Dorateen's gonna hate me....

I'll keep that title since the last update was just yesterday and a catchy title makes for more readers according to Azenn....

A few areas weren't really filled in as much as I'd liked even though they were "done". Sadly, I got stuck at work the weekend after Thanksgiving since the company voicemail system crashed. In good news for those of you who might enjoy my work, I had a creative blast (brought on by long work hours and exhaustion I think...) and wrote down a bunch of new quest ideas while waiting for things with the voicemail system.

Then I used some downtime during the regular workweek to crank out the conversations related to a lot of the quests. So one city got a related set of 9 quests working for a mysterious employer, and another got a quest that stretches out into 8-9 parts. These only required my adding one new area, which is another reason they were quick to add. That's a little more than 1/2 of what I came up with while zombified working on the voicemail. The rest of the ideas I came up with should also go relatively quickly as they are adding in to existing areas for the most part.

Dorateen's going to be mad at me....

Dorateen's going to be mad at me. I made a fire giant encampment. The fire giant description says they look like oversized, ugly dwarves.... so I used recolored dwarves for my fire giants so they can have more variety than the single fire giant NWN2 provides. I should even make one say Harumph! (Hi Dorateen).... If you want giant size items I found that a 2.4,2.4,2.4 scale works very well. It's what you see in the screenshot here.

Also, I thought this screenshot was hysterical. There is Joe the Generic Adventurer. He is at normal scale. The fire giants are doing laundry.....

Special for Nacaal

Seahorse Cove Prefab slum area, default lighting: nighttime
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PrefabAreas.Detail&id=10762&id=331

Same area, relit using "Exquisite Lighting" daynightset, made darker at nighttime and using soft windowlights. The lights are SLS "3 Candles" with lerp off. For small windows the "3 candles" radius is reduced to 2. Notice the window glow at top right.

Same area, another view. Notice the glow near the windows from the 3 Candles light, especially visible in the two larger windows near the center of the picture.

Same area, relit using "Exquisite Lighting" daynightset, made darker at moonset and using soft windowlights.

For reference, the same area, using "Exquisite Lighting" daynightset, daytime.

For reference, the same area, default light

Same area, default moonset.

Polishing

One thing I'm doing in my polishing is changing the lighting. Here is the prefab of Riverbridge before went to work, the time of day is set to moonset.





And here it is after, still at moonset. Building windows with lights in them actually light. The lighting actually looks like it's nighttime. The lightset is based on the "exquisite" set on the Vault, but darker during the night.


The other main thing that get the once over during the polishing pass are conversations. I'm going through the conversations to make sure placeholders are filled in and journal updating looks right (and making the journals multiplayer friendly). Companion interjection and greater pc dialog choice also happen during the polishing phase.

Areas also get some extra work if they need it, for instance the prefab that is serving as Murann was much too "clean" for a city under control of a goblinoid army. It got extensively scrubbed with dirt and irregularity. Now it looks more natural and more like an occupied city.

I am also checking area names, music (most areas have none), making sure areas connect to the overland map, things of that sort. It's an effort to giving everything a "final" look and bring the areas into a state where only bugfixing is needed. Ideallly, after polishing no one will look at an area and say "hey, it really seems like this area is missing an oxcart".

Companion teamwork

Path of Evil has two types of ways you can team with your companions. Here is an example of each.

A particular companion is in the party: Your companions have particular skills that you can access by asking them. One companion is a skilled forger for instance. So in a quest involving forgery, if the companion is in the party you can simply ask them to do it. You can try your hand at forgery yourself if you'd like, but there are skill checks involved. The companion automatically succeeds.

This type of teamwork requires you be able to talk to the companion, typically without anyone who would find the action hostile being there to notice. You can't have your companion forge something if the NPC's are standing there.

Friendship teamwork: The companion Kvas is your best friend from childhood. Because of this, you have teamwork options with him that you can carry out even if you're being watched. For example, you can distract someone while Kvas steals from them.

Friendship teamwork involves a skillcheck, but not one for the action being attempted, rather it's a check to see if you distracted the NPC sufficiently for Kvas to perform an action. For example, there is a quest that involves putting poison in someone's drink. You can try this yourself with a sleight of hand or Dexterity check. If Kvas is in the party, you can check Craft Weapon and make small talk about the NPC's scimitar, or try a Perform check and sing a quick song in the NPC's honor. A successful check distracts the NPC enough for Kvas to put the poison in the drink. Kvas's success is dependent on your skill.

Custom loading screen Screenshots

As with the first module, there are custom load screens for each area. Here are some before and after shots. The first three pictures are taken in the toolset.

And here they are as loadscreens. To get this effect I take the screenshots and loaded them into GIMP. First I applied the Oilify filter (Filter -> Artistic -> Oilify) using the default settings. The border was done by using the Fuzzy Border filter (Filter -> Decor -> Fuzzy Border) with a 32 pixel black border.

Oilify works well when there's significant color contrast or strong colors.

The middle picture in each set is the Solvheil Ruins prefab (http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PrefabAreas.Detail&id=363)

Stronghold screenshots

In Path of Evil, you will be able to rule a stronghold. And here's some screenshots.


Your throne room:






A merchant you can hire: (yesssss, he'sssss a yuan-ti)