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Well, the first real screenshots have started...
September 30, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, the first real screenshots have started to come out. The horrible scans from last week have been replaced by some fairly amazing ones.
Over at NWN2 News you can find a big version of the scanned in advertisement.
Of course, they're still five months old according to the developers, so continued progress has been made. The creatures look amazing and the landscape looks pretty good. It's nice to see more detailed character models as well - I can make out fingertips on one of the players. Exciting stuff indeed!
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Well, my pleas for help appear to have been a...
September 30, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, my pleas for help appear to have been answered. My sister goes to the Portland Art Institute and found someone who's very interested in texture work. Hopefully things will work out quite nicely and we can start getting our endless models ready to put into the game.
Razvan has been working on more towers as of late. His ability to go from initial concept to a working model is truly impressive.
I'm continuing to work on the issue list. I think I have a dozen or so to go, though I haven't been able to resolve all of the one's I've run across. Things like typos are easy. Mysterious intermittent scripting problems drive me to drink.
I might take a short break to start laying out Port Brighton today, or writing a bit of dialog for the first couple scenes in the second module. We'll see what I'm up for.
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It seems that without even trying, models are...
September 29, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 It seems that without even trying, models are being cranked out at a rapid rate. I somehow convinced Danmar to texture the Black Spot tavern, which is coming along quite nicely. Razvan similarly seems to be unstoppable. We have several new towers from him today. I'll probably save a few thumbnails in case times get slow. Yet again, if there are any texture artists out there or people who have the time and inclination to learn about it, please let me know. These models won't skin themselves.
I was a good boy and opened up the issue tracker yesterday, starting to go through the various problems we ran into. Most of them were fairly painless, though there's a few troublesome ones that I need to track down. Hopefully over the next few days I can tackle them all. I'd still like to do more with this first module, add in additional text here and there. I may just let some of the new writers stretch their creative sea legs with it, though.
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Razvan continues to work on a variety of things
September 28, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 Razvan continues to work on a variety of things. Yesterday he whipped up a stone eagle to adorn the tower, though it may make appearances elsewhere as well.
I'm continuing to work on polishing aspects of the module. There's a fun rivalry the player can start with one of their companions and I cleaned that up a bit more. I'm working on the module transition as well, making sure various variables and companions get moved over correctly. I suspect I may be delaying reading the lengthy issue list, but I'm running out of excuses. Today may be the day.
I had a chance to visit with Allyndyn and his wife yesterday. It turns out they're just as nice in person as they are on the boards. It's admittedly a strange experience going from typed words to phone calls to actually chatting in person. My gaming hobby is pretty isolated from "real life", as the team is scattered around the world and only a handful of people at work are into playing computer games.
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I thought I'd show off Razvan's latest work, ...
September 27, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 I thought I'd show off Razvan's latest work, a nice little tower to spruce things up. I remember in the first NWN that there weren't nearly enough towers, and interesting things always seem to happen in towers.
Yesterday I continued to polish the first module. I'm thinking I may actually add a little dialog to resolve a particular rivalry. I've also been going through the existing dialog and making it so that the NPCs remember how you've treated them. Don't plan on romancing anyone if you treat them like dirt.
Oddly enough, Allyndyn and his wife are driving through town and I get to see them in person. The team is scattered all around the world, so it's a treat to actually get to shake hands with people I've been talking to for months.
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Well, the first screenshots have been "releas...
September 26, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, the first screenshots have been "released", though I'm mostly including them for comic value. This is a horrible scan of a lousy black and white image from the back of the Dragonshard manual. Needless to say, I'm not really sure what it's a picture of. Hopefully the game will have a "full color" mode and resolutions greater than 50x50.
It's starting to feel like the first module is basically feature complete. I'd break out the champagne, but I know there's still a few weeks of polishing left to do. The music needs to be cleaned up, voice acting has to be done, there's translation, and once NWN2 is released we'll have to redo all the areas, custom content, and much more.
So, today I'll probably get started on looking at the bug list today. I've been carefully ignoring them for some time now, so they've grown quite huge. If I'm a good boy, I might even poke around with the second module, mapping areas or something soothing.
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Scripting for the final scene continues
September 25, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
Scripting for the final scene continues. The camera work is currently horrible and there's a few nonsensical events. Still, progress is being made - hopefully I can wrap it up by the end of the day. It actually transitions to the second module in the campaign, though there's nothing really there yet.
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Well, I'm feeling like the module is pretty m...
September 24, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
Well, I'm feeling like the module is pretty much dialog-complete at this point. I finished writing the last scenes and was busy scripting everything as well. I'm still not really going to be "done" - I need to do endless polishing still.
