Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn Reloaded

[Sabranic]

rjshae

Well, after a bit of work to get the collision and walk meshes fixed, here's the Hell model converted to a placeable:

 

http://i1280.photobucket.com/albums/a493/rjh405/NWN2_SS_032215_125229_zpszbvdo8j2.jpg

 

Perhaps amazingly, the walk mesh works and doesn't seem to have any camera issues. It's getting close to 20,000 faces though, so any further embellishments are probably best left to separate placeables. Just a little more texturing work is needed, and I'll fix those smoothing shadows on the wall as well.

[Sabranic]

drechner

There's still a bit to do, especially in terms of getting the walkmesh setup properly for some of the custom content and some additional work needed on making the OOB look a bit nicer, but otherwise Waukeen's Promenade is a wrap!

 

http://i.imgur.com/Xox1ZyB.png

http://i.imgur.com/bZfmZFR.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/mrlZDRQ.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/K9PuA2J.png

[Sabranic]

http://i.imgur.com/3hl8p07.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/j0pXy9T.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/CjMWhN8.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/18TyXUl.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/vTG8oPh.png

 

drechner

 

Maybe not the most exciting thing in the world, but here's some new domes that will be replacing the reskinned BCK dome in the previous screenshots:

http://i.imgur.com/gJgG9Dj.png

 

PJ156

 

Are those in the bck 4 sections standard or have your made them one? These could go in a building pack of their own if you're up for that?

 

I would like to use some of the front ones for an area Im doing now so I am inspired to reskin

 

PJ

 

drechner

They're completely new meshes. In the previous screenshots of the Docks and Government District, the domes were just retextured BCK domes, which these will be replacing.

I'd be happy to send them to you if you'd like. If you're going to retexture them anyway though, the meshes are simply a half sphere so you might want to do it yourself so you can shape the UV according to your needs.

 

Eguintir Eligard, on 12 Apr 2015 - 10:27 AM, said:

This area needs some SERIOUS dirt map FX and wall damage vfx.

Perhaps. Are you always so cheery btw?

 

 

 

dragons have four legs?

 

Luminus, on 13 Apr 2015 - 3:56 PM, said:

Since he is one of the people that think you will never finish this mod, I think he is.

Anyway, will you be adding the dead green dragon (or whatever it is) that was lying around?

http://games.thehawk.../bg2-ar0700.jpg
Bottom right part of the Promenade.

 

Haha! Shallina and I joke about this all the time. We're not adding the dragon to the Promenade (sorry if that disappoints anyone!). It's a bit too silly and odd, especially if seen in 3D and not just in the corner of the screen like the original.

Also, why wouldn't we finish the mod?

[Sabranic]

PJ156

This time around I'm doing ar1600 area interiors (Brynnlaw), only 12 in this set so I will soon be done

 

First cab off the rank; ar1604 - The Umberlee Temple.

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/1604_01_zpsdyspw1zf.jpg

 

I did this first as there is a fair amount of CC in there. Mostly re-textured placeables but the pedestal is a tweak of the stock pedestal with the lions head on. RJShae took the lions head off for me and I re-textured and tinted it. It's much more flexible now

 

 

I always liked the Water Queen's House.

 

As do I, I never quite figured the Chaotic Evil though.

 

I get the chaotic bit but not the evil? Personally I would have gone with neutral *shrug*

 

Umberlee isn't called 'The Biatch Queen' * for nothing.

 

If she wasn't chaotic evil, she'd get kicked out of the Gods of Fury club.

 

[* deliberate misspelling to avoid the automatic censor]

 

PJ

Edited August 9, 2016 by Sabranic

[Sabranic]

PJ156

Sometimes the interpretation of the areas with existing or, within my skill set, cc leads me to what I hope are acceptable compromises. These are the test areas for the spell hold dungeon. Very intensive on cc if you let them be but very short on game time used, how much time do you spend on such an area?

 

ar1505

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/1505_01_zpswy6l7da4.jpg

 

ar1502

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/1502_01_zpshckvhx5o.jpg

 

Both images are snipped from the tool set,

 

Where it matters, I am getting lots of great help, so the main dungeon is going to look very good indeed ... I hope

 

The spell hold dungeon will be a re-texture of the stock castle tile set from the module folder. Hence a whole new tile set is not required (though RJS has done me some very nice custom tiles )

 

I think I will then mix placeables with the walls to get the overall look that I want. Sort of as below but the placeables do not have their final texture yet.

 

This is my first draft at the re-textured walls. The area itself does not have a very clear texturing on the walls so this is, as ever, my interpretation. the floor will be much easier but will most probably be a placeable as the models apply the stock texture in an odd way that does not lend itself to the repeating pattern I need.

