Episode 36: Camera Now Goes To 11!

The last few weeks since my last post have been relatively productive for me, and since that time we have also had the news that Arem (from the NWN2 Forums) has successfully managed to locate the hexadecimal locations of the nwn2main.exe to allow us to increase the zoom potential of the camera for the game. Technically, it goes much further than 11, but I hope my Spinal Tap reference has not gone unnoticed. (I have a clip to the hilarious link in my post below.) Read on for further information.

Overcoming A Hurdle

I am pleased to say that I managed to finish a difficult set of conversations that formed an important section of the main plot for moving the player forward in the game. The conversations included where the player learns of a situation, seeks what must be done and then decides what to do about it. The point is, however, this series of conversations was already being dictated by how the player had previously explored the area and what they already knew. Therefore, it involved quite a bit of logic flow checking, and even ended up needing a final potential event added to the area that had a small chance of requirement if the player had done something completely off the wall. For those interested, I even had to brush off my skills of calculating probabilities of a certain event occurring, to help ascertain requirements. My thanks goes out to Thierry (a.k.a. 4760), who re-educated me in this.

Leaving The Options In

With respect to what I say above, I know there is an argument that, as a builder, I can make the options simpler for myself with what I allow the player to do. However, as a DM from days of pen and paper (PnP), I like to place myself in the position of the player and try to accommodate as much flexibility and out of the box thinking by the player as possible. There are of course still limits compared to PnP, but if I can minimise these, I will. This last section of conversation writing was one such situation, and now that it is finished, it offers around four possible paths just for this one area of the game. Then the fun for me is watching (or hearing) how a player managed it in their game. Thankfully, I have a small group of players who I will see at first hand what they will do; and my wife, I am fairly sure, will try a number of them through various plays.

Conversation Animations

During the time of writing conversations, I also discovered some animations that failed to work reliably. After some testing, I eventually managed to narrow down those that (for me at least) appeared to work as described. However, again, having had info back from Thierry, my results differed from some of his own experiences, although he concurred there were some that gave him problems too. One that stood out to me, which I had liked to use, was the Scratch Head animation: sometimes it worked, other times it did not. The main point to note, however, is that NOT all animations work. I post my results at the very bottom of this post for information.

Overcoming A Bug!

I give as a warning to others who may do something similar ...  

If you have scripted your code to recognise a certain TAG reference, do NOT forget it! 

We all know about being careful with UNIQUE tags, but there may be others like me who may also use a common aspect of a tag to help distinguish between similar tags when applying a common aspect of code. The problem is, if you forget you have done this, it can come back and haunt you as a bug!

After my hiatus, I returned to continue building an area and added a number of "guards" that were required to fill it. At the time, I was using a standard "alb_npc_xxx" to help distinguish the various guard types. However, I had forgotten that I use the "alb_npc_" section of a tag to distinguish between specific and unique proper NPCs. So, when my code spotted one of these generic "guards" with the prefix, I ended up with some very strange results that were tricky to track down. E.g. One guard of a group of sleeping guards refused to sleep. (Insomnia I guess. 😏) Tracing the fault back, I discovered the guard had lost the variable that told it to sleep due to its tag making it have other code fire beforehand. What made this more difficult to track was that after this particular piece of code fired and prevented the guard from sleeping, it no longer fired for any other guard. i.e. The problem appeared specific to the particular guard, but turned out to affect any and all guards that had the wrong tag, but only the first ever one the code found.

The end result: I had to go over a number of areas re-tagging the erroneous guards and then also correcting all way points, triggers, conversations and scripts that referenced these tags. The good news is, while a pain (because each change also forced me to have to restart the toolset because it does not like such in area changes), I have now fixed that and can continue. And so finally ...

A Camera That Goes To 11 (At Last)

OK, for those that don't know the Spinal Tap clip, here it is ... Where have you been?

The real news, however, is that we can now go just that little bit further out with our camera zoom angles within NWN2. It has been a long time coming, but thanks to Arem (of the NWN2 forums), we have been blessed with the hexadecimal information we needed to apply this hak to the nwn2main.exe file.

For those that would like to do the same, here is a brief tutorial.

The Hex Editor I used was: HxD Downloaded From Here.

INSTRUCTIONS

Preparation:

1. Always check any downloads for viruses before usage.
2. Understand where you install a utility and access files. Install the HxD if you do not have it.
3. Always backup any files you are working with. In this case nwn2main.exe.