Rumor has it that the first NWN2 screenshots are in the wild. Can't wait until I get to see them.
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Unfortunately I've continued to be sick as a ...
September 23, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
Unfortunately I've continued to be sick as a dog for the last couple days, which has made it hard to make much progress with the module. It looks like I have seven days left in the month to "finish" the first module. The good news is that I'm down to the last scene before I get to go back and do more polishing and bug fixing.
I've been listening to some of the voice actors' auditions lately. Some of them are simply amazing to listen to, brining the rather flat text to life in ways I didn't expect. One clip in particular had me laughing hysterically. I can tell already that it's going to be a fun experience.
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I was deathly ill yesterday, knocking me out ...
September 21, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 I was deathly ill yesterday, knocking me out of commission for awhile. On a positive note, all my sleeping resulted in me waking up at 4:30 am, giving me lots of time to work on the module.
It turns out I'd been lying to myself about how finished the last bits of dialog were. The final scene's dialog is only halfway finished, and will likely require some more work today. The good news is that I finished up my farewells scene and am feeling pretty good about how much progress I've made.
The image of the day is part of a sketch of Port Brighton that I worked on in the car last weekend. It's not high art, but it gives me a pretty good feel for how I'd like to lay out the area. My son was amazed at how I managed to make it look so 3D, so I suppose it's not half-bad.
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Danmar's slowly buffing the lighthouse to get...
September 20, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 Danmar's slowly buffing the lighthouse to get that perfect look, covered in rust and slime and broken metal. If you look closely, there's some orcs doing acrobatics just for entertainment. Poor lil' guys.
I think I've mostly written the dialog for the final battle, and it's time to finish up the final scenes of the game. I'm almost certain nothing works properly as I've yet to play through the end sections of the game. There's a good chance you can't even get there, let alone have it be an enjoyable experience. Still, I'm feeling pretty good about getting the skeleton of the prototype done in the next week or two. I think I only have two areas left.
Recruiting continues. We're still going through various applications, adding people to rosters, and so on. If there's any texture artists out there, or if you know a texture artist, please let me know. I'm not above begging or making hollow promises of fame, women, and booze.
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Yaaar, maties! It be Talk Like a Pirate Day,...
September 19, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 Yaaar, maties! It be Talk Like a Pirate Day, so hoist yer mailsails and get yerself three sheets to the wind.
There's nothing terribly dramatic to report. I worked away at more dialog, as well as trying to actually test out a few of the scripts that I'd written. Needless to say, things didn't go particularly well. I'll probably spend the rest of the morning before work trying to track down a "Too Many Instructions" error. Oopsie.
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It's fun watching other people whipping up al...
September 18, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 It's fun watching other people whipping up all sorts of cool stuff for the campaign. My favorite part of working in a larger team is being able to "ooh" and "aah" over the things that magically appear on my screen. In this case, this is more of Danmar's work. This is the textured lighthouse, looking very old and battered and wonderful.
As for me, I continue to be writing away. This morning I got up at 5 am and have been typing away for the last two and a half hours. I managed to get back to some dialog for Robert that's been missing. He has a lot of the answers to the backstory of the campaign, so I'm giving the players an opportunity to ask him about things.
Now that I'm not working with an established campaign world like Planescape or the Forgotten Realms, I've got to be very careful to give players a sense of the world they're in. I'm trying hard to release little bits and pieces where I'm able, talking about history and characters and geography. It's a little overwhelming at times, though fun to create something from scratch.
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I'm enjoying the fact that my in-laws discove...
September 17, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 I'm enjoying the fact that my in-laws discovered the joys of high-speed Internet access and that my wife forgives me for hauling my computer everywhere. In any case, I did a sketch of Port Brighton on the drive up. Being stuck in traffic was tortuous in some respects, but gave me some time to focus on the game.
I've also been writing dialog, which I seem to do best at after guzzling down coffee early in the morning. Hopefully I can finish up my scripting and move on to the rest of the game.
Update: I thought I'd show off Razvan's tavern model in a more final state. I probably won't get a chance to texture it this weekend, but it's very high on my "to do" list.
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Danmar finished up his ruined lighthouse yest...
September 16, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 Danmar finished up his ruined lighthouse yesterday, adding a touch of comic relief while describing some issues around scaling. Razvan's tower has also turned into a lighthouse, though a much larger more pristine version of one. They should fill in both ends of the spectrum quite nicely, a gigantic one for Port Brighton, and a smaller one for a probable haunted lighthouse quest. Lots of fun.
I've been mostly working on dialog, which does seem to take awhile. I'm still on target for getting a rough draft of the first module by the end of the month. After this dialog, I mostly just need to script a couple epilogue scenes. The dialog for those is completely written, I believe.
