Waterdeep/Skullport Progress Screens

Burt · Post by **Burt** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 10:08 am

Looking very nice indeed.

Not sure if it's possible in NWN2 but it should look a lot darker and dirtier in my mind. Otherwise I think it's pretty spot on.

indio · Post by **indio** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:33 am

Thanks Burt, old stick. The lid's still off the cave at this stage just while I'm finishing buidling. Once I'm done I'll put the lights out and stick a roof on it, then grubby it up.

JaydeMoon · Post by **JaydeMoon** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 5:52 pm

That's just ridiculous.

You are ridiculous.

Mikayla · Post by **Mikayla** » Wed Mar 05, 2008 6:02 pm

There are those in ALFA who've accused me of being prone to hyperbole, but of course, they are feeble-minded sons of whores prone to lying, cheating and bedwetting not to mention diddling their pet turtles. But that aside, those screenshots of Skullport leave me ... well ... speachless. F**kin' WOW. It gives me hope for ALFA 2.

Joos · Post by **Joos** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:00 am

Wow, very impressive Indio, well done!

psycho_leo · Post by **psycho_leo** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:03 am

Mikayla wrote:There are those in ALFA who've accused me of being prone to hyperbole, but of course, they are feeble-minded sons of whores prone to lying, cheating and bedwetting not to mention diddling their pet turtles. But that aside, those screenshots of Skullport leave me ... well ... speachless. F**kin' WOW. It gives me hope for ALFA 2.

WTF! What did my pet turtle ever do to you?!

Also.. erm.. good work Indio.

indio · Post by **indio** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:02 am

I want to explain a few things about the WD/Skullport server, which I'm about to launch into in a big way.

For the Castle Ward area immediately above Skullport, I'll dissect the 32x32 area into 4 16x16 areas. This will allow quick load times for close by city adventuring and ensure travel to and from Skullport (or to and from Waterdeep) isn't arduous (technically).

So I'm going to use this terrific plugin called Terracoppa, which makes dividing 32x32 areas into 4 16x16 areas a cinch. Thangs put me on to it.

The exterior of SKullport is largely done and I'm starting on interiors, NPCs and quests. I'll incorporate relevant WD interiors (Yawning Portal etc) as well.

I'm going to try to keep pace with Rick as he moves from Beta 2 to 3 so that we can aim to go Live as close to each other as possible.

The last thing is Undermountain, which to me looks like a job for YATT, and thus made in an exterior tileset. Tricky, but worth it if it means noone goes stark raving mad trying to map 3 levels of that dungeon into NWN2 interiors.

Will update screens as I go. Thanks for the ongoing support.

Rotku · Post by **Rotku** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:30 am

Out of curiousity, how did you do the catwalks? Wouldn't that involve two different layers of walkmesh? Or does NWN2 allow that?

indio · Post by **indio** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:47 am

2 methods involved, because walkmesh can't be overlapped. One is a cheat that requires some suspension of disbelief, and the other is some luck.

It's hard to tell from the screens, but you can maybe make out some gates on the catwalks. The cheat is that you open a gate to cross parts of the catwalk that have no walkmesh....you simply transition a metre or two from your current position on the other side of the road below...clear as mud? I've put mock catwalks in to make it appear as though you can cross it, but it's all smoke and mirrors.

The luck part is that the catwalk largely runs on top of buildings, so while there are many gates and transitions to traverse the entire catwalk system (it's very tricky to merge walkmeshes around corners), few of the transitions are more than a metre wide.

Undermountain might bend to the will of YATT without too much fuss. Here's a shot after 20 minutes of experimenting. Obviously it will require dressing, but it probably represents several hours of interior building.

Rotku · Post by **Rotku** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:59 am

Ah, gotcha! Very clever. Guess I should have taken a closer look at the screenie

darrenhfx · Post by **darrenhfx** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 2:33 pm

I had started playing around with Undermountain based on interiors and it would have taken a long time (and with much hair pulling) to have it look right. YATT looks to be a HUGE timesaver in this case and would be for any mapped-out dungeon area.

Are you using the latest Undermountain book for your maps?

Grey Pilgrim · Post by **Grey Pilgrim** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 2:53 pm

indio wrote:GP...what can I say...

I'll give you 3x1 hour tutorials and you'll never look back.

acquire nwn2: check
acquire nwn2 expansion pack: check
get bored playing OC: check
open toolset, freak out until finding & following the hitchhikers guide to using it: check

I actually quite like toolset2, i think we could become friends.

So...i guess i could now take you up on that kind offer of some tutorials if and when you have time. Then i can get back to building more huge mountain waterfall vanity projects.

Wynna · Post by **Wynna** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:43 pm

GP has come home. *sniffle* I'm...I'm beside myself with happiness (and the person beside me says with more dignity: "Welcome back, GP!")

Teric neDhalir · Post by **Teric neDhalir** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 4:40 pm

darrenhfx wrote:I had started playing around with Undermountain based on interiors and it would have taken a long time (and with much hair pulling) to have it look right. YATT looks to be a HUGE timesaver in this case and would be for any mapped-out dungeon area.

Erm, doesn't look very nice, though. And where do you put the doors? Sorry to nay-say.

darrenhfx · Post by **darrenhfx** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 4:54 pm

I think that screenie is intended to be a very early experimental model. The walls would have to be shaped and wall segments added for doors, I'll let the builder speak for himself though.

The beauty in my eyes is having the area layout spot-on to the map. Having to go back and inset wall segments, if it comes to that, would be a lot easier than trying to do versus building the area one wall segment at a time.

The amount of custom content for Undermountain would be quite high I would think with the number of traps and other canon odditites, but that's for another day.

*waves to GP*