Sporaxis - all the letters are present

Bugger the Kraken, Apathy is a greater threat

2010-05-26T19:40:00.000-07:00

Well after much thought and watching Aeon PW slowly die as players lost interest, I decided to close the world. Makes me sad but also a sense of release, as trying to nurse a body when the soul is gone is rather draining.

I have found that players lost interest, builders were not dependable and DM's well did the best they can before they imploded. Apathy ran riot and ruled at the end, regardless of the engery thrown into Aeon.

I learnt a lot about myself, people and how to run a PW effectively. I made a lot of mistakes and learnt from them as well.

So what next? I am not sure, I do enjoy building in NWN1 and I rather enjoy roleplaying. Perhaps I shall fiddle and see if I can get the Kraken chopped up and served to some unsuspecting people, not really sure.

For now, I shall move forward and fiddle, hacking areas and code together, so that my mind remains engaged, until something comes along that catches my eye in the PW arena.

Aeon, goodbye and thankyou for all the joy and tears.

Sporaxis

Compiling Errors Twice as fast!

2010-04-27T23:12:00.001-07:00

An interesting week since my last post on the status of Aeon and awakening the Kraken or better known as Identifier List Full error. This error occurs when the number of functions in an #include exceed the compiling capabilities of the NWN game engine, resulting in an out of memory error. The system I have been integrating in Aeon is the Shayan Subrace Engine (SSE), which funny enough has nearly 400 functions in one include (made up of other includes). When added to a mature world well it crashes out the tool set in a rather dramatic way with the memory error.

Now I better digress a bit on this and share the joy I currently have in having built myself a new PC, to build, game and do a lot of photographic processing, photography being my new hobby. The specs of the machine were put together by one of my best mates BarryTheHatchet for his own machine and after some research I ran with what he had.

Intel I7 8608GB Ram, generic stuff but not over clocking
2 x 1TB WD Caviar Black Drives
ASUS P57pP55-DE motherboard (sweetness in a board and it glows blue too)
Generic ATI 5770 PCI Express Graphics card
Blue Ray Reader/DVD burner
Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit OEM
Antek case and 650W power supply

So what does this all mean in regards to NWN, no much except that now I can get the out of memory error twice as fast and with a nice eerie blue light emanating from the case.

OK enough with the digression about my crashing my machine rapidly instead of slowly. The solution according to one of the designers of SSE is to "Be a high end oracle/unix person, recompile the code replaying constants and integers with Macros and"... Well ummm Iwish but I crossed checked my resume and realised I am a geologist working for an Oil Company in Risk management and the closest I come to UNIX is when I audit someone.

Not giving up easy and overwhelmed by the response, I decided to just break up the mega include, which funny enough works, until that is it wants to touch nw_i0_spells and apps_include, former bioware spells and the latter is part of the Fast French data base system. Screw with either and well the Kraken awakes, wraps my machine, glowing with a nice blue light, in it's code based tentacles and sucks it down into the deep ocean.

So I am at an impasse and being a stubborn person I am not willing to give up, especially when I can sense that I am close to turning the Kraken into Squid Rings, big ones though.

Right, time to go get a harpoon and go hunting!

Release the Kraken

2010-04-14T22:45:00.000-07:00

Been a while, well a long while, since I last posted in my blog. So much has changed and evolved in my life that the passion I felt for building had slipped away and real life took it's rightful place. NWN2 and the subsequent let down of Dragon Age occupied me for a moment, for that moment I was truly excited, then I realised that the magic I felt building in NWN was not there.

I have turned my back on these pale shadows of multiplayer worlds and returned to my joy of NWN. Yes the graphics are dated now and the players are slowly fading away but there is something true and pure about building in it.

I have been working part time on my PW Aeon and adding content and enriching the world as I go. At times I respond to user needs and spend many thankless hours working on content for them, mostly content that is not used. Now I am more focussed on my needs and find that building stuff in NWN that makes me happy is the way to go and seems to also get implemented so much faster in Aeon.

My Current Joy in NWN is adding Shayans Subrace Engine (SSE) so that I can have all the various races present in Aeon and then I can build legacies on top of them with all the plusses and negatives of a race/legacy. The joy does fade a bit when I realise that choices made in building Aeon aroudn the scripting side have created a some form of a slumbering beast in the code. This Kraken is in the include statements and having too many of them called at once. Adding in SSE was like Hades in "Clash of the Titans" releasing the Kraken, a monster from deep and one hard to quell.
Still this is a joy and I dream about vanquishing the mutiple include error mesages through trial and error and perhaps I shall succeed

Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant fins the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battering upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by men and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
by Lord Alfred Tennyson

NWN1 - Visual effects on placeables

2008-11-03T06:06:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since I last posted, mainly due to life catching up and becoming a priority for me. You only get one chance at living and interacting with those you love around you, so when they need you stop what you are doing and be with them.

