October 2012 Custom Content Challenge: The Bazaar

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

               This month's challenge is "The Bazaar":

Market time! Merchant stalls, placeable wares of all sorts, sounds, prefabbed NPCs to fill the bazaar (both selling and buying), scripts for dealing with thieves, scripts for stealing, scripted bartering systems, entertainment (jugglers, firebreathers, sword swallowers, performing bards, etc.), merchants with inventory that changes over time, NPC pickpockets, prefabbed items for merchants to sell (with nice descriptions, not everything needs to be valuable or magical). Things to help bring a market or bazaar to life and provide more variety.

This theme was suggested by The Amethyst Dragon.

Guidelines:

• It must be fully working in game.
• Use of vanilla NWN or publicly available texture is fine, though state-of-the-art amateur's work would require 100% original work, but that's up to you.
• Teamwork is welcome.
• Beginners most welcome, don't be afraid, just try, you'll be surprised!
• All submissions must be finished, working, and emailed to NWNCCCMakers@gmail.com (or a non-Vault link provided) by November 1st, 2012 at 10 AM EST. Sooner than that is perfectly fine too. ;-)

Somethings you could include in the download/email that would make packaging everything up easier and faster:

• 2da lines needed.
• Screenshot *from in game* for use on the vault page (this also gives me hints on how to display the new goodie).
• Portraits (if needed) of your new goodie. ** Placeables and monsters should include a portrait. **
• Inventory icons (if needed) of your new goodie.
• Any credits you would like listed.
• If this is your first entry, please tell me what name you would like your work listed under and provide a link to your other NWN content if you want that displayed as well (the link bit is totally optional).
• Also if you would like an invite to the CC Makers group, send Rolo Kipp a friend invite. The group is nothing spectacular, mostly just documentation on 2da lines.
• If you are doing tileset content, *please* let me know ahead of time so I can get you the set and itp files to work with. I’m horrible at merging those so this bit you will need to provide.

Remember, the Challenge is all about fun, sharing, creativity and surprise!

If you have concerns/questions about this month’s Challenge please post in this thread.

If you want to discuss the Monthly Custom Content Challenge idea as a whole or wish to submit ideas/themes for future monthly Challenges, please post in its thread here. 
***When submitting a new theme, please provide a title and short summary of the theme.***

If you have a technical question about some custom content creation, please create a separate thread so that the answers can be found later by anyone, not just people interested in this Challenge. We'll try to help!

Have no fear and join the fun!

And finally, you can: 

Submit theme suggestions.
Vote for November's CCC theme.
Email content to: NWNCCCMakers@gmail.com
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

               Declared/Tentative Projects:

Market Stall for Two - Just a ghost
Random Item Merchant - Just a ghost
Market Produce Placeables - Just a ghost

Submitted Projects:
Extended Options Generic Merchants - The Amethyst Dragon
Placeable Market Stalls - Asymmetric
Merchant Cart Mount - Cestus Dei
Signs, Stalls, & Sound - phenix-rising
Price Tags - dusty.lane
Crafting Equipment - Shemsu-Heru
               
               

               

                     Modifié par The Amethyst Dragon, 23 novembre 2012 - 05:29 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

               I started a thread for reference images, so as to not clog up this one.  Feel free to add your own and link directly to your post from here.

Starting out...a big wagonload of images from moorish and turkish bazaars to medieval marketplaces and entertainment.  Hopefully this may give folks some ideas to start with.

Reference Images
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Cestus Dei]

                I'm thinkin' I'll nae be gettin' much time in tha Soulforge, as the old man's off on some crazy new scheme or t'other.

Nae tha less, I'll make tha attempt at a merchant cart built as a mount, so they kin sit  or be taken up by merchants an' pushed about. I'll nae do tha scriptin' fer it. But I'll build the blasted thing, see if I don't.

'Tis 'bout now I'm wishin' ta see me ol' friend Draygoth return, I'm thinkin' :-/

Hrmph. 
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Cestus Dei, 03 octobre 2012 - 04:43 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

               I'm starting work on a reusable merchant + merchant NPC + conversation combo that will work for multiple types of NPC merchants.

The merchant object will have a space for an integer value (0-20), each value standing for a type of merchant (0 = generic shop, 1 = armor, 2 = clothing, 3 = weapons, etc.).

The NPC will have a variable preset on it that matches the tag of the merchant object.  If the merchant object's tag is changed after it's painted down (a wise idea), then just change it on the NPC when he is set into the area to match.  The NPC's appearance/desc/voice/etc. can then be changed as needed.

Scripting will use the shop's "type" integer to route the NPC and PC into the correct branch of a single conversation, which can then be used for pretty much any non-special merchant NPC...
"I sell the finest weapons in the land!  Want to see them?"
or "Fresh baked breads here!"
or "Psst!  Have I got a deal for you!  You ain't a paladin, are ya?"

So basically the idea is 1 merchant blueprint + 1 NPC blueprint that are easy to turn into any type of generic market-filler shopkeeper just by changing a couple of variables, adding some inventory, and giving them a name and maybe a new appearance.

