275 réponses à ce sujet

[Tchos]

honestly, i still stand by my oppinion, the the lighting is too soft. the night shots are great, and i really love the atmosphere on the harbor shots in the evening/morning (http://neverwinterva...09-42-09-09.jpg). but during the day, i can not say what it is.... the light is too flat (http://neverwintervault.org/sites/neverwintervault.org/files/project/3262/images/nwn2main2012-07-0114-44-49-69.jpg), although it's much better in interiors (http://neverwintervault.org/sites/neverwintervault.org/files/project/3262/images/nwn2main2014-07-2112-05-49-37.jpg) . and to bloomy. and looking at it for a while i think the green is too green. there is too much green in daylight and night (http://neverwintervault.org/sites/neverwintervault.org/files/project/3262/images/bcoccsuneout.jpg http://neverwinterva...s/bcoccsoil.jpg http://neverwinterva...12-00-26-51.jpg (and i'm not talking about all the areas, where green distance fog was chosen)

 

That's fine, of course.  Tastes do vary, but understand that the bloom levels and the green saturation are the way they are because I wanted them that way.  As a builder, you can have a total absence of bloom in your areas if you prefer, and you have absolute control over the colour saturation of objects, fog, and lights, and the colour and amount of lighting at all times of the day.  I was intentionally pushing it further than most do, because I like a brighter, more fantasy-style world than a low-magic gritty world.  You can have harsh shadows as well.  I prefer them to be subtle because game engines don't accurately model radiosity, so I simulate it.

[rjshae]

...and in comparison, the NWN2 devs made the stupid design decision, to make EVERY piece of equipment look TOO round. well, aside from the shoulder pieces. but really, the rest underneath is just one smooth jumpsuit. maybe NWN2 had technically better graphics, but the design makes it visually unpleasing for me. is there a piece of armor (custom made or vanilla), that resembles a decent knight armor, or something shown in mmy screenshot? just so i'm not comparing a modded NWN to some outdated screenshots of NWN2 i found online.

 

I'm not quite sure what you could mean by "too round"; either it's round or its not, and the human body is naturally rounded so that's what I'd expect. Anyway, the rounded look you're noticing is probably a result of smooth shading. There's some decent (IMO) armor packs on the new vault here, if you look for the NWN2 entries. Maybe you'll see some that you like. Or maybe not.

 

 

edit: regarding the other comparison shots posted above: yes, the bridge looks bad. and so does the cloak-stand in nwn. they both got flat and boring textures (and the bridge-wood is also off scale). an evenly colored texture looks much better, when processed ingame using normal mapping. NWN 1 however without it's normal mapping needs more aggressive textures. looks how the ground below the cloak stand (and in the prison fight scene from MM) looks more alive, because the ground is a bit "freckled". that's what you need to do, you need to burn in a fake normal mapping/shadowing onto the texture to get the best visuals in NWNs old engine. both models (bridge and armor stand) look custom made, and the authors simply lacked the experience to work with older engines. also: jeesh, don't you all play with anisotropic filtering on?

 

Note that I did not use the cloak-stand example to show that NWN looks bad; I used it to show an improvement when the same model was ported to NWN2. Thus your defensiveness is unnecessary.    The only things changed were the addition of a bump map and tinting.

[Tchos]

really, the rest underneath is just one smooth jumpsuit. maybe NWN2 had technically better graphics, but the design makes it visually unpleasing for me. is there a piece of armor (custom made or vanilla), that resembles a decent knight armor, or something shown in mmy screenshot?

 

A knight armour?  I'm not sure, since that's not the kind of character I usually play, so I'm not as knowledgeable about heavy armour, but there are a number of objects that look similar to the one in your screenshot in the default resources.  Then there's this typical knight in shining armour, and some other stuff, much of which is very clean, but can easily be roughened up and dirtied if preferred.  These may not be the sort you're looking for if you want lots of distinct pieces, though.  There are others for that.

