Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn Reloaded

[Sabranic]

PJ156

I've been jumping around a bit recently. Mostly to avoid one room in the main planar sphere

 

Soon I will have no choice as the end of these three areas draws closer.

 

Here is the second to last floor texture I did. The last one is the bugger I'm trying to avoid.

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/0412_01_zpskssaq3be.jpg

 

It's the fire room floor.

 

Here is is in game ....

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/0412_02_zpsg85tbefs.jpg

 

I will list the cc at the end, though mostly this one uses stuff I have mentioned before. I gave the stock coven centre piece a tint map and neutral crystal texture to give me the fire and ice pillars. I've re-textured one of the sewers to give me the floor vents.

 

This area set has been an enormous amount of work.

 

PJ

 

 

rjshae

 

Yes, it looks like you'll be plumbing the depths of your Cornucopia for the last one. What you've done so far looks really good. Players are going to be blown away. Nice job!

 

 

drechner

 

I wanted to give an update as we've hit a milestone on our project: we've apparently hit the max file size for hak files in NWN2 with our Environment hak file (it was over 2.2gb), causing random textures to stop appearing in-game (but not in the editor oddly enough).

 

We've now split it into two separate hak files, and everything seems to be back to normal.

 

Fun times!

 

 

PJ156

 

That's a lot of CC, I think it's a sign that we are creating something close to the OC. Much of this project is just not repeatable with stock content, the sahuagin city for instance, and the market and dock areas, these are very hard to recreate.

 

I think we are doing them justice, lots of cc is an inevitable by product.

 

PJ

 

 

 

My opinion has always been that BG2 was not doable in nwn2 not because of any inherent limitation, just from the perspective that there would be so much custom content needed that it would be virtually impossible from a time perspective to create everything that would be needed.

 

I will be glad to be wrong

[Sabranic]

drechner

The Graveyard District exterior is finally done! I desperately tried not to add any more custom content for this one, but I did eventually have to add some custom BCK floor textures to bridge the gap between the terrain and the walls due to the height differentiation all over the level.

 

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

 

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

 

http://i.imgur.com/nnAh781.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/0A48LEJ.png

 

http://i.imgur.com/J2YNP9Z.png

 

Now, it's onward to Trademeet!

 

Shallina

 

BG2 is fully doable in NWN2, Area don' t need to be carbon copy of the original. What' s important is the events, the quests, the monsters, the conversation. They can all be done.

 

The areas can always be adapted.

 

rjshae

 

To me, new assets can add a better atmosphere and environment to a game. Both are important for giving players a richer experience. I'm all for modding the cr*p out of a module, if you are able.

 

 

Areas can be adapted, but they still need to generally look and feel like the originals. I can't imagine how you could possibly adapt a number of the BG2 areas without needing tons of custom content. For instance places like the Planar Sphere, which pj has excellently made. Doing justice to the Planar Sphere maps or the elven city showdown with Irenicus area with just stock game content? That's not something I could see anyone doing.

 

As I said I viewed a recreation as not possible not because the quests, dialogs etc couldn't be done, but because too massive an amount of custom CC would be needed. My point was that I'm happy to be seeing I am proving to be wrong. I want this to come out and be super popular, show up all over the gaming news etc, it's good for the nwn.

[Sabranic]

PJ156

The last room in this area cost me weeks. I got lost in creating the texture for the floor and walls and really dumped a lot of hours into this. In the end I have given up. I read the description of the room in a couple of source and made my own room that met the interpretation I had of it.

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/0411_06_zps9xbdzhtu.jpg

 

The hardest object to do in the remake are the organic ones. Without specific cc the smooth lines and interfaces are not possible,

 

I have given the room coral walls and pillar and a water floor. This dips so the player will be up to their waist in water.

 

This is the last room. On now to lighting, sounds and baking. Therefore this is the last image I will post of this area and thus here's the promised contents list. I hope I have not missed too much:

 

RJS

 

• Circular walkmesh
• Ring floor model
• Round door model
• Window model
• Misc tech models (via the modern set)
• Halfling house model
• Forge model
• Door frame model
• Chairs (city pack)
• Cage model (city pack)

 

4760

 

• Wall section model
• Wall top and foot models
• Door model
• Air ball model (animated)
• Cog model (animated)
• Gear model (animated)
• Spikes model
• Glass tube model

 

Kamal_ (via the tile placeables set)

 

• ih pillar model
• Broken robot model (purgatorio)
• Metal Bridge (purgatorio)

 

Also used:

 

Jar models (calister)

Lift model (dark waters)

Dragon Egg (trinity)

Various BCK

 

I did pretty much all the textures myself though one is based on 4760’s work.

 

Here is the whole area. It will be good to move on ….

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/0411_07_zpslpra6mjf.jpg

 

PJ

[Sabranic]

rjshae

Fantastic work, PJ and everybody. You've outdone yourselves! All those little details make the area pop. I really like the custom content and the texturing. It'll be a joy for players to explore.

 

drechner, on 28 Jul 2016 - 5:34 PM, said:

The Graveyard District exterior is finally done! I desperately tried not to add any more custom content for this one, but I did eventually have to add some custom BCK floor textures to bridge the gap between the terrain and the walls due to the height differentiation all over the level.

 

Now, it's onward to Trademeet!

 

It looks quite beautiful. You've really brought the graveyard to life, so to speak. Very nice job!

 

P.S. You may want to consider moving your BG2SOAR updates to the forums on the new Vault, as this site will be shutting down in a couple of weeks.

[Sabranic]

drechner

So, I finally decided to fix the Plate Mail 01 variant for the Male Human, Elf, and Gnome since it's been bothering me since the release of NWN2. The material of the armor for these races/genders were missing proper specular maps and the color was pretty vastly different than the other races/genders. I updated the diffuse, made a brand-new specular map, altered the tint map--all in an effort to more closely match the others' armor. Unfortunately, there was something really screwy with the material settings on the mesh, so I had to re-export the three meshes with a new material setup.

 

Here's what they looked like before:

 

http://i.imgur.com/06zyGuo.png

 

Here's what they look like now:

 

http://i.imgur.com/Ml7Y8pr.png

 

Not a very impressive update, I know, but it was bothering me

 

Anyone interested in this if I put it onto the Vault/Nexus?

 

absolutely, should be a stock fix for everyone !

 

 

Yes, please do. Good work.

 

 

Yes, that definitely has to be shared. Nice job!

 

rjshae

We've got enough fixes scattered around now to put together a game patch. This would make another nice addition.

 

PJ156

 

That's a thread worth starting on the new forum.

 

There are a few things I've seen here about including npc AI changes that would be good to put in a fix list along with the stock hidden contents blueprints.

 

PJ

 

drechner

I've uploaded the file here.

 

EDIT: I just remembered that I also uploaded a fix at least a couple years ago for a few OC plot NPCs' eyes missing a few textures. Not sure where those files went though

[RealKorra]

these look great! i like it.

[rjshae]

Thanks for porting these, Sabranic. :smile:

[Sabranic]

Not a problem, you are all re-making my favorite game of all time - this is the least I can do.

[drechner]

Just wanted to share a very short (and unedited) video of a new rest system I've been working on:

The system basically does three things:

1. Checks to see if the player will be interrupted by guards (such as in a city)
   
2. Checks to see if the player will be interrupted by enemies
   
3. Checks to see if the player wants to play a dream sequence
   
4. Rests with a special camera setup
   

To be honest, I'm just excited about the VO :)

[Sabranic]

Ahh that looks like a great improvement! Thank you so much for enhancing the rest system!