Can someone explain the popularity of NWNCQ's textures? (technically)

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               Hunh.  Well, I just went over and carefully re-read all the comments (thank you, everyone) and I'm thinking my impression of what makes NWNCQ so popular maybe wasn't necessarily what actually makes it so popular.  Which I'm puzzled by.  The other factors that people have brought up do make sense, I'd just attached a much higher level of importance on the textures themselves and assumed most others had, as well.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 28 février 2013 - 09:35 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Von Stalhein]

               I think the general assessment of NWNCQ's plug-and-play-ability as the source of its popularity is fairly accurate. I think there's one further point as well though, which is to do with the visual style - as OTR perhaps originally thought. Note that a fair number of NWNCQ's screenshots are taken with NWShader active. Why is that important? Because Chico wrote his own bloom shader for use with NWShader (a Monet bloom filter it was called, if I remember correctly). The bloom on it is fairly heavy. The result was what I call "the Oblivion effect." I remember one reviewer of Oblivion (the Elder Scrolls title) commenting that when he walked up to a sheep, it was like a nuclear explosion had gone off: that's how white the sheep's fur was - all thanks to the super-heavy bloom.

My theory is that NWNCQ's "marketing materials" are not unduly reminiscent of Oblivion(-era) graphics thanks to that bloom. The combination of Chico's textures and the heavy shader gives you a look that perhaps struck a chord with a lot of viewers. It said: "NWN upgraded a game-graphics-generation; now looks like Oblivion."

I imagine ease-of-installation was the key selling point though, as has otherwise been concluded. Nevertheless I think this particular aspect of the graphical style - i.e. its similarity to a certain generation of game engines' output - perhaps had an impact too.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Nissa_Red]

               Just a final thought (I think) on the question from my part. It's true that I have also been enjoying nwnCQ thanks to peachykeen's shader.

While I am not big fan of the bloom (I significantly toned it down in the shader shipped with nwnCQ), I really really like the DoF effect it provides. Bioware's textures are NOT bad in themselves, they're even pretty good. With the DoF, they mechanically appear as less crisp and sharp (at some distance) however, and the overall effect is very pleasant to me.

I can't speak for Chico, but maybe his intent was to create "blurry" textures in the perspective of people using his creation with peachykeen's Shader all along. This is only theory on my side, and I of course respect anyone else's opinion on the question. If they don't like, they don't like, I can understand that.

About the geometry "swallowing" items on the ground, I checked yesterday evening, and I found a "light" override version of nwnCQ on my hard drive that doesn't add as much geometry as the other ("complete" ?) version I usually use. The trade-off using the "light" version is that the ground geometry is pretty much back to the usual and boring Biowarian "flatness", somewhat altered but not by that much. I don't know if it still can be found on the Vault, but maybe would it better suit some players.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Nissa_Red, 01 mars 2013 - 02:48 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_DM_Vecna]

               I use this package without the shader. What interests me is the roofs with new textures. I got tired at looking at the old ones and was happy to switch it up. However the blurry effect has bothered me, and if someone released new higher res textures I would replace them in a snap.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               @Nissa_Red - IIRC, NWNCQ had been up on the Vault for about four months before Peachykeen broached the subject in the Bioware forums and it was still a while before stable builds started coming out.  I looked at some of the earliest screenshots from NWNCQ here and while Chico400 made changes as he went along, I wouldn't say they're all that materially different from the later work which had NWShader in mind.  Somewhere in the Vault comments for NWNCQ, I recall that Chico400 seemed to indicate that the fake bumpmap and bloom filters were tied together as one process and he didn't have much control over tweaking or removing one without removing the other. (shrug)

I agree about the DoF shader, BTW.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 01 mars 2013 - 06:51 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_NWN_baba yaga]

               very late to the party but anyway my 2 cents.

chico440 did put a lot of work in his project and "was" very dedicated at the time he spend time on it. My guess is he only had this project in mind combined with the ongoing development of NWshader back then which was an amazing thing but turned out ...well disapointing when you imagine what could have been done by the guy.

But i think the textures in general suck and that many things are plain copy and paste w/o to much thinking where some objects were placed... crypts come to mind. Some walls are useless now due to his many pillars. Also the whole look seems way off compared to any other nwn material so you´re always distracted by these contrasts.

Technically uhm... dont know really. He may have some knowledge for modern games but for nwn it is just not fitting.

I personally prefer smaller projects that looks like nwn and would vote that any time higher then these kind of things which are great in the sense of uniqueness but useless combined with the games material itself. So i can only advice anyone to do smaller things that has this nwn feel! '>

So my final word is i definately credit his dedication and how friendly he was but consider the content low.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par NWN_baba yaga, 07 mars 2013 - 08:13 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_werelynx]

               My opinion as a player: It did its job until I found out it obscured the view like put boulders where they shouldn't be etc.
Then I deleted it.