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It was another productive day yesterday, most...
May 31, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 It was another productive day yesterday, mostly writing dialog and fleshing out some of the wackier ideas I've been playing with. Things seem to be coming together quite nicely, though development is still quite early.
I also figured out how to get something in the game that I've been wanting for quite some time - swimming. The method I'm using isn't perfect, but it should work for cutscenes at the least, and perhaps some special areas as well.
Danmar also dropped in a few dozen issues in the issue tracking database. I can't decide if it's time for a pot of coffee or a stiff drink before I work my way through the list.
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I cranked out another mini tileset for the ne...
May 30, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
I cranked out another mini tileset for the new game, getting it in game. I'd like to make some placeables for it to get the full effect, but it may be awhile. I'm having a hard time working with skinmesh and may instead switch to an animesh placeable, which seems simpler.
I'm also working on dialog, trying to provide many different branches. I'm leaning for depth over breadth for this latest game. Though I liked the many different henchmen for Shadowlords and Dreamcatcher, it was hard to get the depth I wanted with so many. This time around I'm trying to keep the focus tighter, yet still provide an interesting cast of characters.
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There's a satisfying feeling starting a new m...
May 29, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
There's a satisfying feeling starting a new module. It opens quickly, saves fast, and there's not dozens of scripts to sort through when looking for things. Though I'm not ready to talk about it in detail, I've started in on my post-Demon module. I whipped up a quick tileset to go along with it, building custom content as I go. It needs shadows tweaked, but it should work well enough. I did some debugging as well, making sure some of my weirder scripts are actually working.
I also had some more good ideas this morning. Creative inspiration is something that I've never been able to turn on at will, so I'm always surprised when an idea pops into in my brain.
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I signed up my second tester
May 28, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 I signed up my second tester. One of the nice things about being reasonably well known is that I can ask some really capable people for help.
I fixed a few more bugs last night. All were minor, except for one involving your henchman not respawning when they died. That falls in the "super bad" category, so I'm keeping an eye on it. I rearranged some code, but couldn't see anything otherwise wrong with it.
My post-Demon plans may be firming up again, though still more vague than I'd like.
Yesterday was also my daughter's birthday. I'm only saying that because a year ago I finished Dreamcatcher 4 and started working on Demon. Hard to believe that I've been developing the same module for so long.
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My work schedule's been crazy the last couple...
May 26, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
My work schedule's been crazy the last couple days, filled with offsite all-day meetings. I'm trying to scribble down ideas on paper when I come up with them. I'm finding it's pretty easy to come up with elements I like (e.g. an NPC, puzzle, or side quest), but I haven't settled on an overarching story I like. Ah, the joys of writing.
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Jay's made it to the end of the module which ...
May 24, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 Jay's made it to the end of the module which is a very good sign. He also didn't use any harsh language in his latest e-mail, which probably indicates that the end didn't suck too badly. I'm still nervous about the overall story as after working on it so long I can't tell if it's good or not.
I need to hunker down and help finish what aspects of the Sigil tileset as I can. There's a few tiles to cleanup and one to make from scratch. I'm also hoping that Batinthehat manages to finish the Mortuary relatively soon. From what I've seen, it looks amazing.
I continue to get excited about Dragon Age and seem to be writing on the forum daily. I'm tentatively coming up with a plan to prepare for a Dragon Age module. One of the things that worked really well with Shadowlords is the two years of writing and planning I made before the release of NWN. Because of that, I was able to crank out five modules in a few months. I'm thinking I might try the same with Dragon Age.
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Testing continues
May 23, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
Testing continues. I just finished taking care of the last of the bugs that were reported during this latest round. Jay's still making his way through the game. There have been some particularly nasty bugs, but I think it'll be possible for him to finish the game.
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A couple nights ago my tester went into high ...
May 21, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 A couple nights ago my tester went into high gear and put in a huge number of issues into the issue tracking system. I spent most of yesterday going through each one and fixing what I could, then testing my fixes last night.
