Obsidian Motives

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On the BioWare boards, some light has been shed on Obsidian's motives behind certain choices regarding animation in Neverwinter Nights 2 development. Here's the post in question:

Obsidian used a lot of code and tools created by third partied to create NWN2. They did this because at the time the contract for NWN2 was signed, Obsidian had yet to release a title (KotOR2 was not yet released), the size of Obs as a developer was quite modest and the delivery date set for NWN2 was quite aggressive.

We know that Obs used at least the following code bases and tools to create NWN2:


Aurora game rules for D&D 3.0

Character Animation Tookit for animations –

Granny 3d for in game model format and real time animation compression

SpeedTree for in game trees and vegetation

Various UI packages for the Toolset itself

At least one other middleware tool not yet announced and very possibly a few more.


The philosophy behind this resort to off-the-shelf tool and code use is belied in the recent presentation by Obs at GDC2006: Why reinvent the wheel? “We are making a game, not a user interface”.

The problem with this approach with a sequel to a game where CC has been very much a part of the long term success story of the game is that it makes it quite hard for the community to modify assets in the way they are used to, on a going-forward basis.

In Obs defence, the only real aspect of CC that is prevented from being customized by resort to Granny3d and CAT is new animations only. There are relatively few assets ever created by the NWN1 community that utilized custom animations – and still fewer that were at any quality level that their loss to the community would be considered significant.

Of the material released by the NWN1 community to date, H2oRat’s and LunaC’s Drider, the CODI Manticore, DLA Treant and DLA Ogre and Ragnarok’s ACP, and the slimes and jellies are the only gems which leap out to my mind as being pro level custom animated work. (There were a lot of other custom animated pieces that DLA has delivered to BioWare under contract (the sharks and fish placeables, for example) but I think those ought not to be counted as “community work” in terms of the circumstances of how they were created.)

Yes, there were other custom animations attempts (and I probably left off a few of the very serviceable community models like the ants and rust monster) but as far as the “pro level stuff” was concerned, that was about it. It’s a pretty short list.

When you look at the level of detail involved in creating a normal mapped creature and in animating it for NWN2 – the game has really taken a huge step forward from the low poly levels of NWN1. The sort of community content we saw for NWN1 in terms of creatures is going to take a severe step back no matter what Obs did in terms of tools. The skill level necessary is simply a few orders of magnitude greater and that restricts the amount of quality content being generated.

My point: even if we were to have the animation tools out of the box – there is every reason to think that there would have been a net loss of creature CC for NWN2.

Looking at that assessment, I would guess that Obs figured it didn’t matter all that much and hoped that somebody would be able to code around the limitations in any event.

Obs had some good reasons to believe that to be true. The NWN community has proved to be extremely resourceful with developing its own software solutions. We have had NWN Model Suite, NWmax for gmax and NWmax for 3dsmax all emerge as community 3d modeling solutions. Similarly, Lilac Soul’s script generator and NWNX for database use in PWs are similar examples of pro level software that emerged for other aspects of the game. This is not an exhaustive list and there are other examples that could be listed here as well.

On the whole, we’ve proved to be resourceful and dedicated fans. This is not some other game mod community, after all; this is D&D and NWN. There are a lot of very seriously talented people in this community.

As it so happens, at DLA we believe that we can get around the Granny 3d limitations and we are actively working towards that goal to create a utility package for 3dsmax that will do it. Obs has lent a helping hand (to the extent they can) to us in that regard, so it’s not that they are ignoring the problem either. While the jury is still out on “Oodle 1”, (Granny3d’s proprietary compression scheme) we remain very optimistic.

Sometimes you are forced to make development choices you’d rather not make and this is especially so when you are a start-up developer. In this case, Obs had to make difficult choices along the road to building their company and publishing a game. Game development is very much the art of the possible and I think the frequent resort by Obsidian to third party solutions reflects the publisher, the existing market for non-MMO CRPGs, the size of the developer and the aggressive publication date.

No need to search for a conspiracy beyond those factors – it’s just rational business decisions being made under difficult circumstances.

There it is.

Trace the discussion on BioWare boards, in the NWN2 section.