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I whipped up this rather dramatically lit scr...
May 29, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I whipped up this rather dramatically lit screenshot outside of the lighthouse. The rain was pouring and lightning flashed across the sky. It seemed an appropriate mood for debugging the Sketch Artist module.
I fixed a bunch of issues, though I've got quite a few to work on yet. Teleportation is a fun new skill to play with, though the range seems a little short. You can get to the other side of a locked door you can see through, but can't jump halfway across the map. I'll need to see how well that works if you increase the skill level, though. Coupled with the power, I want to make a bunch of places where players can use their skills to "break the rules" and get into places they otherwise couldn't get into. I love making players feel sneeky.
PJJ reported a couple minor typos with Lute Hero, otherwise it feels pretty much ready to go. I have my eye on a funky multiplayer issue involving servers that don't force a single party. Unfortunately I can't recreate it.
I'm also headed out of town for a family reunion for the next four days. I'd love to do some writing, as there's a ton of things that aren't on the critical path that I'd love to flesh out.
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I sent off Lute Hero to the testers, hopefull...
May 28, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I sent off Lute Hero to the testers, hopefully the last one before release. I also ended up putting together a release movie, which was time consuming but fun. I'll see if I can get in touch with the Vault folks and get things rolling.
I also got an e-mail out of the blue from someone working on the Saving Sigil project. There was a ton of work done on the NWN1 Sigil tilesets and placeables, most of which was lost when CODI disbanded. It's inspiring to see all she's done.
I spent a little time testing the Sketch Artist module. It's working pretty well, except for the part where I can't enter the lighthouse. I also discovered that one of my dialogs was only partially finished, so I finished that up this morning. Busy, busy.
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I'm still working away in between the long-we...
May 26, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm still working away in between the long-weekend activities and birthday parties. I managed to write and record some dialog for this little gnome, the dockmaster for Underhill clanhome.
The two main "key" quests are slowly coming together. Much of my time today was spent reviewing the Sketch Artist quest which had a large number of issues, bugs, and missing things. This included creating a ship cabin for a conversation to take place, some journal entries, and a bit of scripting. Now I've got to give it a whirl and see if it actually works.
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Well, I'm a very bad boy, or good boy, depend...
May 25, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, I'm a very bad boy, or good boy, depending on how you see things. I didn't get a new build to the testers this Friday. Though I was crazy busy yesterday, I managed to write some new dialog for Death, record his lines, and fix a remaining GUI bug. Hopefully soon I can get some time to send it off, or perhaps I'll try to sneak in even more dialog. We'll see what the weekend brings.
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It was back to Lute Hero for me this morning
May 23, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 It was back to Lute Hero for me this morning. I tried to figure out a reported issue where sound didn't work right if the players weren't part of the same party. Strangely, everything worked great for me. One player was able to jam out and the other heard it just fine.
I'm hoping the game works well in multiplayer or a persistant world. Theoretically someone could easily transform Death's Domain into their own bar, complete with a stage for performing their own songs. The hardest part would be getting custom music into the module. I'd be happy to hand over my conversion scripts to those brave enough to give it a try, though it's a fairly tricky process.
I'm going to pass along the most recent build to the testers today. Hopefully things will be polished enough for a release very soon.
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This proud robotic gardener has his cylon-lik...
May 22, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 This proud robotic gardener has his cylon-like eye move back and forth in the proper place, instead of around his chin like before. Even though the toolset showed it right, it seems that certain offsets to visual effects don't work in the game. I've since fixed it and it looks great.
Other bugs have been squished and the quest is shaping up to be a fun one. I like that each of the automata puzzles can be solved in a lot of different ways, some peaceful, some distructive.
Today is a lousy day for me to get anything done. I still want to investigate one last Lute Hero issue before I send things out to testers again. Sadly I haven't found the time. Maybe tonight.
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I made some good progress with the Clockwork ...
May 21, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I made some good progress with the Clockwork Man quest yesterday. An annoying crash bug has been fixed and my misplaced companions have been found. Even better, the underwater area looks great and I managed to whip up a nice effect for the light ripples that move around on the sea floor. I tried to grab a screenshot that captured some of the more impressive props, such as a shark, sub, and torpedo.
I still have much to polish and fix. Some of the automata puzzles are a little off, but I was able to generally make them work last night. There's some visual weirdnesses that I need to fiddle with as well. Still, I think it's almost ready for wider testing.
I also managed to get back to Lute Hero, cleaning up most of the pesky bugs. There's evidently a multiplayer bug that I need to research some more. Apparently when two people are not grouped, the second one's song sounds horrible. Weird.
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I spent nearly an hour trying to figure out w...
