The Black Scourge of Candle Cove -- Tchos' development diary

[Tchos]

I finished the apothecary shop, and then I wrote her dialogue.

 

A note for crafters: There are workbenches for each of the crafts available in town, and they're all in suitable shops. Blacksmith workbench at the blacksmith shop, alchemy workbench at the apothecary, enchanting workbench at the magic shop. The shopkeepers also sell the associated materials, such as molds, bottles, wands, etc., in unlimited supply. As mentioned before, this is the OC version of crafting.

 

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H69A2mHcjfE/UMsuN5zycyI/AAAAAAAAE0Q/NPw2YSSiWow/s400/bcocc+apothecary.jpg

 

Writing the dialogue and setting up the items for sale in her store was simple, but what was complicated was setting up her special "bounty". I have 6 items that you can turn in to her for a special price, and I spent hours debugging the script I wrote to detect, remove, and pay for any such items when you elect to turn them in. Eventually I narrowed down the problem to the while loop, where the "next" command was accidentally placed one level outside of the braces where it should have been, causing it to check only the first item in the inventory. Since all of my initial tests had been with a character who had other items at the top of the inventory, I never got far enough into the debug commands to find out what was going on. When I placed the item at the #1 position, and the loop created a slowdown until its emergency exit, I figure out what was going on.

 

Now fixed, it counts how many of the stacked items you have of each type, and rewards you for each of them. It also takes into account multiple stacks. However, it doesn't recognise when a party member other than the conversation initiator carries the items, and I wasn't able to figure out why. As Obsidian's notes on the party chat system describe, the conditional script should run independently on each party member for the conversation to determine whether that member sees the conversation node or not, so it should show up.

 

Addendum: I figured it out. The HasItem() function I was including from my include file was using GetFirstPC() instead of GetPCSpeaker(). I changed it to accept the PC object as a parameter, and supplied the parameter from my commands, so I can use it more flexibly outside of conversations.

 

Now it properly works, with the usual SoZ party chat speech bubble icon appearing on the portraits of party members who have any of the items in their inventories, so they can turn them in to the apothecary.

 

Happily, I'm continuing to learn more ways of identifying the PC, and when it's appropriate to use one versus another, and how to automatically fall back on alternatives if the primary one is invalid (for more generic scripts).

[casadechrisso]

Oh hey...

 

I only found this thread now and it makes me speechless how disciplined and successful you keep going. I usually get stuck too often in some unimportant little random thingy that's absolutely not needed for my work, but I just have to figure it out anyway - if I don't, I'm getting frustrated and stopbuilding for weeks. :)

Anyway, great work so far, and it's nice to see you using a lot of the vault shinies like swimming etc. I'll keep reading.

 

I opened up the toolset again today, and started looking through some scripts again. Then I made a big batch conversion of all of the sounds and voices from the game's data files to mp3, to make them easier to play so I can better pick out sounds to play in the module.

 

There, I did that too... I actually converted all the game music plus custom music to have a playlist on my iPod. It's very cool to decide on ambient music for your module on a boring train ride or such. Helped me a lot. As for some musical inquiries, see below

 

There are some intriguing videos this mystery modder posted this summer. Anyone know anything about this?

http://www.youtube.c...neilYman/videos

 

Oh wow! I was hoping for a watermill forever! And this looks gorgeous. It's sad that it's the Skyrim watermill and therefore will never appear on the vault/Nexus for legal reasons... god such a shame! I want this. I'd like to know more about Mr.Mysterious modder too!

 

After that long update from yesterday, all I did today was another special effect.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IwYOanuFIo

 

Oooh.... care to upload? I like the NWN1 music effect, and the Zzzzzz too! But what I also like is info on the music - is that actually ingame music or did you just add it to that video?

Why Im asking is because I was long thinking about where to get some additional tavern music for performers that actually sounds medieval and synthie-free, and is free to use too. If you have any tips, It'd be highly appreciated!

