Doubts (public) Developmental log

[Doubtful]

More chat, no screenshots...

Just got copies of the books for Arrival of the Modern Mind and Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum plus Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe

Man... Serious inspiration, and large enough tomes to be able to beat people to death with.

[Doubtful]

Kapow!

As per the Elves vs Dwarfes (plus gnomes) thread I spent a while working on the helms today.

First one is done and ready, two more to go.

I won't post screenshots till they're all done and .haked but I thought I'd share the good news!

I'll also put in the hats I've done previously (sallet and deerskull) at the same time for some major hatty goodness

[Doubtful]

Ducking Bell! Two months since an update, and two months since I've been able to actually squeeze a decent allotment of time together in one go. Ah, the summer season, so full of work and people.

Right - Updated the front page with current situations on projects, a few gone, a couple of new ones.

Good news though; as of earlier I'm on Holiday! Woo! Trouble is that I've got a half marathon on Sunday morning then I'm buggering off to Sardinia for sunshine and thunderstorms till the 26th.

Fear not though! While it'll mean no game time and minimal (phone only) forum time I have already packed up enough stuff to be going on with several Sundren related projects, so I won't forget you guys n gals while sunning it up on the gorgeous white sand beaches. Honest!

Once I'm back from work we'll be entering the winter period which should mean lighter rosters, less mental destruction and more time to get in game or in the toolset to help drive stuff onwards into RP fundom.

[Intrepid42]

That all looks pretty damn awesome. Your time and effort is appreciated, mate.

[Dave Fritz]

Have a great time in Sardinia.

[Doubtful]

Sardinia was great, the Pompeii Exhibition at the British Museum was frankly awesome and the half marathon was bloody painful.

Right! Back home to find that the evil money demanding people at Wacom have released the Cintiq Companion Hybrid.

http://uk.shop.wacom.eu/products/cin...d/566?c=70177#

Bacchus's sweet nectar what I wouldn't do to get my hands on one of these (or better yet, the full blown Cintiq Companion).

Somebody, quick! Hide my credit cards!

Ahem. Due to holiday my work Rosta is crazy evil (it's some kind of evil, take a week off work and you'll be given as much hours in the rest of the month as you would during a normal month) until November! However! I have most of November and the beginning of December off of work, so DMing aplenty come then!

Until then though it'll be toolset and other work, I'll squeeze in DMing as and when I can.

[Sinister Intent]

Glad to have you back Doubt, and happy to hear the half marathon didn't kill you

[thaelis]

Awesome! Project scary Ixis is back on track! If you run out of ideas for adventurers to die in horrible agonising ways don't hesitate to ask.

[Doubtful]

I'd been wondering which project to pick up for today (Have a whole half a day free! Woo!)

Project Scary Ixis it is.

[thaelis]

*bump* Is scary Ixis still at 15%? Not rushing you! Just asking!

I'd like to request a trap with a gigantic rolling stone, like all ancient temples seem to have. Also a dropout floor which drops you into a small room full of hundreds of Scorpions and snakes.

[Doubtful]

Ixis hasn't really progressed much, maybe a couple of percent. There's a large amount of work to do and precious little time available to commit to doing it - Something that isn't helped by my appalling attention span and habit of flitting between projects as my vague whims dictate.

There are also projects that have more of a priority - ExiCorp needs a brand new bag (ahem, store), Mirakus needs some tweaking (plus a huge overhaul at a later date), The Trading Post needs fixing, Viridale needs modification and several other things need poking with sticks, not to mention my little TOOL project!

That's not to say Ixis is on hold, it's definitely still on-going, in my work Moleskine (for when it's late at night, most of the pax are asleep and I can sit in the flightdeck and beetle away to my hearts content) there's a couple of pages full of designs for Ixis features and maps (Freetown, Field of Screams, Temple of Gloom, The World Beneath) sandwiched between notes for ExiCorp equipment, notes and doodles for SC: A Bridge Too Far, Mirakus Post, nature group related designs and elf stuff.

The Temple of Gloom exterior is currently the main focus of the Ixis stuff, my earlier notes were for a very South American design, typical lizardman stuff really; glyphs, sigals and all sorts of Aztecan stuff - But after some thought it's having an overhaul, the current iteration is very mathematical, clean and with a lean toward the Art Nouveau.

Unrelated, but I found this pretty cool and rather inspiring:

Heavenly Bodies - Paul Koudounaris

[Doubtful]

OK: Bit of a sidestep away from previous stuff, though it does tie into some existing DEV work:

After a long flight spent playing RUA2 and thinking about additions to the ExiCorp Constructed Peacekeeping Units range of products (Because Enforcment Droid is just to obvious) I did very, very seriously think about adding in dangerous unicorns.



Trailey rainbow vfx and all.

Byrun will take 10, delivered to Mirakus Post. Thanks.

I think I'll bring this over here rather than derailing the heck out of the Favoured Enemies thread.

I've been meaning to write a handy 'How To' guide on retexturing or re-normalling existing models, this seems like a good opportunity.

