|
|
My son has been egging me on, getting me to a...
September 30, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 My son has been egging me on, getting me to add more and more weird detail to my Isle of Flesh. There's gaping maws, surrounded by teeth-like structures, strange hairs, and a weird orifice that leads literally into the bowels beneath the ground. We even have what Sam refers to as a "Meat Man". Needless to say, the whole place is terribly gross and my daughter refuses to look at the thing.
My goal is to have more islands in the next act that are equally fantastic. The new game engine can do some amazing things and it's fun to explore the options.
|
permalink| comment
|
I got a little carried away with the super-gr...
September 29, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I got a little carried away with the super-gross terrain textures. I'd also forgotten how much mesmerizing fun it was to paint down textures, especially when they look like weird fleshy bits. I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with this particular island when I start seriously working on the next act of the campaign.
I was also a good boy and continued to work on the sound dialog. Derek was kind enough to resend some files that had gotten lost in the mysterious tubes that make up the Internets. I also chopped up and attached another of Daniel's dialogs.
I'm fortunate to be working with some really funny voice actors. Derek has been ad libbing some of his lines to great effect. After this game, you'll never think of invisible monkeys the same way again.
|
permalink| comment
|
I've never made custom terrain before, but my...
September 28, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I've never made custom terrain before, but my hope is that I could work in quite a few for the third module. It took a bit of fiddling, getting the files in all the places where they needed to be. I finally got my pleasant mound of brains where I wanted them, glistening in the sunlight.
I'm still working on audio, chopping up files and the like. I'm embarrassed to say that I misplaced some of Drake's lines, though Derek nicely pointed me in the right direction. Just managing all the various files for this project is occasionally a massive undertaking. It's well over six thousand files of various types (sounds, animation, models, load screens, etc.).
As for today, I'll keep plugging away at dialog, perhaps stopping to make a few more custom textures for the next module. It's a fun break from the tedium and there's something special about covering the ground with weird fleshy parts.
|
permalink| comment
|
Nothing too exciting to report
September 27, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
Nothing too exciting to report. I finished chopping up and attaching the first of the dialogs. Like Chris says, he can sure talk a lot. I'm afraid to count how many more dialogs to go.
I also splurged and bought some new hardware for my computer. Hopefully it'll speed up testing times, as it's currently a bit tedious to make a change and quickly test it. Supposedly the NWN2 toolset plays well with dual CPUs, which should help.
|
permalink| comment
|
I made a big wind indication object for the s...
September 26, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I made a big wind indication object for the ship-to-ship combat section, since wind direction is so important. I also toyed with adding crew responses to your orders, such as "Hard to port, sir!" It seemed more distracting than novel, however, and so I took it out. There's plenty of sound effects for weapons, though.
I did have an interesting AI event happen during testing. Most of the time, enemy ships will try and board you if they're in pretty good shape and their crew is higher rated than yours. If they've got cannons, they won't use them if you're already pretty damaged. Well, I took advantage of that and was cheerfully pounding away at them while they closed to boarding range. I must have damaged their ship enough for them to switch strategies, as they went from "Board" to "Attack" and promptly sunk me with their full compliment of cannons.
I've started chopping up Daniel's sound files. Chris Serani is a lot of fun to work with. Since this is the first time I've chopped up his dialog, I get to hear all the funny comments he makes to himself. It's a nice break from an otherwise tedious process.
Hopefully I can finish with the dialog this week, put together a new build, and wait for a fresh wave of bug reports to pour in. It's what I live for these days!
|
permalink| comment
|
I've had an embarrassing problem for some tim...
September 25, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I've had an embarrassing problem for some time now. I'm theoretically quite good at math, but when it came time to code the ship combat AI so that the enemy would turn and head towards you, I have been failing miserably. I was breaking out the trig, scribbling angles on paper, and watching ships either go in a straight line or sail in circles.
Yesterday I decided to try something different. There's a built in function that makes a creature turn to face a point. The catch with boats is that they don't turn on a dime, so I turned it, found the ideal direction, and then turned it back. It worked like a charm and there weren't any weird flipping animations that I was afraid of.
I'm adding some additional polish in the ship combat scenes. I want to add in more sound effects, an indicator to wind direction, and make sure the whole thing is fun. For example, ships no longer try to sink you (based on your hull damage) if they're trying to capture your ship. Being repeatedly sunk was no fun.
