Neverwinter Nights 2 Forum News (May 22, 05)

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Here are today's Neverwinter Nights 2 forum highlights, collected by NWVault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Brian D. Lawson, Programmer

Tileset colors

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I would personally opt for the unreal engine way of doing terrain as Guybrush mentioned. To actually mold the terrain and "paint" textures on that terrain is the best way of doing it in my opinion. A simple raise or lower vertices approach makes for some great flowing hills, roads and streams...

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Sounds familiar...

Can a white robe be white this time around?
There is no "washing out" of colors just because you get a full 32-bit of color precision. If anything it allows for more vibrant/radiant colors along with a lot more control over the subtle color changes.

Placeables
I would estimate there's at least a couple of hundred that I scroll through when I play with the toolset from time to time.

Lighting effects?
Mmmm...I like flickering lights.

Lighting effects?
I just wrote the first pass of the bloom code about a week ago.

More:

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Woot! A small question on that one if I may? Are we as mod builders going to have control on the ammount of bloom in areas? Or is it just going to be a set thing? Just curious

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To be honest, I'm not 100% sure yet how we're going to do it yet. I know some people who think bloom is the greatest thing in the world, and others who absolutely hate it. With that being said, I'm not sure we can impose mod/area bloom settings on somebody who doesn't want it. I'm thinking the best way to go may be to allow "preferred" bloom settings for an area (specified by the builder), but the end user may have the option to override those settings with their own.

More:

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Glad i caught you Brian. Can i ask a quick question. This is regarding a lighting effect i'm intriguid to know whether or not it will be in the game. I was considering, NWN2 will have some enviromental conditions, rain, wind, storms etc. When theres a thunder storm, will the lightning cast a light effect? I.E. Will it light up an area, if so, can this be adjustable?

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I'm scheduled to start working on weather/environmental effects sometime in the not too distant future. I would like to have lightning do as you describe and affect the lighting of the current visible area (I think Fable did a pretty good job of this). With the current lighting system, I don't see it being that difficult to pull off...but as always, no guarentees at this point.

Placeables

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Brian, could you estimate the amount of vegetation placeables? Or is that asking a bit too much?

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Vegetation is still being worked on. You guys already know we'll have a variety of trees. There are some other really nice features in the toolset now that I think you guys will love in terms of laying down vegetation etc.

Frank Kowalkowski, Lead Programmer

Lighting effects?
Interesting this topic came up, we've featured it in a multitude of demos.

Scaling of Models: How far will it go?
When you scale an object you need to keep in mind it was animated with a specific size range in mind. Gnomes may 'reach further' in their attack animations for instance to compensate for their height disadvantage against most creatures. Hence, when you scale them past human size, the animation looks a little wonkier. We'll look into smoothing that out, but end-users should be aware of the perils of scaling as much as the benefits.

Tileset colors
You won't be able to swap textures on the fly. We have other plans for adding variety and atmosphere to interiors.As for exteriors.../smirk =)

More: painting textures you say...how interesting.