Working with a copy of nwn2main.exe using HxD:

1. Copy nwn2main.exe to your desktop to work with.
2. Open HxD and open the nwn2main.exe copy on your desktop
3. You will be presented with a lot of numbers and data in a window.

The hardest part when working with a editor is finding the part among the data you need to edit. The two sections we need to edit have been presented to us by @Arem as hexadecimal numbers:

• For the height of the STRATEGY (default 25) the area to edit is located at: 572818
• For the height of the EXPLORATION (default 22) the area to edit is located at: 580D64

I have personally set mine to both 35 as a test for the time being.

The simplest way to find it is as KevL points out (if you use HxD) as we both appear to do.

Search | Goto -> 580D64 (select hex) (select begin)

Long Explanation: The column presented on the left of the editor only shows you where different sections of these blocks of data begin. If it was in decimal, it is akin to showing 10’s, as in 10, 20, 30, 40, etc. Therefore, to continue the example and to look for say, 45, we would need to look for the 40 in the first column and then move along the row five places to reach the 45 position. In this case, however, the numbers are made slightly more difficult to read intuitively because we are using hexadecimal rather than decimal.

The easiest number to find is the 572818, because we can look for the column 572810 and then along until we reach the ninth location (including the zero offset), the one we want. (Note: These are called “offsets” and begin at “0”) NB: HxD shows the actual point you are at in the bottom left hand corner, so you know when you are the exact spot you need to be.

Here is the screenshot of where you should be for each place. Note the values on the right hand side of the images. These are the ones you need to edit to the value you want.

  

Once you have changed them, save the file and use the modified nwn2main.exe instead of the original.

KEEP THE ORIGINAL IN A SAFE PLACE!

And Finally!

Finally, and for an added bonus this week, I have three screenshots to leave with you, although all of the same image. The shots are from a new area I have started to work on. It is not "new" as in an additional one, but "new", as in I have finally reached the stage to work with it properly.

The three images, however, have been taken using the new camera angle settings I have with my game now ... one from each of the camera angles, with all now set at 35.

The differences to the normal setting may not be obvious or hard to tell from these shots, but I hope the view they give helps you to see how flexible the depth is even at the level of 35 in each case.

Camera: Character Mode

Camera: Exploration Mode (35)

Camera: Strategy Mode (35)

BODY ANIMATIONS TESTED ON MALE ELF:

NB: By “WORKS”, I mean it provided an animation of some sort, but may not be of much use. Some marked “FAILED” occasionally worked, but maybe only once and then not again. Most did nothing at all, BUT may work with other creature models.

ACTIVATE - FAILED
ANNOYED - FAILED
ATTENTION - Appeared to keep raising shoulders. (WORKS)
BARDSONG - FAILED
BORED - FAILED
BOW - WORKS
CHUCKLE - WORKS
CLAPPING - WORKS
CONVERSATION_ANIMTYPE_TALK_FORCE03 - WORKS
COOK01 - WORKS
COOK02 - WORKS
CRAFT01 - WORKS
CURTSEY - FAILED (May work on a female NPC.)
DANCE01 - WORKS
DANCE02 - WORKS
DANCE03 - WORKS
DEJECTED - WORKS
DRINK - WORKS
DRUNK - WORKS
EQUIP_WEAPON01 - WORKS
FLIRT - WORKS
FORGE01 - WORKS
IDLE_MELEE - FAILED
IDLE_MELEE_RAGE - FAILED
IDLECOWER - WORKS
IDLEFIDGETDRUM - WORKS
IDLEFIDGETFLUTE - WORKS
IDLEFIDGETGUITAR - WORKS
IDLEFLUTE - WORKS
IDLEGUITAR - WORKS
IDLEINJURED - FAILED
INTIMIDATE - Appeared to put back shoulders. (WORKS)
KNEELDAMAGE - FAILED
KNEELDEATH - FAILED
KNEELDOWN - FAILED
KNEELFIDGET - FAILED
KNEELIDLE - FAILED
KNEELTALK - FAILED
KNEELUP - FAILED
LISTEN - WORKS
LISTEN_INJURED - WORKS
MEDITATE - WORKS
NOD_NO - WORKS
NOD_YES - WORKS
PLAYDRUM - WORKS
PLAYFLUTE - WORKS
PLAYGUITAR - WORKS
POINT - WORKS
READ - WORKS
SALUTE - WORKS
SCRATCH_HEAD - FAILED (INITIAL SOMETIMES)
SEARCH - FAILED
SHRUG - WORKS
SIGH - FAILED
SIT_DOWN - FAILED (SOMETIMES WORKED)
SIT_DRINK - WORKS
SIT_EAT - WORKS
SIT_FIDGET - FAILED
SIT_IDLE - FAILED
SIT_READ - WORKS
SIT_TALK - WORKS (Looks good for seated talkers.)
SLEIGHT - WORKS
STEALTH_IDLE - FAILED
TALK_CHEER - WORKS
TALK_FORCE - WORKS
TALK_FORCE02 - WORKS
TALK_INJURED - WORKS
TALK_LAUGH - WORKS
TALK_NERVOUS - FAILED
TALK_NORMAL - FAILED (Nothing to show anyway?)
TALK_PLEAD - WORKS
TALK_SAD - WORKS
TALK_SHOUT - WORKS
TAUNT - WORKS
TIRED - WORKS
TOUCH_HEART - WORKS
UNEQUIP_WEAPON01 - WORKS
USEITEM - FAILED
VICTORY - WORKS
WAVE - WORKS
WAVE_SHORT - WORKS
WILDSHAPE - WORKS
WORSHIP - WORKS
YAWN - WORKS

