Neverwinter Nights 2 Forum News (Oct. 07, 04)

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Here are today's Neverwinter Nights 2 forum highlights, collected by NWVault from Obsidian Forums. 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.

Erik Novales, Programmer

Stop Game Clock
I think what people are not taking into account is how often the concept of "time" is used in the game, and how wide the effects of changing it would be. It touches almost every system in the game, and is relied on everywhere to make the game behave consistently. It's not a matter of "just" changing it for some people around a conversation -- that introduces all kinds of consistency problems game-wide that require a lot of effort/thought/magic to reconcile. (and whose solutions are probably not 100% satisfactory to begin with) It's like pulling on a thread -- if you put a band-aid on one problem that results from stopping time, two more are likely to pop up.

Let's put it this way: you don't mess with the fourth dimension lightly. smile.gif And in this case, I'd sooner ask the questions, "Why is the boss so tough that you need to be completely buffed up to withstand his first attack?", and "If the players really do need buffs that wear off quickly, why not delay the villain attacking for a round so the players can buff up at the appropriate time?"

Ferret, Developer

Rotating Map
Both types of maps have their advantages (fixed north or rotating). For many of the NWN1 environments I appreciated the fixed map because it helped keep my bearings. I lean towards a fixed map for areas the size and complexity of the NW ones.

Skies
Some of the technological things that Frank and the programming team are tackling make me swoon. Swoon, swoon. Some earlier posts on the forums were worried about the graphics of the game, and I had to shake my head at the time because I knew what programming and art were up to. Don't worry, be happy.

Jason Keeney, Programmer
</br/>Model Morph

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With character models I'd implement a few effects that I've been wanting for awhile. Dimensional transport where the body shears/twists/corkscrews or otherwise morphs while teleporting away. Ripple effects for magic impacts. Melting effects. Procedural alteration of features (modifying beards and hair, disease effects (leprosy, lycanthropy,undead)). Amputation. Hybridization of models. Morphing effects. Frankly, thousands of things.

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The space-warp type special effects are a good idea (and are duly noted), but not something thats appropriate to do from a script interface. What might be possible would be a parameterized "warp" system as part of the enigne core and having said parameters scriptable. As for procedural feature modification, et al... well... that kind of stuff would be really impractical to do via simple vertex manipulation and would be way beyond the scope of any conceivable scripting mechanism.

Bump Maps
Bump mapping and normal mapping are basically the same. They have the same goals, and essentially give the same effect. The difference is in the details of the execution. Its not wrong to say that normal mapping is a kind of bump mapping. There are acutally a couple different kinds of bump maps... In one, the bump map represents a height field. Differences in neighboring heights are used to calculate a new surface normal for a particular lit pixel. In this case the bump map contains one dimension of information. These kinds of height maps are generally very simple to generate. They would be a grayscale map where dark equals low and bright equals high spots.

In a second case the bump map contians two dimensions of information that represent the "tilt" of the surface normal at a particular pixel. This method will be computationally less expensive, but the creation of the map in the first place is more complicated. Then there's normal mapping. In a normal map the surface normal at each pixel is explicitly stored... a full 3 dimensions of information. There is very little work left for the engine to do to calculate the final surface normal at a given pixel. This is the advantage of normal mapping over traditional bump mapping and is why it is preferred for real-time stuff like games. Hope that all made sense.

Marc Taro, Lead Artist

Concept Art
heh - well, we've just zipped up another review with Atari...so I know there's a few things to decorate you monitors; Coming Soon!

Bikini Mail
I'm flattered to be SINGLED OUT for responsibility on this decision'even tho'; I tell my guys I have that kind of ultimate power, we all know it's not really true...One thing I can definitely say: The characters in NWN2 will be based on the style we're all enjoying from the books. You can look forward to all kinds of coolness inspired by artists like Lockwood or Wilson'.(and all the D&D regulars, too many to name here). Tho'; none of the Wizards artist are working at Obsidian, we live and breathe their stuff every day. I hope to be able to show you a few things soon; a bit later in pre-production'!