Mar 27, 2012
Mar 11, 2012
Cracking the Code With Elysius
Thought I would make a quick update here as it has been a while. I did up the rough mesh for an owlbear. It really pays to have a picture or think about what you are doing first because I screwed around with it for a week because it didn't look quite right. Then I realized bears heads go straight out like a dogs, and not upward like a horse, which is how I had it. Anyway, before I go through all the rest does anyone know if it's somehow available in NWN2 already in a hak and I am wasting my time? I was trying to find a sorely missed but highly common monster that many would use.
As for the crocodile (Shaughn), I was able to contact Elysius now that he's partially temporarily un-retired from his blog, and got some good direction. I'll be able to animate this crocodile or any other model pretty easily as expected, now that I know how. Still working on texturing but I think I have an idea on that as well.
He also made it known how to borrow a skeleton, for the purpose of using brand new models, but existing animations, such as how the hill giant's appear to be done in that hak on the vault. So I guess I can do the flying eyeball at some point after the crocodile, once I give the eyeball actual teeth and wing textures that are more professional.
Any idea what a crocodile's animations should be? I think rather than just a lazy uncreative variation of bites, one of the attacks should be the famous death roll they do once they clamp down. So I guess I do have to pay some attention to the underbelly texturing quality.
As for the crocodile (Shaughn), I was able to contact Elysius now that he's partially temporarily un-retired from his blog, and got some good direction. I'll be able to animate this crocodile or any other model pretty easily as expected, now that I know how. Still working on texturing but I think I have an idea on that as well.
He also made it known how to borrow a skeleton, for the purpose of using brand new models, but existing animations, such as how the hill giant's appear to be done in that hak on the vault. So I guess I can do the flying eyeball at some point after the crocodile, once I give the eyeball actual teeth and wing textures that are more professional.
Any idea what a crocodile's animations should be? I think rather than just a lazy uncreative variation of bites, one of the attacks should be the famous death roll they do once they clamp down. So I guess I do have to pay some attention to the underbelly texturing quality.
Feb 4, 2012
Slow out of the gates...
So this texturing thing is really the big stall in the project. Although I don't know how to store animation sequences yet for NWN2 either. But really, to even make still objects I need to understand the texturing results once you define the "wrapper" for 2d painting.
I was a little busy switching jobs, and now I'm done so I'm back at it. I decided to recreate a ridiculous little monster I saw in cracked magazine some time in the 80s. I did this only because I thought I could quickly make a model, and see how textures show up on the model based on how I set the "seams" of the texturing boundaries. I've spent literally 3 days adjusting seams on this crocodile so I figured I should learn how they work through a quicker, less laborious prototype.
With all smoothing, detail, polish aside (and a mouse cursor drawn mouth to boot) it's not pretty but it doesn't have to be. At least I can see that a texture can be done and I have a better idea of what I am doing now. So back to it I go.
PS Been play testing for The Wizard's Apprentice 2. It's a far throw ahead from the original, much broader in scope and ambition. I actually was dissapointed I had to stop for a while while we tackle a bug in the progress of the plot.
I was a little busy switching jobs, and now I'm done so I'm back at it. I decided to recreate a ridiculous little monster I saw in cracked magazine some time in the 80s. I did this only because I thought I could quickly make a model, and see how textures show up on the model based on how I set the "seams" of the texturing boundaries. I've spent literally 3 days adjusting seams on this crocodile so I figured I should learn how they work through a quicker, less laborious prototype.
With all smoothing, detail, polish aside (and a mouse cursor drawn mouth to boot) it's not pretty but it doesn't have to be. At least I can see that a texture can be done and I have a better idea of what I am doing now. So back to it I go.
PS Been play testing for The Wizard's Apprentice 2. It's a far throw ahead from the original, much broader in scope and ambition. I actually was dissapointed I had to stop for a while while we tackle a bug in the progress of the plot.
Jan 15, 2012
So here's where it's at
So here is the stage of modelling that trumped me in the past, and just about did again this weekend, until I figured it out. The stage where you designate your texturing borders, and export them for 2d imaging. Well really it's 2 parts, but I never properly accomplished part 1 before and I have now. Essentially you are trying to unfold the 3d model into 2d parts that can then be painted in the stencil you see here.
A checker pattern is usually applied, as on above, to make sure that your texture resolution is consistent. As you can see, the arms appear as long rectangular checkers similar in size to the main body. That is ideal.
The reason this is necessary is because you actually have to size the body parts in the stencil, and you can actually end up making some body parts different resolutions if you don't keep the proportion. Any piece you see on the stencil can be completely resized and throw everything off. They have all been manually adjusted by me after the program did it's horrible guessing on generation.
