Tchos Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 There is a head pack that includes new elf heads, and it includes GR2 files, but I don't know if it would help figure out what's going on here.http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2HakpaksOriginal.Detail&id=178 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xaltar Posted November 17, 2012 Author Share Posted November 17, 2012 That was it, I think I remember how to do it now thanks for the help mate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xaltar Posted November 17, 2012 Author Share Posted November 17, 2012 Bit of a progress update. Working on the Moon Elves at the moment as well as the hair packs as my last set of images for the Wood Elves shows, Its proving quite challenging seeing as I have never really done hair before so I keep learning stuff then having to go back and redo things with my new found insights. Add to that that NWN2 only uses a 1bit alpha map for opacity and it gets all the more tricky getting quality looking hair that doesn't look like a rat chewed a hole in a bit of silk cloth. I noticed on the BG persistent world forums that some of you are curious as to the poly counts of my packs, the heads on average range from about 5500 triangles to 6000, about standard fare for today's graphics hardware. Considering that my heads run smoothly in a heavily populated area on my old Geforce 8600 test machine I don't see the poly count being a problem for any but the most out dated of systems. I highly doubt that there are many people that would have access to my mod that would have a problem getting their hands on a $15 - $50 graphics card that will run my mod smoothly. I have kept the textures restricted to 512 maps with the exception of Elanee's hair which is a 1024. Nothing compared to the 4096 retextures I have seen floating about for various games out there. I have done my best to ensure that this mod should run smoothly on most systems capable of running the game. I could obviously reduce the poly count significantly with little to no quality sacrifice but that would make the rigging easier and that is one of the things I wanted to get some practice with while doing this mod. Also, the lower poly count would introduce even more ugly shading with NWN2's horrible lighting so in the end I decided to keep the poly count reasonably high to maintain quality and future proof my mod a little. 6 years later and this game still has a community, I am hoping that my mod will give it at least a few more before interest completely wanes. Lets face it, nwn 2 never really did gain the same following its predicessor did :( Anyways, a lot more to follow :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tchos Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 Add to that that NWN2 only uses a 1bit alpha map for opacity and it gets all the more tricky getting quality looking hair that doesn't look like a rat chewed a hole in a bit of silk cloth. I have kept the textures restricted to 512 maps with the exception of Elanee's hair which is a 1024. 6 years later and this game still has a community, I am hoping that my mod will give it at least a few more before interest completely wanes. Lets face it, nwn 2 never really did gain the same following its predicessor did :(Their use of 1-bit alpha is really strange, and I commented on the terrible spider webs that resulted from it in the OC. But using larger textures can help to minimise the jagged effect as they get downsampled. I'd call 512 the minimum. I think we're due for a renaissance at some point, with more new players coming in whenever GOG gets around to releasing the game. Currently it's difficult to obtain. I wasn't there at the time it came out, but from my digging, I saw that there were a lot of bad feelings unfairly directed toward NWN2 due to the actions of Atari and others, in addition to the more deserved criticism of its optimisation and bugs at the time of its release (which are mostly fixed). But I think the single most important aspect of NWN2 as compared to NWN1 (as I see it) was not adequately publicised -- and that's the fully-controllable party system, of the same sort that DA:O and ToEE have. And the huge improvement of that system that SoZ brought, in terms of party dialogue and the ability to include player-created party members in addition to recruited ones. My not knowing that it had those things is what made me overlook the game for so long. I think you may underestimate how much new life you're breathing into it with your heads. But I think it could do with more publicity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AurianaValoria1 Posted November 17, 2012 Share Posted November 17, 2012 Tchos is right. I think your work will help to bring about new interest. :) BTW, IMO, the entire game was highly underrated. Especially MotB. The OC was good, but MotB has a magnificently written storyline...with some incredibly talented (and somewhat unexpected) voice actors. ;) And the more I play SoZ, the more I like it for different reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xaltar Posted November 17, 2012 Author Share Posted November 17, 2012 Yeah, as I said in my interview, it is one of my top 3 games of all time and considering how particular I am about what I want from my games that says a lot. I have been doing my best to try and draw attention to