NWN2 - 1.13 1409 Plugins Rebuilt

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

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 - #5

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.

1. 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/
2. Grab the source code and unzip it to a folder of your liking.
3. Open the project file in visual c#.
4. 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.
5. 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 - #2

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.