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I'll give everyone another taste of the model...
January 31, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 I'll give everyone another taste of the modeling things I'm trying to learn. Here's a normal mapped fish that's been projected against a flat plane. The plane is flat, an extremely low-polygon model, that has a normal map that gives the illusion of depth. As the light moves around, it behaves as if it's sticking out, casting appropriate shadows. The top fish has the light head-on, while the lower one has it from below.
Normal mapping is already starting to be huge, the reason why Doom 3 can run on old video cards yet the creatures seem so incredibly detailed. Both NWN2 and DA are certain to have it, so I'm trying to figure out how to best use it. From a practical perspective, this particular normal mapped fish would look okay laying there dead. Since it's flat, it would look odd moving around (there's no tail geometry to flap). My next project is seeing if I can take a high polycount fish and change it on a low polycount version, yet use the normal map to make it look good.
I also have a small confession to make. I've been having a really hard time with a certain section of the story, struggling with how to fill it in. I was thinking of having a murder mystery as part of the game, then I realized the entire section doesn't really further the story much at all. I woke up this morning and a bunch of plot pieces fell into place. I immediately grabbed a pencil and scribbled things down, feeling good to be back on track again.
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One of the PW folks I'm working with hit a li...
January 30, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
One of the PW folks I'm working with hit a limit with the NWN compiler. It turns out that if you have too many scripts or scripts that are too big, the toolset can crash when you compile things. In order to possibly help out, I've been removing unnecessary code from the Demon Cards game. It trimmed off about 700 KB from the module size too, which was nice. With luck we can finish up final testing and post this latest version to the Vault.
I was also hoping to get some more pretty normal mapped pictures. I'm slowly getting the hang of it, looking into a piece of software called Melody that helps you create low-poly models and normal maps. There's some tricky parts I'm running into, but it might save me some time.
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I've been playing around with normal mapping,...
January 28, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 I've been playing around with normal mapping, trying to figure out how to get all that new fangled stuff to work properly. I finally managed to take something and normal map it, though the effect is fairly subtle. Mostly if you look at the end of the barrels, you can see where it's indented a bit. I'm not completely happy with it, though I was elated to finally make something that worked after all these months.
The base model is Jupp's flintlock pistol. I'm trying hard to reuse as much NWN content as possible. The texture it uses is a bit small, so I might try to get ahold of him and see if he has a larger one handy.
The folks at Layonara Online had some problems with my latest Demon Cards build. It ran standalone just fine, but crashed the toolset when compiling. Hopefully we can figure it out today. There's also some issues that arise when you have lots of multiplayer users and heavy use, some of which may be hard to straighten out. We'll see.
Finally, I had a modeler volunteer yesterday. It's still very early, but I'd be a fool not to take him up on the offer. I just need to come up with a plan for all the pieces of custom content that I'll need and sketch them out in a little more detail. Progress feels good.
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I was really sick last night, writhing on the...
January 27, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
I was really sick last night, writhing on the floor in pain and wishing for death. Fortunately I fell into blissful unconsciousness and slept until three in the morning. I worked on the Demon Card game some more, ate a bowl of cereal, and went back to sleep.
I'm feeling much better today. The wager system is in place, hot off the presses. Basically any player can offer up a wager of either gold, ante, both, or neither. Other players can browse who's requesting a game, then pick the person and a deck they want to play. The first person can either ignore the challenge, or accept it and pick a deck.
I think it's fairly cool, for the folks who play multiplayer anyway. Hopefully the testers won't find too much wrong. I think it's the last of my big development changes for the moment, though I may start prepping a new version for NWN2.
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I got the spectator code working last night
January 26, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 I got the spectator code working last night. It took a bit of work, including creating a custom tile that keeps the spectators from interfering with the rest of the board. Players click on a pillar, see a list of the active games, and select one to watch. Messages that are sent to both players are sent to spectators as well, giving them a better feel for the game. Of course, it took about an hour and a half of coding and bug testing, so it wasn't all smooth going.