So with that short spiel said, I should step off my soap box and start writing about what the subject of this post is, Visual Effects on Placeables.

A long time ago I read a thread on Bioware forums about applying visual effects to placeables. I can't recall the author, however they laid out the basics for applying effects and thoughts on how to apply them. I must admit after having a look at what you could do with effects I was rather excited.

Applying a visual effect to a placeable, means you are no longer bound by the texture that is set to that placeable. Instead you can choose a Duration type effect from the visualeffects.2da and reskin your object ingame.

I took the basics from the bioware thread and then customised them to be set on enter to an area, using variables to determine if effects were on, and which objects to apply them to. Nothing really exciting in that department, but the results have blown me away.

I was able to make objects of ice, or crystal, blue gems or more importantly reskin objects with Stoneskin and Greater Stoneskin. This means all the bolders, stones and rocks on the tolset, could finally look the same. Some images below of a Henge that I decided to make, based on some comments in the Mystara Dev forums.

This is an image of the basic placebale, viewable in the toolset, hence the red grid and nothing exciting. Due to effects being applied in game, you need to work with the visualeffects.2da and identify an effects that you want to apply. I like to use the glow effects on stones, as they become crystal, or stone on objects that really need to be stone. The stone in the center has the Ghostly Pulse effect, meaning it fades in an out of view. The stones around the center stone, have been reskinned to a basic stone skin. The capped stones, have a Grey Glow applied to them, so that they shine in the dark and are semi transparent.

Following images capture what these reskinned objects look like in game, one the effects apply.

If people are interested, I can put up the code for apply the effects, but if not, well there is no point. I find the application of the effects rather fun and easy to do.

Reference - row_inc_functions - Rowell's PW Functions

2008-10-12T06:08:00.000-07:00

Reference to functions called in Rowell's PW Toolkit.

row_inc_functions

GLOBAL FUNCTIONS

GetCDKeyID(object oPC)
Returns the Database Record ID of the CDKey for the Playerint

GetPlayerID(object oPC)
Returns the Database Record ID of the Playerint

GetCharacterID(object oPC)
Returns the Database Record ID of the Characterint

GetItemID(object oItem)
Returns the Database Record ID of the Itemint

GetItemOwner(object oItem)
Passes the Database Character ID of the Owner of the Itemint

GetIsPlayerDM(object oPC)
Returns from the Database whether or not this Player Account belongs to a Server DMint

FormatID(int iID)
Returns a (gIDsize) character string based on the integer passed, with leading zeros// Example: 159 is converted to "00000159"

GetRace(object oPC)
Returns the String Value of the Race of the Objectstring

GetRaceSub(object oPC)
Returns the String Value of the Sub Race of the Objectstring

Get PCGender(object oPC)
Returns the String Value of the Gender of the Objectstring

GetAlignment(object oPC)
Returns the String Value of the Alignment of the Objectstring

GetClass(int iPos, object oPC)
Returns the String Value of the Class of the Object, given the position (1-3)

GetLevel(object oPC)
Returns the true level of the object, combining the levels of up to all 3 classes

GetGameDate()
Returns the Current Game Date in the string form of "YYYYMMDD"

GetGameDate()
Returns the Current Game Date and Time in the string form of "YYYYMMDDHHMM"

StringZero(int iNum, int iSize)
Given a number (iNum), converts it to a String and adds leading zeros to make the string iSize long
Example: StringZero(10,5) would return "00010"

GetItemTag(object oItem)
Given an Item Object, returns the Tag of the Item. If the Database Item Tracking Setting is turned on, the function will return the True Tag (not the modified DB Tag).

GetTrackedItemPossessedBy(object oPC, string sTag);
This function returns the object in the Character's (oPC) inventory, given a particular Tag (sTag). This function should be used when Item Tracking is Enabled (gEnableItemTracking = TRUE) in the place of the GetItemPossessedBy() function. Otherwise, this Function acts exactly like the built-in GetItemPossessedBy(object oPC, string sTag)

Row_ModuleStart()
Use in the Module's OnModuleStart Event

Row_ModuleEnter(object oPC=OBJECT_INVALID)
Use in the Modules's OnClientEnter Event

