- backwards compatible, but any improvement and development should be seen as positive. So - THANK YOU to anyone who had shared useful thoughts and attempted to help so far.

Modifié par KlatchainCoffee, 25 janvier 2014 - 04:20 .