I've also been fixing and tweaking some of the specific cards as people give suggestions. My next big project is to allow different wagers in PvP games. The concept is that a player will offer up a wager (cards, gold, or both). Other players can get a list of the people and the wagers and pick one. If it's agreeable to the first party, they'll start up the game. It's a bit of work, but it should make a lot of people happy.
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It was a really busy day yesterday
January 25, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
It was a really busy day yesterday. Even more Demon Card bug reports came in, giving me a nice juicy list of things to fix. I think I got most of them, even incorporating a number of the fixes that bloodsong did for his version of the game.
The most gruesome error was the ante bug, which ended up acting strangely. I ended up removing the card only from the loser at the end (instead of at the beginning then giving it back). My worry is that the player would find a way to avoid paying the ante, so I tried to take care of any exploit, including taking all your cards out of your deck during play. If it can't find it in your deck, it'll search through your whole inventory.
It turns out the Layonara Online folks tried it out all weekend and have been giving me lots of feedback. We now have an "emergency exit" for example, allowing people to leave the play field should things go horribly wrong after a game ends.
Finally, I've been pretty busy on the NWN2 forums. It's been interesting picking up tidbits from the Obsidian developers, along with voicing my opinion where it makes sense.
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I got my first extremely detailed bug report ...
January 24, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
I got my first extremely detailed bug report on the Demon Cards game. It looks like I'll be doing some bug fixing today.
Learning how to do normal mapping is taking longer than I thought. There's lots of complexities to sort through. Finally, I did a little writing over the weekend, nothing too lengthy.
I find myself writing down a few sentences of humorous dialog every couple days. At this rate it'll take me a decade to finish, but it'll be nonstop laughs.
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I've been knee-deep in trying to figure out h...
January 22, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
I've been knee-deep in trying to figure out how to work with displacement maps and normal maps. They're the new fangled graphic technologies that make games like Far Cry and Doom 3 look so good. Both NWN2 and DA will most likely support at least normal mapping. My current test is taking some of the content for NWN2 and "prettying it up" in hopes that it'll work nicely for the next generation of games. So far, so good. I might even have something to show people in a day or two.
I think I'm settling on a control mechanism for a ship-to-ship combat system. I'm leaning towards real time with pause, along with a dialog-based control mechanism. To suppliment that, I was thinking about spoken text that can be turned into macros (e.g. "turn to port" or "fire cannons").
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Many people have offered up their help test D...
January 21, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
Many people have offered up their help test Demon Cards, which has been great. I've been working with the folks at Layonara Online, a fairly large persistent world (review). It's nice to see that someone's going to be able to use the changes I've made to the card game.
I've been trying to visualize playing through the Dark Waters module, trying to imagine any parts of the game that wouldn't play very well. I'm also trying to think of what issues I might face if I switched to NWN2. So far the big one is control of the various party members - there's a lot of cooperative play that might be tricky to work around.
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I suppose my whining helped
January 20, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
I suppose my whining helped. I've been getting lots of people volunteering to assist over the last couple days. Most everyone is reporting that it's working quite well (with the exception of one person who's getting crash bugs).
Just for fun, I put together a self-extracting package for the game which puts the files in all the appropriate places. You run an executable and the files get extracted to the right places. If anyone has strong feelings against such a system, let me know. I'm tempted to do it this way just to avoid the emails where people put things in the wrong folders.
I've been having fun in the new Neverwinter Nights 2 forums as of late. I also sent in a new interview to the folks at Neverwinter Nights 2 News. I'll post a link to it when it's final. I'm liking the things I'm hearing as of late with NWN2. Decisions, decisions.
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Strangely enough, only a couple people popped...
January 18, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
Strangely enough, only a couple people popped up to offer to test the new version of the card game. It seems that fame is fleeting and people have moved on. Sigh, I'll miss the penthouse parties, and of course the twins.
But seriously, I did manage to fix my top 10 score listing. There was a couple dumb mistakes I'd made, putting in the wrong variable names. At this point I think the only major bugs are those that already existed in the game itself. With luck I'll hear back from the testers and possibly release the new version shortly.