Function Comments

GATHER THE EVENT TRIGGERING OBJECT IF IT IS NOT PASSED
ABORT IF THE OBJECT IS NOT A PLAYER OR DM
DEBUG CODE
ABORT IF THERE IS NO DATABASE ACCESS
STORE THE PLAYER'S DATABASE VALUES ONTO THE PLAYER OBJECT
iPID = GetPlayerID(oPC);
iCID = GetCharacterID(oPC);
iIsDM = GetIsPlayerDM(oPC);
UPDATE THE PLAYER'S TIME STATISTICS
UPDATE THE CHARACTER'S TIME STATISTICS
UPDATE THE IP ADDRESS TABLE
INITALIZE THE PLAYER'S CHARACTER ONLINE STATUS
SISPLAY LOGIN TO DM'S AND TO LOG FILECHECK IF THE USER IS BANNED
CHECK IF THE USER IS SIGNED ON AS A DM, BUT THEIR PLAYER ACCOUNT IS NOT DMACTIVE (EXTRA SECURITY AGAINST FAKE DM'S / HACKERS)
SET THE PLAYER FLAG THAT THEY ARE ONLINE TO TRUE

Row_ModulePlayerLoaded(object oPC=OBJECT_INVALID)
Use in the Module's OnPlayerLoaded Event

Function Comments

DEBUG CODE
GATHER THE EVENT TRIGGERING OBJECT IF IT IS NOT PASSED
ABORT IF THE OBJECT IS NOT A PLAYER OR DM
ABORT IF THE PLAYER IS NOT READY TO BE TELEPORTED YET
STORE THE PLAYER'S DATABASE VALUES ONTO THE PLAYER OBJECT
ABORT IF THE PLAYER IS LOGGING BACK ON (BEFORE THE SERVER WAS RESET)
CHECK / SET THE CHARACTER'S HIT POINTS
IF THE CHARACTER IS DEAD IN THE DATABASE, MAKE THE CHARACTER DEAD
SET FEATS / SPELLS TO NO USES LEFT
JUMP THE CHARACTER TO THE LAST SAVED LOCATION

Row_ModuleExit(object oPC=OBJECT_INVALID)
Use in the Module's OnClientExit Event Function Comments

Function Comments

GATHER THE EVENT TRIGGERING OBJECT IF IT IS NOT PASSED
ABORT IF THE OBJECT IS NOT A PLAYER OR DM
DEBUG CODE
SET THE PLAYER FLAG THAT THEY ARE ONLINE TO TRUE
SET THE CHARACTER'S CURRENT HIT POINTS
SET THE CHARACTER'S DEATH STATUS
UPDATE TIME SPENT ONLINE
UPDATE THE CHARACTER TIME STATISTICS
SET THE PLAYER/CHARACTER AS OFFLINE

Row_AreaEnter(object oPC=OBJECT_INVALID)
Use in all Areas' OnEnter Event

Row_AreaExit(object oPC=OBJECT_INVALID)
Use in all Areas' OnExit Event

Row_PlayerUpdate(object oPC=OBJECT_INVALID)
Use to store the Character information from the object (oPC) into the Database

Row_PlayerRest(object oPC=OBJECT_INVALID)
Use in the Module's OnPlayerRest

Row_PlayerDead(object oPC=OBJECT_INVALID, object oNPC=OBJECT_INVALID)
Use in the Module's OnPlayerDeath Script

Row_PlayerRaise(int bPortToBind, object oPC=OBJECT_INVALID)
Use in the Module's OnPlayerRespawn Script with bPortToBind set to TRUE
Use in Raise Dead and Ressurrect Spells Scripts, with bPortToBind set to FALSE

Row_AddToLootTable(object oItem)
Use to add an item to the Database, to catalog the items drop, and how many times each item has dropped in the game.

Row_ItemCreate(string strResRef, sting strTag="", object oOwner=OBJECT_INVALID)
Used internally and should not be used.

Row_ItemGain(object oItem=OBJECT_INVALID)
Use in the Module's OnAcquire

Row_ItemLose(object oItem=OBJECT_INVALID)
Use in the Module's OnUnacquire Script

GetNPCID(object oNPC);
Returns the NPC ID for the given NPC (oNPC)

IncreaseNPCkills(object oNPC);
Increases the Total Number of Kills that an NPC type has inflicted upon Player

IncreaseNPCdeaths(object oNPC);
Increases the Total Number of Deaths that the NPC type has suffered.

Row_ResetCharacter(object oPC);
Used to set the character's (oPC) Feats and Spells to all used. This stops people from logging off and back on to get all their spells back.

Row_DiscoverLocation(object oPC, object oPlace=OBJECT_SELF);
Used to reward the character (oPC) when they step into a trigger (oPlace) and discover a new location.

RemoveEffects(object oPC)
Use to remove all negative affects from a character. This function is a direct copy from the NWN script in nw_i0_plot

Prefabia Restarted - #8

2008-10-11T09:09:00.000-07:00

The night is late but I feel a sense of renewed excitement when working within the NWN toolset. The loss of my previous work, left ashes in my mouth and a sense of futility at ever producing a module in NWN2. With time I have found the loss has turned into a win, much like the regrowth of plants through the ashes of a proceeding fire.