Edited December 14, 2012 by casadechrisso

[Tchos]

I only found this thread now and it makes me speechless how disciplined and successful you keep going. I usually get stuck too often in some unimportant little random thingy that's absolutely not needed for my work, but I just have to figure it out anyway - if I don't, I'm getting frustrated and stop building for weeks. :)

Anyway, great work so far, and it's nice to see you using a lot of the vault shinies like swimming etc. I'll keep reading.

But I get stuck on the little details, too! A large number of the things I've done in this project haven't been strictly necessary, and most players probably won't notice them, I think.

 

As for the modders' resources I'm including, I hope it brings attention and validation to those who provided this excellent material, which deserves to be seen by players!

 

Oh wow! I was hoping for a watermill forever! And this looks gorgeous. It's sad that it's the Skyrim watermill and therefore will never appear on the vault/Nexus for legal reasons... god such a shame! I want this. I'd like to know more about Mr.Mysterious modder too!

I wonder whether there's such a watermill in the Witcher games. I've seen in many places that CD Projekt RED have given permission for modders to port models from their game into other games, which is why you can find Geralt's and Triss' clothing converted to Dragon Age here on the Nexus.

 

Oooh.... care to upload? I like the NWN1 music effect, and the Zzzzzz too! But what I also like is info on the music - is that actually ingame music or did you just add it to that video?

Why Im asking is because I was long thinking about where to get some additional tavern music for performers that actually sounds medieval and synthie-free, and is free to use too. If you have any tips, It'd be highly appreciated!

In the case of the flute, I simply added the song to the video, and did not put it in-game. The tune is one of my favourite medieval traditional songs, and is entitled "Saltarello". There are many interpretations and renditions of it, and they all speed up and become more lively as the song progresses. This is a particularly sedate section of the song. I wish I knew more songs in this style.

 

For other music which is modern but which sounds appropriate to the setting, some of which might be used in taverns, perhaps something by the Hungarian band The Moon And The Nightspirit? I think most of them include singing, but

, and

are good examples.

 

I can certainly release the two floating visual effects as a separate entry. I was thinking of including them as part of my pack of miscellaneous extras that I created over the course of this module, but it wouldn't hurt to have them on their own. If that's the case, then I should also include some code to allow a builder to easily turn them on or off along with an idle animation, and include some code to sync up the length of the idle animation with the NPC's heartbeat, so that it doesn't have the kind of skip in the animation that shows in my video.

[casadechrisso]

 

I wonder whether there's such a watermill in the Witcher games. I've seen in many places that CD Projekt RED have given permission for modders to port models from their game into other games, which is why you can find Geralt's and Triss' clothing converted to Dragon Age here on the Nexus.

 

Oh right, just keep rubbing that dirt into the wound... Yes, I believe there are watermills in the Witcher games, and a lot of wonderful other content. The Triss armor is pretty much my standard outfit in Skyrim, didn't know there's even a Dragon Age version of it.

But well, it always needs someone to actually do the conversions... I'd love to, and I tried multiple times to get into 3D programs and do conversions myself, but failed miserably. The last thing I tried was converting some of those Apachii hairstyles from Skyrim, there are some lovely ones and I always heard converting hairstyles isn't hard. Well, to me it is. The Dasaria people actually got a few done, but only for their PW, never released them to the public.

Same goes for the Triss armor, some months back I saw a screenie on the Bioboards by someone who actually ported it into NWN2... but again, no release ever. I could continue. There is a lot of stuff I'd love to see ported over, I even contacted e.g. the Roadstroker who's armors I love - he'd give his okay for a port, but can't do it himself. If I could finally manage to learn Blender or Max, the Nexus would probably crash under the load of my files, heh... but I gave up, only frustration ever came out of it.

Maybe some people see quality stuff like Xaltar's heads though and think it's actually worth picking up NWN2 modding again, who knows... no high hopes though.

 

In the case of the flute, I simply added the song to the video, and did not put it in-game. The tune is one of my favourite medieval traditional songs, and is entitled "Saltarello". There are many interpretations and renditions of it, and they all speed up and become more lively as the song progresses. This is a particularly sedate section of the song. I wish I knew more songs in this style.