I managed a little writing yesterday as well, mostly room descriptions. It's a seemingly endless task which hopefully I can return to today.
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Well, it looks like my top ten list is screwe...
January 17, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, it looks like my top ten list is screwed up again, though I'm not sure why. I may just rip out the thing for causing me too much grief. Alternatively I could just remove the sorting part, which is what I think is causing all the trouble. Ante is working just fine again. The solution was easy after I looked at it more closely.
I think things are to the point where testers are welcome. If there's a few brave souls out there who can take a 2MB file attachment in e-mail, send me a note.
On the non-card front, I briefly found my muse yesterday and scribbled down the contents of a letter players might find while exploring. It's mostly for backstory as well as some possible foreshadowing. Fun stuff.
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I did a bunch of testing and fixing yesterday
January 16, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
I did a bunch of testing and fixing yesterday. It was exhausing work at times. It turns out I'd broken the player versus player code, which took a long while to fix. After staring at variables for a long time, it turns out I just needed to add a " - 1" to a particular place.
I was too stubborn to give up on the second bug. I wanted a "top ten players" list that included all the PCs and NPCs in the game room. I got everything working except the final sort by rank. It took about an hour to fix it, mostly because I kept forgetting a series of dumb thing. Finally by the time I got to bed, they both seemed to be working.
There's one final bug I'd like to squash today and one other feature I'd like to add. It seems like every game is played for ante, even if you ask to play for gold. I'm pretty sure that's a new accidental "feature" of my tampering with the guts of the game. I'd also like the ability to add options for PvP games where the first person can set the rules (ante, gold, etc.) and the second person can agree or reject them. The latter could be a bit complex, so it may wait for a day or two.
We'll see how far I get today.
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It took a little while, but I fixed the ante ...
January 14, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 It took a little while, but I fixed the ante problem. It had to do with the timing of all my object creation and destruction functions. When I delayed them out over a few fractions of a second, that evidently gave the engine time enough to do it's job. Strange. Now my only problem is dealing with the shame when the little girl and her goblins keep killing me.
My "to do" list is shrinking for the card game. I started implementing a system by which people's score follows them around using tags on an undroppable card bag. It probably means ripping out most of what's already there since there's only room for one or two variables and not the win/loss record against each category of card player. Hopefully I can get some of that in place today.
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Well, I fixed Higher Calling
January 13, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
Well, I fixed Higher Calling. It turns out that I had put in an invalid constant in the data definition script. It couldn't figure out what kind of card it was so it didn't bother casting anything.
Now I've just got that pesky ante issue to figure out. My debug code is providing me with cryptic information that doesn't make sense. Removing cards is done in a really strange fashion that involves creating an invisible object, copying the deck to it, going through the inventory to destroy the offending card, and finally copying the deck back to the player. It's really weird but seems the only way to do if I hope to remove the proper card from the proper deck.
I'm continuing to try to get the functionality of the Dragon Age toolset confirmed by the powers that be. I can always switch to NWN2 for Dark Waters, which will likely involve some benefits and trade-offs. Still, I do like working with Bioware and am hopeful things can be sorted out.
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Yesterday was crazy and today wasn't much better
January 12, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
Yesterday was crazy and today wasn't much better. I did manage to unpack and assemble my computer desk at home, though my daughter didn't escape unscathed. I added some new debug code in hopes of tracking down some issues. Hopefully I can test it out tonight.
There was an interesting thread on the DA boards. I'm trying to stay calm about this, but it suggests that area creation won't be nearly as easy as I'd hoped. Hopefully clarification will be forthcoming. In the meantime, I mulled over NWN2 and the issues with using that game engine instead. It's always good to have options.
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Progress continues
January 11, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
Progress continues. After a lengthy debug session, I think I have the "select a deck from a menu" system working somewhat. It lists the names of the decks you have and how many cards each one has. In theory multiplayer should work the same, though I have yet to test it.
My Higher Calling card isn't working properly and I noticed the Kobold Engineer lays down mines that cause my own creatures to blow up. That can't be good.