My module slate is clean and so this time I have focussed on getting the core systems and haks installed and working. MYSQL and NWNX4 1.08 is installed and persistance is working as it should, and after some poking around under the hood I actually understand it a lot better than before.

I took them time to install BTH's Module Testing Toolkit, an excellent piece of work if you want to debug a module using nothing more than a slick UI. I seriously recommend this to anyone who is building or is considering building. Highly configuraable and easy to use, just ensure you read the documentation.

DMFI has crept into the module as well and seems to compile without issue. I am still working out the DMFI component as I am unsure if it comes with languages like NWN1 DMFI or not. Still to be discovered I suppose, ahh the joy of building.

Some excellent content I added as well seeing as I really like it and have been discussing these packs with BTH for a while now. It is fantastic to see him release some awesome content and if you are curious you can always have a look at his blog to get a feel for what he is working on.

So that wraps up my little update and looking at the clock, I reckon it is time I hit the sack. Before I shoot off I noted Relexx, one of the orginal Aeon NWN1 PW leadership team, has started to host a NWN1 PW called Cocoon. You can find it under Multiplayer - Role Play. As soon as I get a chance, I will have to head on over and have a run around, though it is currently alpha and prone to changes on a daily basis.

NWN2 - 1.13 1409 Plugins Rebuilt

2008-09-22T05:32:00.000-07:00

A small update but one I hope is useful to the community, on the assumption that anyone visits here. I spent about 5 minutes tonight updating the plugins for REPLUG to 1409 in Visual Studio C# 2008.

Updated to 1.13 1409

TreeCutter
M4C Land & Tree Generator
WeatherChanger
Resizer / Resizer_NP
ConversationEditor (only plugin)
TempCleaner
HotKeyPlugin
Align&Distribute
AreaCameraASDW
ToolsetUIEnhancer

You can grab the updated dlls here, though bear in mind I only updated them, I don't support or debug.

Tani no longer supports though she was good enough to ensure the source code was available. You can visit this vault page if you are after the source or to review her comments and instructions.

The Tree Randomiser plugin by Aokis (No Longer supported), can be found here. This plugin allows the builder to randomise trees, via different seeds and alter the X,Y & Z scales.

Prefabia Restarted - #7

2008-09-21T01:19:00.000-07:00

Ashes in my mouth

I have learnt, much to my dismay that just because you are performing backups, it does not mean you are storing what you think. I learnt this the hard way yesterday when I rebuilt my notebook, where my Prefabia work is stored. I thought that I had backed up my modules directory and on restoration realised I had made a copy of my NWN1 modules directory.
After cross checking and seeing what other copies I had, the penny dropped and I knew that Prefabia or at least the work to date was gone.

Looks like now I am about to recreate all of my work, though this time it should take under 5 hours, as I now know what I am doing and need not spend days researching how to do something.

Pyrrhic Victory

Before I manage to wipe my project, BTH cast an eye over it and proclaimed it rather nice but....
"The Trees need variation". I must agree that once I looked at my trees, they were all of the same seed and scale (XYZ). After some research I located a plugin by Aokis, the Tree Randomiser Plugin that allows you to randomise, seed, location and scale of trees. Unforntunately it was at 1.04 and no longer supported. After firing an email off to Aokis, he informed me that VCD had patched the Tree Randomizer Plugin and more importantly released the source. VCD on inspection was no longer supporting the plugin but at least I had the source to recompile.

Long story short, I managed to workout Tanis instructions on updating a plugin and after recompiling the code I now have a 1.13 working copy of the Tree Randomiser plugin. A victory of sorts, something to lesser the bitter taste in my mouth from wiping my own project.

Back to the Drawing board.

Prefabia Restarted - #6

2008-09-09T07:11:00.000-07:00

I have been going a bit crazy trying to get walkmeshes and boats working, using Heed's Boardable Ships hak. So to give my mind a break and stop working in circles I thought for a laugh I would set up the persistence portion of Prefabia by adding a database behind the scenes.

I have settled on using MYSQL 5.0 and NWNX4 1.08, which after reading the basic instructions, were damn easy to set up and get running.

Excellent video how to on installing MYSQL on Vista http://www.sebastiansulinski.co.uk/web_design_tutorials/web_server/install_apache/install_apache.php?id=mysql

That was the easy part, the next problem was how do I get all the scripts and such working? NWNX4 forums are full of help if you need to set up the core database engine and plugins but be buggered if I could find anything to aid me in logging the cdkey, ip, coordinates on exit and so on, (stuff I consider core to running a PW).

My inital experiences in this space were the use of an excellent set of scripts and routines developed by Rowell called Rowell's Persistent World Toolkit. This set of scripts was awesome and allowed people with little to no experience on databases using NWNX4 to read write from their database, as soon as the rowell erf was loaded into the module. Sadly, he stopped supporting it, due to issues with NWN2 and Atari and so on. (it all got too hard and I can't blame him).