Episode 23: Most Puzzling My Dear Halfling ...

One of the things I like most about D&D as a whole is its variety of play. We have exploration, we have encounters, we have combat ... and we have puzzles! Furthermore, NWN2 is a great platform for all of them. Where else can you create an entire party of adventurers by yourself or with friends and play a D&D campaign of a home brew design sporting its own unique new GUI puzzles? Personally, I like a campaign that provides puzzles, and this post is about some of the new ones that I am hoping to bring to supporting players when it is finally released. Read on ...

NEW PUZZLES

Players of The Scroll (module one) will have experienced quite a number of puzzles in my campaign already. From "ripped scrolls" to "combination chests" and from "chameleon stones" to "cryptic puzzles". It has a fair number for the player who likes the occasional change of pace and a chance to flex their "thinking caps". And let us not forget the "rune puzzles"! For those who prefer not to tackle puzzles though, there is also the option to bypass many of them, with the exception of one or two game important ones.

The puzzles of the second module will, I hope, be of similar design. The three I show in the video below are actually part of a main dungeon design, and so are designed specifically with that dungeon in mind. However, with minor alterations, I may be able to use them in other areas of the module too. Anyway, here is the video ...

THE JOURNAL REMINDER

While on the topic of new GUIs, I also decided to update one of my other GUI designs to act as a JOURNAL REMINDER. Basically, if the player receives a journal update (maybe even in the middle of a conversation), then my SHOW GUI now keeps a worded reminder that the entry needs checking and remains present until the entry is accessed via the journal. 

Furthermore, the player needs only HOVER over the SHOW GUI (when the reminder is present) to open the journal to read the latest entry. The new system also works alongside the new JOURNAL NOTES system, whereupon a slightly different worded reminder is presented in the SHOW GUI alongside a sound file informing the player that the journal NOTES section has been updated. The reminder is cleared after the player HOVERS to open the journal and enters the NOTES tab section of the journal for such entries. This weeks screen shots image show the update in action. (See below.) And for those that would like to have access to this update now, then you will be pleased to know that The Scroll (module one) supports this from v1.09E.

AREA BUILDING

The last couple of weeks has also seen me going over some of the areas, gradually filling them with objects and creating a "lived in" environment. From a scripting perspective, progress is smooth as I am able to use scripts that are now quite stable and work well for my needs. e.g. I have dedicated encounter triggers that are more flexible to use than those officially provided ... and I have been making good use of them.

As I have continued to develop the areas, I have also been able to consider various side quests and various plot twists that come to mind. How many will make it into the final, only time will tell. It involves more conversation writing, of which I already have quite a bit still left to do.

CONTINUED IMPROVEMENTS

As I continue to design the second module, I find myself being able to improve older scripts, which continue to have improvements on module one. This is why module one has also had an update to v1.09E. However, this is bound to slow down sooner or later, as many of these updates are mostly cosmetic now. So unless further improvements have a reasonably significant impact on module one, they may not be seen until the second module is released, at which point all the other minor campaign improvements will be added then.

