Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn Reloaded

[Sabranic]

drechner

 

Thanks for the feedback, guys. Ultimately, I felt pretty good about the area, especially considering NWN2's challenges and all the custom content that went into trying to hide some of them, but I definitely feel much less good about it after reading your comments.

 

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Why is the area so angular?

The walls are purposefully angular because otherwise the walkmesh wouldn't bake and I wouldn't be able to pull up the terrain through the walls. The ground of the Docks are actual terrain and terrain doesn't like being curved when being raised/lowered. I have some ideas on some ways to potentially help mask this, but I was hoping I wouldn't have to explore these options as I'm not sure it'll work out and they're pretty expensive.

 

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The walls are too "perfect".

As you probably already know, the walls are made out of BCK (as are a lot of things in the area) which isn't the most flexible for texturing. A single wall can have more than 4 tiled textures on it, which makes it extremely difficult to make anything that will look good. It's possible though that my texture map is just wrong and needs more help.

 

There were supposed to be some extra decals for the walls, but those were failing to work properly in the hak (though they were working fine in Override) as they were grabbing other mesh's materials for some reason. I ran into this issue on BGR too, and I still have no idea what causes this (maybe the hak size is too large?).

 

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Why don't you use the OC walls from NWN (such as the ones from Mulsantir)?

These walls not only do not match thematically (they look really bad in the Docks), but they don't have the right pieces to create the docks too.

 

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The area looks too big.

I very much disagree. NWN2 is not a very fun experience when you're fighting in super-cramped areas (and there's plenty of fighting in the Docks at night), and the area isn't that big. Maybe the screenshots are a bit misleading when it comes to scale?

 

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The ground texture looks too light/not dirty enough/etc.

Yes, I agree. This texture is a first iteration, and I'll need to do some extra work on the color balance of it, not to mention darkening it up a bit. The dirt texture used over top of it will obviously have to change too since it will no longer match in hue.

 

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I was hoping to not have to create a bunch of new custom content from scratch, but it looks like I might need to. It looks like I'll need to create some custom walls (not just BCK wall textures) and make the Harper's Hold and Thieves Guild as a single mesh too so I can texture them how I want. As for the curvature of the docks, I can maybe used the rounded BCK floor that I made which matches the ground texture to hide the gap between the terrain and the wall. It might look really weird though and the walkmesh most certainly won't work properly.

 

I can now see why the BG2Redux team wasn't able to finish their mod...

[Sabranic]

Shallina

 

"Why is the area so angular?"

 

yup there is a lego feeling or NWN1 feeling, it needs improvement.

 

 

"The walls are too "perfect"."

 

yup they are"too perfect" as they are. It also needs improvement.

 

 

"Why don't you use the OC walls from NWN (such as the ones from Mulsantir)?"

 

they could be used to "dress" the BCK walls and gives an "old" feeling to the area.

 

 

"The area looks too big."

 

I think many thing gone wrong in that area, but if one thing I find is really "on the spot" it s the size and proportions.

 

"The ground texture looks too light/not dirty enough/etc."

 

True, or maybe there isn 't enought placeable yet. I think the area in is "too bright"

[Sabranic]

drechner

Eguintir Eligard, on 23 Dec 2014 - 09:10 AM, said:

Hey before I forget I wanted to share a technique I thought of to make high gloss marble floors in islander.

 

You can use these for the harper hall and churches etc.

 

Create an ultra low layer of colourless still water for the entire interior. This gives you reflections and refractions such as you would expect. I think the technique was used in witcher sparingly. I don't know how they did it but that's how I duplicated it.

That's a really cool idea; thanks!

 

Here's a quick, WIP view of a new wall I'm retexturing:

 

http://i.imgur.com/O9dWS1s.png

[Sabranic]

drechner

 

Tchos, on 23 Dec 2014 - 09:23 AM, said:

I think you'll find that the problem is that the mesh element name within the MDB, if you look at it in Gmax or your 3D modeler of choice, is the same as another copy's name. Each variant needs to have a unique element name within the MDB.

Ah, yes. That would make sense! I'm guessing the MDB cloner didn't change the name and I never bothered to check again in Max. Thanks!

[Sabranic]

PJ156

 

Eguintir Eligard, on 23 Dec 2014 - 09:10 AM, said:

Create an ultra low layer of colourless still water for the entire interior. This gives you reflections and refractions such as you would expect. I think the technique was used in witcher sparingly. I don't know how they did it but that's how I duplicated it.

 

You need to be very careful with that one I'm afraid. In my campaign it was a consistent cause of crashing on transition. It took me ages to work out what the crashing areas had in common.

 

It is not good enough to delete the water and re-bake either. I have to remodel the whole areas from scratch.

 

I cannot say it does not work and it certainly looks cool, but it did not work for me

 

rjshae, on 23 Dec 2014 - 4:28 PM, said:

I wonder if it is possible to get water-like reflective behavior using a semi-transparent visual effect? Then you could tile a bunch together as needed.

