January 2013 Custom Content Challenge: Spells and Spellcrafting

[Legacy_henesua]

                I have uploaded a Beta version of a module, haks and a tlk for Innocuous Familiars. Its not fully featured but includes the following:

• Rat, Bat, and Crow familiars
• Fester Pot's portrait of familiars (Thanks FP!)
• Bind Familiar Spell (level 0) for wizards and sorcerers
• Fly and Pass Door Abilities (see the familliars class radial menu)

The purpose of the upload is to encourage collaboration. BUT anyone is ofcourse free to give it a whirl. Please don't judge my area design. I spent all of 5 minutes tops on it. But there are three animals that can be bound as familiars, and various locations for the familiars to explore which the wizard or sorcerer PC can not get to.

You can also test spell sharing, observe the various benefits which familiars give their master, judge the VFX I am using for the Bind Familiar Spell (and offer up better VFX or advice if you want), try out unlimited summon and unsummon, persistent HP and familiar death...

To be improved:

• Familiar's Perception Script to notify master of creatures they see which master doesn't.
• Mark Target, Spell Target, and an example spell which uses this ability
• Familiar Selection - more intermediate and a special familiar are forthcoming
• Adapting system based on community input

               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 11 janvier 2013 - 03:16 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Sir Adril]

               I'm going to bow out of this one. It's too difficult for me right now. I will get back to this one day when I start figuring it out though, I'd really like to update and import some 2nd Ed spells into NWN '>

I'm still arguing with my static placeables - almost got it, I'm just arguing with sanity checks with regards to welded vertices, I don't want to have to add more polygons to make it work, but I hate how it looks using just transparencies to fake it, grrr.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               Don't give up, Sir Adril. You can't improve if you throw in the towel. Keep at it even if you aren't able to meet the challenge. Eventually it will click for you. Trust me.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_NWN_baba yaga]

               @Sir Adril
dont give up only because of the at times silly output by the sanity check. I have a rate of 90/100 meshs with this message and you know what.... yes right it doesnt matter. It has to do (I´m sure) with how you setup your unit settings, if you use meters for example you shouldnt have those messages but it doesnt works very well to use meters modeling little things so i go for cm and then bam...

The sanity check just doesnt get the distance of your vertices when they are to close to each other
and so it "thinks" these are separated faces sharing the same vertex.

Remember it´s not the sanity check it´s the INSANITY message '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par NWN_baba yaga, 11 janvier 2013 - 08:21 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Sir Adril]

               Oh, don't worry, I'm not giving up yet guys, I just want to make sure I've got my fundamentals down first. You wouldn't volunteer yourself for a pitched battle if you'd never lifted a sword, would you?

I do know I crashed NWN yesterday with one of my placeables. I don't know what I did wrong, but I tested the same area again without the placeable, and had no problem. Clearly, my placeable was the problem, as the second time I tried it it once again crashed to desktop. I know I'll get it figured out, it's just a case of playing around a bit until I find the problem. I am determined to get it done somehow though. Without my placeables, the marketplace for my module just won't have the feel I'm looking for!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               I just wanted to echo the words of encouragement and advice about sticking to it.  Beginning placeables shouldn't be causing a crash.  I dunno what the deal is there unless you're doing something with skin mesh or possibly VFX.  Maybe a very complex placeable which has the Shadow ticked on the Trimesh modifier or no trimesh modifier at all- which defaults to shadows.

Just a week or two ago I had a situation where I thought a model was crashing the game but it turned out I'd just put something in my override I shouldn't have.  I think it was a 2DA that I hadn't edited properly.  Insta-crash.

If you're still thinking it's the placeable, drop me a PM and I'll be happy to look at it.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               FYI - I have seen placeables cause crashes. I recently went on a compiling spree of models in my placeables HAK. Of the models I had compiled, the TNO Boat placeable from the Darkness over Daggerford HAK caused some very weird exception errors in the toolset. And the dialog telling me about the error recurred so frequently that most of the time I had trouble turning off the rendering of placeables in the area (that toggle in the toolset).

I don't know what the exact problem was, but when I reinstated the backup copy of the models I had tried compiling (I try to backup during these experiments) the problem went away.

So anyway... this is just an anecdote from my experience, but to me it suggests that it is possible for a placeable to cause a crash.

But neveryoumind Sir Adril. Persevere!
               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 12 janvier 2013 - 02:37 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Sir Adril]

               Thanks for the offer, OldTimeRadio. I want to keep cracking at it
myself, I think I'm going to learn more by trying to work through the
error myself, but if I get really stuck, I'll definitely take you up on
that offer.

In my case, it's very likely the mdl causing the crash - I did check my 2DA after the first crash, but the second crash kind of confirmed it wasn't my 2DA. I did some more testing earlier today, and it's not a texture problem either, same result as before, crash to desktop.

I took out the small bars in my cage model, and it loaded into the toolset and game just fine, so I think it's a vertex problem - my plan is to reduce my vertices and see if that helps.

Can I just say you guys are great on this forum? You're all very encouraging and supportive, you're a wonderful community '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <rubbing his fingers...>

Textures can also do this. Make sure that 1) all rendering objects have a texture, 2)all the textures are present in game and 3) all the textures are powers of 2 in dimension (128x128, 512x512, 128x1024, etc.)

That last one got me a few times in the beginning... :-P

And you can always start a project here, upload your files (in a zip) and let us dissect it ;-)

<...across the nap>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_cervantes35]

               Placeables can crash NWN, if the placeable walkmesh is bad. Has to high a poly count or rendering shadows on something with a very high poly count as well (can't remember what the optimal poly count is for placeables). More than 80 individual meshes in a single model will also cause crashes, also emitters, animations and even an incorrectly done dummy node the list goes on. Good luck Sir Adril and like Rolo said getting someone elses assistance could help you out tremendously  it maybe something very minor.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Sir Adril]

               I got it! Too high a poly count - one of the things I suspected in the first place, you lot mentioning it kind of solidified that suspicion. I have it working now, with walkmesh too - I found a tutorial on a KotOR forum that really helped there.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Zwerkules]

               Considering that a placeable with about 3000 polygons works fine if it doesn't cast shadows, I'd really like to know how many polygons yours had. Or did it have shadows turned on? If so, even 100 polygons can cause real problems. Always keep shadows as simple as possible if you're going to use them at all. Also keep the walkmeshes simple.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               My wizard tower/forge is complete. I just need to add it to the SET and ITP files. Where do I get that info?



Pardon the haze - had to be pretty good distance back (and on a hill) to get the roof in. 

And yes, the tower has no windows by design. No need for prying eyes to see what's going on inside is there? 
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Pstemarie, 12 janvier 2013 - 10:59 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_henesua]

               INNOCUOUS FAMILIARS

Feature: Cast Master's Spell



Wizards and sorcerers can store one hostile spell by casting it on their familiar.




The familiar can later cast the spell. The rat never did like that guard on the ramparts.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par henesua, 13 janvier 2013 - 01:23 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               To go along with my tower I've written a little piece of fiction about its owner. Its my first fictional piece of writing since high school. Not sure what to do with though.