ALTHEA WEATHER SYSTEM

For those who may be interested, I also managed to update the Althéa Weather System to v2.0, which is basically the same system I use in the latest version of The Scroll. So, if you want a fully implemented weather system for your NWN2 campaign, then maybe it's worth considering. Version 2.0 basically runs more efficiently than earlier versions.

New Journal Update Reminder System

Toolset Search Issue

I recently discovered that when using PowerBar to search for something within a script, that it only searches the original OC scripts and NOT the X1 or X2 scripts.

I managed to find out that I could batch rename a folder of files using Windows own PowerShell with the following command:

Get-ChildItem -Exclude X2-* | rename-item -NewName { "X2-" + $_.Name }

I could then add these files to my campaign directory (and easily find and remove them again if and when need be), but in the meanwhile, they can be referenced within a PowerBar "Campaign" search and it helps me to locate the searched value within these copies of the original X2 files.

X2 Scripts renamed and placed into Campaign folder for PowerBar search capability

New Area Designers & Modules To Play

I decided to take the plunge a couple of weeks ago and advertise for area designers to help create areas for my module, Better The Demon. Limited health and poor design skills on my part forced my hand if I wanted to bring my module's release time forward to any time in the near future. Thankfully, I was blessed with a great response from three well-known established module writers. Already, they have been at work creating both interior and exterior areas, and from the screenshots I have seen already, with some amazing results! All of them have created something in a matter of days compared to my months or even years. Furthermore, all of them have understood my requirements very well and brought life into visions I have only had on paper for some time. So, in no particular order, I will introduce you to them and point you towards other work they have already done or are doing:

To begin with, there is Hoegbo, who has just finished an exterior for the first module (of three) and has also begun work on another selection of exteriors for the second module. Find out more about him and his own work at his blog, The Demon Melody. Next is Matthew Rieder, currently working on an interior for the first module. He has recently created his own module, The Wizard's Apprentice, which can be downloaded from The Vault. Last, but not least, is Eguintir Eligard, who keeps a blog about his up and coming Islander module, which is very near completion.

All of these people are very gifted and talented at designing areas and are bringing a great deal to my own module. Their work is inspiring and has even helped me consider new side quests relating to their designs. Although I cannot go into detail about the work they have done (so as not to give spoilers), I can say that their designs are among the best I have ever seen in any module I have played. I look forward to all and any work they can continue to contribute and hope that I may be able to return the favour to each of them one day.

While they have been busy designing the areas, I have had time to continue looking over plot material, including books, monsters, conversations and that sort of thing. As a result of the added help, I have revised the current status of the module to 30% complete. I would like to point out that if the current rate of support continues at the rate it is, then this figure may continue to jump from week to week. But, I don't want to count my chickens just yet .... ;)

Time To Play?

There have been a number of NWN2 modules released over the last couple of months or so, and although I do not play much, I do like to take a look and play some when I can:

Path of Evil: Kamal released the beta version of this some time ago, and I was fortunate enough to have some time to be able to take a look. At the time, there were one or two minor bugs still to be ironed out, but even from the small part I played, I could see it was going to be a big game. You can find out more at this forum post. If you want to play this one, you will need to have lots of spare time. I have earmarked this one to play after I have finished my own module.

Risen Hero: Shaughn has recently just released the first chapter of his module, Risen Hero. I have been following his work for some time and am eager to give this one a try when I get some more time. From Vault results to date, it has already been received very well. This is one module I definitely intend to play.

Legacy of White Plume Mountain: Wyrin, who always seems very productive to me, has released his LoWPM, available at the Vault. This is one of the very few modules that supports multi-player play and so I am trying to play it with a friend when time allows. (We like to get together and play a computer game when we can.) While we have encountered one or two minor bugs, I know Wyrin is already sorting through them. If my friend and I manage to finish this one, I will write a comment and cast a vote.

The Maimed God's Saga: Tiberius recently released this cleric only adventure, which has a good air of mystery about it. It's a module I keep going back to from time to time as I like to play the cleric class. Tiberius says TMGSII is "unlikely to see the light of day", so this module is complete. If I ever finish it, I will cast my vote.