I'm also off for this weekend, though hopefully I can find some time to start writing for the next module while in the car today.
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Well, the ship's in the game and mostly working
September 15, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, the ship's in the game and mostly working. I've still got some walkmesh issues to clean up before I'll be happy enough with it. Though it is a prototype, I'd like it to minimize the amazingly annoying issues.
I even managed to work on the toolset yesterday. The rough scripting of the battle is in place (though completely untested). As is often the case, I've got some dialog to write before it's finished. Hopefully I can wrap that up today and start finishing up the rest of the areas.
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Razvan is an unstoppable modeling fiend
September 14, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 Razvan is an unstoppable modeling fiend. He passed along this nifty new tower that he's been working on. I suspect it'll turn into the lighthouse for Port Brighton in the second module. I also suckered Danmar into turning over the lighthouse he'd been working on for Battlefield 2. He might end up doing some extra work on it just for me.
In the meantime, I've managed to sort out the ship and tileset issues. I'm using an odd combination of a placeable ship and a walkmesh-only tileset. I can put the placeable ship down on any tile, or if it needs to be walkable, put it into the specific tileset.
I'm going to see if I can put my nose to the grindstone today and put some work into scripting the battle. I finished assembling my shiny new computer yesterday and it calls to me, demanding that I install software and make it perfect. Hopefully I can resist that siren call for at least a little while.
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I had forgotten how much I hate tileset work
September 13, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 I had forgotten how much I hate tileset work. It's grueling, with the slightest error causing crashes or weird graphical strangeness. One of the things I'm looking forward to with NWN2 is the ability to have much of the tileset stuff be placeables.
In any case, after staying up far too late, slaving away for hours, I finally got it so the player's ship was in the game. Needless to say, I didn't especially like the way it had turned out. Planks and masts were floating in odd directions. My "reset transformations" commands were apparently ignored. Using the tile slicer didn't help either.
Eventually I gave up, reminding myself that it was only a prototype. The new plan is to have the tileset be walkmesh only, and then I'll lay down a placeable boat on top of that.
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I had a surprisingly hard time scaling the sh...
September 12, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 I had a surprisingly hard time scaling the ship properly, but I finally managed to get it into the game and approximately the right size. The obvious trick of taking the model, importing a human to compare it to, and scaling to that, didn't work properly. My first attempt produced a tiny little rowboat. My second one caused it to grow and fill the entire map. Eventually I sorted it out.
Needless to say, I've started in on the final battle. The further I get, the more I realized I've skimmed over some areas. I'd love to go back and do a "found writings" pass, putting down books and notes and other things to create ambiance. I also have a lot of flavor text to put in, text that pops up when you enter a room.
Still, I'm hoping to do some of the scripting and dialog today. I may end up powering through this section and the ending, then going back to add in pretty stuff. At this point, I'm itching to get out on the open sea after so long in these dreary mountain halls.
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I managed to sneak in some time here and ther...
September 11, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 I managed to sneak in some time here and there, doing a variety of miscellaneous things. I fixed up the model of a flintlock that somehow got broken apart when importing it to NWN. I also completely redid how flintlocks work. Instead of a complicated, broken scripting with lengthy reloads in between, it now works basically like any other ranged weapon. There's a single ammo type (ball and powder), and you use it normally. The only downside is that it doesn't reflect the long load times actual flintlocks would have had. I've ended up reducing the power somewhat to reflect this. As it stands, flintlocks are more powerful than other ranged weapons, but their ammunition is rare.
I also finished a first pass on the barracks area. More importantly, I worked in a "gimmick" that made it different than the others. Hopefully this one adds a little variety to the place. It could still use some extra attention, but that's true for every level.
It looks like I've got a final battle waiting for me next. With luck, I can start scripting that today. Final battles are notoriously complicated, and I don't plan on making things easy for myself.
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No pretty pictures today
September 09, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 No pretty pictures today. I theoretically finished up the Labs area yesterday, though I haven't tested the new scripting or dialog. I've still got a couple areas to go, along with the final battle. I suspect bug fixes will take several weeks, at least. It's always hard to know how much to polish up something that's just a prototype.
Update: Razvan has been working on some new models and it's to hard not to brag. This latest is based on a concept art sketch that Deadman drew, a tavern based around a broken ship. It's fun to look at and can't wait until I get some texture on it. Razvan has also put together a fantasy-style ship that we'll probably hand over to the elves to sail about. It's exciting to head towards the seafaring stage of the campaign, slowly but surely.
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Work and life have been extremely busy these ...
September 08, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 Work and life have been extremely busy these last few days. There's not much room for anything else after work, family, and basic hygene. Fortunately I did manage to spend more time with the ship model last night. My goal was to make a version that could be used in NWN for the prototype. After some serious chopping and polycount reduction, I'm feeling pretty good about where things are. Here's a rather large comparison.