I'm hoping I can get some time to write today. I've been scribbling poetry in my notebook, of all things. My goal is to have a variety of things to read scattered about, providing backstory, clues, and entertainment to the player.
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I've been doing some more major changes to th...
January 10, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
I've been doing some more major changes to the card game code. I think I'm getting close to fixing the problem with the ante not properly removing the card. It's a bit of esoteric coding, involving the creation and destruction of objects, copying inventory about, and other mysteries best left unspoken.
Not to let bugs stop progress, I've made changes to how you select a deck when beginning a game. No longer do you have to put decks in and out of a bag (which is technically impossible now that decks are containers). Now you select your deck from a menu, which should hopefully let you choose which one you'd like to play with. I've got to redo the way multiplayer games start. Basically there's a good chance not much works at the moment.
Though it sounds like I've been ignoring the actual campaign, I worked out a pesky plot issue over the weekend. There's certain outcomes that have to happen at the end, but I wanted the player to be able to make some significant choices on how they get there. This middle part of the game is heavy on morality and choice, hopefully a nice contrast to the earlier and later parts of the game.
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Progress continues
January 08, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
Progress continues. I dove deep into the guts of the scripting, switching things over to the inventory based way of life. I think I have most of it working properly, with the exception of losing antes. Removing cards from decks is a tricky bit of business and I'm trying to close any exploits that players might envision.
I'm about to switch over the way decks are managed and cards are bought. No longer are the manage deck areas needed as you can simply arrange your inventory. There's a few nice things about them that I'll miss, but I'm shooting hard for simplicity. Purchasing cards is also going to change. I think I'll keep the random starter deck, though increase the price considerably. The store also has a random collection of cards for sale, periodically refilling as cards are purchased.
Long term, my hope is that this approach will better work with Dragon Age. Inventory-based systems tend to be more robust, especially when dealing with a multi-module story like I will be. Short term, I'm hoping this will be picked up by persistent worlds, or players will leave servers running for players to jump in and out of as they see fit.
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I made some really good progress today, finis...
January 07, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 I made some really good progress today, finishing up creating the last of the card items. I also put in the first functional steps of switching from a variable-based to an item-based card system. To test it I went up to the game shop owner, asked for a new deck, and watched in amazement as the cards flew in. After looking more closely, however, my heart skipped a beat as I realized that it had only added 35 cards to the deck instead of 40. It turns out the maximum capacity of any container is 35 slots.
Fortunately after my panic passed, I realized that there was a simple fix. I made the cards stackable, which nicely gets around the issue. It actually works more nicely, automatically organizing identical cards together. The only limitation I'd have now is if someone wanted to have over 35 different cards, something nearly impossible if you have any reasonable number of magic generators.
Tomorrow I'll be back to adding additional functions. I'll need to remove cards for ante and selling. I'll need another function that sets the deck variables before talking to the store owner or starting a game. After that, I'd like to switch to a dialog-based method of selecting which deck you want.
The only downside to all these changes is the hak pack size has grown a bit. I think the total size of the .zip file will be less than 2 MB, which is more than before but still pretty small. I think the improved inventory makes up for it. All the differently named decks look different too. I might add a few more since they look so nice.
I'm not completely ignoring my Dragon Age project either. The ideas continue to flow and I scribble them down in a notebook. Most are for the second module, though I need to start solidifying the first one before I get too carried away.
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There was yet more work on the Demon Cards ga...
January 06, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
There was yet more work on the Demon Cards game yesterday. I think I'm halfway through creating an item for each card. I also figured out why the various creatures weren't summoning properly. It turns out I had an extra zero in the blueprint name. Details, details.
I might tweak the stats for the Bulette a bit. After I saw it actually summoned on the playing field, I forgot how huge it was. Of course that means modifying a whole bunch of different places, but I think it's worth it. I'm still debugging the new Higher Calling enchantment. I don't think it's working properly and I'd like to figure out why.
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I spent a tremendous amount of time working o...