 

 

 

It's odd that, because I've used localized water with interior tilesets (such as for filling a bath or a fountain) and never had a problem. I'm not sure why the scope of the water's area would matter.

 

Wasn't there a problem mentioned with making water absolutely smooth?

 

I think it was the smoothness. Internal water has not been a problem in other instances, so long as there is some surface movement?

 

Eguintir Eligard, on 23 Dec 2014 - 4:55 PM, said:

My marble floors did not go right to the zone transition exit if that is a factor. Just certain rooms, never had a an issue except performance demand. It worked nicely

 

Perhaps that was it. I remember this was the case for two areas (transition to the water surface) I don't remember if it was the case with the other?

 

It would be good if this is a workable trick, it looks good ... I have my doubts though.

 

PJ

[Sabranic]

Shallina

 

Iveforgotmypassword, on 23 Dec 2014 - 07:45 AM, said:

Mr Eligard.. You're on those drugs again ! It was you that said the original looked as good as NWN2 so I don't know what you're on about and I said that I could see why it needed a remake because it looked bad not that it needed one for my sake because I'm not bothered about playing it.

 

I don't know why you're defending some old game so much it's only a game and really no big deal. You know the tennis one with the two lines and the ball that bounced around well everybody thought that looked good at the time but I'd much rather play Mario Tennis in 3D. I think you're suffering from nostalgia but those days are gone and computers are capable of far better things now and I certainly will never go backwards from what we have now. There are lots of people who have grown up with better graphics and games like me ( I only got a computer 8 years ago ) and want more from a game and NWN2 is more capable of delivering that than the original so good luck to all concerned with this project.

 

Baldur's gate isn 't "just a game", it was one of the few game they could do as they wish with a dreamteam behind it. And the result shows. It 's a game which performed and did exactly as it meant to. The game had no shortcomming.

 

Such games are really few.

Edited August 9, 2016 by Sabranic

[Sabranic]

drechner

 

Obviously there's still a lot of details, etc. to do, but here's a *very* early, WIP view of Irenicus and Bodhi:

 

http://i.imgur.com/oCJ7Ziz.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/cBLnXDM.png

 

 

PJ156

 

I like them both. Irenicus is looking strong and angular and Bodhi is actually starting to look evil. Got to get some fangs in there

 

PJ

 

Shallina

 

yup they are cool, it 's difficult to really judge Irenicus, he has so much custom clothing and asset on the face, he s going to be a challenge to complete. I can 't wait to see the work done further !

 

I'll have some new screenshots of the updates to (and the final-ish version of) the Docks soon.

[Sabranic]

PJ156

Fixed it

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/saerk1_zpse9d3d968.jpg

 

Saerk's House - Temple Room

 

 

In game it looks like this:

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/saerk2_zpsa2cd7ce3.jpg

 

I hit on the carpet as a compromise to the original early on and never really reviewed if. I considered pulling out the texture as I did for the floor but the lighting and resolution are not really up to it in the image. I think I will see what I can do with the floor covering and do something with the height of the plinth while I'm in there.

 

I will play with the rug some more. The tasseled rug really annoys me, I cannot bring myself to use it, it is so unique and non repeatable.

 

Looking at it though is is a simple texture with a tint map to create the design. Maybe I can work with that concept.

 

PJ

Edited August 9, 2016 by Sabranic

[Sabranic]

PJ156

 

GCoyote, on 29 Dec 2014 - 4:02 PM, said:

Gorgeous work Pj. Is this the part of building you enjoy most?

 

Yup

 

Here's the new estate walls in action - Dome by RJShae who converted his Dwarven dome for this purpose.

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/saerk3_zps1fb1a02a.jpg

 

Saerk's House Upper Bedroom

 

 

PJ

[Sabranic]

drechner

 

So, I've been continuing work on the Docks and I've gotten it now to a point that I'm happy with. There's still some work to do with the walkmesh, but overall, I made the city less "square" and introduced more curved wall pieces into the area. I also swapped a lot of the BCK I was using previously for a reskinned Mulsantir wall I made which provides a unique silhouette to breakup the monotony of constant BCK usage. You may also notice I retinted the custom roofs of the buildings, darkened/desaturated the cobblestone texture, and decreased the height difference between all three levels of the docks.

Here's two overview screenshots (without fog):

http://i.imgur.com/2CXlJnk.png

*Note that the water doesn't render properly in the Toolset with the skybox turned on, so it looks a bit odd here.

 

http://i.imgur.com/PrQV3TU.png

 

Here are a few more screenshots (fog turned on):
http://i.imgur.com/G29luyb.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/swah5oP.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/Gso1MOk.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/p9bnjUo.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/IdCmZCh.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/2kboMOl.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/HJ3Ct2A.png

PJ156

 

The Mulsantir and curved walls have made a huge improvement. I like areas that have plenty of vertical diversity (Heh check out the w**k words) so this one is looking good to me.

 

PJ

Edited August 9, 2016 by Sabranic