For those interested in how close I am to a viable output for this crocodile (and future animated models) I think I have broken it down as a work flow:
1 - 3d Modelling - done
2 - Texture mapping - done
3 - 2d Texturing - Next
4 - Defining bones and "rigging" - wtf (ok I kinda know what it is)
5 - Animation sequences
6 - Importing using engine recognized methods
So physical work wise, once you have 1 and 2, you've done most of the actual time consuming work. The rest comes to knowing the engine and how to import to it, which I imagine will be a huge pain but not necessarily a long time once I've done it once.
Animation may be a day or two, but I find it a rather fun and fluid process... everything's already made, and is not being altered, you just move parts around and try to do it in a life like fashion. I look forward to it.
Jan 6, 2012
The early Shaughn gets the Croc
Well sometimes it pays to be one of my four readers. For reasons unknown, my fatso model is now a corrupt file and will have to be started from scratch. But since I have a request for a crocodile, I thought now that I have no project, why not try that first. I took a gamble and decided to apply my cube modelling technique to a cylinder, in the thought that it would better suit the initial shape. Modelling this way is basically manipulation from a rough shape; the closer that shape is the less adjustment you have to do later, so it made sense).
From a humble, shapeless beginning. . .
... I soon gained confidence that I made the right choice, and had the skill to manipulate the extra vertices on a 12 sided cylinder...
... I wasn't going to do the head at first, as obviously it will take more skill and need to be split into two halves (as I'm assuming Shaughn wants this crocodile to attack by biting as opposed to nose spearing the player). But I gained a little comfort with the concept of "cutting" polygon faces in half, and was able to make a distinct mouth extend from the flat cylinder end that was his neck:
So there you have it, using only shaping with no texture at all, it does actually somewhat resemble a quadruple-amputee crocodile. The real detail comes in the texturing, as that's where the bumpiness, texture and colour realism comes from. And to be honest, I think I will have less trouble animating than texturing as I've stated. Particularly since I have no 2d software knowledge at all. I think I'll try GIMP as it seems to be the way to go.
My Next update will certainly include some legs if nothing else.
Update: seems like either 3ds or my computer is borked because I lost my crocodile work in the same fashion. Colour me pissy. I redid it all.
From a humble, shapeless beginning. . .
... I soon gained confidence that I made the right choice, and had the skill to manipulate the extra vertices on a 12 sided cylinder...
... I wasn't going to do the head at first, as obviously it will take more skill and need to be split into two halves (as I'm assuming Shaughn wants this crocodile to attack by biting as opposed to nose spearing the player). But I gained a little comfort with the concept of "cutting" polygon faces in half, and was able to make a distinct mouth extend from the flat cylinder end that was his neck:
So there you have it, using only shaping with no texture at all, it does actually somewhat resemble a quadruple-amputee crocodile. The real detail comes in the texturing, as that's where the bumpiness, texture and colour realism comes from. And to be honest, I think I will have less trouble animating than texturing as I've stated. Particularly since I have no 2d software knowledge at all. I think I'll try GIMP as it seems to be the way to go.
My Next update will certainly include some legs if nothing else.
Update: seems like either 3ds or my computer is borked because I lost my crocodile work in the same fashion. Colour me pissy. I redid it all.
Jan 1, 2012
Big Fat Update
Turns out that foot was destined to become a fatso after all.
There's unlimited potential to create other biped's once you have a model done, and it looks like fatso is about at the 2/3 torso mark, so I'll keep this updated.
Dec 31, 2011
Out with the Old?
Well the year is almost up. Does anyone care? I guess it's the end of the world this year as well ;) so that's newsworthy.
I've been thinking of what I could fill this blog with and my (currently reduced) spare time. There is certainly enough games to talk about, and I welcome new neverwinter nights 2 modules from my fellows, although this blog will certainly be less centric to that theme.
As I said, spare time is fewer these days, and my career may change again next month. Hopefully towards a job that has nothing to do with computers or sitting so that I can actually use my computer when I come home for games / hobbies. Which is not the current case, with the knife like pain in my left eye from ridiculous amounts of unwavering computer use at work leaving me incapacitated.. So here's hoping.
Some areas my blog may take are the highly fun fields of speculation (is there a new D&D game on the horizon? Toolset? etc) and general game talk, or talking from my rear end on the odd night as I am so doing.