Name will be something like " * Extendable Merchant NPC [CCC]" and " * Extendable Merchant Shop [CCC]"
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Just a ghost]

               I'll try my hand on one of my old annoyances: a market stall for two persons.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <grumping...>

Fool dwarf >:-( <you encourage him, you know>
Doesn't he realize the *problems* with that idea? <nope. you know he leaves the magic stuff to you>
Number one, that damn vendor's gonna look mighty funny with the mount pheno... <so don't change phenos>
Not that eas... Hmmm... <not that hard, either>
Number two, he's gonna need a variety of carts - fish carts, fruit carts, misc carts... <his problem, aint it?>
Well, yes. *brightening visibly* <now yer perkin' ;->
So make that at least three variations... <and empty, too...>
Four variations the old dwarf is making ;-)

<...because his coffee's late>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

               Finished up with my little merchant system.  Ended up making both a male and a female NPC blueprint, so that the scripting can automatically randomize (on spawning) the merchant's appearance and name.

This went a little faster than I thought it would, probably because there aren't any new art assets or other hak content to deal with.  Straight up scripting, NPC editing, and conversation editing.  Even the randomized appearances just use basic NPC appearances (no messing with dynamic models and clothing items).
               
               

               

                     Modifié par The Amethyst Dragon, 05 octobre 2012 - 08:25 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               Just a thought for those with a sense of humour as warped as mine but with considerably more skill, but isn't this the ideal category for someone to model and/or portrait the fast food merchant from Xena/Hercules?

TR
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Tarot Redhand, 05 octobre 2012 - 11:18 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Just a ghost]

               Amethyst inspired me to clean up a script that I wrote a few years ago. It's a random item merchant script with lots of switches and bells and whistles. You can make specialised merchants, set item levels, and even hook the script to chests and loot. It can create weapons, armor (including shields and helmets), books, clothing (belts, cloaks, boots, etc), rings, amulets, wands, and potions. There's always a chance for (yellow) unique items, which get an extra enchantment.

This version is hak-less, but you can easily upgrade it to use extra models for most items (weapons are generally a mess in most haks, so those will be tricky.)









And yes, I played Diablo II a lot. '>

O, a hint for people who have palette bloat issues: This system uses 3 scripts and 1 paletted item.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Just a ghost, 06 octobre 2012 - 11:43 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Asymmetric]

               I'm working on some market stalls/tents or (maybe) wagons, both als placeables and tile groups.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Just a ghost]

               

Just a ghost wrote...

I'll try my hand on one of my old annoyances: a market stall for two persons.

Tada... widened TNO stall in 4 colors, and two types based on the UD stall. I only need to figure out how to make a pwk for the 4 poles.


               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Asymmetric]

               I have finished three placeable market stalls:



I'll also put them into the tno tileset as tiles, but that's still WIP
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               @Just a ghost - Nice!  With the PWK, you can create a nice complicated plane- like 10x10 length & width segments or even higher.  Anyway, then you go into subobject mode, select the faces you don't want, delete them, and you've got a PWK which generally fits your object.  You can tweak the various subobject elements to your liking from there, but it's all one object.  Disclaimer: I did this last about two months ago but, IIRC, it worked fine.

@Asymmetric - Also very nice!  I like how you did that tent on the right.  Is that from Blender?  Anyway, two things: First, I love your mapping on that upper part.  I just think of it as "circus tent" style mapping because that's how the circus tents are mapped in NWN.  Second, adding it to a tile: Definitely not trying to dissuade you from adding those models to tiles but you might also consider doing it as a placeable....Sort of hard to describe.  Something like this, where it's still a placeable but appears to be part of a tile or tiles.  Set to static in the toolset and it might as well be a tile.  Similar idea with this, which used a cloth effect in Max to drape it over an existing tile- but all I saved out was the covering.  Then you can add it to the tile or not, as desired.  These kinds of placeables basically slip over a regular tile (or tiles) like a pillowcase.  While not every content user knows how to add a new tile for their module/PW, they'd all generally know how to add a placeable to their HAKs so, theoretically, the potential users of the CC would go up.  And from a CC maker's perspective, NO PWK's to worry about, heh heh!  Anyway, hope that gave you some ideas.  I would love to see that style (again, on the right) of tent with guy-wires/ropes and stuff holding it up, too.  Soft selection of verts would allow you to pull the center down and get the hanging fabric effect without any fancy cloth simulators or anything like that.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 10 octobre 2012 - 04:59 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Just a ghost]

               @OTR To be honest - I have about 10% of a clue what you're talking about. All I know about GMax is how to import a model, move/delete vertex points, export the model. Faces I only know because I have seen the word in the mdl files... Up till now I made simple pwk files by putting a square colored ground plane below a PLC and tweaked it till it was about right, and the coordinates I pasted into a pwk file. Quite a **** job, so I am eager to learn a better way!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Just a ghost, 10 octobre 2012 - 05:28 .