[Gruftlord]

hm, i don't know, it's hard to explain what i mean with the armors. i know that clothing and leather armors look great in nwn2. maybe what i mean can best be seen in the way to lower torso, hip and thigh move together. it allways looks like NWN2 can not propperly support rigid torso chest plates.

 

the defense about the stand is, that it does look bad in nwn, because it lacked any pre-baked shadow/normal mapping on the texture. of course it's much easiert, to make that look good in nwn2, once you add a normal. this make the cloak a good nwn2 model. send your normal map to a decent nwn artist, and he will be able to fix up the texture for nwn, be adding some more depth to it, then it will be a good nwn model. and then, the visul difference wouldn't be as big any more. that's all i'm saying. for a fair comparison of the engines, i think it would suffice to take a look at what the nwn2 models, that were transprorted to nwn, and how good they still look.

http://qnwn.net/home/

the lack of propper normal mapping i much less apparent, when the model is well done. so yes, i think the improvement you showd was with an example, where an improvement could very easily be gained. take a look at the ported nwn 2 stone golems and placable houses, and the difference is smaller.

http://neverwinterva...-converted-nwn2

[rjshae]

Mmm, well the difference is pretty apparent to me--particularly with the overall flat look, weak shadows, and faceted "curves". You pretty much have to go out of your way to get even an approximation of what is a normal visual experience in NWN2.

[Tchos]

What's that last screenshot from?

[MagicalMaster]

Magical Master.. I think "slightly improved graphics" is an understatement and yes they do look that bad you just chose a couple of goodish examples when the majority of what's on offer isn't really that good at all. Where are the flat open spaces with the daft ramps or the woods that are all the same and can I have a close up of the character creation bit that always makes me laugh.

 

Improved graphics means something like Mass Effect 2/3 or Dragon Age 2.  Those aren't even remotely top of the line graphics, mind you, but still immensely better than NWN or NWN2.  So if the options are decent (NWN) or a bit better than decent (NWN2) I don't really care enough about the difference -- both are bad relative to other games that aren't even top of the line.

 

Nor do I spend a bunch of time on close ups of my character, so I don't really mind.

 

I don't still play WC3/TFT at times because the graphics are amazing, I play them because the graphics are good enough and I enjoy the gameplay.

 

The screenshots for my module should suffice for that, at least for the lighting.

 

I mean no offense, but to me the graphics in those screenshots aren't improved enough to matter.  Yes, the areas look better.  Yes, there's a lot more detail at points.  But the difference between that and NWN is small compared to the difference between that and ME2/3 or DA2...to say nothing of modern games that possess exceptional graphics.

 

A person who's 70 looks younger than someone who's 95...but both still look old.

[Tchos]

I mean no offense, but to me the graphics in those screenshots aren't improved enough to matter.  Yes, the areas look better.  Yes, there's a lot more detail at points.  But the difference between that and NWN is small compared to the difference between that and ME2/3 or DA2...to say nothing of modern games that possess exceptional graphics.

 

A person who's 70 looks younger than someone who's 95...butboth still look old.

 

None taken.  The graphics aren't my reason for modding and playing NWN2 versus NWN1 (for me, it's primarily the gameplay and systems such as the party system and party member choice in dialogues, as well as the ability to make the dialogue box and font bigger), and I've said several times myself that I don't consider the graphics to be "good" compared to modern games.  I quite agree that both games show their age.

[rjshae]

Improved graphics means something like Mass Effect 2/3 or Dragon Age 2.  Those aren't even remotely top of the line graphics, mind you, but still immensely better than NWN or NWN2.  So if the options are decent (NWN) or a bit better than decent (NWN2) I don't really care enough about the difference -- both are bad relative to other games that aren't even top of the line.

 

True, but irrelevant from my perspective. For me it's the combination of the graphics, fantasy character building, and party-based play that you can obtain in NWN2. The Dragon Age games were decent graphics-wise, but lacking in the type of character building and party-based play I wanted.

 

We've all got our personal preferences.

[Shallina]

NWN lacks party play for solo gamer. It's a huge problem for a DnD game.