I'm also hoping to at least get started on the Daniel dialog. My wife is back in the country after her Italy trip, so hopefully things will be less crazy at home and I can start moving towards a final QA run before a public beta.
|
permalink| comment
|
I dreamed about the GUI last night, a sure si...
September 23, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I dreamed about the GUI last night, a sure sign that I've been working far too long on this one aspect of the game. The good news is that I think I've resolved the last of the issues and added in the features that I want. There's still some potential issues, but they're pretty obscure and should only happen rarely. It's possible, for example, to load up on over nine crew types and not be able to see them all for selling. There's workarounds, but most people probably won't have to deal with it.
I decided to enjoy the fruits of my labors and head out upon the sea. It was a beautiful night for sailing, the full moon shimmering on the water and the Port Brighton lighthouse shining in the distance. It made me feel like these last couple weeks of coding GUIs was worthwhile.
I still want to tweak the ship to ship combat some more. Enemy ships aren't behaving as expected and I'm not sure why. Somewhere along the way their turning scripts got wacky, I suspect. There's always more to do.
|
permalink| comment
|
It's been a challenging week for me, managing...
September 21, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
It's been a challenging week for me, managing the kids while my wife is overseas. I continue to plug away at the GUI. Most of the issues are fixed now. I had a funny issue where if you bought cargo, you only got how many could be stacked. I ended up making a new item type for High Seas items. Hopefully people won't buy over 50,000 tons of fish any time soon.
I'm counting the days until my wife returns. In the meantime, I'll try to sneak in time here or there. In particular, I'm itching to sort through the dialog Chris sent over and get it hooked up to Daniel's dialog. Other than the QA work, it's the one critical thing I wanted to get together before release.
|
permalink| comment
|
It be the closest thing to a holiday, here on...
September 19, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 It be the closest thing to a holiday, here on Talk Like a Pirate Day. Me keel-haulin' of the crew paid off and Chris passed along 184 MB of sound files. I be havin' to chop up them files o' his, but it be amusing to hear him wail about like a banshee.
I think I solved the riddle o' the GUI problem. I had these bizarre errors buying and selling. Sometimes the wrong thing would appear, sometimes the wrong quantity. It turns out I was looking at what I was buying even when I was selling, which made no sense at all.
I got a bit more o' fiddlin' ta do with them scripts, then I be settin' sail for more testin' and tossin' in Daniel's voice clips. Yaar!
|
permalink| comment
|
My wife left for Italy a couple days ago, ret...
September 18, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
My wife left for Italy a couple days ago, returning Monday after a week that seems like it's taking forever already. I'm managing the kids and trying to do some real work (the kind I get paid for) in between.
I did manage to sneak in some more fixes to the GUI, but have yet to test it. You can buy ships now, which is handy. Previously it was one of the few things you couldn't do from the GUI. The cargo buying is a little off. Your alignment doesn't change when trading illegal or immoral cargo. There's also a fun bug where you can infinitely sell cargo. Still, progress is being made and I think this should make the lives of players much easier.
|
permalink| comment
|
At this point, I'm calling the Achievements s...
September 16, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 At this point, I'm calling the Achievements section done. It'll tell you clearly what you need to do to unlock an achievement. There's a nice question mark that shows until you do. Once unlocked, you get the image, along with a mouse-over focus image. Clicking on it plays a sound and displays a cute little saying. Barring problems when collecting statistics, it's all good.
The cargo, crew, and weapons trading is getting better, though it's not quite there yet. I'm seeing weird errors with the cost of items strangely changing, selling doesn't work, and occasionally buying one item results in two being purchased. There's also some alignment issues which are tedious to fix and I still need to add the ability to buy ships. Still, I'm hopeful I can find some time today or tomorrow to clean up these odd issues.
In general, I'm loving the new GUI features of NWN2. It's a lot of work, but lets you do things that simply weren't possible with the original NWN game.
|
permalink| comment
|
The Achievements system and stats page is in
September 15, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 The Achievements system and stats page is in. I haven't fully tested it, but it does seem to be somewhat working. For example, when you've captured 10 ships, you get the "Pirate King" achievement. When you've sunk 10 ships, you get "Privateer". I tried to make them available to everyone, so even if you don't become a pirate, you can still get the Pirate King achievement (by boarding pirate ships instead of merchants).