For a bit I thought WTF, I might as well pull his stuff to pieces and try to get it working on the NWNX4 1.08 version and NWN1.13 until....

I visited Rowell's PW site, Englington and noted he had it up and running and it was patched to the latest levels and the PW datbase was working. I hunted round on his site, looking for his email so I could send a question to him regarding his toolkit, until I stumbled over this thread..

http://www.hideyhole.org/engliton/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=2830&start=250

The thread listed the efforts of a person called Xildjian, how had decided to do what I was about to do and rework the scripts. Not only had they already reworked his scripts, they also went as far as to release their efforts to date. So far, I have tested this and it works a treat. Suddenly I have some pesistence in my Prefabia PW and effort has been minimal. Kudos to Rowell and Xildjian

Hi All, Below is a link to my attempt at getting Rowell's updates
working. Here is a list of the modifications I made:
1. Made use of NWN2 ability to send variables to a script from a
conversation.
2. Made the bank player specific instead of character
specific
Only active quests get added back into the journal when
a character logs on
Fixed some bugs I haven't tested everything
so there might still be errors, and I was using NWNX4 1.08 and NWN2 MoTB
(standalone server) to do my testing and
development.

Below is the URL to get the update.
I kept my files different from Rowell's so the files of interest are Xildjian_updates.erf and Xildjian_Test.mod.

I haven't changed any documentation from Rowell's so if you have a
question check the test mod.
http://myweb.cableone.net/sanaya/RowellsPWKit.rar

Enjoy!

Prefabia Restarted - #5

2008-08-22T17:51:00.000-07:00

One thing that is often forgotten by builders and players alike is acknowledging and voting on the sources they use in their world. Without input from the users, the modders and scriptors eventually loose heart and move on things that they perceive has more rewards or community thanks.

Taking the above statement as a truth, I think I should begin to thank the people for the contributions that I am directly or indirectly using as part of Prefabia.

Acknowledgements

Prefabs

ChaunceyBillups1 : G_Mines : http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PrefabAreas.Detail&id=352
ChaunceyBillups1 : G-Wizardlab : http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PrefabAreas.Detail&id=353
Zach le Bon: Generic Interiors From Simaeon : http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PrefabAreas.Detail&id=230
Hellfire : High Pass : http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PrefabAreas.Detail&id=334
Boozehound Blue : Mountain Summit : http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PrefabAreas.Detail&id=350
Lady Lilia/Shimmer : Temples -Evil, Neitral & Good : http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PrefabAreas.Detail&id=133
Briesence : Ships Interiors : http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PrefabAreas.Detail&id=284
NeVerSun : Some Mine : http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PrefabAreas.Detail&id=281

Plugins

Vordan : Vordan's Shop Wizard :http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PlugIns.Detail&id=5
Sothis B : NWN1 area converter : http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PlugIns.Detail&id=60
Sothis B and Seraldin : NWN2 Mapper (taken up by Sothis B) : http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PlugIns.Detail&id=62
Sunjammer : Sunjammers Tintinator 2 : http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PlugIns.Detail&id=50
Tani : TerraCoppa : http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PlugIns.Detail&id=25

Updating Plugins .... Tani and Grinning Fool

On another subject but one that comes about due to a scriptor moving on is updating plugins to the latest NWN2 release. Pplugins make life much easier for builders and has made Prefabia a lot more fun to build, shame NWN2 Atari did not include some of these essential tools.

Tani Provided some instructions on how to recompile the plugins to the latest version of NWN2, main thing you need is the source code.

Grab visual c# express from m$ (it's free, the 2005 version is enough, don't know if 2008 is different). http://www.microsoft.com/express/2005/
Grab the source code and unzip it to a folder of your liking.
Open the project file in visual c#.
Look for the broken references to nwn2toolset.dll and oeishared.dll, maybe others too (they are marked with an exclamation mark in a yello triangle). remove the references and add new ones to the latest version of these files.
Compile the project, and move the new dll (found in subfolder bin/release or just bin) to your plugins folder - you should be fine.in case that was to quick take a look at the video at Link . This shows how to fix the references and compile nwn2packer and especially stripease.

Prefabia Restarted - #4

2008-08-20T06:06:00.000-07:00

I thought it was time to post up some screen shots of whats happening in Prefabia, specifically around the area of Stone Port. Stone Port, will be the first area a player gets to experience once they leave the welcome room and is intended to be the start area for all players regardless of factions.

Stone Port is intended to be gritty and dank, though in the screenshots that follow you can see that I haven't played with the fog, sky etc as yet. That will be one of my final touch ups before I sit down and replicate the area with TerraCoppa.