Some were very easy to fix, such as screwing up the links in an area transition. Others are much trickier and may force me to make some compromises I'd rather avoid. In particular, there seem to be some henchman AI issues. I think it's due to my fiddling with the AI code and I may just rip out most of my changes.
Though bug fixing is a grueling process, it's good to see the game get one step closer to completion.
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I did a little more cleanup work on the Spiri...
May 19, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 I did a little more cleanup work on the Spirit Gem areas of Demon. The bugs are getting dealt with as they're reported, which feels pretty good.
I also spent some time yesterday working on the Sigil tileset. There were some bugs that were found - some gaps and misaligned textures mostly. Dealing with shadow problems is always fun too. There's a tile that needs to be done from scratch and I might try my hand at that today.
Batinthehat was showing off some pictures of the mortuary and they look simply stunning. Slowly getting there.
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I think the issues with the armsman are fixed...
May 18, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
I think the issues with the armsman are fixed now, though there were some weird bugs involved. The issue was with the sparring code. I had to make sure you could damage but not kill him, as well as not having the player's associates go hostile and attack him as well.
There were also some spirit gem door issues that I'm working on a bit today. Tedious, but not hard.
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Testing continues
May 17, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 Testing continues. Some odd bugs involving the armsman from your spirit gem popped up, but I think I'm narrowing down the problem. The player's spirit gem has always been a very tricky place from a scripting and custom content perspective. Because of that, there's lots of opportunities for bugs as well. With luck, testing will get them all.
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Demon testing has begun in ernest
May 16, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
Demon testing has begun in ernest. I made a bunch of fixes to the Chen Village area, some of which were highly annoying. My little issue tracking system I put together had some issues with it ironically enough. I fixed those as well. It feels great to get testing underway, closer to the day where I can actually release the thing.
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I made some good progress on the beach tilese...
May 15, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 I made some good progress on the beach tileset, fixing many of the rule issues with the SET file. I can make a standard beach scene with a grassy area that leads down to a beach, which was my main goal. I unfortunately have to make the raised grassy area in a weird way, which I'm still trying to fix. There's also lots of variation tiles needed as well as some texture mapping cleanup.
The really good news is that I've been given the green light to start testing Demon. It's not widespread testing, so no e-mails begging to test please. Just one or two folks at the moment. I spent last night and this morning polishing up my little testing center, making sure everything was secure and working properly. If things go according to plan, the next few weeks will be quite busy.
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I integrated the beach tiles with the Rural t...
May 14, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 I integrated the beach tiles with the Rural tileset, but I'm still having quite a few problems with getting things to work properly. The SET file is a tricky thing and things aren't doing what they're supposed to. There's also a bunch of height transition tiles remaining to be done.
The Vault put up their E3 coverage of Dragon Age. It sounds pretty amazing, though it's probably going to be two or three years from being released. I think I started planning for Shadowlords a couple years before NWN was released. Hmm . . .
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More beach madness
May 13, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 More beach madness. I've been working on integrating it with the grass tileset in preparation to get all the tiles in a rural tileset. Though it's possible to have the beach transition directly to grassy tiles, I'm going to spend most of my time with the height transition tiles. Most of the beaches around here have a flat smooth beach, then you climb up a bit to get to ground level, so I'm shooting for something similar.
Also, the reviews for Dragon age are starting to come out. I'm already starting to get excited.
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I added in the deep water tiles yesterday, th...
May 11, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 I added in the deep water tiles yesterday, though I think I want to tweak them some more. They're not obviously deep to the player, so it's not always clear why you can't move to certain areas. There's a whole bunch of more things I'm considering tweaking and changing about the tileset, but I think the basics are there. It really needs some integration with the grass tilesets from the rural terrain, so I may have to do some fiddling with heights and such. Should keep me busy.
On the Demon front, a couple developments. Magnus is going to allow other module builders to use the music from Demon, of which there's quite a lot. I think I also have a technique to strip out all the CODI content from the module and still leave it playable. That should allow me to start up testing which has been delayed for quite some time. We'll see how it goes.
