Neverwinter Nights Forum News (Feb. 06, 06)

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Here are today's Neverwinter Nights 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.

Georg Zoeller, Designer

Bug - NPC Summons(1.67)

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I think that BioWare has said that 1.67 wouldn't really have a lot of bugfixes, that it was more about adding new content. Also, I doubt that BioWare is going to add stuff to beta 2 that wasn't in beta 1 - normally, the second beta would be for fixes to bugs introduced in beta 1. So you probably want to report it again once 1.67 is final (if the bug is still around, of course).

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The patch actually has a ton of bugfixes

We will still fix bugs, as long as they are "in scope" to fix for this patch (i.e. don't require massive changes to existing systems), so please report any bug you find with the beta to nwbugs@bioware.com!

Blocking Online Character Export

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Is there a way to keep my server from allowing a player to save characters locally?

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No.

The way to deal with that situation is to ban people who try to do this. Once a couple have been banned, the rest will stay clear of cheating.

Brian Chung - Technical Artist

Animations : what happens if one is missing ?
Those have been in the a_ba set of supermodels since the very beginning, in a_ba_non_combat I think. Walk_* and run_* are animrooted to the left or right bicep when you have something equiped there. Pausepsn is the swaying to and fro animation when poisoned, and 2hslasho is the overhead attack when using a greatsword or equivalent. Torchl is of course, holding the torch up in the air.

If the creature attempts to play an animation that doesn't exist, it just freezes on the last frame of the previous animation for the duration of the current missing one, then continues on as normal.

Minor request: Changing a PLT to TGA...
You can grab Gimp (free) and the Gimp PLT plugin that Joco of DLA wrote to import the PLTs you want and recolour them.

Item images larger than 2x4
Actually, you also need an associating GUI_ICON_WxH??.MDL where W=width and H=height and ?? Is L, LC, R or RC where L is the normal size (Long?), C for composite for weapons (just duplicate the icon, link to the parent and change the texture to icon2 using gui_replace02 and icon3 using gui_replace03), and R is rotated for the quickbar (and RC for rotated composite of course).

The size of the icon itself should be 32cm x 32cm for each grid block (so your 4x4 should be 128cmx128cm). Texture sizes should be the same as well, so a 3x3 icon size would be 96cmx96cm in size and using a 128x128 texture with the right UV mapping (just make a grid where each block is 32 pixels by 32 pixels to help with the mapping)

Obviously some menu displays will break with larger sizes (hard coded GUIs where 2x5 is the largest it uses), so expect some things to break when using larger than 2 width.

I've actually already resolved the missing icon sizes for all the way up to the full 10x6 for the 1.67 patch - not that there's anything requiring that...

<.<

>.>

Breasts! Weird PLT Problem (BloodSpell)
Your filename (pfh0_chest201.mdl) and model base name (pfr0_chest201) are different, when that happens I think NWN defaults to looking for a TGA of the applied bitmap (pfh0_chest201.tga) instead of the PLT. And of course, not finding the TGA resulting in the all metal chest part.

DLA's done this before (and probably CODI and others), intentionally "breaking" the bitmap association by having the filename and modelbase differ, so we can skip PLT textures and go for a TGA instead for horses.

A question for the animators out there (2 questions actually)

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Is it possible to set a PC race model to use another supermodel for it's basic move and idle animations?
Has anybody done something like that for the halforc model already?

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Yes, you can use the SetPhenotype() commands to essentially act as a set supermodel command and point the animations to a new series (or override existing ones).

In this case, you can do it by having a new phen for half-orcs, say, pmo3.mdl and pfo3.mdl which would have some overriding animations before pointing back to the standard a_ba supermodel line to save on duplicating all the other animations.

Custom Portraits
Do you have the portrait files in the newly created portraits folder in the right naming convention?

More info here: http://nwn.bioware.com/builders/portraits.html

Present Day Hakpak
Sounds like the d20 Modern mod: http://d20mm.net/

Placeable Doors
If they're modified from the CEP doors (which should be in turn modified NWN doors), I think mimicing the naming and hierarchy and supermodeling the animations to the appropriate door should work for you, saving valuable time from having to animate it from scratch.

Block 3D 'grass' in rural tileset.
It's an engine issue there, as the walkmesh terrain your placeable is over is marked as 'grass' and therefore will always sprout the grass (if set in the graphic options).