May 20, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I spent nearly an hour trying to figure out why one of the main areas crashed every time I went into it. After carefully checking everything, I figured out I just hadn't baked the walkmesh in the area yet. That'll teach me to ignore that warning message every time I test the module.
I got the chance to play with some of the puzzles in the Underhill Clanhome. I made the prototype over two years ago, so they seem fresh and funny and clever. The automaton that declared "Fashion emergency detected!" and stripped off all my clothes was hysterically funny.
I have another crash bug to track down, this one involving the submarine polymorph. I still need to get to Lute Hero too. Busy, busy.
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Mondays are always crazy busy, and today is n...
May 19, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Mondays are always crazy busy, and today is no exception. I have a bunch of feedback from Lute Hero that I need to get back to. Yesterday and today, though, I've been entirely focused with getting the Clockwork Man quest working.
The good news is that the final area has had a couple bug passes and is generally finishable. More work is needed, as always. The exterior needs a ton of work, even though it has the potential for looking extremely cool. At the moment, you don't turn into a sub properly instead end up running around the badly-lit underwater area. The funniest part is when the subs chase after me, causing very dramatic but harmless explosions.
Slowly getting there . . .
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I woke up early today and started in on the C...
May 16, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I woke up early today and started in on the Clockwork Man quest. The final area still needs more placeables and decoration, but it's getting close. This morning I decided to test it out and ran into all sorts issues. The most amusing was my bald companions, probably left over from the conversion from the NWN1 version. Daniel in particular seemed unhappy about the situation.
Some parts worked great right off the bat. I was able to program a robot to move around and do my bidding. Unfortunately the lever that was supposed to open the door didn't actually work, so my adventure was short-lived.
Yesterday I whipped up a couple pipe placeables using geometry and textures from the Sigil tileset from NWN1. I miss that look and feel and would love to pull it into NWN2, but the difference between tiles and placeables are pretty vast. I've already cut off more than I can chew, so I should probably just focus on what I've got.
I also sent off a new test build for the Lute Hero module. We'll see what fresh bugs this weekend brings.
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I finally got a chance to get back to NWN2 th...
May 15, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I finally got a chance to get back to NWN2 this morning, gleefully going through the various Lute Hero bug reports that PJJ dug up. I don't think I've been this happy to fix bugs for a long while. I suppose there was something comforting about playing riffs on my lute and blasting away at my enemies.
The samurai now wear their traditional garb, instead of gaudy feathered hats. The mysterious, unreachable Bedroom of the Dead has the walkmesh fixed. I'm not sure I completely fixed Odin's "giant head sticking off the screen" problem during the dialogs, but I think it's improved. I also indulged myself and stuck a couple umlauts over the Lute Hero title on the GUI.
Hopefully today I can dig up more time for testing, as well as getting back to the Clockwork Man quest. Busy, busy.
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My free time has frustratingly dropped to zer...
May 14, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
My free time has frustratingly dropped to zero these last few days. PJJ has some Lute Hero feedback that I've yet to get back to. Maybe I can sneak in some writing time today or something.
I'm actually itching to create some pipes and steampunkish placeables for the Cloockwork Man quest. I have no idea where I'd find the time, though.
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I've been slowly working away at things
May 12, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I've been slowly working away at things. PJJ and Daniel passed along a batch of new issues with Lute Hero that I need to work on. I ended up working on new areas for the Clockwork Man quest, mostly because it was fun doing it.
I'm going to see if I can hunker down and work on Lute Hero some more. The bugs don't seem too tricky, so hopefully the cleanup won't be too bad.
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It's been a rough couple days
May 11, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 It's been a rough couple days. My personal site was the victim of a SQL injection attack, due to some sloppy coding on my part from the time before such attacks were envisioned. I think I've finally cleaned everything up, but it was fairly stressful. Normal people have bad dreams about monsters. I have nightmares of my website being hacked, which has happened several times in various ways over the years.
I managed to put in some time with Lute Hero. PJJ sent along some good feedback and I'm trying to incorporate things like a quality switch. So far it's working fairly well, turning off the bells and whistles when playing. There's still lots to fix and polish, but I'm slowly getting there.
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I sweated bullets yesterday, working hard to ...
May 08, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I sweated bullets yesterday, working hard to get the Ghost Ship in the game. The main issue was getting the transparency to work right. I ended up doing some silly things, starting with a lava tile with transparency that worked, and slowly modifying it until it looked like the sail I wanted. Odds are, there's a little binary flag that turns transparency on for a model, but it's just not exposed by the program I'm using.
The good news is that it looks gorgeous. Hopefully I've done Razvan proud, as he was the person who originally made the model and textured it.
That's about all I was able to do, unfortunately. I still have a couple things I need to do for Lute Hero. The Clockwork Man quest is calling to me, too. Busy, busy.
