Creating Items

[oldgrayrogue]

Can someone eplain to me in a few easy steps (or point me to a tutorial) about how to edit the base model for an item in the toolset.

For example, how do you edit a base heavy armor model to delete the "chainmail" undergarment in the base model? Can this be done in the toolset without editing files?

How do you change the base model of a sword to alter the hilt, pommel or guard?

Any help would be appreciated.

[Faeryl]

I've found this pdf tutorial to be very helpful. If you're creating items for erf export, you can skip the final section on creating a prefab since that's for using the item in your own modules.

http://vnfiles.ign.com/nwvault.ign.com/ ... eation.pdf

[AcadiusLost]

For example, how do you edit a base heavy armor model to delete the "chainmail" undergarment in the base model? Can this be done in the toolset without editing files?

It sounds to me like you're asking about editing the base appearance model itself (making subtle changes to an existing "base" armor appearance), rather than just picking one of the available base appearances from the list available to us. If so, it's not really possible without 3D modelling software, quite a bit of technical knowledge, and a lot of time and patience; especially as armor base models have to be separately tweaked and remade for both genders of most all races (Human Female, Human Male, Half-Orc Female, Half-Orc Male, Elven Female, Elven Male, etc etc etc).

It's quite easy to customize the look of armor in the toolset, but it's a process of picking from the available options (things that shipped with NWN2/MotB/SoZ, plus ones that others in the NWN2 community have made and we've incorporated into the haks), then recoloring, and deciding what "accessory pieces" to layer on top of the base appearance (shoulder guards, gloves, quiver, belts, skirts, joint armoring, etc). If none of the base appearances fit your needs, then you get into actual new custom content creation (of the sort which a few people do and release on nwvault).

Easiest sort of this is "reskinning" where you keep the exact same shape/model but change the look of it slightly by making a new version which stretches an edited image file around the same skeleton. Examples of this are making new diety shields by replacing a helm Emblem with a Torm one, for example. Thangorn did this for some of the Zhentil Keep things he wanted. IWS was working on learning how to do it as well, more recently.

Weapons are actually built from three models (blade/main, guard, and handle/haft), so they allow for free mixing and matching of pieces within a weapon type right in the toolset (I want hilt A with blade C and grip Q, for example), but many of them don't work well together, so it has to be checked one by one.

Again, if you want something that's not in the list of existing models, it becomes a much bigger deal.

Hope this helps clarify the distinction. Pretty much any of the NWN2 builders can help you tool up custom armor from the models already available in the haks via the toolset. Making new models entirely, or making significant edits to models... right now Gribo is the only one around who has even attempted it among ALFAns.

[oldgrayrogue]

Thanks AL. You answered the question. I am quite adept at tooling up armors using the "accessories" available. I was asking about editing the base model. I figured it might be something fairly complicated, but wanted to know for sure.