Custom Content Challenge: April 2013: Drow Stuff

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               Make the shuriken gem a vial of poison !! with little lines running to the legs to make an injection
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               Maybe somebody else could help me a bit if they had some time. I can't seem to figure out what's up with these models. After testing a bit more, I find that if I SetAppearance to my model and don't move, it works fine. But as soon as I move, its about 5 seconds til crash or so. I've checked all the skin verts and they all seem reasonable, no 5th bone, no weird little fractions.

Edit:
Actually, it would be helpful if somebody better at reading C code than I could make it so I could figure out exactly what things could make Torlak's model compiler (in nwnexplorer) NOT compile a model, and/or make it so it told me what things were stopping the compile process.

I have a dropbox account I could use to share the drow mod with. I've tried 3 times to upload to my drow project page on here and it keeps telling me my .zip file is not of the proper file type, even though its a .zip file in .zip format. Go figure.


Edit, Again:
Two words: BONE COUNT
While working on my Robe as Base Model concept stuff, I found some articles that stated the limit of bones was something like 14. I disproved that when I successfully migrated up to 28 bones (so far) in a working player character skin. I just counted the bones in the drow priestess at 30. After painting the entire skin to a single bone, the issue went away. So all I should have to do is split the skin at the robe and hair and it should be good to go. Same with drow05:archer. I don't know that the engine, or the nwnexplorer model view, have any specific issues with actual bone count. Its just more likely that the number of bones combined with the complexity of joints and lightning math is what is crashing the engine. Still doesn't explain exactly the nwnexplorer non-compile issue.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par MerricksDad, 17 avril 2013 - 06:23 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               Works great now!



Ever wonder how some of the art for book covers allows the clothing to stay on the characters? Well now you know...its just spiders.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par MerricksDad, 17 avril 2013 - 08:24 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               Hey, not to totally steal this thread and make it all about me, but I was doing some speed testing today after I got the above priestess working, and I found that the 800 poly priestess loads and runs the same as the 1600 poly priestess. There is NO lag during play after load even up to 1800 poly priestess, even with 12 spawned DE's on the immediate area. ALL the lag is during the actual model load during spawn-ins and is probably due to the fact that its a skinned model, not block parts. Just a warning I guess, that this could be a game-killer if these critters are not pre-loaded before a player enters a zone. I may have to rethink my intentions of doing a total NWN conversion to skinned monsters at some point.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Draygoth28]

               Glad you got her fixed. Yah I had a lot of lag up front on my mounts, due to load animation time. Thanks to OTR, Rolo and Tarot I figured out how to compile them correctly and the lag went away totally. If they are already complied then I'm not sure what to do about it.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               Never compiled them before I use them (these drow). I have to assume they would be substantially faster in game if I did. I was also wondering how much time tga's take over dds formats. I generally always release stuff in the most open formats I can, such as ascii models and over-sized tga textures.

I generally use the nwnexplorer's model viewer to alert me to any issues before I get into the game to test models. Without fail so far, every model that doesn't auto compile in the explorer has at least minor issues. Of course it never tells you why or what they might be, and usually I find they are not at all related to those warnings given by the nwmax export scripts.


So, after downsizing this priestess in polycount by about half, and having basically no distinguishable change during play, I am switching modes with the upcoming two drow wizards and one hooded priestess. The next few models in the set will potentially have a much smaller poly count. This afternoon I built a completely new half-poly-count male model (from 1380 down to 730). I suspect it should look pretty good with some robes and lots of wizardly gear dangling about.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Ssythilac]

               MerricksDad: These drow are excellent! Looking forward to see the wizards and the hooded priestess.

Shemsu-Heru: The spider shuriken is a very cool idea, Have you think in work with the hand crossbow model of NWvault to give it a more dark and drow feeling?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Asymmetric]

               Really nice stuff.

But concerning that one-handed crossbow: It has no animations. In order to use it as a weapon you'll need to create some animations for firing, idle, ... .
That being said, is it even possible ? I know that in the baseitems.2da one can specify the animation set to use with a weapon/item, but is it possible to create a new one ?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Asymmetric, 18 avril 2013 - 09:42 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               I may need to revert on the drow priestess a bit. She's got feet issues, pointy toes and sliding ankle issues. Does anybody think I should put some butt cover on her?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <covering...>

@ md: you could map a handkerchief to a completely transparent part of the texture.
That way delicate sensibilities could always retexture it in leather or lace or something...

Edit: me, I think she's overdressed ;-)

<...his bases>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 18 avril 2013 - 01:20 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shemsu-Heru]

               

MerricksDad wrote...

Make the shuriken gem a vial of poison !! with little lines running to the legs to make an injection

That's a good idea!....
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               Shweet Shpider!

@Rolo: nice link '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_UA DM]

               

Ssythilac wrote...

The amazing work you guys are making for this challenge motivated me to start a project in an underdark environment, with a few tileset improves and changes. Here are a few images:

http://social.biowar...lbum_id=1331148

I can`t hardly wait to use your drow stuff in this module!

Also, an idea: drow/underdark related inventory icons. Spider things, drow house pins, stranges mushrooms and these sort of stuff.

Ssythilac,

Those screenshots are amazing!  I don't recognize those tiles.  Are the fungi part of the tile set or placeables?  Is that tileset one made or a large number of new tiles to the bioware Underdark tile set?

UA DM
               
               

               
            

[Legacy__six]

               

Shemsu-Heru wrote...

That's a good idea!....

Ooh, that is a good idea.

I'd love to see spidery arrows/bolts next.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               New wizard model looking good so far. Only 888 poly count without his accessories.