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I gathered up the first round of somewhat hor...
October 31, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
I gathered up the first round of somewhat horrific bug reports, went home, and promptly got as sick as a dog. I'm much improved today and somewhere in my delirium I think I've figured out one reason things went so poorly for everyone.
I've been giving people two installers, one for the first module and another for the second. I'm betting that while I cleaned up those pesky campaign-level scripts that cause problems from the second installer, I missed the first. What that means is that there's a fair amount of garbage sneaking into the game, causing all sorts of scripting weirdness.
Of course, that doesn't fix everything. For some reason, Mask of the Betrayer makes Robert look like a Frankenstein. Combined with the High Seas area having the player Godzilla-sized, it makes for a great monster movie mash-up, but probably not a game that makes any sense.
So, I'll be fixing those issues and others today, and hopefully get a new build for the testers soon.
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I sometimes have these naive visions of being...
October 29, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I sometimes have these naive visions of being able to get things done on Mondays. Instead, I've been swamped, barely able to think about the game. Hopefully tonight I can actually spend some time with it.
PJJ has reportedly made a lengthy issue of list of issues, a few of which are somewhat critical. I've yet to peek at the details, but I'm sure they'll haunt me for the days ahead. Perhaps I can feed myself to a shark in an attempt to delay the inevitable.
I got some great response from volunteers, passing along the latest link to someone who asked on Friday. Three more came in over the weekend and I'm tempted to ask them to wait until I fix the most serious issues PJJ has reported. I try hard not to pummel my QA folks with too many runs through the game. Mere mortals can typically handle one or two full playthroughs. I think PJJ and Brad may be robots, but I'm too polite to ask.
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I spent a bunch of time working on the under ...
October 28, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I spent a bunch of time working on the under water area. It takes a huge amount of work, painting down textures, creating tipped buildings, and generally making things look underwaterish. I tried to get light patterns on the bottom of the sea floor, but couldn't quite get it right.
I finally decided to test out my work, but couldn't get the module to load. I stripped out the imported areas, leaving my new area intact. It loaded just fine this time.
Amusingly enough, all the scripts kicked in and soon enough I found myself the target of assorted enemy subs. Torpedoes started homing in on my poor little PC, explosions all around me. It's a good sign, even though this was a very preliminary test.
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I'm happy to say that through an odd combinat...
October 26, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
I'm happy to say that through an odd combination of file-upload sites, I finally got the new build to the testers. I'm also putting out a call to anyone who's interested in lending a hand with testing. I'm not certain we've caught all the critical bugs, but I keep thinking we're getting close. Help is most welcome.
I'll probably turn my attention back to the third act today. Lots to do there yet.
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I've found myself in this situation more than...
October 25, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I've found myself in this situation more than once, my player standing knee-deep in the ocean, various ships plying the sea around me. I'd feel like something out of a Japanese monster movie, but everyone else seems so calm about it.
It turns out that I let some important scripts move from the module to the campaign folder, and bad scripts were overriding good scripts. Once I got rid of them, the world was a happy place once again.
Yesterday was spent cleaning up miscellaneous small issues. The Iron Mountain dock area has a little mine cart that comes out of some big doors and a dwarf pokes at it. It's just background, but I still ended up fiddling with it until it looked relatively good. The dockmaster there also sells iron ore, which he didn't before. He was also incredibly small, probably a product of earlier fiddling due to 2da changes.
As for today, I spent a big chunk of time getting a new build to the testers. Occasionally it's a headache moving 160 MB files around. I'm half tempted to throw money at the problem and just get a place to host big files. My poor little closet server might work in a pinch, but the bandwidth is pretty marginal.
With luck, I'll get endless bug reports soon, along with the inevitable sobs and head bonking against walls that come with them. I can't wait.
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I did a little more puttering with the second act
October 24, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I did a little more puttering with the second act. For performance reasons, all the docks from the High Seas system are actually interior areas. This means they're rather dark and dreary looking.
I ended up giving them a little more love so they didn't look completely weird. They now have a skydome with a nice sky texture. It doesn't use the official one, so there's no stars, moon, or sun. Still, it looks far better than a black fog that surrounds the docks.
I even added a little dock worker who does things in the distance, adding a small visual touch to the place. Maybe today I'll add some sharks moving around the Sweet Isle docks or mine carts in the Iron Mountain area.
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Mondays are always crazy, and I never get as ...