Image 1: Standing On the Bridge between the Rock looking down at the docks. This bridge is accessed via the moving up through the Rock or from the other side via the mines.

Image 2: Standing on one of the docks down int he port, looking North West.

Image 3: Standing on a dock, looking due North. You can see the Rock in the background.

Image 4: On the centre street in the middle of the buildings, looking East I think.

Image 5: In Stone Port on the West side of town, looking west. Rather pretty if you ask me. Baron or BTH would say too pretty but meh, dank is what they are good at.

Image 6: North West side of the Rock, looking Northwards at one of the High Bridges (walkable).
Image 7: High on the Rock looking down onto the river, no name for that yet.

Image 8: Walking along the spine of the rock, this takes you to one of the lighthouses.

Image 9: Just a pretty image looking Westwards on top of the Rock, ahh stars how you twinkle.

Prefabia Restarted - #3

2008-08-17T20:13:00.000-07:00

No real screen shots today, more of a small note detailing my progress on Prefabia. One of the things that has been annoying me on the Starting Area of Prefabia "Stone Port" is that the docks were not walkable. I have spent a fair bit of time, trying to make them walkable through various methods and having no joy. I tried, lining up the placeable, putting a walkmesh helper placeable on top and finally lifting terrain under then but they still didn't allow a pc to stroll along them.

Then I read a small note on the Bioware forums, where a person suggested setting the dock placeables to environment, draping the walkmesh helper placeable over the top and baking the area. I tried this and bam! My docks are now walkable and you can stroll out past the ships and look out onto the Sea and dream about where you may go or come from.

Now that docks are walkable, I now need to make the ship decks walkable, so that players can interact with the crew and such. The docks will only have two ships in at a time, one inbound and another outwards bound. Players will start on the dock of the inbound ship, the outbound will not take on players and mainly be there for ore/trade collection.

Some images of the process will be posted up later on today, to give people a feel for how to do
this.

Prefabia Restarted - #2

2008-08-13T20:22:00.000-07:00

A small update but one highlighting an excellent tool by Tani called TerraCoppa. Sadly it is no longer maintained but Tani has kindly provided the source code so that it can be compiled to work in later releases of NWN2.

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Nwn2plugins.Detail&id=25&comment_page=3

TerraCoppa allows a builder to rapidly replicate an area and the contents. It can rotate, raise/lower the height of the terrain and migrate all the bits and pieces you would find in area, over to your duplicate.

TerraCoppa will be a major part of my workflow, allowing me to grab and move parts of areas from other prefabs across into my own world. Using the tool you can map up areas outside the walkmesh and make them a new area that you can walk in.

Work Flow.

1. Rotate the map by 90 degrees due to the map orientated in the wrong direction.

2. Shift the map backwards by one grid row, so that the docks that were out of the walkable area now fall into it.

Original Map

Shifted Map, note the green textured sothern part of the map. You get that when TerrCoppa moves things around, texture is default to the map.

3. Shift map one grid to left, so more of the hill is in the walkmesh.

4. Replicated the terrain on the eastern edge and dropped it over the green texture, same with southern. All that remains is to clean up and remove bits that you don't want. You can see the joins in the image below, but a little brush work and gone.

After some quick work and tweaking the water, it is done. This area will form the starting ton for Prefabia. The area will nee some fine touch ups and wameshitig,but is prety well ready to go.

Prefabia - Restarted #1

2008-08-12T00:51:00.000-07:00

After discssuing some excellent stuff with Sir Elric and BarryTheHatchet, I thought I would dust off my NWN
Prefabia - Restarted Post #1 After discssuing some excellent stuff with Sir Elric and BarryTheHatchet, I thought I would dust off my NWN2 PW project and begin work in earnest.

Core concept of my project is to use primarily prefabs that already exist on the web as a core for my world and only build areas where I have to. Not really rocket science and will allow me to rapidly implement interiors, stores and specific areas that fit with world concept. The flavour of the world is present day FR on the North shore of the Moonsea, focussed on RP with PVP as a possible consequence. Main reason for FR is that the NWN2 toolset is FR and items etc are already specific to that world concept. Baron pointed out to me, rightly so, that I can either make a vanilla flavour world or one with true angst and grit. After thinking on this I reckon I shall give the angst and grit a good shot. Will take me time but the darkness will be worth it. One of my previous posts had the docks as the world entry point, this will not change as it is complete now and all areas are connected with prefab interiors. I will put posts and updates here as I move along on this. Decisions so far… Working Title is Prefabia AI - Jasperres NWN2, though for now default will be in place Persistence via some form of database Spawn System from Aeon, may require a minor tweak, unsure On enter/On Exit area - Aeon, tweaked for nwn2 Naming standards - require update for NWN2 Haks - to be decided, though BTH Haks are a must Intention is that I shall track in this blog my efforts Spor2 PW project and begin wrok in earnest. Core concept of my project is to use primarily prefabs that already exist on the web as a core for my world and only build areas where I have to. Not really rocket science and will allow me to rapidly implement interiors, stores and specific areas that fit with world concept.

