I know it aint this months topic, but I was hoping one of you might be able to help me out with something. I have been going through the Neverwintervault.net, CEP and PQ in hope I would be able to find huge stalagmite PLCs for the Underdark and came up empty. Those I did find were barely bigger than a human model.
What I could really use are those typical gargutuan Underdark stalagtites easily towering a few dozen meters high.
Not a bad idea for something to add to Q.
I know it aint this months topic, but I was hoping one of you might be able to help me out with something. I have been going through the Neverwintervault.net, CEP and PQ in hope I would be able to find huge stalagmite PLCs for the Underdark and came up empty. Those I did find were barely bigger than a human model.
What I could really use are those typical gargutuan Underdark stalagtites easily towering a few dozen meters high.
Baba Yaga made stalagmite PLCs. They were a project on the old Bioware social network.
If you've ever been in a real cavern, you will immediately see a need for multi-tile cave columns, as well as "forest" column formations. I have been in many caves, and they are so wondrous and varied. I have been very slowly working on my own underdark tileset, which I refuse to show anyone until it is finished. It is currently un-roofed, but it does have raised sections which hold water. I wish my real life pictures did the topic justice, but the lighting is all wrong, and I was not skilled in the use of my camera in the dark underground at the time.
Another thing I have had issues with is finding the correct textures and colors to represent the various matrix into which the cavern system forms. But I have come to the realization that the only texture you really need is frozen flowing water...recolored! The outcome is the same, only the color and level of transparency is different. Karst caverns hold many other natural wonders which would be easily represented by low poly tile additions, or even placeables, such as boxwork outcrops, or cave bacon. The textures on those two alone could be so simple, that they would not even need anything more than a repeating brown rainbow for one, and simple cross lines for another.
If I could suggest anything at all in helping cave columns, stalactites and stalagmites get created for NWN, it would be to simply start with a picture or simple texture, and then build out from the texture in the same manner that I used for creating weapons from 2D screen shots. Nothing could be more easy, and your columns should come to life very quickly. Just be sure your final texture is flatter than a flash filled picture you would expect from a newbie photographer in a 300 foot deep dark hole. If I could suggest a flatness level for your texture, I would directly point you toward those used for this month's custom content by Shemsu-Heru. There should be no diffuse shiny bits unless there are actually crystal faces you wish to over-represent. In the case of shine from wetness, let glossiness/shine factors do it in the engine for you, but do not use metallic shine/transparency if at all possible. Environment maps should be black, or a very dark version of the color of the surrounding matrix, especially on water. If you have ever seen water in a black cave, you know what I mean. It is creepy beyond creepy to me.
I have very few textures I am currently willing to share in this department, until I am finished at least, but I hope that encourages some texture artists out there to run with my examples and pointed-to information.
Baba Yaga made stalagmite PLCs. They were a project on the old Bioware social network.
Any idea where these could be found?
I have been very slowly working on my own underdark tileset, which I refuse to show anyone until it is finished. It is currently un-roofed, but it does have raised sections which hold water.
That sounds great! Can not wait to see it released. : D
Not going to be any time soon 
No time, and other projects are blocking the path. Good news: my favorite time-killing video game got an upgrade with makes it basically unplayable on my computer, so I have more time to use now that I will be less distracted by the time-kill.
Anyone know where I can find a tutorial on how to turn a tileset tile into a plc?
It is simple.
Add the tile to placeables.2da
If you don't want the aabb mesh to interact with the wok change the classification of the model from tile to character. (You can do this in a text editor)
If you want some portion of the tile to block movement and/or site lines you'll need to create a PWK.
But bear in mind placeables never block the camera and can only block walking or be walked through, not be walked on. So if it's for a very big one off object, you're probably better making a custom tile.
For placeables with the character classification Six is totally correct.
BUT if you give a placeable the tile classification (the tile will have this in its MDL file) it can indeed be walked on. It will use its aabb mesh to adjust the z of the WOK, but still maintain the WOK materials as far as I can tell. More testing needed. One important restriction to the use of these tile placeables is that it should be located completely congruent with the tile it is sitting on top of or else you get messed up wok meshes.
My plan is to make the CODI Sigil buildings and structures available as PLCs. Something to have on the palette to add to Underdark and Planar backdrops, and hence I want to make use of them with being restricted to it's original tileset. It would be completly fine for their purpose to have them only be able to either block movement or allow movement. Do I have it right that I would need to?
1. Export the models and their textures.
2. Add them to the placeable.2da
3. Create a PWK for each placeable 'tile'
If so, how would I go about 2. and 3.? >.>'
OK. You can do that. Those would be character classification placeables and need a PWK so the PC can't walk through the building.
I would do the following:
Extract the tile model (and textures if you won't be using the tileset) from the HAK.
Rename the model.
open the model in neverblender or nwmax or whatever and delete all the meshes but the building.
Also in neverblender or nwmax create a PWK for the model which prevents players from walking through the building.
Add the model to a new line in placeables.2da
Hey gals and guys, I could really use your help again. The problem I have that the interior tilesets "Castle Interior" and "Castle Interior 2" now have a display problem. The black non-terrain surface appears unable to display its texture. This seems to be only a problem for those two specific tilesets, and not for other interior tilesets.
This occured after I put a few tilesets into a hak together.
Any pointers and insights would be incredibly appreciated.
Does your hakpak contain a texture called "Black" - either TGA or DDS?
Yep, it has a .dds file called "Black".
Then I suggest removing that.
Works! Thank you so much!
No problem!
If you want to figure out a problem like this in future, use NWN Explorer to extract a tile. You can then either check the textures used by the tile using Notepad (search "bitmap" and see what's beside it), or you can load the tile in Max and select an object that should be black to see what it's called and what texture it's using.
I am having a problem with a hak update testing. In a specific area with the medieval city tileset, a single player always crashes early in the area load. It seems for everyone else there is no issue. When he tries to open that area in the toolset, he gets the following error message before the toolset crashes on him: "List index out of bounds (1623"
I am at a loss of what could be causing it. It seems tileset related, though other areas made with the same tileset do not cause him to crash.
That's usually caused by tileset numbering in the set file. Check the following:
[TILES]
count=xxx
[TILE0]
...
[TILExxx-1]
MDA
Sounds like he does not have the same version of the tileset.
What Meaglyn said.
All your other areas probably don't use any new tiles so that player can go to them without a problem, but one area uses tile 1623 which that player doesn't have because of an older version. 1623 is a house I made right before I added the dwarven temple, a rather recent addition, so your player needs the latest version of Medival City.
False alarm. The player screwed up with the haks. Thanks everyone. Everything works perfectly now!
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