October 23, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 Mondays are always crazy, and I never get as much done as I'd like. I have puttered around with a couple things lately. The sub now has a spinning propeller and emits bubbles. I need to test it out at some point, as I had to do some weird things in order to get it to work right. For example, the propeller effect can't have a position other than dead center, which means the rest of the sub got shifted forward.
The torpedo is in now too, as well as portraits for the sub and existing ships. Before this latest patch, the ships showed up without a portrait and looked a little weird.
My list of things to do is huge as always. My two main testers have been quiet lately, so I haven't been fixing many bugs lately. I suppose I can virtually keel haul the scurvy dogs, but they've been so darn helpful over the months and years that I'd probably feel a little guilty. The third act is keeping me busy, mostly doing fun things like model work and painting areas. Eventually I need to stop puttering around and release the second act, though.
I was also having some crazy ideas while sitting in a bored meeting the other day. "Lute Hero" was one of them. I also pondered a dance-fight section. We'll see if the insanity ever sees the light of day.
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I went back to the burning shop area this morning
October 21, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I went back to the burning shop area this morning. As I had discovered previously, the fire didn't really spread and the player didn't have any risk at all going into the area. It turns out the problem wasn't exactly with the script, but rather issues relating to the distance between burnable objects in the store. After a bit of work, I think I have a solution I'm happy with.
I lined up crates like a fuse, leading to an explosive barrel next to the little girl. I increased the distance fire can spread and added in a longer delay for the spread to happen. Now the player has sufficient time to rescue the girl, assuming they don't dally and check out the contents of the shop crates. Plus there's an increased chance of catching on fire, which is always a bonus.
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I continue to putter around, trying to make t...
October 21, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I continue to putter around, trying to make the final act of the campaign as extraordinary as possible. One of the areas in the Clockwork Man quest is under water, which requires a fair bit of custom content. The submersible was modeled by Razvan and textured by myself. It needs more work, but doesn't look too bad. The shark is from the first Neverwinter Nights, and looks fairly good with a normal map.
Sadly I haven't been able to actually animate them properly. After many long hours with the expotron plug-in, I couldn't make even the simplest animation work. For now I decided to switch to plopping a model effect on top of an invisible human. They move around, not quite realistically, but if you squint it's not too bad.
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What fun is a city full of mechanical beings ...
October 18, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 What fun is a city full of mechanical beings without making them look like Cylons? Yes, I spent way too much time trying to get a glowing red spot move back and forth inside of a visor. I ended up making a long graphics file with a bunch of frames showing a white dot moving back and forth on a black background. That got turned into a billboard effect, which was incorporated into an effect that can be used in the game. After all that work, I ended up with this.
I continue to bring over the Clockwork Man areas from the prototype. I really only have two areas in the prototype that are finished, along with a fair amount of dialog. It's the roughest of the prototype areas, as the game came out before I could finish. I'm still a little nervous without that preparation, but I remind myself the Dreamcatcher was made completely on the fly and turned out quite well.
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I decided it was time to get back to the busi...
October 17, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I decided it was time to get back to the business of actually shipping the second act (I gotta come up with a better name - Dark Waters, Episode 2?). I tested the Trap in a Box, which worked like a charm. I knew there was also a problem with the "save the girl from the burning building" quest. Previously fires never spread, which made the quest very easy.
Well, I'm not sure if the patch changed things or I did something, but now fire engulfs the entire shop in mere seconds, followed by the death of everyone I was supposed to save. Oops.
To top it off, it turns out some key campaign scripts got replaced with older versions, so now I have to dig through my various versions and see if I can find the things. Hopefully it's a recent mistake and the last full build has the good version.
So, that's what I'll be fixing today . . .
Update: Fortunately the last build was just fine and had the right files, so reverting was painless. One of the testers was having problems getting the files, so I passed along some Megaupload links in hopes that'll help. For now, I've gone back to working on the Clockwork Man quest, converting areas and so on.
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I had some home networking issues yesterday, ...
October 16, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I had some home networking issues yesterday, so I'm doing a delayed update. Yesterday I spent way too much time working on getting an organic looking spot of goo on the ground. Eventually I figured it out, but it took a good long time.
I also threw together a little combat-focused area after making my assorted fleshy custom content. I have a tendency to make my final module in a campaign more combat focused, if only to give the player lots of opportunities to show off the equipment they've accumulated over the span of the adventure. There should still be plenty of puzzles and storytelling, though the focus tends to shift a little.
