PLACEABLES

[Castano]

Post everything you know and any tips about NWN2 placeables here:

also design tips are worthwhile

And when we are done maybe summarize and sticky it?

[Audark]

You can create some very interesting architecture by sinking placable buildings, especially burned rural or swamp houses.

Scale them to whatever size you like then sink them into the ground so their floor disappears. House 5 is the best for this because you can sink it and havea big open area in the middle.

You then lock its height, and make the building environmental, using the walkmesh cutter, found under triggers, to outline the walls so you aren't impeded by the entire placables area, instead only by the walls that protrude from the ground.

Do this atop a hill, in some trees or whatnot to makea convincing overgrown farm or home in the wilderness, gives a site great character.
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Using the same technique as above the 'amphitheatre' placables make excellently detailed rounded walls. You scale it as you like (the base scale is such that the curve of the wall is only slight) and then sink it so only the top 'wall' part of the amphitheatre is showing. With some scaling adjustments you can easily make the arches big enough to walk through. Use the same walkmesh cutter work to make only the wall block the walkmesh instead of the entire placable that is hidden under the terrain. This wall looks much more intricate than the actual 'walls' in the toolset and i recommend it for any area that needs a more fancy looking set of masonry.

more to come later as i think of them

[Castano]

How to make walkable Towers

From indio in general discussion:

Here's a quick walkmesh tutorial for a 1st level guard tower.

Install the walkmesh placeables from the vault (linked above).

Place a tower, a flat placeable and ramp placeable, size and position them accordingly:



Note that I have widened the ramp for the purposes of example so it makes a clean walkmesh once baked (easier to demo with).

Now align the two walkmesh placeables perfectly...there's a small margin for error, but walkmeshes like the same height and perfect orientation to stitch together:



Now bake (use a small interior to practice):



Ctrl+Shift+b is your baking friend.

LINK TO WALKABLE RAMPS FROM VAULT:

http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NW ... tail&id=27

This simply helps you create either ramped or flat walkmeshes. Brilliant device. Requires no hak as it simply integrates with the walkmesh file after a bake. Takes plenty of practice to get right, but it's worth spending the time.

[Grand Fromage]

You can overlap buildings and stick them together to create new ones. This works much better than you'd think at first glance.

[indio]

I'd overlooked the usefulness of the STackable property till recently. Apply it to both the placeables and voila! Instant height adjustments.

Get the PowerBar plugin and when a placeable is selected, go to Object/Cut Walkmesh..instant triggers.