Right now the player's ship can be put in the game as a placeable. I'll likely send off a creature version to Sunjammer for the High Seas mini-game. Eventually I'll need to make versions for tilesets, boarding, and so on.
I'm really hoping to get back to the module again today. There's a lot of halfway finished areas and the month is flying by at a rapid pace. Hopefully my goal of finishing the first module by the end of the month (minus testing) is still reasonable.
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Well, the texturing isn't completely finished...
September 06, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, the texturing isn't completely finished, but it's nearly there. I have a couple places where I should tweak the textures a bit more, but at least everything has a texture assigned. There's still some major work to be done, most notably creating lower polycount versions. At the moment, it's around 12,000 polygons, which is more than the NWN engine can handle. If I want to throw something in the prototype, I'll need to trim it quite a bit.
NWN2 also supports multiple levels of detail, so I'll probably want to create several versions of varying polycounts. I may hold off on really polishing things up as all I currently need is something to throw into the prototype. Oh, and if you're curious about the blue boxes, they represent the size of a typical human (about two meters tall). It'll help when I've got to scale things in order to get it in the real game.
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The texturing of the ship continues, though a...
September 05, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 The texturing of the ship continues, though admittedly somewhat slowly. I was woken up at four this morning by Emma, which pretty much wiped out my expected alone time this morning. Fortunately my daughter is cute, so I forgave her.
It's amazing how difficult texturing really is. The hull in particular is very challenging to get just right. I'm learning far more than I wanted to about texture tearing, aligning textures, and so on. It's amazing how much miscellaneous stuff I've had to pick up over these last few years to pursue my little gaming hobby. Live and learn.
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My wife made the mistake of giving me coffee ...
September 04, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 My wife made the mistake of giving me coffee in the afternoon. The positive result for you folks is that I worked far to late into the night on texturing the ship. It's coming along very quickly now.
I'm not completely happy with some of my work. It's tremendously difficult, especially as I'm making up techniques as I go, using the infamous "guess and check" method until I decide it's good enough. I may end up changing some of the textures as well, but in general I like the way it's going. Who knows? Maybe I'll actually finish this thing before the three day weekend is over.
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I spent a good chunk of time yesterday puttin...
September 03, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
I spent a good chunk of time yesterday putting together my translation tool. It has my usual bubblegum and duct tape ambiance about it, but it does seem to work. It pulls out every string from the module and puts it into a database. Translators can then go to a web page where they select their language and start translating things.
It even auto-translates, going out to Google's translator service and filling in the text. While it's not perfect, it might save some time and minimize typos.
I still have to figure out exactly what to do with the translated text once I pull it out. Basically I have two options, I can stuff each language back into the relevant dialog or whatever, or I can create a TLK file and have things point to it. The TLK file approach is more efficient and keeps the download sizes down. The "stuff it all in" approach is probably more compatible with NWN2, though of course things are still in the air. I suspect I might take the "stuff it all in" approach initially and then see what my options are when the actual game comes out.
As a complete aside, I also noticed that Stefan Gagne's HeX Coda has only got about 5,000 downloads. Dreamcatcher 1 is at 136,000. Since Stefan is one of the great mod authors as well as a nice guy, I think the issue has nothing to do with popularity. Instead, it's feeling like the NWN community is down to the last few hardcore users. Nearly everyone else has moved on to other things.
To me, that means that making a campaign for NWN2 is the right decision. My hope is to get something to people within six months of release, though I'm still fuzzy as to what exactly that means. Timing is everything.
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I've been working on texturing the player ship
September 02, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
 I've been working on texturing the player ship. I'm not a texture artist by any stretch of the imagination, so it's slow going. Still, I think I'm moving in the right general direction, and it's relaxing in an odd sort of way.
I also have a master plan for dealing with translation for the module. I have a process by which all the text strings are sucked out and put into a database. Today's task is to create a web page where translators can start translating. I think I can even put in an "auto-translate" feature that goes out to the many translator sites and does it automatically. Of course, I'll want a human being to clean things up, as none of them are perfect.
And who knows? Maybe I'll even get a chance to work on the toolset today.
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Somehow I managed to find the time to work on...
September 01, 2005 by Adam in NWN2
Somehow I managed to find the time to work on the module yesterday. I've been writing quite a few dialogs, one of which is particularly interesting. I'm slowly finishing up the Labs area still. Hopefully I can finish it up today and move on to the barracks.
I also put in some work on a couple special SAGE items. People have reported that much of the fun with my previous modules was the interesting items they could find, so I'm trying to continue that theme.
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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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