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It was back to Lute Hero for me
May 07, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 It was back to Lute Hero for me. I made some very good progress, working through PJJ's list of bugs and finding some more of my own. I fixed the most serious one, the inability to actually play the campaign. It turns out that I had to set the starting module to "LuteHero" instead of "LuteHero.mod". Computers are so literal.
It's not completely ready to go. I still have some problems with the score board. It looks great, except for the part where it's supposed to display the player's name. Currently that's blank. There's some other niceties I'd like to add in, such as the dialog properly stopping after the song ends for the combat sections (it works during practice).
I'd also love to get back to the other modules, which I haven't had a chance to touch in awhile. Busy, busy.
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As is usual for Mondays, it was crazy busy ye...
May 06, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 As is usual for Mondays, it was crazy busy yesterday and I didn't quite find the time to post anything.
PJJ tested Lute Hero over the weekend and reported a long list of issues for me to look at. I'm going to try to review them today. He was worried about performance issues on lower end machines, and I concur. What I'm doing with the timing and notes is pretty insane and the NWN2 scripting system isn't really designed for that sort of accuracy. I might be able to turn off effects and other CPU-hungry actions to help out with lower end computers. We'll see how that goes.
 I'm having lots of fun with the Sketch Artist quest. It's quite a piratey quest and looks really good to boot. It's also one of the few areas in DW3 that I have a prototype for, which makes things like dialog and scripting very easy to set up.
I've been doing some extremely preliminary testing as I build the area and take a few screenshots. Already I've found some serious issues that need to be fixed before it's a playable module. Still, it feels remarkably complete considering I started on it last week.
I really want to get back to the Clockwork Man quest, which has a lot of cool elements in it. I think I have one more area to build and then I've got to check all the scripting and such. Slowly getting there.
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I finished texturing Razvan's Xebec and I've ...
May 04, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I finished texturing Razvan's Xebec and I've taken the initial steps of getting it in the game. Razvan made a ton of ships over the last few years, though I haven't managed to get all of them in the game (as most are untextured). I'd love to expand the ship selection considerably. The current set has the basics covered, but there's a lot of neat additions that could be put in there.
As for today, I still need to get Drake's ship put together, as well as the ghost ship. The latter should be easy, as it's already textured and looking great. The first one may take a bit of effort, depending on how enthusiastic I'm feeling.
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For a weekend, it was surprisingly busy
May 04, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 For a weekend, it was surprisingly busy. Still, I managed to sneak in some time here and there. I added seven new placeable paintings on an easel. They were for a specific part of the Sketch Artist quest, and turned out relatively well.
The caverns are in place now and generally seem to work. I've also finished the exterior area, though half still needs to have all the creatures, placeables, and scripting in place. I also need to add a couple ships, which could prove to be somewhat challenging as one needs to be textured.
Slowly getting there.
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I think I sorted out the last of the Lute Her...
May 02, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 I think I sorted out the last of the Lute Hero issues. The standalone version of the game seems to generally work, though there were some weird issues along the way. I also ended up fixing some core gameplay problems that I'd somehow missed. For example, the various cool effects only worked if there was a dead opponent nearby. Now your lute playing can zap, fry, and generally flash dramatically around the screen.
 The other funny thing that happened is that I was fighting angels, died, and returned to the practice area. Unfortunately the ActionForceMoveToObject command is a little too hardcore and the angels magically appeared in Death's Domain where they did battle with the zombie hordes. When a riot breaks out at your gig, you known you're a real rock star.
I passed along my rough version of the game to a tester to poke out. If I haven't missed anything horribly embarrassing, I'll probably do more serious testing and then start pondering a release of Lute Hero as a teaser for DW3.
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Yesterday I spent a bunch of time working on ...
May 01, 2008 by Adam in NWN2
 Yesterday I spent a bunch of time working on the exterior for the Sketch Artist module. I feel I got the storm just right, with rain, lightning, and thunder working exactly the way I want. There's a flash of light, then the sound of thunder a second later. If you look off into the distance, you can see lightning bolts coming down from the sky. It's the little things that count.
I've been testing the installer for the stand-alone Lute Hero module. Unfortunately it has some fairly serious problems and isn't loading at the moment. I suspect I left out something critically important, such as a tlk file or problem with the campaign. I had it working with multiplayer briefly, but it was pointing to the wrong campaign and my switch to a new campaign caused things to fail miserably.
As for today, I'd like to work more on the Sketch Artist area. It's fun building areas, almost relaxing in comparison to figuring out why code is misbehaving.
Finally, it looks like the Academy of Modding Excellence has me nominated for Pirate Cards and Dark Waters. If I win, I hereby promise to spend my ill-gotten booty on grog and wenches.
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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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