Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn Reloaded

Sabranic · August 9, 2016

Okay, I think progress may slow down while I look for my will to live. I lost it a week or so back.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/2300_03_zps9ec94500.jpg

I had a huge boost here from RJShae who did the walk mesh. This is now a single contiguous mesh so at least I don't have to worry about baking. Rjs referred to this as "bordering on tedious", I understand how he feels I think I crossed the tedious border a little while back.

I'm going to work on the sea bed on the other side of the water wall for a while and pack this off to Ark to see if he feels the water wall is too visually noisy. I'm starting to think he may be right.

Bob, I did try the blocks but it fell too enclosed. I like that I can see through the curtain so I will try that. Something has to make this area look a bit more organic.

As I feared the area is turning into a BCK horror. There's a way to go yet so we shall see if it improves - then again I'm not doing it again .

PJ

Sabranic · August 9, 2016

PJ156

Thank guys,

Problem with areas like this is the distractions become all too easy to go to and work slows. I give it an hour a day at the moment and it's progressing. I want it done so i can get back to Salt for a few weeks.

I need to make RJS's domes tintable so I can put some variations in the roof tops and one of the textures needs a lot of work to tidy it up. Currently its very much in the background. If I don't find the energy to fix it it will stay there. I'm open to suggestions

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/2300_04_zps0ee66a92.jpg

PJ

The sahuagin god Sekolah is a giant great white shark, just for info for anyone who may be inclined to make a statue out of the shark models we have available for NWN2.

The shark creature models (RWS' or 4760's) could be converted into VFX statues easily enough.

There's also a large hammerhead shark model that can be extracted from the Sea Caves tileset.

http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a493/rjh405/fig29_zpsf1fa08b7.png

Although it's a little bland at 308 faces.

Shallina

the amount of placeable that can be use with "ocean" them are limited, so far i find the city really well done with what is available to us in the NWN2 toolset

PJ156

Hah! The dolphin is all I had as Shallina pointed out I knew it was not the symbol of the Sahuagins but not that it is the symbol of the sea elves!

The original area uses manta rays but I could find nothing like that. Dark Waters has a shark - It might be dead though I need to check that, but certainly not posed in this way. It all comes down to provenance though, the models need to be original (not an extracted game resource) and full permission given.

Statues are difficult, I know there are many who use posed creatures but something standing still does not always make it look like a statue More thought is required on that, it may work for this area.

I did try to stretch the dolphin in the toolset making it wider and thinner. It did not look terrible ... but it did not look great either.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

PJ

~~Do you want~~ Here is the great white shark converted into a statue (not only petrified, but also more in a statue-like stance):

http://static-1.nexusmods.com/15/mods/181/images/901-1-1423496936.jpg
At the left is a closed-mouth version, mouth open at the right. And some kind of pedestal is obviously required.

http://static-1.nexusmods.com/15/mods/181/images/901-2-1423496936.jpg

The statue in the middle has no stoneskin effect applied, it's the same texture as the creature. Left and right are two different stoneskin visual effects (remember to set the Static property to false for the effects to be displayed).

PJ156

4760 you are a star

Of the upper, non vfx varieties can I change the texture to make it gold. I have a good texture and the change should be easy at this end.

Those are going to make the area look great. An excelent morale boost.

I am away for a few days but I will post some images of the statues in the area at the weekend.

PJ

drechner

This area is looking super-awesome, PJ; keep up the great work! I think of all the areas in BG2, this is likely one of the most difficult and you're doing a terrific job with it.

Edited August 9, 2016 by Sabranic

Sabranic · August 9, 2016

PJ156

rjshae, on 09 Feb 2015 - 8:58 PM, said:

The pedestal could be shaped like a surging wave with the shark riding on the crest. Not sure where you'd find a model like that though.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8944RW8P-zw/US_V8J5gYhI/AAAAAAAAByI/56Cx3X5EmPM/s1600/tidalwavestatue1.jpg

That would be really useful if you can share it?

4760, on 11 Feb 2015 - 10:58 AM, said:

Not quite like your example, but at least there are two possible bases for the shark statues:

If you're interested, you can get them here.

I did not see your link first time around. I have them now though

PJ

Sabranic · August 9, 2016

Shallina

anyone got Drow placeable ?

There was a set of 'exterior' drow-themed placeables, but I can't seem to find it at the moment.

Ed.: Ah, this might have been it.

There's a few drow-themed placeables in the City-State Project; namely ports from the April 2013 CCC. There's also a Drow tileset and some doors, but that's probably not what you're looking for.

http://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/prefab/placeable/drow-cave

Botumys drow cave set? It has building and such.

Same link, now includes a third pedestal:

http://static-5.nexusmods.com/15/mods/181/images/901-1-1423852199.png

http://static-5.nexusmods.com/15/mods/181/images/901-2-1423852199.png

http://static-2.nexusmods.com/15/mods/181/images/901-3-1423852199.png

Edited August 9, 2016 by Sabranic

Sabranic · August 9, 2016

drechner

Sorry I haven't posted in a while; life (mostly work... sigh) has been getting in the way a bit. Here's a couple WIP screenshots of Waukeen's Promenade. The base meshes still have a few fixes left to do, but are otherwise finished. Adding lots of deco on top of it will change the look of it quite a bit, so it obviously looks pretty bare right now.

http://i.imgur.com/GQKE8YD.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/u5RLrBy.png

Sabranic · August 9, 2016

drechner

Here's another WIP view of Waukeen's Promenade. I ended up making over a dozen new meshes for it which was pretty time-consuming, but hopefully worth the effort. There's still some work to do on a few of the meshes (mostly normal map work on the pillar tops and the lion statue) and some reskinning of a couple assets. You can probably notice that I used the BCK steps and arches in some of my meshes to save time (and let's face it: it's probably a lot better than I could do!).

http://i.imgur.com/791res5.png

Sabranic · August 9, 2016

rjshae

I might as well throw my Hell metatile model up. The texturing still needs work, and I pretty much suck at making figures so there are no horned heads or other statues. Just the giant faces by the door.

http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a493/rjh405/hell_fig01_zpsjyh15zxw.png

Here's an in-game shot:

http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a493/rjh405/NWN2_SS_030715_202626_zpsmtqluwzl.jpg

I've got the lights turned up so I can see it; the floor would be darker with the normal settings.

A problem I'm having is that the lower walls around the platform have a tendency to fade. Not sure how to fix that.

Shallina

isn 't it better to use an "exterior" area than a tile for the "hell"?

rjshae

Yes, most likely. I don't recall the reasons it was started as a metatile, but doing so did hamper the walkmesh construction quite a bit. Still, the model should also work as a large placeable.