235 réponses à ce sujet

[Drewskie]

http://annarchive.com/dragon.html

[3RavensMore]

Going down memory lane with all those back issues of Dragon--I've a couple of hundred of them in boxes somewhere.  I still roll my eyes at the shitstorm that the cover of #114 caused in their forum.  Today we'd look at it as say, "What a beautiful ethereal moody painting--perfect for Halloween."  Then, well people were a little more prudish in 1986 I suppose.  

[MerricksDad]

oh no! Perky side boob action not at all in sexual context! The Devil rises from his abyss to take the souls of all people on Earth!

[Tchos]

Well, it is a near-naked witch seeming to be worshipping the moon on top of a devil head statue...

[MerricksDad]

This morning I started working on some sketches for some coral fungus types (about 12), and a few additions to the club and cap mushrooms (about 10). I've also started working on some saprophytic plants in red and yellow (about 3). Many of these will be smaller than man-sized, so they're just normal decorations to spruce up the caves.

 

I've put no work into the crystals at this time, but I did start working on an element splitter with a retexturizer built in. It should let me convert those crystal columns to individual elements, and then apply this new crystal texture to them programmatically. It is just too much work to do all 24 shapes by hand with my limited schedule. With it I should be able to copy the effect on the type b crystal, and share the texture and color setup.

 

Cave BACON! I had forgot to make cave bacon while doing my cave formations. I got a bunch of images for it, but never worked on the model. In addition to some soda straws and some spiny crystal growths, a lot of this stuff will be done with billboards, or like the bats, almost billboards.

 

As mentioned before, I'm going to just flip the stalagmites and paint the bottom black. I'll then give them a basic height offset of 10m, but the builder can specify a better height in the toolset.

 

As soon as I get that stuff done, I'll start packing biscuits of smaller cave formation clusters. They'll be like the globes of crystals in the water tiles, and also like the globes of mushroom clusters. That is that they'll be a basic globe with simple repeating texture, but with a few of the visuals created in 3D to randomize the view at different angles. For an idea of what I mean, check out my mushrooms pack #1. You'll see that the blue, brown, and gray mushroom globes all have a squiggly row of 3D mushrooms coming out the top, in the same colors as the globe.

 

[MerricksDad]

Things are not going my way this weekend. Can somebody recommend a good nursing home that will take 10 old people all at once. They're ornery, and quick to blame, and will self diagnose well beyond reason. Tranqs and straight jackets might be helpful.

 

Sometimes, when I hear the dictation of 90 year old women, this is what I really see in my mind

 

https://www.facebook...19502208159733/

 

or

 

[Ssythilac]

Ey, MerricksDad!

 

Looking for Underdark crystals I noticed the ones you make for this tileset! Very good looking. Have you planned to release them before finishing it, like the mushrooms and the rocks?

[MerricksDad]

I haven't had a moment to work on anything given all the writing and physics drawings I have had to do over the last 6 weeks. I probably won't get back to this stuff until May 1st. I'll probably do another full-speed ahead jump like I did last year with the black hills stuff. I still have all the trees to release, and that could take weeks just for those.

[Ssythilac]

Don`t worry, MD: real life first! With all of the Ph.D stuff, I know very well what is to be insanely busy in these times...

[MerricksDad]

I just remembered after I posted that comment that I have spring break coming up, but can't actually go do anything because my son's break is offset from mine. I may be able to sneak a pack out that week, since my wife has to work anyway. Never know.

[Ssythilac]

Ey, MD!

 

Just checked your crystal in my underdark module and... wow! Awesome! It fits perfectly with the atmosphere and is exactly what I need!

 

If I had two or three versions of diferent (bigger) size of the same cristal I could incorporate them to my module right now and begin working on it! I know you are super busy, but maybe this is not much effort? Please? Please?

 

One feedback: the crystal reactions strange with the one-tile light, it does a sort of strange shadow/reflection like a broken geometry. But it reacts normal with a focal light, like a torch or something like that.

[MerricksDad]

It probably does have some broken geometry, if we're talking about the multi-layer test crystal. I never cleaned it up before I put it out for viewing. On spring break maybe I can make some more crystals. Right now I need to focus on an exam packet.

[Ssythilac]

Take all the time you need, MD! I will wait to get these wonderful crystals, lurking in the shadows of my ancient fortress in the deep pits of the Underdark...