The flavour of the world is present day FR on the North shore of the Moonsea, focussed on RP with PVP as a possible consequnce. Main reason for FR is that the NWN2 toolset is FR and items etc are already specific to that world concept. Baron pointed out to me, rightly so, that I can either make a vanilla flvour world or one with true angst and grit. After thinking on this I reckon I shall give the angst and grit a good shot. Will take me time but the darkness will be worth it.

One of my previous posts had the docks as the world entry point, this will not change as it is complete now and all areas are connected with prefab interiors. I will put posts and uipdates here as I move along on this.

Decisions so far…

Working Title is Prefabia
AI - Jasperres NWN2, though for now default will be in place
Persistance via some form of database
Spawn System from Aeon, may require a minor tweak, unsure
On enter/On Exit area - Aeon, tweaked for nwn2
Naming standards - require update for NWN2
Haks - to be decided, though BTH Haks are a must

Intention is that I shall track in this blog my efforts

Spor

Building a Persistent World in NWN (1&2) - The Prefabia Project. Part 1

2008-01-21T21:59:00.000-08:00

I find myself at a point in my knowledge of building a NeverWinter Nights (1&2) Persistent World that I can now begin to document my thoughts with confidence that some of them are correct. To set the scene, I have played on several good PW's (Mystara, Chronicles of Torn, Melnibone and Aeon), built a PW with friends, and now currently help maintain and improve two more. A reasonable amount of experience and a lot of it hard earned or discussed with others who have suffered the pain of building.

So without getting caught in pointless verbiage, I thought I might as well list the top best practices that are IMHO the are a must for building a PW, or improving one if it is already running. Notes these are my opinion, not much else really but if they save someone else some grief, then they are worth pontificating about.

1. Have a plan.
This seems rather basic, but most people forget to work out the stages and understand what needs to be done first for a world to begin. A plan lays out the steps needed, highlights holes and gives you a good checklist to work to as you achieve milestones. Not hard, but few do it.
A plan to be really effective needs to have critical milestones, resourcing and due dates. Milesstones are stages in your project, where ytou have achived a solid chunk of work. This could easily be core systems decided on, base module built, beta release. The dates tie into these, without dates your project will slip further and further behindand the energy you may have built up with the community is lost. REsources can be hardware and people, get these organised early on, keep your team small.

2. Have an understanding of what your world is going to be and more importantly what it is not.
What your world is, will ultimately determine what systems you add, disable or modify. Hardcore RP worlds have different requirements to Hardcore PVP.

Additionally you need to have a world story of some sort, this is covered later.

3. Identify Base systems and haks for your world
Best to identify these early and select or build what is needed. My preference is source from another builder than craft myself. If you source off the vault, remember to vote as well. Authors respond to requests and queries much more readily if you vote.

Core systems to consider, prior to creating custom classes etc are;

Death

Crafting

Anti-hacking clientonenter scritps

Persistant database or not

Debug scripts

Playtesting widgets -

DMFI

Spawning creatures and placeables

HCR systems

4. Create a base module

Nice and straight forward, you have your base systems identified, add them to your base module and get it up and running. You can spend some time optimising the systems and ensuring that the base is very stable and error free. This step is rather critical, as this base module becomes the reference module for all your builders to base their work on.

5. World Setting

Take your time and explore what you want your world setting to be and locate your references. You have a choice of writing your own from scrath, using one of the existing settings or using the setting that the nwn engine uses, which is Forgotten Realms. Writing your own is rather exhausting but rewarding at the same time, however you need to consider everthing. Using a a pre-existing setting works a treat, and you can pick and choose what you want your world to be from the parts. Finially the easiest is to use the FR setting for simplicity sake. NWN already has all the items built with FR descriptions, creatures and placeable fit the FR setting, so a large chunk of your work is done.

6. Naming Standards
To ensure consistency in your world, from scripts to areas, I would suggest that naming standards are a must. Listed below are various standards from official to what was used on the Aeon project. Use these as a basis for your own, or as is.

Script Naming Standards
Modified CODI

Placable
* T - Trigger
* D - Door
* R - Trap
* C - Conversation
* E - Encounter
* I - Item - This script is not placed on an item per se, but called by module level scripts.
* X - No Object - Use this for a script that is called by other scripts. Executable scripts.

