Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn Reloaded

[Sabranic]

Shallina

I think we al ready have all the items made. it' s one of the first work we did since they are everywhere. For the debugging we still have a long long way to go

 

drechner

Like Shallina said, we're still a ways (maybe a year and half?) from beginning testing. One thing we learned from making BGR was that we really wanted testing to be done as late as possible in development (i.e. after we've stopped implementing features and finished meddling with scripts) so we can focus on bug-fixing only. We also want to extend this time a lot longer than it was on BGR so we can ensure the quality is pretty solid before a full release.

[Sabranic]

PJ156

 

Things brings it a little closer though

 

ar_0307 the shadow thieves dungeon.

 

The room still needs lighting and detailing, but, as you can see, it has gone together well; much better than I thought it would. Huge thanks to 4760 for the spiked drum (which is animated). Other textures are mine, the pipes are from tupouns' sewer set. The blocks I created from tile blocks. Double depth castle tile are RJS's. I use that set a lot now and have 11 re-skins for it

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/0307_01_zpsmchgpzvu.jpg

 

PJ

 

Shallina

 

And the walkmesh ? does it bake ? Well the area really do justuse to the original one.

 

 

PJ156

 

It bakes well but I don't know how we will define the damage zone over the rotating drums. Triggers might work I guess?

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/0307_02_zpslapsjure.jpg

 

PJ

 

 

rjshae

Perhaps have the trigger activate a drunken stagger?

 

 

PJ156

 

I have four cans of drunken stagger trigger waiting for me in my fridge

 

PJ

[Sabranic]

J156

 

Another teaser from the Shadow Thieves area:

 

Loads of cc in here; textures by me, wooden planks from the city pack 3. There's re-textured Mulsantir walls in the background and a new guillotine model from 4760. The latter in animated and is very cool indeed. There's one of RJS's decals in the foreground and calisters lanterns on the walls. The lighting's not done yet but that comes last.

 

I'm almost done with this area now. It will be good to close it and move on.

 

PJ

 

[Edit] The mesh across those wooden bridges was built by RJS. Bakes like a dream

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/0307_03_zpsjf76c6wf.jpg

 

The area is mostly lit now and almost done with. Here's a look at the new torture gear.

 

The wooden horse is a gift from RJS and the three part guillotine model from 4760. The new style of wrack is in the corner.

 

Not a big fan of modeling his kind of stuff but it has its place and these rooms have come out well.

 

PJ

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/0307_04_zpsdxmkvuz0.jpg

 

 

rjshae

 

For the wrack with the cloth, I think it needs to have the Alpha Test bit set on the RIGD packet. Otherwise the transparent part of the cloth texture shows up. (For the horse, I separated out the cloth into a different packet and applied the Alpha Test bit to that. It's using the same texture files.)

 

 

PJ156

 

Tchos, on 14 Mar 2016 - 01:52 AM, said:

Yeah, those Shadow Thieves are a nasty lot. The equipment suits them.

 

I never felt that came across in game. The vampires seemed evil enough though not for their actions, but the shadow thieves always seemed more of a naughty boys club than people that might torture or murder ...

 

Perhaps I missed something.

 

What came across to me was that they were criminally insane, akin the The Joker. As I walked through their training areas, I would see people failing at their routine "tests" and being gruesomely killed, which is implied to be a common occurrence. The organisation itself seemed to consider life very cheap, and you'd have to be insane or perhaps unhealthily confident in your skills to go ahead and take the kind of risks they trained in.

 

Perhaps it's better to join the vampires

 

You still ahve a short life expectancy but at least there's something afterwards.

 

PJ

[Sabranic]

PJ156

This area is a complicated one in terms of textures and placeables ... but it's coming along.

 

Can you tell what it is yet

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/0308_01_zpsbnzhprda.jpg

 

The joy of this process is watching an area come together, texture by texture, object by object; pigeon steps towards a transformation of a standard tile set to a recognizable area from BGII.

 

RJS made the disc and chain models for me and a 5 x 1 box for the floor placeables. Textures are mine, all the other objects BCK.

 

Slow going on this area but the bank holiday should see all the Harpers areas complete, it will be plain sailing for the rest of ar0300 but then it's on to ar0400, the planar sphere. Three areas that make all this look like a tea party . Good job I have friends ....

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/0308_02_zpspoqkjcma.jpg

 

All but one placeables are done so I'm on the home straight.

 

Try as I might I cannot lose the line on the pillars. I am starting to think it's in the model texture application but its not worth chasing down. There's plenty else to sweat over.

 

I'm starting to think about lighting now. This area is going to be all about the lighting . The area will be naturally lit in colour by the stained glass windows and brazier lit elsewhere. I hope it will be an evocative lighting set, we shall see.