Some Swedish and German design students asked me some questions about modding for a school project today. If I take my own advice, I should be taking more risks and doing things the big publishers dare not attempt. Hmm.
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I did a little bit of modeling today, putting...
October 14, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I did a little bit of modeling today, putting together some broken automata for a part in the third Act. Nothing too exciting.
I keep refining the story behind the final chapter in my head. Hopefully I can do something that's fun without being overwhelmingly complicated. I've found that on occasion I have a crazy idea that ends up generating a huge amount of work for me. Of course, it's being different that's what makes the modules memorable, but sometimes I go a little too far.
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I occasionally take a break from the huge inf...
October 13, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
I occasionally take a break from the huge influx of great games to work on my little project. Yesterday I fixed the "Trap in a Box" item now that the CreateTrap functions are working with the latest patch. It's a quickie trap for non-rogues, allowing them to place a trap themselves. I need to verify that it works okay, but I'm guessing it does.
I also did some more work on the next act, which is looking to be the last in the campaign. It's been awhile since I've done area creation, and I've forgotten just how long it takes. It's a very puzzle oriented area, which is a nice contrast to some of the more combat-heavy ones.
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There's no coincidence that yesterday marked ...
October 11, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
There's no coincidence that yesterday marked the release of Portal and my lack of posting. Portal is brilliantly funny and has some of my favorite AI humor in it. It's quite short, so don't expect anything epic.
I was inspired to work on the Clockwork Man quest from the next act. There's an interesting text to speech demo over on the AT&T site. The result was this clip, which I'm fairly happy about.
I don't think our voice actors will be out of business any time soon. This approach only works well with robotic voices and it's pretty devoid of emotions. Still, for this little niche, it's fun and quick to do.
In terms of the current state of the project, I've passed along the latest build of the first and second modules to the testers, which Chris gratiously hosted. Dunniteowl sounds like he'd like to do some more voice acting for the project, and I have few roles still unvoiced. I'll hopefully get some Lord Brighton from Raphael once his cold clears up. Exciting stuff, all around.
As for me, I should probably be reviewing QA notes to make sure I didn't miss anything. I'm tempted to work on the next act, though, as a fun treat for myself. So far I've put together the skeleton of one of the modules. It needs areas, custom content, and a bunch of other things. No rest for the weary.
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Well, since I'm so fickle, I decided that the...
October 09, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, since I'm so fickle, I decided that the one cutscene in the first module needed it's own area so I could probably desaturate it. There's a new beta for the brave among you. As you can see by the picture, historical beverage quaffing will now be done while properly desaturated.
Of course, someone is now reporting that Robert's head looks completely bizarre in the expansion, so you might want to hold off downloading and installing this version until I take another look. Ah, the joys of patches!
I'm slowly getting used to the latest patch. The new Strategic camera takes a bit of getting used to, but it reminds me a bit of the old Baldur's Gate days. It's also odd to see Heather's bat popping up next to her all the time. I never bothered having Heather summon a familiar in the past. Now she's gone all batty.
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Mondays are always crazy busy for me
October 08, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
Mondays are always crazy busy for me. I should just accept the fact that it's hard for me to get anything significant done.
I did manage to package up the two modules. For the brave among you, you can try this beta version of the 1.05 version of Dark Waters 1. This isn't the new stuff, so don't get excited. It's basically the first module, with some fixes that should allow better transfer of characters and variables to the second module. It should fix the invisible companion issue in the final area. I also added a desaturate effect to the Remembrance areas (Minus one, I just realized, which shares the main island map. Maybe I can fix that.) In any case, play at your own risk, but if you find something weird, please let me know.
I've also had a volunteer do Lord Brighton, which is one of the last unvoiced roles that I really wanted to fill. The actor is English, which helps set the proper mood. It's been interesting for me to help with the voice work. I'm learning a lot about Audacity, which is a pretty good piece of free audio software. For example, this latest sound clip had some noise and balance issues that I was mostly able to clean up. Expensive audio equipment fixes this at the source, but is obviously not available to everyone.
I really want to get the latest build to the testers, but I'm not sure if I'll get the time today. Too many things going on.
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I'm working hard this weekend, trying to get ...
October 08, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm working hard this weekend, trying to get things ready for the testers. I ran across this bizarre bug that I'm hoping is a one-off issue. I went to Port Brighton without any issue, went inside the magic shop. When I left, the world had vanished and the stars twinkled beneath my feet. It was disconcerting and put an end to that particular round of testing.