I decided one way I could do a little hobbying without tying myself to any toolset, was to just try my hand at modelling. Of course my models could be made to work in varying sets if I can put in the time and desire to learn the steps of making them compatible. I started a great tutorial for making some anime looking cartoon girl warrior, but after 2 hours I had only gotten as far as the foot. But I read a head a bit and I think I got the basic idea of "cube modelling". Theoretically this technique can make anything. Like most things however, there are different and better ways to do certain things.
For now though you can see how my series of ugly pixelated lego blocks becomes a functional foot.
Now the problem here is I started modifying the girls perfectly formed foot into a large, more beast like foot. Then I added two pincer-like toes. Now the question is what do you do with this?
I had a couple ideas in mind when I began the model. It could become the foot of an ogrillion or flesh golem (explains the missing toes). But then of course adding claws and it quickly becomes a demon foot or dragon like foot if you add a rear claw.
I also considered making it human again and creating a clone of the fatso model from infinity games. And who wouldn't want that?
I suppose I can modularize this model and actually finish it that way without going insane. The foot is done, and it's one project within a project. Next can be the leg.
But I still have to quickly decide what the model is... kind of stupid to not have decided first, I know. Bearing in mind that the foot can still be reformed, toes added, etc, any suggestions? I'm trying to think of a D&D creature that was painfully missed in NWN2.
If I build it it could be ported to varying games I imagine.
I've been thinking of what I could fill this blog with and my (currently reduced) spare time. There is certainly enough games to talk about, and I welcome new neverwinter nights 2 modules from my fellows, although this blog will certainly be less centric to that theme.
As I said, spare time is fewer these days, and my career may change again next month. Hopefully towards a job that has nothing to do with computers or sitting so that I can actually use my computer when I come home for games / hobbies. Which is not the current case, with the knife like pain in my left eye from ridiculous amounts of unwavering computer use at work leaving me incapacitated.. So here's hoping.
Some areas my blog may take are the highly fun fields of speculation (is there a new D&D game on the horizon? Toolset? etc) and general game talk, or talking from my rear end on the odd night as I am so doing.
I decided one way I could do a little hobbying without tying myself to any toolset, was to just try my hand at modelling. Of course my models could be made to work in varying sets if I can put in the time and desire to learn the steps of making them compatible. I started a great tutorial for making some anime looking cartoon girl warrior, but after 2 hours I had only gotten as far as the foot. But I read a head a bit and I think I got the basic idea of "cube modelling". Theoretically this technique can make anything. Like most things however, there are different and better ways to do certain things.
For now though you can see how my series of ugly pixelated lego blocks becomes a functional foot.
Now the problem here is I started modifying the girls perfectly formed foot into a large, more beast like foot. Then I added two pincer-like toes. Now the question is what do you do with this?
I had a couple ideas in mind when I began the model. It could become the foot of an ogrillion or flesh golem (explains the missing toes). But then of course adding claws and it quickly becomes a demon foot or dragon like foot if you add a rear claw.
I also considered making it human again and creating a clone of the fatso model from infinity games. And who wouldn't want that?
I suppose I can modularize this model and actually finish it that way without going insane. The foot is done, and it's one project within a project. Next can be the leg.
But I still have to quickly decide what the model is... kind of stupid to not have decided first, I know. Bearing in mind that the foot can still be reformed, toes added, etc, any suggestions? I'm trying to think of a D&D creature that was painfully missed in NWN2.
If I build it it could be ported to varying games I imagine.
Oct 13, 2011
Dead community
Well, like it has been, the NWN2 community is in massive decline.
I feel like you can discuss it more readily here than in a forum full of fan kiddies who put in days of effort to drown you out in a pile of argumentive posts.
Let's look at facts. The early mods of this community cleared 20k downloads in a year. Now they are hard pressed to hit 1k. I can't make it any simpler than that. Typically, something is considered defunct when it reaches it's "half-life". Well for that, even if we ignored the first explosive 6 months of NWN2, that was a solid 3 years ago.
But like I said, when anyone ever pointed out the decline, they caused a sh*tstorm of angry replies from people. Mostly people who never posted or add anything to the forums, but they always appear to rant like lunatics about its never-ending and always growing appeal. And then disappear again, leaving it to near silence as 100 posts per day became 10 per week.
I remember one particular poster who joined about 2 years ago asking if it was viable for him to start in this community, a project he had a long time frame for. It was not an accusation, just a question if the community was still valid. Surprise surprise there was another volley of "this ocmmunity is BETTER than it was before". Except this time it wasn't the old deny-er guard, because they had moved on. The few stragglers continue this denial, and even tried to claim it was the "prime" of the community, because 3 year production mods were coming out and NWN2 was going to steam etc etc.