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/spellhold%201_zpsghaegw36.jpg

 

PJ

[Sabranic]

rechner

Anacronian Stryx, on 31 May 2015 - 5:36 PM, said:

 

... why it used pop-up respawning enemies (script gotten from a grind server I guess)...

 

That's what the original NWN2 did as well (as do almost all other mods). Generally speaking, we tried to spawn creatures far enough away that you don't notice the pop-in. Obviously, there are performance and technical constraints to consider here. For SOAR we're building our exterior areas a bit differently to hide some of this.

 

Anacronian Stryx, on 31 May 2015 - 5:36 PM, said:

...nor some of the concepts like "hey lets remove all buffs from a character when he/she is having a conversation because why the hell not" ...

 

Again, a lot of this is the engine and a requirement in order to start a conversation with the player (it will break if not). As others have said, there are work-arounds (which aren't great, I know), but hopefully there will be a way to fix this in the future.

 

Anacronian Stryx, on 31 May 2015 - 5:36 PM, said:

...or the inability to make some of the selectable faces work in character generation...

 

 

This was an issue with cloning the .MDB files and the texture references not updating. We thought we fixed all of them, but it appears we missed a few. I'm sorry if you felt not being able to select a few playable heads for your character destroyed your play experience.

 

Anacronian Stryx, on 31 May 2015 - 5:36 PM, said:

... or the fact that the creators can't even give Viconia her correct Cleric domains.

We were not aware of the limitation of the game others have pointed out, so hopefully this is something we can avoid in SOAR.

 

Anacronian Stryx, on 31 May 2015 - 5:36 PM, said:

I could go on, but mostly it seems to me that that the projects need somebody more.. shall we say adept at scripting and building for the NWN2 engine.

 

We're always looking for "adept" scripters and builders, so feel free to PM me to join the team if you think you can contribute

 

Ultimately, we're extremely proud of the work we did on BGR. Was it perfect? Hell no. But it was an entire campaign made by mostly two people (of course, with the help of a lot of very talented people from the community) and I think overall, the quality was generally pretty high throughout. If someone feels they don't want to play SOAR for some reason, that's fine. We're not getting paid to do this; we do it because we love Baldur's Gate and we love modding NWN2 (and oh yeah, we love seeing people enjoy it too!).

 

 

rjshae, on 01 Jun 2015 - 10:19 AM, said:

That seems like something that could potentially be scripted, although it could take a fair bit of work and plenty of testing. In theory it should be possible to retrieve most of the effect information with various Get calls (including spell IDs), store them in local arrays, then re-apply once the conversation ends.

Exactly, though I'm not sure how big of an issue this actually is (I don't recall ever running into it during conversations for example). I just know that it theoretically could be an issue.

[Sabranic]

PJ156

 

Now I have worked out the wall texture I am working out how the texture is mapped onto the floor

 

The wall texture is much better I think. The zig zags were too distracting. This is less "hot" than earlier versions.

 

Just the floor and the ceiling to go.

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/spellhold%202_zpsv7cuxlkp.jpg

 

 

No more smiley faces ... except perhaps mine

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/spellhold%203_zpsdqrpcjke.jpg

 

PJ

[Sabranic]

PJ156

 

Got me some beer and a few hours spare time so I will do the ceiling tonight.

 

PJ

 

PJ156

 

Just saved my normal map over my texture .... start again I guess and try to forget about the two hours I spent making it.

 

PJ

 

PJ156

 

A little soft lighting and some vfx on the walls and floor and I think this looks the part.

 

I am quite enjoying building this dungeon. When I go back to doing my own campaign in a few weeks I have the sandstone palace to do. I have learned a lot here that i will apply to that area.

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/spellhold%204_zpsmzyht7dn.jpg

 

PJ

[Sabranic]

PJ156

I've been pleased as there is very little cc overhead in this compared with other modules. These are stock tile textures which can be overridden from the module folder which is great so long as this is a module in the game which it is.

 

The statue I did the same with to make it tintable and grey. the floor decor and edging are new models on the 2da but they are used repeatedly so the give good value.

 

I have one other model which is sort of iconic to the area, 4760 has build that for me and I will start to use that soon. That leaves just one other big cc hurdle to jump for this area .... that will have to wait till I get my head round how best to do it.

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/spellhold%205_zpszslnhdak.jpg

 

Suggestions welcome, there is nothing stock that comes close so i need to work out a way to "interpret" this item. Statue 07 I thought might work but the cowl is huge when you scale it up enough to fit the space.

 

PJ

[Sabranic]

PJ156

 

My morning well spent I hope:

 

What I wanted > What I have > Texture mapping > What I got

 

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e377/PJ156/spellhold%206_zpsal7tpsxe.jpg

 

PJ

 

drechner

You're killing it! Awesome work

Edited August 9, 2016 by Sabranic