The cargo buying and selling doesn't quite work yet. You can buy cargo, but it doesn't get loaded onto the ship. That should be easy to fix. I'm also going to want the ability to buy new ships from the GUI, I think. I also want a confirmation when selling a ship, as it's potentially very bad to do on accident.
|
permalink| comment
|
I managed some more testing time yesterday, a...
September 14, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I managed some more testing time yesterday, along with new buttons for the GUI. You can now specify your lead ship, sell ships, repair them, and rename them. The cargo stuff isn't quite working yet, though I did manage to get them at least displaying properly.
I also started scheming on a Stats/Achievements tab. It would keep track of various things you do during your adventures and light up achievement images when you get them. I'm thinking of things like "Pirate King" for capturing over a certain number of merchants. Of course, doing that means I have to build in counters for all those different things. Fun, fun.
|
permalink| comment
|
Well, I did my first GUI tests last night
September 13, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, I did my first GUI tests last night. Though I never expect things to work right off the bat, it was a bad sign when absolutely nothing came up. Eventually I figured out the flaws in my xml file and at least got something to appear.
After a fair bit of hard work, I now see the list of ships in my fleet, along with the ability to switch my lead ship. I can pretty easily add the ability to rename and repair. Hopefully I can whip up some nice looking icons for those actions.
What's not working yet is the cargo pieces. Initially, cargo wasn't being properly created on the dockmasters (I gave up on the store approach due to bugs). It should be now, but I'm still seeing some odd behavior.
Hopefully today I can sort out the last of the issues and get back to debugging other problems.
|
permalink| comment
|
It's amazing how much work is involved with m...
September 12, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 It's amazing how much work is involved with making a new GUI, especially one as complicated as the one I'm working on. I glanced over at the line numbers for my High Seas include file and it's well over 3,000 lines of code. Zowie.
I haven't even seen it in action yet. I've been coding out XML files, trying to envision in my head where exactly various buttons and labels are going to go. There's a certain amount of scripting required before you can even test a new GUI. Hopefully tonight will be that magic hour.
The end result should be pretty handy. You can review your fleet, set your lead ship, manage crew, buy and sell cargo, and add weapons and ammunition. Eventually I'd like to be able to repair and rename ships. I'm also entertaining ideas of additional things that could be added, such as special upgrades for ships and the like, but I'm not quite ready for that yet. Best to get the basics working first.
|
permalink| comment
|
I sunk in a tremendous amount of time yesterd...
September 10, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 I sunk in a tremendous amount of time yesterday, mostly testing global variable things. It turns out my problems had nothing to do with the Save and LoadGlobalInt. Instead, it looks like the campaign file that ties all the modules together was screwed up. I carefully went through re-linking modules and miraculously things started working as expected again.
After all my hard work, it seems that the Sweet Lady now magically appears. Of course, sending Heather over had some consequences, both horrible and comedic. Jack returned her as a werewolf, which made me giggle for awhile. I fixed the bug, though it was with a touch of regret.
I continue to have ideas for a High Seas GUI system, something that allows trading, repairing ships, managing crew, and so on. I'll probably spend time today sketching out ideas.
Eventually, of course, I need to get back to the QA reports. They call me like a siren, promising sweet, sweet love, but offering only sorrow and suffering. Okay, it's not that bad, but I feel like waxing poetic on occasion.
|
permalink| comment
|
Well, I think the vanishing inventory issue i...
September 09, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, I think the vanishing inventory issue is actually a NWN2 bug that's purely visual. If I wait long enough, I can take another look at the inventory and all my stuff is there. That means the transition between the first and second modules should be okay. There's still a few weird issues I'm sorting out. The global variable issue seems to be working better, but I still have to be careful with things. At times, the campaign database approach seems more appealing.
I've been pouring over the 1.07 beta patch notes. There's no mention of fixing the store inventory bug, which may mean I get to overhaul how ship cargo works. I'd probably end up making a GUI of some kind or another, as the current method is clunky and partially broken. We'll see how brave I am tomorrow.
The upcoming patch does have a fair number of goodies, including a desaturate effect that I've got to use. I continue to think about the next module and what goodies I'd like to include. Fun, fun.
|
permalink| comment
|
Well, the good news is that variables and cha...
September 07, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 Well, the good news is that variables and characters seem to be transferring from the first module to the next. The bad news is that my main character lost all her inventory.