This character is followed by a two character short for the event it goes in, by category:

* N, M
o CO - onConversation
o DI - onDisturbed
o PA - onPhysicalAttacked
o SP - onSpawn
o UD - onUserDefined
o SC - OnSpellCastAt
o BL - onBlocked
o DM - onDamaged
o HB - onHeartbeat
o DE - onDeath
o CR - onCombatRoundEnd
o PE - onPerception
o RE - onRest

* A
o EN - onEnter
o EX - onExit
o HB - onHeartbeat
o UD - onUserDefined

* O
o CE - onClientEnter
o CL - onClientLeave
o PR - onPlayerRest
o RS - onRespawn
o DY - onPlayerDying
o DE - onPlayerDeath
o LE - onPlayerLevelUp
o IA - onItemActivated
o IQ - onItemAquired
o UI - onUnaquireItem
o ML - onModuleLoad
o HB - onHeartBeat
o UD - onUserDefined
o EI - onEquipItem

* P
o US - onUsed
o HB - onHeartBeat
o DE - onDeath
o AT - onAttacked
o SC - onSpellCastAt
o DM - onDamaged
o OP - onOpen
o OC - onClosed
o DI - onDisturbed
o LO - onLocked
o UL - onUnlocked
o UD - onUserDefined

* T
o CL - onClick
o EN - onEnter
o EX - onExit
o HB - onHeartBeat
o UD - onUserDefined

* D
o AT - onAreaTransitionClick
o OC - onClosed
o DM - onDamaged
o DE - onDeath
o FO - onFailedToOpen
o HB - onHeartBeat
o LO - onLocked
o OP - onOpened
o AT - onAttacked
o SC - onSpellCastAt
o UL - onUnlocked
o UD - onUserDefined

* R
o DI - onDisarmed
o TT - onTrapTriggered

* E
o EN - onEnter
o EX - onExit
o OE - onExhausted
o HB - onHeartBeat
o UD - onUserDefined

* C
o AT - Actions Taken
o AP - Appears When (StartingConditional Script)
o AB - onConversation Aborted
o EN - onConversation end

* I
o US - Called when the item is used.
o AQ - Called when the item is Aquired.
o UA - Called when the item is UnAquired.

Prefix examples

Module OnClientEnter script prefix: OCE_
Area OnEnter script prefix: AEN_
Placeable OnUsed prefix: PUS_

Consider this post a living document, which I will add to over time.

Acknowledgements to BarryTheHatchet and Relexx

NWN Scripting - Naming an Object Part 1

2007-12-29T21:20:00.000-08:00

Today, I decided to work on a script for NWN1 that will take a players character first name and apply it to an item. Nothing really hard but I might as well document my pain at trying to work out how to do it. As others have noted elsewhere, I struggle to spell words correctly, or indeed keep my writing coherent. So as you can see, scripting can be a real pain in the backside for me.

My first pass at this script is to first get the players name using GetName(oPC) with oPC being the PC. This returns the Firtsname and the Surname of the PC, with a space separating them. I now need to take the leftmost string, as this is what I want to use to name an item.
Easier said than done it seems, when I scan the Name of the PC for the location of a space it returns a 0. Seeing that the name of the PC is 13 characters long and the space is in the middle, well this sucks.

Well spent most of the day on this, back and forth and realised I am truly a sucky coder but I got it to work at least. I can now pull the first name of characters that have a spaces in them.

Only problem now is that names with no spaces have the front character truncated. I am too tired to really stress so I put it up on Bioware, in hope of some answers.

Read it here on Bioware...
http://nwn.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=609475&forum=47&sp=0#5554701

Amazing, the community resonded and suddenly my code has gone from a monster to something that is rather useful.

Below is what a gifted script writer can do. Axe Murderer, took my rather horrific piece of code and made something that is rather elegant. Now I just need to work my way through it to understand it better.

//Put this on action taken in the conversation editor

string GetFirstName( object oCreature) // Function to get the First Name

{ if( !GetIsObjectValid( oCreature)) return ""; // Check to see if it is a PC

string sName = GetName( oCreature);
int iPos = FindSubString( sName, " ");// Find the space in the Full name
if( iPos < 0) return sName; // If there are no spaces the name is made default

// If there are spaces then do this
while( iPos == 0)
{ sName = GetStringRight( sName, GetStringLength( sName) -1);
iPos = FindSubString( sName, " ");
}
// Ternary condition which does an if else sorto of.
return ((iPos < 0) ? sName : GetStringLeft( sName, iPos));
}

void main()
{ object oPC = GetPCSpeaker(); // PC who is speaking to NPC
string sFirstName = GetFirstName( oPC); // Get the PC's first name.
SendMessageToPC( oPC, "DEBUG ks_namer: sFirstName is " + sFirstName );
SpeakString( "My First name is " +sFirstName +" and I am " +IntToString( GetStringLength( sFirstName)) +" characters long");//Spor Debug
}