Live Forever: This module was actually released some time ago by Azenn. I have downloaded it to take a look at myself, but have not had much time to do so. It's high score on the Vault suggested that it may be a good one to play. Download from the Vault. If I do play and finish it, I will leave a comment and vote.

File Storage & Download Facility

In my recent correspondence with Matthew Rieder, he pointed out a useful website called MediaFire, which allows files to be uploaded and downloaded for free! There is a maximum file size of 200 MB for the "free" version, but if you need or want more, you can pay for it with a subscription. I find the free limit of 200 MB sufficient for my own use. I will be using this facility to manage files between area designers and myself.

Party Size Poll

Don't forget that the Party Size Poll is still up and running. (Left pane.) Please vote for your ideal size and leave a comment if need be!

Keeping The Faith!

This week I planned to spend some time making items that I am going to need for the quests involved at the start of the module. This should have been a reasonably straightforward task, but it was interrupted by a few things I discovered along the way:

1) A bug with opening books with a contents menu. (Now fixed.)
2) A bug when players switched PCs while reading a book. (Now fixed.)
3) A bug in the ambient system where NPCs would stop walking. (Now fixed.)
4) Players could change their god (not wanted) between levelling up. (See next.)

It's amazing how many things you can "suddenly discover" need dealing with when you are set on moving onto the next stage of building. The fact that a player can change the god they follow during a level up was something I did not know about and only came to light as I tested an XP award. This becomes a problem in the Althéa Campaign, because a PC is not supposed to be able to change their faith this way. Changing the god a PC follows is only meant to be possible if a PC finds and reads a holy book on a new faith. Once chosen, a PC then keeps their faith for the rest of the adventure ... unless there are some very unusual circumstances for such a change. In the end, I managed to fix this as well.

As far as making a start on the new areas where the early quests take place, I did take up Frank Perez's (Faithless) recommendation of Smorpheus' Toolset Visual Index DELUXE, which (from what I have managed to see so far), may go some way to helping me with the huge number of placeables that are available to choose from when trying to decorate an area. If I find I use it more and more, I intend to give some feedback for the author.

So Much To See & Do

I have been trying to expand my knowledge of NWN2 over the last few days, from scripting another GUI, to examining the conversation tool more, and even looking at custom content tools. The latter, however, is still evading me at the moment, as I am finding it hard to find any tools that may be "easy" to use or learn. I have downloaded Gmax, but have yet to try that, and from what I have seen and read, it may well be beyond me without a helpful tutorial. I have spoken to Amraphael of Zork fame (who is obviously someone most competent when it comes to custom content creation) and he said he would see what he could do if he got the time. (Thanks Amraphael.) By the way, if you have not done so already, check his site out, it really is an interesting read and the game he is developing (his own variation on Zork) looks like it will be a fascinating module to play.

The New 'Role-Play Test' GUI

This new GUI is part of an idea I had of trying to help players remember certain aspects of the campaign by giving a small test at the end of an "act" of play that rewards the player's PCs according to how many questions they answer correctly. It is only meant to be a bit of extra fun, and the player can choose to ignore the test altogether if they want to. However, if a player has been paying close attention to the game and is able to answer a number of the questions, then they will be rewarded with game XP for the PCs. I have also added the option to "save" the current test for a short while so that they can do extra research before submitting their answers. There are a maximum of ten questions per test, but some may be less. The current reward is 10 xp per character level (main PC) for each question answered correctly.

Combination Chest GUI Update

Geoff Cordery (a.k.a Quillmaster) has also been helping me with a few designs of other background images for the combination chests. Rather than give any screenshots now, I will leave them as a surprise when in-game. In return, I have been helping him with some scripting of his PC death code. It's great when you can return the favour for something like this.

Conversations

Until recently, I have neglected looking more closely at the way NWN2 handles conversations, and I have to say, much to my own loss. Having spent more time looking at them, I can see how many of the more common requirements for a conversation can be handled a lot simpler than the way you had to do it in NWN1: Quest logs have a direct input, nodes have camera selections for easier cutscene development and there are a number of 'common' condition and action scripts already written for a builder to access for each node. Now that I have studied them more, I will try to take advantage of them and have already started to outline one of my 'cutscene conversations' to use as an introduction to the module.