So: Customising / re-skinning existing NWN2 models pt.1

Firstly let's have some Theme Music

Secondly and rather importantly, the tools used:

Adobe Photoshop CS2 - Texture Editing - But there are crap loads of free versions available out there, use what you like. In this tutorial it'll only be used towards the end when we're doing colour/tint maps and detailing.

Blender - 3D editing package - It's free and is actually quite good. You can even find some tools for import/export on NWNvault for it, though I'm not using them here. It's only used quickly in this tutorial.

Zbrush - High-Poly modelling - OK, I'm lucky in that I bought my Zbrush license a few years ago and I love it! If you can't afford (or don't want to afford) it there are a range of paid for programs available or the rather awesome Sculptris. Sculptris is free and can import and export .objs, which we'll need to bring in the low-res and dump out our high-res stuff!

MDB/OBJ conversion tools - from game to software! - We need these to convert the existing game models into a format that our high-poly package can understand. Grab these off the vault here.

DDS tools - software to game textures - If you're not using a later version of photoshop or your image program doesn't have DDS support built in then you'll need these. Various converters are available but I use the nvidia plugins and have DDS Converter 2 installed as well.

Normal Mapping software - make them normal maps! - Xnormal is just to damn useful, we'll use that to make normal maps from the original low-poly and the output of our high-model package.

.hak packer - Package up your finished work - Once everything is done it needs to be made into a .hak for use, there are a couple of packages available but I tend to use NWN2Packer.

Part 1: Preperation
First we need to get the model we want to remake ready – The base models are located in .zip files that live in C:\Program Files (x86)\Atari\Neverwinter Nights 2\Data (or wherever you installed it), the model will probably be located in either NWN2_Models.zip or in the _X1 or _X2 versions (unless you’re retexturing something you found on the vault or other .hak where you’ll need to use the .hak packing software to extract it).


The White Horse model in game. Ugh.

The horse I’m going to use as a base is located in NWN2_Models_X1.zip, as an NPC the horse has a c_ prefix, player models have p_, armour a_ and weapons w_ once I’ve found the horse model (c_horsewhite_cl_body01.mdb) I’ll just extract it out to my working directory. While I’m at it I’ll also grab the two accessory files c_horsewhite_cl_extraA01.mdb and c_horsewhite_cl_extraB01.mdb (they’re the mane and tail respectively).

Use MDB to OBJ converter to convert the horse body to a usable .obj file, then open up the .obj in Blender or your 3D package of choice – Delete the _L01 and L02 meshes, then re-export the remaining mesh as an .obj. append it with _cleaned or something to ensure you don’t overwrite the old version.

Import the _cleaned file into your high poly package and save it – This is going to be the basis of the new model!



Part 2: Make your new model
It’s important to remember that here we’re not creating a new model from scratch – essentially we’re just making new textures – The silhouette of the model will still be the same silhouette as before, only the details will have changed, so don’t go adding spikes or huge shape changes as those kind of details won’t work. There is still a lot that can be done within that limit though, so let’s get to work.

*rest of Part 2 to follow*

[Doubtful]

Still working away on Part 2 - I did think about just slapping together something rough and ouchy for the tutorial but it's probably best to take more time and put together something that'll be usable at the end, going to try and do what I can this week, otherwise it'll be done toward the end of the month when I have a few days off (along with the last of the ExiCorp store, hopefully).

I used up the RUA theme tune last time, but I've come across a nice unicorn short story by Charles Stross.

LOL'd hard. Please don't say such things...what if Saulus reads it and has a sudden epiphany, the next update could very well be called Sundren: Unicorn Invasion.

It also ties into this ▲ (fear me on the DM client, for I doth love my HPL, and everytime I read some Tim Powers/Stross/HPL I end up running bizarre and nasty events as a result).

Charles Stross: Equoid

Warning, it's an adult story, as such (and here I shall quote the publisher): Like some other stories published on Tor.com, “Equoid” contains scenes and situations some readers will find upsetting and/or repellent. [—The Editors] don't go moaning if you ignore this warning and then don't like the story. It's horror, it's unicorns, it's great (but could be squick/nightmare fuel).

[Doubtful]

Terrible, horrendous, utterly, utterly devistating news.


After many years as a trusted companion, ever present, ever loved and ever loyal... *wipes away a tear*

My 6x11 Wacom has passed away.

Through 3 years of Architecture at Uni, so many months of freelancing and photography, through countless hours of Zbrush, illustrator and flash, you were my interface into a world I thought I'd never see...

Let's raise our glasses to a fallen friend, and a right spanner in the works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFXYuw96d0c


(Overly dramatic reaction aside this is a real shitter. Fuckery.)

[GodBeastX]

Terrible, horrendous, utterly, utterly devistating news.


After many years as a trusted companion, ever present, ever loved and ever loyal... *wipes away a tear*

My 6x11 Wacom has passed away.

Through 3 years of Architecture at Uni, so many months of freelancing and photography, through countless hours of Zbrush, illustrator and flash, you were my interface into a world I thought I'd never see...

Let's raise our glasses to a fallen friend, and a right spanner in the works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFXYuw96d0c


(Overly dramatic reaction aside this is a real shitter. Fuckery.)

Damn, I'd be pissed if my wacom broke. Much love homie!