January 05, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 I spent a tremendous amount of time working on the card game yesterday. It was challenging, but also strangely fun. The most time consuming part was creating an inventory icon for each card. I basically entered a trance and copied and pasted my way to completion. They don't do anything yet and I've yet to create the actual items for each card, but my quick test showed that I was indeed able to take cards and put them in a deck container.
I couldn't help myself and I created four new cards as well. Unfortunately they don't actually work yet, even though I spent a lot of time setting each one up. I forgot all the details that need to be done: creating the card model, the placeable object, the creature, the inventory icon, the data in the script, and finally all the AI evaluation functions for each. It was a good learning experience, though, and I feel much more comfortable with the scripts again.
Today I hope to do some more bug fixing to get the four new cards working. I'm especially fond of an enchantment that's hard on the bigger creatures. They tend to overwhelm the smaller ones, so the new spell should help balance the field a bit. I also want to lay the groundwork for an inventory-based card management system. The current deck management system is ponderous, so I think it will be a nice addition. It should also be more "robust", as the variables on the decks and PC currently vanish at the end of the module.
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I've been working away at updating the Demon ...
January 04, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
I've been working away at updating the Demon Card game and preparing it for Dragon Age. My first step was to put in all the fixes I made for Demon into the latest build of the game. Now I'm laying the groundwork for an inventory-based card system. I have a few different looking deck containers along with the beginnings of the cards themselves. It's a lot of Photoshop work, copying and pasting things around, but I'm hoping it's a much more intuitive way to manage one's cards.
I also reviewed the AI scripts yesterday. It looks like I can make it more agressive without too much trouble. I'd also like to go back and balance some of the more powerful creatures or make the cheaper ones a little stronger. Right now it's pretty easy to survive until the big creatures come out.
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One of the things that I felt worked really w...
January 03, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
One of the things that I felt worked really well as a mini-game was the Demon Cards game. Even after months of working on it, it was still fun to sit down and play through some games. As such, I'd like to create a similar game for Dragon Age, using the new creatures, effects, and so on, as well as tying in themes from the new campaign (e.g. pirates, seafaring, and psionics). The hard part is that I have no idea what new creatures will be in the game, so most of it would be a guess on my part.
Still, there are a number of things I'd like to work on in order to prototype a new system. I'd like to fiddle with the way cards and decks are stored. Instead of a variable-based system, I'd prefer something inventory based that's more robust. As a side effect, the persistent world people would be better able to adopt it. I'd also like to rework the AI, switching to a weight-based system. There's also a number of cosmetic and balance changes I'd like to make, including making all new cards.
Like everything else I'm working on, we'll see how ambitious I really get. I've still got lots of work on the main plot, which I continue to scribble ideas for.
 I've also been playing a little of Rome: Total War. Since one of Dragon Age's features is to participate in large battles, there's a good chance that players can control the massive armies. It's an interesting form of gameplay, one that I could see as being a useful addition to my campaign. I'd never want the game to be based around it, though, as story is still king when it comes to RPGs. Still, it might be fun to lead a charge into an oncoming horde, or command your troops to storm a castle. Good times.
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I've been playing Pirates! and there's a lot ...
January 02, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 I've been playing Pirates! and there's a lot of excellent ideas to steal away. The ship-to-ship combat is great fun and is visually stunning. If I can even approach how the ships look moving around I'll be quite happy.
There's a number of things I probably wouldn't include. Pirates! doesn't have much of a plot while my campaign will be revolve heavily around its plot. I'll also skip the dancing mini-game and boarding actions will almost certainly use whatever DA melee combat allows. Still, there's some other fine ideas that I really like: treasure maps, upgrading ships, trading, and so on.
I'm also starting to take notes for the second module in the campaign. It's more free-form than the first one and will likely have a number of side quests. It's the first module that's solidly in the pirate genre as the first is mostly land based. I've still got to finish up the latter half of the first module, as it's mostly in skeleton form. When the ideas pop into my head, however, they demand that I put them to paper lest they vanish forever.
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About Me
I've won multiple awards for my Neverwinter Nights modules, which I've been working on since the year 2000.
In the real world, I'm a web developer for a healthcare organization. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
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