NWN2 Expansion: Storm of Zehir

There was more news about the new expansion due out later this year (so I have heard rumoured), called "Storm of Zehir" posted on the Obsidian Blog. It reads that they have added quite a few interesting differences, including changes to the world map and concentrated more on a party than an individual with companions. From a scripting pointing of view, I hope this does not alter things at all, otherwise it could mean a nasty 'fly in the ointment' for some of the coding I have already done for the next module. There is a Pre-release Forum for the expansion at the Bioware Forums that has some interesting posts about the expansion: The overland map and battle. I also found this Official Website for the expansion.

UPDATE: Here is a direct video link .






Moving Forward - 'Soul Surges'

Many of the main 'mechanics' I wanted in place: death system, vigour & rest system, crafting system, weapon system and Arcaene Lore system are mostly incorporated now, even if only at the outline stage. That is, they work, even if I need to flesh them out a little more. The Life Essence system fits in around many of the mechanics, but also expands on many other elements of the game, including such things as Combination Chests for example, and is something that I am continuing to incorporate and expand as I build.

Another system that I want to add, which I have yet to even start, is the Soul Surges system. Without giving too much away, the new era has some elements of a different magic system breaking through. These breakthroughs take the form of Soul Surges, and allow spell casters to produce spell-like effects by use of their soul rather than other energies.

I have had some preliminary ideas for some time, but have yet to expand on it. However, I can say they are powers that are over and above normal spell use and are powered by something akin to mana (and may still be mana at the end of the design) and can be used alongside the normal spells each day. They are not unlike At Will Powers in the 4e D&D manuals, but at this stage, I only intended them to be for spell casters and I still say they will need a power source of some kind.

As you can see, I have made some progress over the last few days, although not as much as I would have liked due to being distracted with bigger ideas for greater development that have drawn me back to the internet to try to improve my own building skills. It always feels like there is so much to do, and it's difficult deciding what to get stuck into first. I think my next move will be to either to write the code that determines how and where Life Essences can be found, or to try to sort out the first major cutscene.

I almost forgot: I also wrote a couple more books for the module. One was simply designed to give more depth to the current area, and the other was an in-game device (once read) to help the player determine what role they intend to take when playing the game: A Channeler or a Harvester. I will explain a bit more about these two 'roles' in a later post, but maybe the titles give the reader a clue as to what the role may be about.

The Art of Crafting

The official NWN2 campaign and its add-on, "Mask of the Betrayer" (MotB), come with some very well coded crafting systems that expand on those that came with NWN1. Furthermore, they make use of essences in such a way that fits in well with the Althéa campaign mythos. In the world of NWN (Toril), some of the essences are referred to by their elemental name, which fits in well with the Althéa Colour scheme that also reflects the elemental equivalents: White = Air; Green = Earth; Blue = Water and Red = Fire. Furthermore, MotB also introduces the new Spirit Essence, which again complements the system to be used in the new era upon Althéa.

Avoiding A Recipe For Trouble

After taking a closer look at the code behind crafting and the recipes involved, I can see that trying to alter the existing code may be more trouble than its worth. The reason being, whenever there are official updates and fixes, I would need to keep amending scripts I have also altered when making crafting changes. However, because the system is already quite extensive and stands on its own merit, I don't actually see the need to add to or alter this current system. Instead, I will create a system specific for my campaign over and above any official ones.

New Era Life Creations

Along with the official system, I hope to introduce a new bench that will allow for a new craft to be implemented that will involve the Life Essence. Basically, in much the same way there are already three different benches available to work with the current existing essences, I will introduce a new object at which the PC can work. It will most likely take the form of another workbench of some kind, but does not have to take this form exclusively. However, by doing this, I can add script to any existing items used in creation (e.g. the smith hammer) that will intercept the object being worked with and redirect the script to use my own craft creation code. Basically, in this example, the smith hammer would check the item upon which it was just used and if it detects new Life Essence apparatus, the code would then check my own item creation code instead of any normal code that would be run. This would be much easier to manage than trying to keep track of very large official crafting scripts and 2da files.

Normal Althéa Crafting

Just like the official campaign, the smith hammer will be required to craft certain items, especially weapons and armour. However, I will add extra code that will allow the smith hammer to work with other objects within the world of Althéa.














Here is an example of a heavy crossbow mold. Again, it will be the same as you would have expected from the official campaign, including information of what you would require to make the item.