[Thorsson64]

Well certainly for SP NWN is more limited, but I'm more interested in MP.

 

I just have some random screenshots from an NWN2 PW that I took some time ago (around 4 years, so there's probably better now, but I had these already); I'd like to see something similar from NWN to see how they compare:

 

 

 

And a more recent one (2 years old) that shows the rather neat (IMO) UI mix that I use to give me plenty of screenspace while I play. This character is a non-caster, so there is a little less space when you have the Quickcast Menu up, but still how does NWN compare?

 

 

[Dann-J]

NWN lacks party play for solo gamer. It's a huge problem for a DnD game.

 

Absolutely. However you could also argue that NWN2 didn't get it completely right until Storm of Zehir, with the ability to create your own entire party.

[Gruftlord]

re modding NWN's GUI:

http://neverwinterva...overhaulupgrade

 

it's hard to really adjust anything here. making it semi transparent is as far as it gets. the UI scales with resolution (or more specifically: the pixel size doesn't scale, so the UI becomes smaller the higher the resolution). whether this is a good thing or bad totally depends on your eyes :-D

 

as for looks: nwn doesn't get more beautiful than this:

http://neverwinterva...s-facelift-haks

(and a few project q haks, where i couldn't find screenshots of)

no water comparison though. there's a reason you rarelly see water in NWN screenshots :-D

 

edit: screw this. i found the arbor falls hak packs:

http://neverwinterva...-pw-server-haks

 

these ones are also nice:

http://neverwinterva...-21-supportated

http://forum.bioware...-a-forest-tale/

http://forum.bioware...rsistent-world/

[rjshae]

Yes, the hues are very nice. However, the images are mostly lacking in depth due to weak shadows (although the distance haze helps a little). The trees don't look nearly as good as the Speedtree models in NWN2, and the water isn't even close.

 

I'm not really sure why you're fretting about this point; NWN2 incorporated improved graphics, so it's usually going to look better. But as long as you're happy with NWN, then it's not really an issue.

[Gruftlord]

not really fretting about it, but Thorrson asked for some comparisons, so i thought ill post a few links to how far you can go with NWN.

i'd say the modders have at least managed to hide the blocky design of the tiles and upped the poly count and texture resolution with NWN.

admittedly, i'll doubt it'll get any better from here on.

[Thorsson64]

Clearly a bunch of people have invested a lot of time into NWN, and they've pushed it about as far as it will go, but really, a couple of niggles aside, NWN2 is the better game, and visually, while there is better stuff out there now, I think NWN2 has stood the test of time rather better considering the relative ages.

 

OTOH I understand why some people are wedded to NWN; it was much easier for people to get into modding and OFC there's all the invested time. No-one's really going to move from NWN to NWN2 at this stage. The main issue is that there's not been a replacement for either in nearly 10 years, and no sign of there being one.

[Tchos]

Not using D&D rules, but there are some fully moddable party-based games that have come out lately that have my interest.

[Thorsson64]

Care to name names?

[Gruftlord]

Not using D&D rules, but there are some fully moddable party-based games that have come out lately that have my interest.

 

DM support?

[Tchos]

Well, Divinity: Original Sin and Wasteland 2 are the ones that I was thinking of.  D:OS is a party-based, turn-based faux-isometric style RPG with a good conversation system and a pretty powerful-looking toolset.  Wasteland 2 is supposed to have a modding kit, though apparently it's not out yet.

 

No idea about DM support since I don't play that way, but I know that D:OS is built around co-op multiplayer.

[Naeryna]

I hate turn based games. I liked DOS two character system, but that's it. If I knew it will be turn based I would even bother with the game.

[rjshae]

I hate turn based games. I liked DOS two character system, but that's it. If I knew it will be turn based I would even bother with the game.

 

Wasteland 2 is also turn-based, so you'll probably not like that one either. Turn-based is a useful approach for handling large groups of characters that have a lot of options, but obviously it's not for everybody.

 

A game that might be interesting to me for modding is Blackguards, but it doesn't sound like that is possible.