Now what fuels this furious denials, and sometimes out right bs in the face of facts (claiming a community that is a percentage of it's former size is in it's prime or growing, for example) is beyond me. It's beyond me because I have long agreed the community was in decline, but I ended up staying longer than these blindly angry deny-er types, who today aren't even around to keep up the facade.
I really just find it a mystery what they really accomplished. Rather than paint an at least somewhat unbiased view based on facts, they lie, deny, quit and are never heard from again. Were they trying to trick new modders into joining and wasting their time? Convince others, or just them self? Either way they failed because they are gone, and others are not joining.
Really you have to decide for yourself however, when the community lacks an audience for you, as a modder. For me, my Islander would have done well to be released about a year sooner. Most of my fellow modders who I swapped ideas with in the early days (and by early I mean nearly a year after MOTB as thats when I joined), never saw me complete my campaign, nor play it, nor comment on it.
Everyone who has released a campaign that took more than a year (which is why some argue we are in the prime, because of the "multi-year" projects coming out) has abandoned the community immediately after. Some names?
Harp and Chrys
Trial and Terror
Misery Stone
Trinity
I'm sure if you're a follower you can fill in the other names.
I get a giggle out of the fact that as I wrote this, it took all of 8 minutes for someone to show up and write a pissy reply to my post on this topic. From the same person who fits the category above, of having nothing to say until his community's glaring emptiness is pointed out.
And there are a lot more visual cues than simply watching your module getting 2 to 3 downloads per month in the top ten list, or my rough math that tells me we are below 2% of our one time popularity with downloads and viewership.
Look at the forums themselves; our moderators have neither posted nor "moderated" a post in months. When the police leave the inmates to guard themselves, you know something less than ideal is going on. The vault fills with more spam than commentary and the ability to even upload has evaporated. People are already speculating where you can release works at this point.
I don't see why this is an issue; life moves on, and a 2006 spec game should not be expected to last into 2012. My only regret is there is no real successor; the dragon age toolset does not offer a decidedly better product so much as just newer, and it's overwhelming difficulty has seen its community misfire and shrink in only one year.
It could also be that people modded at a time in their life when they had too much spare time like myself, and simply had to outgrow it.
Anyway I figured I owed any of my 2 readers an explanation rather than a simply drop off the internet which I saw many of my fellows do and found rather... haunting. Haha it's like they were ashamed of it and wanted to "die to the modding world". Well here is where I went.
Personally I think it's a little sad the community wasn't just "shut down" formally around 2010 rather than see it in the state is has become. Not that I expected something like that, but it would be more humane. You got a handful of persistent hard working talent, and no audience at all, with more and more dysfunctionalities appearing daily.
Should a superior toolset product show it's head I may well be interested in a lesser capacity, but the complexity has really gotten such that it's more than a full time job to even use the full range of tools available.
I feel like you can discuss it more readily here than in a forum full of fan kiddies who put in days of effort to drown you out in a pile of argumentive posts.
Let's look at facts. The early mods of this community cleared 20k downloads in a year. Now they are hard pressed to hit 1k. I can't make it any simpler than that. Typically, something is considered defunct when it reaches it's "half-life". Well for that, even if we ignored the first explosive 6 months of NWN2, that was a solid 3 years ago.
But like I said, when anyone ever pointed out the decline, they caused a sh*tstorm of angry replies from people. Mostly people who never posted or add anything to the forums, but they always appear to rant like lunatics about its never-ending and always growing appeal. And then disappear again, leaving it to near silence as 100 posts per day became 10 per week.
I remember one particular poster who joined about 2 years ago asking if it was viable for him to start in this community, a project he had a long time frame for. It was not an accusation, just a question if the community was still valid. Surprise surprise there was another volley of "this ocmmunity is BETTER than it was before". Except this time it wasn't the old deny-er guard, because they had moved on. The few stragglers continue this denial, and even tried to claim it was the "prime" of the community, because 3 year production mods were coming out and NWN2 was going to steam etc etc.
Now what fuels this furious denials, and sometimes out right bs in the face of facts (claiming a community that is a percentage of it's former size is in it's prime or growing, for example) is beyond me. It's beyond me because I have long agreed the community was in decline, but I ended up staying longer than these blindly angry deny-er types, who today aren't even around to keep up the facade.
I really just find it a mystery what they really accomplished. Rather than paint an at least somewhat unbiased view based on facts, they lie, deny, quit and are never heard from again. Were they trying to trick new modders into joining and wasting their time? Convince others, or just them self? Either way they failed because they are gone, and others are not joining.