[rjshae]

I haven't checked your release yet so sorry if this is a stupid question. Does your tileset include tiles for underground pools, streams, waterfalls, and lakes?

[MerricksDad]

Though it is not released yet (the tileset) it does have a stream and pond combo. I intend to do more, but I just tossed that variety in there because it was too neat looking to pass up.

[MerricksDad]

To kick off spring break, though I have three reports to work on over break because I have jerk professors, I'm working on these crystals again. I just repaired the beta test crystal so that it has perfect shadows. What else about the beta test crystal would you like to see different, if anything?

I corrected the shadows by removing the lips I didn't see on the bottoms. This instantly cleared up the area lighting issues, and made it so strings didn't come out the back side when I used a torch near it.

 

I'm thinking to do a few clusters using the same basic shapes, with some randomly scaled options. Today I'll probably just do 20 options and show them on here before I put them up. Talk amongst yourselves

[MerricksDad]

ok, these are not by any means perfect, but at least they have good shadows. The outer sheathing is only correct in the original, so the texture you are seeing is the more metallic inner crystal without any of the smoothing sheathing. This makes them sharper and brighter, instead of smooth and dull with a sharp shine when you pass them.

 

I constructed a randomizing crystal builder using the 6 crystal parts I already had inside the beta test crystal. I can use this in the future to make crystal clusters from additional shapes, as it's made to recognize any number of shapes parented by a certain named base as potential shards. They're then randomly scaled and rotated.

 

 

The one behind and to the right of my character is the original. See how it has less sharpness at a distance.

So to correct the issue of the shininess, all I have to do is fix my script to reapply the sheathing texture and extrude out the sheathing faces by 2cm so they'll completely match the original.

Again, for those who didn't take a sec to look in the crystal texture files, these are gray, not blue, or yellow. You set the crystal color by modifying the mesh ambient and diffuse colors, and also the self-illumination values on the sheathing and the base mesh cluster.

[MerricksDad]

I want to build a digital catalog of all my placeables (and I want to be able to share the program with others so they can do CEP and stuff later). I'm looking for somebody who can load NWN models into GL or DX interface and take screenshots at X number of angles, so I can make animated GIF videos for all the items. Then the catalog can be produced in HTML or other similar formats which allow inline GIF. Anybody know how to do this? Maybe I should ask the guys working on Xoreos?

[MerricksDad]

It may be a bit closer to doing it by hand, but I should be able to do screen capture GIF's and then reduce the frames via GIF script. modifying GIF's in GIF format is not really that hard.

[MerricksDad]

ok, so to be honest, in a screen shot, there isn't much difference with the crystal sheaths on. The difference is primarily when you walk past stuff, or the dulling at a distance effect you get by putting a smoothed transparent mesh over a non-smoothed shiny mesh.

Here is the updated screenshot with the sheathes on. Note the cluster combos have changed due to the randomness. In the next picture, I will show them in another color combo just for giggles.

 

 

So now what I want to do is explore the other crystal shapes I want to put in this kit. I expect these will be used as spars and quartz. They're kinda in between the two in shape and face count, though these are primarily 6-sided tips. I want to do some cubes next, so I can portray stuff like purple/clear salts or fluorite, or some galena cubes, or combos of that, like we have in the entryway for the geology museum at my school. They've got some nice dark galena paired with some of the darkest fluorite I have ever seen, over a striated bluish yellowish white calcite spar. Fascinating color combo.

 

Edit: Here's some color alternatives. Fruity Super Nintendo Colors!

 

[MerricksDad]

I'll put up some of the geosciences museum pics soon. After spring break some time, I'll get a bunch of pics of the stuff from elmwood mine. It's fantastic stuff.

[Ssythilac]

Ahhh!! Great work with those crystals, MD!

[MerricksDad]

May 1st has arrived. I've become free of school once more, however, we're possibly moving starting Friday after buying a new house on Thursday. Can't wait. But this might come with a few construction things I need to work on in real life before putting a lot of effort into games.

 

This also means that until August, I'll once again be free to work on stuff, and I'll be free of garden-based distractions this year.

 

Goals for this year:

• Finish working on this underdark tileset
• Revisit the black hills tileset and add the veggies
• Release the massive veggies pack

Anything outside of that list will be extra I guess. Gotta take it easy knowing school is going to come up again really fast.

 

I also noticed that the makers of Sword Coast Legends have bit the dust, meaning their expansion may never see the light. I was really looking forward to seeing that in action so I could also add those concepts to this tileset, but I guess I will just work forward in my own way.