You could edit the tile in question, to block off the offending areas out but that causes the same tile used in other areas to show this clear patch (Hmm, UFO crop circles anyone?).

I think if you change the placeable's PWK into a tile's WOK instead and put a terrain ID it might override the tile's, but I haven't looked into that much and not really a good solution.

For the most part, it's just something you'd have to live with.

Sittable chair problems
Sitting works by having the PC play the sitting animation at the model's center (0,0,0) and faces the closer of the two use nodes of the placeable. If the use01 node is missing however, the engine has you defaulting to facing east, as was the case for say, the stool (before it was fixed) or some of the invisible placeables people use for sitting.

Is there a size limit?
That and the more areas you have up, the more tracking the server has to handle as each area is loaded into memory. Even if the area is put into a "nap" mode when there are no players in it (Mostly reduced AI speed I believe, as mentioned in other threads), it's still active and running.

Interview of Rob Bartel, parts 1 and 2

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Can you give me a clue as to how many sets will be released, and how far out I should 'pad' the areag.ini?
Should I be placing entries 'x' number of tilesets down in the list?

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I've already talked to Bannor about this, but there are things in the works that will allow for better community collaboration.

As for the tilesets themselves, it's the Tropical and Undersea Caverns.

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Quote: Any clue as to possible release date of the tilesets themselves? Will it be same day as 1.67 or later?

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I'm hoping the same, but we know how big tileset work is.

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Quote: One final question, is there anything in specific that I should be worried about with the release of the new tilesets? Can you think of anyway that 1.67 would affect our (CTP) release plans?

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AFAIK, with the exception of like 3 files (areag.ini, dootypes.2da and loadscreens.2da), tilesets are rather self-contained so aside from a bit of texture duplication, there shouldn't be anything that would impact the CTP at all.

Any plans for a 1.67?

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Did you fix the walkmesh issue with the vegetable garden feature in the city exterior tileset?
I recall sending an e-mail to the relevant address just before 1.66 was released and the issue is still there.

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Craig's passed the bug report to me and it's being fixed for the 1.67 patch, thanks guys.

Problem editing katana blade model in GMax
You can safely skip the weld vertex check, it's mostly just a warning, to check if any verticies are within 1cm of each other. The validity of the check depends on the type, density and size of the model. A double sided plane for say, a ship's sail would fail that check if you didn't weld the edge verticies together, for instance. Or a small mesh like a bird's wing.

It's preferred to weld them, as it results in less extra verticies in the mesh and too many can affect things like skinmesh deformations. But then you have to make sure your smoothing groups are set right, else you get odd lighting issues across edges, particularly for situations like the sail example I mentioned (try it and see!).

Tiles in a hak
1. Use NWExplorer and extract the tile's .MDL and .WOK
2. Also extract the .SET file for the DOA tileset
3. Extract the TTR01.SET file from NWN (best to get the most recent one in data/xp2patch.bif -> Information Files
4. Append their .SET entries to the end of the TTR01.SET file (reindexing the [TILE###] as necessary and upping the count)
5. Add them as the necessary groups to said TTR01.SET file
6. Use the GFF editor to add the entries to the TTR01PALSTD.ITP so they'll show up on the palette to paint as groups in your new rural tileset
7. enjoy!

Sorry for the point-form, but it best lists the steps for it. I might have missed something but that should be the gist of it.

Doors???
http://ccg.dladventures.com/index.php/Doors

You need to label them with specific names to handle the parts that are walkable and not depending on the state of the door. All the model geometry should always be as an editable mesh anyway.

Model 2da Question
I believe the toolset sorts the armour pieces by the AC bonus, hence the discrepency between what's in the parts_chest.2da and the order listed in the dropdown box.

More: You can use something like NWExplorer to cycle through the body parts to find the one you're looking for, then take it's file name (pmh0_chest###.mdl) and use the ### as which entry in the parts_chest.2da file to change.

Editing Armor and PC textures
For PC parts, it's a PLT you can find in the texture packs. You'll need GIMP and Joco's PLT importer to be able to convert them to a usable format to edit.

File not opening
Use NWN Explorer instead.

I'm looking for a good male paladin voice set.
The portraits folder should go off your main NWN folder, not the override one:

/nwn/portraits/ <- correct
/nwn/override/portraits/ <- incorrect

The reason NWN does not use JPG is mostly due to licensing issues. WAVs are supported in NWN.