Really you have to decide for yourself however, when the community lacks an audience for you, as a modder. For me, my Islander would have done well to be released about a year sooner. Most of my fellow modders who I swapped ideas with in the early days (and by early I mean nearly a year after MOTB as thats when I joined), never saw me complete my campaign, nor play it, nor comment on it.
Everyone who has released a campaign that took more than a year (which is why some argue we are in the prime, because of the "multi-year" projects coming out) has abandoned the community immediately after. Some names?
Harp and Chrys
Trial and Terror
Misery Stone
Trinity
I'm sure if you're a follower you can fill in the other names.
I get a giggle out of the fact that as I wrote this, it took all of 8 minutes for someone to show up and write a pissy reply to my post on this topic. From the same person who fits the category above, of having nothing to say until his community's glaring emptiness is pointed out.
And there are a lot more visual cues than simply watching your module getting 2 to 3 downloads per month in the top ten list, or my rough math that tells me we are below 2% of our one time popularity with downloads and viewership.
Look at the forums themselves; our moderators have neither posted nor "moderated" a post in months. When the police leave the inmates to guard themselves, you know something less than ideal is going on. The vault fills with more spam than commentary and the ability to even upload has evaporated. People are already speculating where you can release works at this point.
I don't see why this is an issue; life moves on, and a 2006 spec game should not be expected to last into 2012. My only regret is there is no real successor; the dragon age toolset does not offer a decidedly better product so much as just newer, and it's overwhelming difficulty has seen its community misfire and shrink in only one year.
It could also be that people modded at a time in their life when they had too much spare time like myself, and simply had to outgrow it.
Anyway I figured I owed any of my 2 readers an explanation rather than a simply drop off the internet which I saw many of my fellows do and found rather... haunting. Haha it's like they were ashamed of it and wanted to "die to the modding world". Well here is where I went.
Personally I think it's a little sad the community wasn't just "shut down" formally around 2010 rather than see it in the state is has become. Not that I expected something like that, but it would be more humane. You got a handful of persistent hard working talent, and no audience at all, with more and more dysfunctionalities appearing daily.
Should a superior toolset product show it's head I may well be interested in a lesser capacity, but the complexity has really gotten such that it's more than a full time job to even use the full range of tools available.
Sep 25, 2011
What do I know?
Well as some may have figured out, I have paused my icy episodic adventure for the community project, which will actually see a little more work from me than this adventure would have produced.
Unfortunately there has been a big delay as our group hak isn't working. I'm trying to work around it but limiting your tools and variety of items to use also limits your inspiration at times.
I've been looking to maybe partner up with at least one veteran modder and making a decent game of it. I figure this community project would be a sneak preview. I was thinking it could be even more but it seems a lot of my submissions will be much larger than the others, so not quite the same experience.
City Adventure
I'm not quite sure what the NWN2 toolset can do for my city adventure I got cooking in my mind. It may never happen as it is fairly ambitious. On the other hand I have no problem at all chapterizing it and have learned how to build that way. Additionally I'm not sure what toolset I would use. I want real legitimate control over the architecture, and nwn2's collection of "prefab" placeables does nothing to help this, and I (and the population of the vault/forums seem to agree) am simply getting tired of seeing the same tired old models ad nauseaum. But Dragon Age's tool set has all of six monsters. So really, what do you do with that??
And you can rotate placables in all directions, but you cant resize or recolor anything. Puke. It's like having to choose one meal for life, between two essential piles of food, with each one givine only half of what you need to keep from dying of nutrition.
I wonder if there is a new toolset on the horizon...
Unfortunately there has been a big delay as our group hak isn't working. I'm trying to work around it but limiting your tools and variety of items to use also limits your inspiration at times.
I've been looking to maybe partner up with at least one veteran modder and making a decent game of it. I figure this community project would be a sneak preview. I was thinking it could be even more but it seems a lot of my submissions will be much larger than the others, so not quite the same experience.
City Adventure
I'm not quite sure what the NWN2 toolset can do for my city adventure I got cooking in my mind. It may never happen as it is fairly ambitious. On the other hand I have no problem at all chapterizing it and have learned how to build that way. Additionally I'm not sure what toolset I would use. I want real legitimate control over the architecture, and nwn2's collection of "prefab" placeables does nothing to help this, and I (and the population of the vault/forums seem to agree) am simply getting tired of seeing the same tired old models ad nauseaum. But Dragon Age's tool set has all of six monsters. So really, what do you do with that??
And you can rotate placables in all directions, but you cant resize or recolor anything. Puke. It's like having to choose one meal for life, between two essential piles of food, with each one givine only half of what you need to keep from dying of nutrition.
I wonder if there is a new toolset on the horizon...
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