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Well, it might be a bit late, but last Friday...
May 10, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 Well, it might be a bit late, but last Friday I managed to finish off all the "Shallows" tiles. They probably need some more tweaking, but look relatively good. The last set is the deep tiles which aren't walkable, then it's cleanup and adding new features to finish it up.
I'm really hoping that the Sigil tileset gets finished up soon and testing can begin for Demon. Unfortunately I'm at a point where I think I've done everything I can, so I'm just waiting. I'm considering chopping up the module into pieces so that parts can be tested without showing off CODI's tilesets. We'll see how it goes.
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Well, I'm waffling again
May 07, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 Well, I'm waffling again. I'm leaning towards using animesh rather than a flat plane with shiny water. If I do it right, I think it'll turn out looking quite good, though I need to get the white surf looking reasonably good. I have a tentative plan for that as well.
There's just something inherently cool about having water move up and down around you. The screenshot shows a couple frames of the animation to give you a feel for the movement. So far I've only done the one tile, though I'm actually looking forward to doing the other ones today as well. Fiddling with vertexes is actually kind of fun.
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I fiddled about with the beach tileset some m...
May 06, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 I fiddled about with the beach tileset some more, getting the shallows in the game. The part I'm struggling with the most is how to do the water so it looks best. I decided to see if I could get it looking good without animesh, as the problem is that shiny water stops working if I use it. I think once I get the waves working properly, it should improve. I've been looking into how Knights of the Old Republic did their beaches and I think I can make a reasonable approximation.
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Well, I redid the beach textures and they're ...
May 05, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 Well, I redid the beach textures and they're better, though not quite perfect. The line between the all wet and the transition tile is gone, though there still seems to be one with the dry sand. I'll keep fiddling with it, I suppose. I'd also like to fiddle with some of the extra beach textures, as some of the shells and such seem overly large.
The most exciting thing I did yesterday was play with Animesh for the first time. Just for an experiment, I tried creating some waves for the default water tile. Sure enough they started rolling away, looking quite cool. There seem to be some limits and issues with animesh. Shiny water wouldn't work at all, which was too bad. I may be able to fake it using another approach, though we'll see how easy it is to do.
With that test under my belt, I think I'll actually start working on the water part of the beach tileset today.
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I just finished uploading my desparkled tiles
May 04, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 I just finished uploading my desparkled tiles. I also fiddled with the edge tiles some more as I noticed there were some missing areas in the corners.
I worked more on the beach set. My most important find was the discovery that I hadn't properly set the ambient and diffuse colors properly, causing everything to look overly drab. My latest vexing problem is that the reflectivity of my wet sand isn't looking quite right. There's an obvious border between tiles. I'll see if I can redo the texture today and get the effect looking a bit nicer.
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All the height transition tiles have been des...
May 03, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
All the height transition tiles have been desparkled. It's fairly mindless vertex-pushing work, but needs to be done. I think there's some more shadow fixing to do, but the list of work is slowly shrinking. There's a few big items that batinthehat is working on, most notably the mortuary retexture. I can't wait to set my eyes on that one.
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Not too much to report
May 02, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
Not too much to report. I got the minaret up on the CVS I share with the other people working on the tile. I confirmed that my little minaret addition works in the main Demon game itself. I have some desparkling work ahead of me, though I'm not sure I'll be able to get to it today. Things are slowly coming together.
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It was one of those really productive days ye...
May 01, 2004 by Adam in NWN1
 It was one of those really productive days yesterday, most likely due to all the coffee I drank in the morning. I added a missing edge tile to the Sigil tileset. More excitingly, I took Ghost's cool minaret that he worked on and got it into the current Sigil tileset. It was a bit exciting, requiring a retexture, some sparkle cleanup, and completely redoing the walkmesh. After putting on the finishing touches like the mini-map icon, I'm calling it done.
It seemed a shame to not have such cool architecture not in Demon, so I snuck it in and created a character and dialog to go with it. There's a pretty amazing view from so far up. It really helps show off the incredible architecture of the city below.
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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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