 

I'm seriously thinking to return to the room-based concept for caverns. It makes it very easy, and I don't have to mess around with 90% of the tile edges when I build stuff. Almost nothing has to be exact from tile to tile, because it crosses tile boundaries. There is great benefit in that idea. I can also make 9-18 tiles in a single project and then release new rooms as just that, a new expansion room, rather than having to update tile type layouts in the 2DA.

 

The intention this year for the caverns is to add the following base types for non-room areas:

• water filled chasm
• finish walkable edge darklake tiles
• use SEN's multi-height chart to build a +2 height (not going to do +3 and +4 on this one)

Let me redefine some of the concepts I had started last year, so I can remember going forward what domains they'll be in, and probably stay in:

 

Normal Terrain:

• open giant cavern, high ceiling
• open hallway (cavern connector), also with high ceiling
• open cavern watery passage, using those water tiles I already have done (no reason to drop it)
• open pit cavern, no visible ceiling
• open pit bridges
• open water cavern, high ceiling (using darklake tiles)
• open water bridges
• mushroom forest
• path through mushroom forest
• +1 and +2 transitions for each using SEN data

Back to Room-Based Terrain:

• chasm crossings
• short ceiling caves
• long oddly shaped hallways
• river rooms and tunnels
• boss rooms
• stair rooms and chute rooms
• ramp rooms
• open pit platform rooms
• chasm ledge paths
• stream tunnels
• fungus closets

Why am I going back to rooms? As I mentioned it has a few benefits, but let me clarify that list of benefits.

 

One of the concepts I am really enjoying in the unreal 4 engine is the sheer number of room-like groups builders are creating. Instead of using plain tile-by-tile layouts, they're making stuff like OTR was importing from other games. I see this as entirely reasonable, and with smaller groups that can be moved around, such as in Dungeon Siege 1 and 2, a lot of variety can come from a few of those groups.

 

Second, using SEN's +2 options, I want a better way of making realistic looking terrain, and I think groups allows me to handle that better. The group can come complete with the needed +2 changes built right in.

 

I started sketching out a forest tileset that is also groups only, and I'm really enjoying the concept work. So much so that I think every tileset could easily be made with such larger chunks. I'm seeing a bunch of "room" shapes that can be carried to any tileset, no matter the type of biology or geology in the region, simply because of the shared walkpath options. This makes me think that I can use the same base templates (and walkmesh) across a lot of tilesets, and this can be used to quickly make a TON of base tiles for a whole library of area types. Every time a new room gets made, it can be mostly cloned over to the other tilesets and placeable-like stuff, and mass types can just be switched with a script. It isn't just that easy, of course, but it's close.

I'm probably going to read a 300 page book before I jump back in, but really, I can't wait to get started.

[MerricksDad]

I'm kinda stuck building a barn, but I can't work on that today, with my kid home sick, so I'm putting a few hours into building an extractor and convertor for unity assets. So far, I can extract sword coast textures and models, placing the models into a garbled wavefront OBJ format. All the face indices are listed as negative offset from the end of the current set. Not sure why they did that with this asset format, but I'm having to rewrite my script to take that into consideration.

 

So far, so good. I'm just having to guess on which texture goes on which groups, as there is no reference directly in the model file.

 

 

With this, as soon as I figure it all out by naming scheme, I should be able to pull everything right down to the tilesets out of the game, and use all the parts as a new complete set of placeables.

OR, what my actual goal is: make a set of individual unity assets for use in GMAX for building my own tilesets.

 

Edit:

 

Because of the sheer volume of verts and faces in the asset groups, I am having multiple crashes in GMAX while importing, however, if I turn off the "reset controllers", I can power through and at least work with the file contents in GMAX.

 

Edit:

 

Just mass converted everything extracted from the Underdark and Drow areas, and I'm not sure I have everything for tilesets. Most of the stuff I am looking at is placeables and tile options you can cycle through in the dungeon builder (also just placeables). Some of the parts are so complex that GMAX throws the warning that you've run out of script memory. Others just crash GMAX silently.  I have yet to see if MDLViewer or NWNExplorer can view them as-is, without the texture applied. Something to find out...

 

Edit:

 

Nope, totally black, and if you view the tree structure, total death.

[MerricksDad]

100-some assets well on their way to placeables... but... there is like 7000 files to parse still, and that's just the shared asset file, and the underdark passage, and drow catacombs.