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 - #4

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 - #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.