I attached some sound clips that I'd had sitting around. They were from some Remembrance scenes for Daniel, which seemed lacking if only Daniel was the one talking. I also fixed some camera angles and other miscellaneous issues.
One really big problem presented itself with this latest patch. Before, the camera would stay on a speaking character until the player clicked. Now, it immediately switched back to the PC. This is because I was using a non-standard way to create my mp3 files. Before I was vaguely annoyed. With the latest behavior, I was highly annoyed.
Fortunately the developers had posted how to do it and I carefully followed their method. I converted the 3,000+ mp3 files in both acts of the module to wav, then converted them back to mp3 with the proper header. Where I could find the original wav files, I used those to maintain maximum quality. Now the camera stays on whoever is talking until the sound clip ends. I also took the opportunity to clean up some of the dockmaster's sound clips, as a number had some padding at the beginning which looked weird (as the lipsynch animation played before you heard anything).
I'm thinking things are doing relatively good at the moment. I think I'll package up what I've got and get things to the testers next week. I might do a public beta of the first module, as I don't think there's a lot more work that needs to be done there. Busy, busy.
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I fiddled some more with the meaty looking ar...
October 05, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I fiddled some more with the meaty looking area, currently called "In the Belly of the Beast" of something equally dramatic. The door frames look silly, so I tried to make some bone framing for effect. It also needs some goopy looking things on the floor so that it's not just wall-to-wall meat.
Of course, the game currently crashes when I test it out, so I'm likely doing something wrong. I'm thinking it might be the format of the texture files, so I may end up making some custom textures (I'm currently reusing the terrain ones).
I also hit a major milestone today. I finally got all the sound clips chopped up, attached, and the lipsynch animation files generated. I have 1,253 voice clips for the second act, all of which I've fiddled with in one way or another. If I can summon the energy, I'm going to work on making a new build and see if I can do some light testing to make sure the thing generally works.
I'm probably not completely done with the voice work. I have some Lord Brighton clips that should be coming my way. There's some miscellaneous characters I'd like to work in. Still, it feels like I'm nearly there, assuming the next round of debugging goes well.
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I played around with the new tileset retextur...
October 04, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I played around with the new tileset retexturing code. It looks like I can make some suitably gross interiors with minimal effort. A reskin isn't as good as a new tileset, but for my purposes it's likely good enough. I need to work on doorways, as they currently don't look very good. I'm sure there's endless other things I could tweak.
I've been plugging away at the sound clips. I made some good progress this morning, continuing to enjoy Chris' side comments as I chop up the files. There's a few lines I wish I could work in somehow, just for amusement value.
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Well, I found the place where you can adjust ...
October 03, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, I found the place where you can adjust the degree of desaturation. After I toned it down to only mostly gray, I think I hit the proper effect. Events that occur in the past now have a faded look, which is a very traditional visual cue that the events you're seeing already happened.
As an aside, I also got my new 2.66 dual-core CPU, motherboard, 2 GHz of memory, and GeForce 8800 GTS card yesterday. The biggest difference is the CPU, I think. I used to hit CTRL+F5 to test a module, go away for awhile, and return to click an OK button so the module actually runs. Now the button comes up right away and the game loads the module fast enough to keep me in my seat.
This morning I went through all the past areas and desaturated them to a good level. Hopefully today I can find more time to work on voice work, which is the last big thing before testing can resume.
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I finally got around to installing the latest...
October 03, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I finally got around to installing the latest patch, complete with the new "desaturate" effect. I'm sorely tempted to use the black and white look for the past sections of the game. My only hesitation is that some of the more complex areas (such as the war scene) is a bit long for a "gimmick" effect. Still, for this second act, it works quite well.
I still need to find the time to work on dialog. Unfortunately my life got pretty busy all of a sudden.
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Progress continues on hooking up all the dial...
October 01, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
Progress continues on hooking up all the dialog files. It's tedious work, listening to everything, finding the best take, and linking it into the conversation in the toolkit. On the plus side, I get to hear the voice actors cry. I think I'm about a third of the way done, so it's hard to estimate how much longer it'll take. Awhile yet.
The Isle of Flesh is done for now. My son got really into it and is itching to make other islands that are equally outlandish. I think we'll do a frozen island next, though it's a big mundane in comparison.
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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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