 

For other music which is modern but which sounds appropriate to the setting, some of which might be used in taverns, perhaps something by the Hungarian band The Moon And The Nightspirit? I think most of them include singing, but

, and

are good examples.

 

Thanks for the tips! My main concern however is that it's royalty free, especially because outside the US there's no "Fair use" act or whatever - as soon as it's copyrighted you're a pirate when you share it within your module. So I was hoping for some "open source" music mainly, much like the abandoned Arcanum soundtrack that's free to use for everyone. I actually have some very fitting music in my mp3 collection, but it's all copyrighted.

 

 

I can certainly release the two floating visual effects as a separate entry. I was thinking of including them as part of my pack of miscellaneous extras that I created over the course of this module, but it wouldn't hurt to have them on their own. If that's the case, then I should also include some code to allow a builder to easily turn them on or off along with an idle animation, and include some code to sync up the length of the idle animation with the NPC's heartbeat, so that it doesn't have the kind of skip in the animation that shows in my video.

 

I think it's often the really small stuff, script snipplets or effects like that which help builders most. I can see myself trying to add that Zzzzzz and spending nights with it, pulling my hair out and finally closing the toolset for a month again. All for sharing small stuffs! :)

[Tchos]

Yes, I believe there are watermills in the Witcher games, and a lot of wonderful other content.

But well, it always needs someone to actually do the conversions... I'd love to, and I tried multiple times to get into 3D programs and do conversions myself, but failed miserably.

Same goes for the Triss armor, some months back I saw a screenie on the Bioboards by someone who actually ported it into NWN2... but again, no release ever.

I saw that, on the Faithless blog, where he said he made the tutorial for you! He says he didn't release his conversion because he didn't believe CD Projekt's permission extended to everyone, but only to the ones who converted Triss' armour to Skyrim. I believe he is mistaken about that. But he also believed he would need permission from the Skyrim modders, since he was starting with their port, rather than the original Witcher files.

 

Maybe some people see quality stuff like Xaltar's heads though and think it's actually worth picking up NWN2 modding again, who knows... no high hopes though.

I think it's definitely worth picking up NWN2 modding, both as a fresh start like me, and for experienced modders returning to it. There's simply nothing better for this kind of game experience! Despite the occasional frustrations when it takes a long time to figure something out, the answer does exist, and you can do virtually anything in this toolset! I love it!

 

My main concern however is that it's royalty free, especially because outside the US there's no "Fair use" act or whatever - as soon as it's copyrighted you're a pirate when you share it within your module. So I was hoping for some "open source" music mainly.

I'm afraid I don't have any specific recommendations along those lines. Even though Saltarello is long out of copyright as a song, I don't know if any performances of it have been released for free use.

 

I think it's often the really small stuff, script snipplets or effects like that which help builders most. I can see myself trying to add that Zzzzzz and spending nights with it, pulling my hair out and finally closing the toolset for a month again. All for sharing small stuffs!

I've written a flexible heartbeat script today to use for the idle animation, which you can use to activate musical instrument playing animation, or sleeping, and wrote a function that can be included in scripts to activate and remove the visual effects. I'll pack it up and release it soon.

[casadechrisso]

 

I saw that, on the Faithless blog, where he said he made the tutorial for you! He says he didn't release his conversion because he didn't believe CD Projekt's permission extended to everyone, but only to the ones who converted Triss' armour to Skyrim. I believe he is mistaken about that. But he also believed he would need permission from the Skyrim modders, since he was starting with their port, rather than the original Witcher files.

 

 

Oh, no no...different story. I saw a pic of the armor much earlier on the Bioboards, finished and on an ingame screenshot. Then asked around for help recreating it, and Frank offered to do that tutorial for me, which I'm very thankful for. Sadly, he never finished it and I couldn't figure out how to finish it myself - actually I got stuck much earlier in the process already, so decided to try something easier first (hairstyles, no go either). I'm actually quite embarrassed that Frank did all that work and in the end I was too dumb to follow his instructions, I guess I won't ever ask for a tutorial again, not good for my reputation. :D

[Tchos]

All town locations are done. I debated ending it here, cutting a bit short what I had planned, but I think it really needs the followup for the module to fully come together, so there are two more locations outside of town that I need to complete. One is in progress, and should go pretty quickly, since it's very much like one of the other ones.