So, more testing is required this weekend. I'm also doing a lot of cleanup and polish that I've needed to do. I'm revamping the set items and discovering a few things I had forgotten (sorry, Brad - the Davy Jones' set has benefits out of water too). I'm nearly done with the walkthrough and readme file. I have a few folks to add to the credit section and I want to document all the various treasures and such. Busy, busy.
|
permalink| comment
|
Here's a scene no one has ever seen before
September 06, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 Here's a scene no one has ever seen before. It's the end of the first module, where Heather and Robert are actually visible. Yes, I woke up at 4:30 this morning and decided to try and fix some of the really old bugs in the first module. I ended up using the guess and check method to isolate the problem. It's pretty time consuming, as it takes five or so minutes to test each coding change.
It turns out that if I remove Heather and Robert from your party, they become permanently invisible. No idea why. I use the same code elsewhere without any problem. The plan at this point is to comment out those lines. It messes up some of the later cutscenes, but not too badly.
The other important thing is making sure the variables are being saved properly at the end of the module. Previously, the second module won't remember some of the key actions you performed in the first module. They seem to be at this point, though I'm still running into some issues actually using them. The magic DarkWaters.xml file is showing up with useful things in them. Hopefully I can sort that out today.
I may make some other changes to the first module. Heather may get a new head (the old head has some problems wearing hats). The Farewells cutscene is a little twitchy and the player walks back and forth a bit too much. Minor issues, but it would be nice to resolve them.
Finally, I spent a ton of time yesterday getting the readme fleshed out. I have most of the quests documented, including the incredibly huge Firestarter quest. I still have to document the various locations of treasures, set items, and so on. I think I can finish it up today, which would be quite nice.
|
permalink| comment
|
Sadly no pretty pictures today
September 05, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
Sadly no pretty pictures today. I spent most of yesterday working on the readme/walkthrough file. It's another reminder of just how big this second act is (it seems silly to call it a module at this point). I think I'm about halfway through documenting the various main quests. Compiling lists of treasures, set items, and so on, is going to take a fair bit of time as well.
|
permalink| comment
|
The Woodhaven arena fights seem pretty good t...
September 04, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 The Woodhaven arena fights seem pretty good to me at the moment. It's switched over to a heartbeat approach rather than using the "delay" script that breaks if you do a save and reload. The camera still isn't behaving, so I may just leave it up to the player. The PC also isn't paralyzed properly for the duration of the fight, for reasons that I just don't get. Still, the game itself is short, funny, and much less frustrating than before.
I switched my focus to another weird bug, the lack of the Sweet Lady spawning in properly. It turns out the cause was a deeper, more serious flaw in how I stored and loaded global variables. Basically, I wasn't, which meant that variables that I set in one module didn't get carried over to the next. I think I've fixed that now, but I've got to do some serious testing to see if it really is working properly.
As for today, I think I'm going to see if I can spend some time working on the readme file and walkthrough. I'm also hopeful that I'll be getting some new voice actor clips this week. The actor that plays Daniel is hard at work, and a new actor, Raphael, was going to see if he could do Lord Brighton. There's still a handful of voices remaining, but the big ones are feeling increasingly done.
|
permalink| comment
|
The arena scripting goes well
September 02, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 The arena scripting goes well. I really like the new GUI approach. It's pretty clear just how clunky the dialog-based method was. This morning I added tooltip text so you can tell what each of the buttons do. I fiddled more with some of the behind-the-scenes numbers, hopefully getting the proper balance right. I'm still trying to get the camera to switch to a good angle automatically for the fight, rather than having the player have to pan it around so it shows the action. Details, details.
The most fun aspect remaining is getting all the named opponent dialog written. There's lots of opportunities for the player to be rather silly about the whole thing.
|
permalink| comment
|
It was back to Woodhaven today, for a lot of ...
September 02, 2007 by Adam in NWN2
 It was back to Woodhaven today, for a lot of in-depth testing. I focused entirely on the arena fight. The switch to a GUI had some bumps, but looks pretty good so far. There's a few glitches I need to sort out, but I'm generally happy with it. Players should have all the information they need always visible, along with the choices they can make during the fight.
I also added an important element that was previously lacking: humor. What good is an arena fight without professional wrestling references and elven WWF-style names? I think it was Stephen Gagne who once said in an interview that if you can't make something fun, make it funny. Hopefully I can do a bit of both.
|
permalink| comment
|
Older Posts
|
Links
Dragon Age
Dragon Age Central
Interviews, etc.
Why We Fight
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.
|