1.67 Feature Request
That requires a rather major GUI change to accomodate multiline text input, and it's something we don't exactly have the zots for (especially when you see what we DO have coming up).

But really, have your players press enter more frequently instead of typing up 'War and Peace'. It's also consideration for the other players waiting, as they can read the chat while the talker is busy typing the next sentence.

Changing familiar color
Well, the easy way would be to replace the texture of the panther and put a white c_cat_panth.tga and .dds into your override directory. But that will also change every panther model in the game.

Alternatively, grab gMax and NWMax and make a new panther model with the new texture, and modify the summon familiar spell script to change the appearance to the white one for you.

A more complex solution would require modifying the hen_familiar.2da and appearance.2da and making a new set of snow panther familiar templates, but that's really complex to do.

How to override or extend NWN core scripting function

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This brings up a pet peave of mine - PLEASE ADD A REBUILD ALL BUTTON TO THE TOOLSET SO I when I change an include file, I don't have to run out to TextPad and grep through all the scripts (THanks Zelgato) and compile a list, and open them one by one and PULL MY FLIPPING HAIR OUT OVER THE THREE HOURS I JUST SPENT...

* blushes * Just a recommendation...

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You mean the Build -> Build Module -> checkbox Compile, then hit the Build button which will recompile everything?

Patch 1.67 FAQ

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Has anyone else had a problem with the 1x3 Merchant ship - undockable? I can place it in the toolset, but when I try the F9 test run, the area hangs and does not load (I give up after about 5 minutes).

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Noted and (hopefully) fixed for Beta 2, it was an issue with a missing door model for the merchant ship (both versions).

1.67 patch discussion (cont.)

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I want to ask for a friend, who wondered if there would be (a command that gives me an immediate effect target pointer click on anything fires a defined script. "Use an onuse activated item" is not cutting it for me. I would like an INSTANT! Which aborts nothing.)

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What, you mean like Instant Feats?

More:

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i tryed to do the instant activate item a while back with no luck. didnt try very hard mind, might go back and try again if i have the time.

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The key point here is that it's feats are instant, not item activation. That still has to deal with the 6 second round time for using the item.

What you do instead is make some feats and apply it to the item so it is granted to the player. Then from there they can bind the feat to the quickbar and toggle said feat to not require an action to activate.

More:

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There's also a hook hand in the Pirates of the Sword Coast hak. I'm not sure it'll make it into the patch, but it's fun to play with.

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It'll be in beta 2, given the sheer amount of stuff that did get in, some things accidentily slipped by.

More: Please note, the grayscaled inventory icons are for representing invalid items in your inventory, as part of a fix for a nasty inventory bug where a custom item from another mod+hak becomes invisible in the player's inventory. It also becomes a blackhole where anything placed on it disappears forever. With the invalid icons that were added, you can now see that it's there and can drop it.

The only new weapon added in 1.67 is the trident, all the others are legacy weapons which were cut from the game, but there might be some dangling files lying around from them. We've included those icons as a just in case, but that's it. So don't get too worked up over the possibility of new weapons in the game.

More:

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Finally, with regards to the trident, there is only one, unalterable model and no feats for it. Any chance those might appear?

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I'm not too sure about feats, but there are more trident variants coming. Like I said before, with the sheer amount of content for this patch, some things slipped by. I mean, my work directory is... 3,800 files, I kid you not. Also missing of the PotSC content, after the hook hands, peg legs and tridents, are the maul (club) and long stick (quarterstaff) models. So wizards can get their gnarled wood staffs.

And a couple extra surprises.

As for Stan, he's just jealous that the mod was about pirates and not ninjas.

Importing into Gmax
Click on the AuroraBase and hit the "Check Sanity Errors" button on the side, it will bring up the results from the export of the model.

Chances are, it sounds like it's complaining about the scale is not 100%, or the rotation is not 0 degrees. Fastest solution for that is to hit the Smart ResetXforms button under Mesh tools and make sure the pivot checkbox is off. This will "freeze" the changes you made to the object (the scale and rotation).

More: Try unlinking it from the model base prior to "Smart ResetXforms", then relink it. It might be retaining the parent object's settings.

And make sure you're doing the operation on the model, not the modelbase too.