my mod by signing up to various forums and revisiting the official channels in the hopes that it will draw more people back to the community. There is simply so much more that can be done with this game as I am trying to show with my mod. Thanks for the vote of confidence guys I hope you are right. Much as NWN2 is secondary on my list of moddinng priorities (dragon age being my primary focus due to its more powerful tools) it is a game that has a lot more to offer than has been done with it in the past. My pack only serves to demonstrate that the engine is nowhere near as inadequate as many people seem to think. I tested a 30,000 poly model in it and it handled it without a hiccup, even with 6 - 10 instances of it on screen. This means that even the environments can be given some higher poly love to smooth out all those rough edges and square rocks etc. Its funny to think that this pack started out life simply as me trying to make the games graphics more bearable so I could have another playthrough without feeling like I want to gouge out my eyes. I hope to see a lot more activity for this game soon, it would be nice to actually get the ball rolling with large scale community modules that have the potential to rival AAA titles currently on the market. I honestly believe that the future of the industry rests in independent development, away from the likes of publishers and distributors who place restrictions and unfair development timetables on developers. But I am rambling hehe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xaltar Posted November 18, 2012 Author Share Posted November 18, 2012 (edited) OK just thought I would post a correction to an earlier statement, the triangle count of my heads range from 3000 to 4000 triangles depending on facial hair etc. When I checked last I forgot to check only show statistics for selected, so it also counted all the triangles in the collision meshes and bones lol. So basically my heads are about double the triangle count of the originals, well within acceptable for today's standards. I will put the figures up in the description for those interested. Edited November 18, 2012 by Xaltar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xaltar Posted December 1, 2012 Author Share Posted December 1, 2012 OK, my internet has been down for the last week and a half or so. I finally have it back now and figured I would post up a little of what I have been working on these last few weeks. Thus far I have more or less completed the Moon Elves, I need to finish up the texture naming conventions and then test the heads individually, once that is done I can upload it. The rest of my time has been spent in Zbrush creating a new Orc that is closer to the NWN concepts and portraits. Now I need to create the female version and then I will be ready to construct the low poly and such. Here is a pic of the highpoly sculpt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaalyah Posted December 1, 2012 Share Posted December 1, 2012 Oh my, your work is gorgeous!Where can I find more details on your technique? I'd like to know how to export models from the game and which tool you are using for sculpting. Are you working directly on Max or maybe on Mudbox/Zbrush and then back to Max? Are you also modifying the facial expressions/animations (let's admit: the basic facial animations in NWN2 are dreadful!)? We are developing a mod for NWN2 too and I think that using your heads would improve the game experience!... Those heads are stunning! :wub: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xaltar Posted December 1, 2012 Author Share Posted December 1, 2012 (edited) Well I start out usually in Max, create my low poly then import that into Zbrush for sculpting. Once I have my high poly fleshed out to the detail level I want it I then drop to the lowest subdivision (my raw base mesh) and export that to be used as the low poly then export the highest subdivision and use that to bake my normals in Max. Then begins the arduous process of rigging the model to the nwn2 skeleton. Usually I will simply import an existing model that is similar to my own, attach my model to it in the poly/mesh edit interface and delete the original model leaving only my model. This tends to auto rig the model close enough to save a few hours of fiddling, then you need to fine tune the rig to get it to animate cleanly. It all sounds relatively simple but in practice I have often spent days rigging a single armor or head :S Alternatively, I sometimes start out in Zbrush with a box or sphere and sculpt my head from there and then retopologize it when I am done with the high poly to create the low. That takes more time but can yield better results. It is also useful for quick concepting and visualizing. I have been messing with 3ds max and Zbrush for years now and still often find myself stuck or in need of a tutorial with something. I have not touched the animations nor is it likely that I will seeing as I don't have 3dsmax 8/9 and the only exporter that works for animations requires it. The animations themselves are not all that bad but with the lower poly vanilla heads they did look a lot worse than with my heads. If you have any specific questions I would be happy to try and answer them. Edited December 1, 2012 by Xaltar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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