NB: In this example, the mold says 2 wooden planks. Note, however, that wooden planks can come in different forms and qualities. The weapon may have special abilities according to the quality of the wooden planks you use. The same theory exists if the mold may says metal ingots or some other object instead.










As an example of how I can alter existing items to help give the system a unique feel for the Althéa campaign, notice the wording in the following items for making a heavy crossbow from Shederran wood.

NB: I have currently not changed the name of the specific wood, so as not to confuse players who may be used to the naming convention from the official campaign. However, if players would prefer to have the name changed to something unique to Althéa, then please leave comments with your suggestions.









Useful Links

OFFICIAL CRAFTING INFO: For those players who would like to get a good background in the art of crafting as it currently stands, take a look at this website: Thieves Guild (Link now added to the Useful Links section to the left.). This site gives good recipe information for all known builds within the official crafting lists. However, if you would rather learn of all builds possible through playing, then do not refer to the lists given here.

CRAFTING 2DA INFO: For builders who would like more information about the 2da's involved in altering the crafting system, check out this NWN2 Forum Link. Beware though, this thread goes into quite a bit of detail about the 2da's files involved and I did notice one or two minor errors that may confuse the issue. E.g. The author refers to line 5 instead of line 10 in one of the more informative posts.

CRAFTING MOD: There is a mod that can be downloaded from the Vault, which was written by someone from Obsidian. It is called Crafting.mod. It is supposed to help create 2da lines that can be used to help write correct 2da structure for the crafting system. If you do want to try to add your own recipes within the current official crafting system, then I imagine this module would be an invaluable tool.

Feat For Talking!

That's not "feet for walking", but a new "feat for talking"!

OK, my wife thought it was a bad pun as well. Anyway, today, I have been looking at how custom feats were added to NWN2. In the official campaign, you acquire new "special" feats when you reach the statues at the "Ruins of Arvhan", and so I took my lead by checking out the scripts there. During my dissecting of the code, I learned about changing the colour of text as well. And to top all this, I discovered a new NWN tool that could open and edit both 2da and tlk files for both NWN1 and NWN2.

NEW TOOL: The tool I discovered is called TabularFramework and can be found at the Vault. It is quite impressive, and while it takes about a minute to load on the first use, it loads quite quickly on later usage. It not only allows you to edit both 2da and Tlk files, but also has the ability to open more than one file at once and compare 2da files. Also, there is a hexadecimal translator built in that can both decode and assign the confusing hexadecimal codes like the ones used for metamagic at the click of a button! I have found it reasonably stable and can say it has been a very useful addition to my toolset tools.

TEXT COLOUR: Text colour is not handled the same way in NWN2 as it was in NWN1, and during my sorting of the feat function I learned how to handle this. It involves a knowledge of the hexadecimal number for a colour, and requires a simple process of assigning the code to a simple string within a constant. I go into more detail on this web page from my website: How To Alter Text Colours. There is a table there showing all the colours and their equivalent name within NWN2 and a brief description of some code that can be used to assign the colour.

ADDING A FEAT: This was my main aim for today,and I was surprised that I managed to get it working on my first attempt! I did go on to mess it up, but by the end of the day, I achieved what I was after. :) As well as simply wanting to learn how to do it, I also wanted to give the player a way of changing some "Options" about their style of play. This involved adding a line to the feat.2da file, that also related to a new line in the spells.2da file, which contained the script that fired when the feat was used. I also had to add the constant FEAT_ALTHEA_ABILCONV so that I could use it to script the new feat onto the player if they did not yet have it. The result now, is that when the player enters the game, the module checks if the player has the feat, and if they do not, then it is added. The new feat is a "History" feat, which gets added to the drop down menu under special abilities, which when used, calls a conversation via the script named in the spells.2da file. The conversation starts with the player and will eventually offer them choices about their style of play. (This part should be easy.) I did come across a couple of issues that are worth noting:

1) To make a conversation start in the old NWN1 style (not using cut scene mode), I needed to alter a variable from the conversation properties, which was not obvious the first time around, as the properties is reached by right-clicking on the conversation file name and opening a new properties window, and not from within the conversation itself.

2) There is a column in the feat.2da that says, "IsPersistent". I thought this was to do with allowing a feat to work across a campaign, but it turned out to be with activating the feat every time the player entered a new area or the module loaded. This meant my PC Options conversation was firing every time I started the module, which I did not want. My thanks got to Kaedrin for helping me find this out.