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/0308_03_zpszk3zf0yc.jpg

 

I really don't like the statue, but I have nothing better right now. That said, this is a side quest area and there will be other places needing cc that deserve it more.

 

PJ

 

 

Send me the pillar and its texture, and I can get rid of the line.

 

rjshae

Possibly an issue with the smaller mipmaps? I usually position the UV faces a little away from the edges of texture boundaries to avoid those. But there's probably some way it can be fixed in GIMP.

 

 

Mipmap issues on tight boundaries as you say was my thinking, and I was planning on moving the model's UVs in a bit to prevent that from happening. It's possible depending on how they were done to do it through texture only, but to be safe I'd want to check the model itself.

[Sabranic]

PJ156

 

 

Still working away at the ar0300 series of areas. For every Harpers hideout there's a half dozen more mundane areas, this one is ar0314 The Seas Bounty Tavern upper floor.

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/0314_01_zpscfzxbaef.jpg

 

There's almost no stock content here, the window sill, rug and wall texture is about it. The floors is in the SI reskin pack, the walls are stock estate 01. the bed, table, window and all chairs are from city pack 3, the candles and brazier by Calister, the posts from crystal signs and red curtains by 4760. The open curtains at the windows are modified stock models from RJS. The table is retextured by me to be a gaming table and the gaming pieces are modified from a model that Tchos did me for the Sahuagin temple.

 

I'm going to add some wall lights and I can close this area and move on to 0315.

 

PJ

 

 

rjshae

 

It all looks very cosy, PJ. I wouldn't mind camping out there for a weekend.

[Sabranic]

drechner

Piponde, on 28 Apr 2016 - 06:32 AM, said:

Thanks to all again and one question, now about BGR2. You see, BGR was downloaded like 200.000 times I remember, and it was free. Why don't you make it like 1$ at least? I mean, if 100.000 people downloaded it, it's 100.000$ and I've been reading this forum and you put a lot of work into this. Why make it absolutely free?

 

Honestly, we just love BG and BGII, and enjoy remaking them in 3D. We also love seeing people play and enjoy our mod too

[Sabranic]

PJ156

Thanks to RWS some areas just build themselves

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/0404_01_zps0jce4fe9.jpg

 

Deep sewers by RWS, planks and barrels from city 3, Sewer mound from Tupouns sewer set. Lighting set by me.

 

This is the sewers beneath the Copper Coronet ar0404 and it is as much a soundscape as anything. I have had much fun with this area it's almost a shame to move on. Next up ... a pirate ship in the slums.

 

PJ

[Sabranic]

drechner

 

Here's a few in-engine renders of some new character heads:

 

Jon Irenicus

http://i.imgur.com/S7qRRsT.png

 

Saemon Havarian

http://i.imgur.com/i6rtfRJ.png

 

Here's a quick update with a WIP view of Jaheira:

 

http://i.imgur.com/PusjZFp.png

 

I had to take a few liberties with her hair, but I still think it generally invokes the original.

 

I started working on areas building again, but I thought I'd share a couple of the most recent heads:

 

http://i.imgur.com/hnY3UfI.png

 

I'm not super happy the way the normal map baked, so I had to do some manual smoothing. Basically, she came out looking a bit "puffy" and overly bulky and I'm not entirely sure why.

 

http://i.imgur.com/yQh32g3.png

 

I still need to do a bit of work on the coloring for the base skin texture for Minsc, but I think he's on the right track.

Edited August 11, 2016 by Sabranic

[Sabranic]

drechner

Here are some new screenshots of the Bridge District! The Graveyard District still needs to be done as do some of the interiors, but the Athkatla areas are getting close to being done.

 

http://i.imgur.com/SU20bcc.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/11JZN1G.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/RfsxXIU.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/qUPU2GI.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/eTJVAyb.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/fvnO9lo.png

[Sabranic]

ArtemisJ

Rjshae pointed me here..

 

How do I get involved with this?

 

• I am a software developer by trade and know my way around the NWN2 compiler pretty well
• I also can do animations.. fairly well.. at least in my own humble opinion...
• I also consider myself a decent Area creator (especially interiors)
• I love doing custom vfx's..

 

Unfortunately..

I have no skills in 3D Modelling yet..

So I can't produce that kind of Custom content.. Been trying to figure it out.. bugging all the lovely people on this forum.

 

 

P.S: Drechner, RJShae, PJ156 and the rest of you.. Your work is amazing. Even if you don't need any extra help.. keep it up! This looks GREAT!

 

 

drechner

Send me a PM and we'll talk! We're always on the lookout for talented, dedicated people to join our team