 

Currently I'm filling out some quest dialogue that earlier had existed only as placeholders. The quest is already in place, so it's just a matter of adding appropriate nodes.

[Tchos]

Writing the dialogue for the mayor is taking longer than expected, but it's because he's involved in every stage of the main quest, and there are variations in the resolutions of those stages. The mayor also ends the module, so I'm dealing with the code for offering character exports that include whatever player-made party members the player may be using.

 

Also, this being the main quest, I think the amount and the timbre of the dialogue needs to reflect its importance. As usual, I've been writing it all in an external text editor, which I find much easier than writing it either in the toolset dialogue editor or in Flamewind's standalone editor. I include notes to myself in braces to remind myself what conditions to check for or what scripts to run on individual nodes, as well, and I leave those hidden notes in the dialogue for later reference.

 

And so, of course, the dialogue is lengthy and verbose, much like my posts here.

 

Elsewhere, a simpler solution came to me for the earlier problem with the swimming animation code not taking into account the NPC Elf appearance. Instead of adding special code for that particular NPC, it occurred to me to simply add that elf head to the normal playable elf appearance.

 

I'm still getting ideas for new placeables, but having to put them on hold until this is released.

[Tchos]

I'm glad this project is almost over. I'm getting very weary of the human-centric nature of the whole town. It's not fantastic enough for this fantasy setting. There's not enough magic and mystery. The dialogue I recently finished really drives that home, with all the inclusion of civic politics and financial matters.

 

There is magic here, of course. There are clairvoyant visions, undead, sacred rituals, magical creatures and monsters of various sorts, investigation of mysteries, and what I hope is a good sense of adventure, but I really need to move on to a new setting that gets deeper into the more fantastical elements that D&D has to offer, with a more magical populace and more fanciful architecture to really fire up that sense of wonder.

 

Back on the topic of this module, there's one opportunity here for some amount of illogic. There is a journal that the players can find on the corpse of a beaten enemy which leads to further plot. The player might not pick up the journal, or might drop it or store it in a crate for some reason before speaking to the questgiver about it. Is there an elegant solution to this situation which wouldn't amount to forcing the journal on the player and making it undroppable like a cursed item? Elsewise, my inclination is to simply assume that the player has it at the necessary time, and let the plot move on from there.

[Tchos]

Since Dann made a new post in the thread about hidden/unused content in the game, and since in the time since the previous post in that thread I've learned to use Gmax, I decided to see how easy it would be to remove the extraneous candles, inkwell, and table from the ledger model I've been using. Dann did post instructions on how to do that task in SnipMDB, but I never got around to trying it. Despite having those step by step instructions, the command line nature of SnipMDB puts me off.

 

So I imported the model, selected and deleted the unneeded parts, lowered the model to the ground plane, and exported. Took about 10 minutes from the impulse to try it, to the export. Then I added it to the 2DA.

 

It took about 20-30 more minutes to figure out why it wasn't appearing in the toolset, and that was because I had put the model in my "play" campaign folder, but not in my "build" campaign folder.

 

There was still a problem with it, though, and that's that the "smoothing" effect that hides the low resolution of the curves of the open pages was somehow lost between the original version and my exported version. That is, if you set smoothing on, it pretends that any intersection of angles greater than some specified threshold is actually a smooth curve, and it lights the texture that way, even though from the side it's clearly a blocky approximation of a curve.

 

Here you can see a comparison between the original, with its attached candles and writing set, and the separated version. Note the sudden sharp shadow on the inner section of the left page.

 

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O92xlxinMH8/UOH59zfNLrI/AAAAAAAAE0k/kosRvtXBi2w/s320/ledger+compare.jpg

 

So I assume it somehow lost the smoothing setting, and I've as yet been unable to find where to reapply that setting in Gmax. Ideas?

 

In other news, I think the mayor's conversation is finally complete with all its branches and conditions. His dialogue file amounts to somewhere around 3200 words. Not sure how that averages with other characters of a similar purpose in other modules.