Custom Content Challenge: September 2013: Arcane Space Stuff

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               Errr, my sane what? Or did you mean "you're"? Anyway I'm clinically sane just highly eccentric ().

TR
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shemsu-Heru]

               Autognome, last update....


               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shemsu-Heru]

               Just a suggestion; what about some sky boxes, with a outer space scene....


               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               Or some of those load screen shots for that matter (the ones between areas). Before anyone asks why I don't - (some of you know this already) just over a week ago my laptop suddenly ceased working and all my data is on the hd of that machine. The ancient p4 machine I resurrected, in order to continue on here with, only has usb ports and my hd caddy is usb2 and the 2 argue too much for me to risk trying to transfer the data.

If someone decides to look into the skybox idea, feel free to use any the skyboxes in my "fun skies" package found amongst my cast offs project, as the basis for new ones.

Love that auto-gnome BTW

TR
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Tarot Redhand, 12 septembre 2013 - 03:52 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shemsu-Heru]

               Autognome Type A:


Autognome Type B:

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shemsu-Heru]

               Autognome Type C:


I ' would like that autognomes would have their own set of animations. But  that is over my skills. For the moment, they use the same set of animations than regular gnomes, and they can use any weapon that a gnome can, also they could use shields.


Here is a size comparison, with a gnome and a human in the aurora toolset....
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

               Nice work on those autognomes, Shemsu-Heru.  I wouldn't sweat the use of gnome animations...I think it will look great.  I would just reduce their movement speed (or apply a slow effect) in the toolset to make them seem a little more artificial, and that's really easy to do on my end.

Are the autognomes going to keep to a matte texture, or are you planning on adding an alpha layer for some shininess?  They look cool as they are, and I love the personality you show in each, but I personally think they could do with at least a little bit of metallic sheen.

I'm imagining a large group of the ones with the flammable-marked canister marching into battle, hurling fire in front of them (with 12ish uses of burning hands) to simulate an Alchemist's Fire Flame Thrower Equipped Autognome Army.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

               I am starting work today on a spelljammer helm placeable.  It will be a throne-like chair, with silver lines running through it and one or more crystals filled with shifting light embedded in the thing.

In my personal 3rd edition adaptation of Spelljammer (yes, I whipped up my own mechanics conversion that worked very well), I explained the high cost of buying and repairing spelljamming ships as stemming in part from specialized labor needed to embed hundreds of fine silver wires throughout the ship to help the helm spread it's magic to the entire vessel.

If Spelljammer isn't your thing, you can use it for this type of situation:

-----

DM: You enter a space that was once a richly decorated throne room.  Now, however, the trappings of royalty have largely rotted away, and a layer of dust has settled on almost everything in the chamber.

PC1: Is there anything that stands out in here?

DM:  Actually, yes.  The throne remains intact.  Traces of silver are hammered into it's rich wood surface, and embedded into the back of the throne is a large crystal glowing with rippling blue light.  Strangely, there is no dust anywhere on the throne.

PC2: I sit on the throne.  What happens?

DM: (get's an evil grin on his face and rolls a d20 behind the DM screen)

-----

NWN version: Throne room area, useable thrown placeable, when used...PC sits on throne and a random effect may or may not happen (no Reflex saves though..the PC chose to park his posterior right on the thing).
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shemsu-Heru]

               @The Amethyst Dragon:
Well, I think a little shine would be cool with autognomes. But unfortunately I really don't know how to add it. I think that NWN only admit diffuse textures.....
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

               

Shemsu-Heru wrote...

@The Amethyst Dragon:
Well, I think a little shine would be cool with autognomes. But unfortunately I really don't know how to add it. I think that NWN only admit diffuse textures.....

Adding some shine is actually pretty easy, as long as you have decent image editing software (Photoshop, GIMP, etc.).

Open your image in the image editor program.  Add a new color channel to the image, called Alpha.  This layer takes only greyscale information.

The alpha channel controls either transparency or reflectiveness/shininess.  Since you're going for shininess, that's what we'll work on.  In you alpha channel, wherever you want shininess, color that grey (totally black would be pure reflective like chrome).  The darker, the more reflective.  Pure white is totally non-reflective.

Save your image as a 32-bit targa (.tga) image.  32-bit allows for the extra alpha channel.  24-bit doesn't support that...24-bit images are for when you don't need/what shininess or transparency.

In your appearance.2da file, there is a column called ENVMAP.  If the data for your autognome appearance shows ****, anything not solid white in your images alpha channel will be transparent or partially transparent. If that column shows as default (or the name of a specific environmental map image without the file type extension), anything non-white in your alpha channel will instead be reflective.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par The Amethyst Dragon, 13 septembre 2013 - 12:53 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               Shemsu-Heru, this looks soo nice, but I fear it wont feel really mechanic without new animations, hopefully someone proficient, like for example FailedBard hehe, will make them. Would allow plenty new mechanic models such as homam3/4 golems etc.

Or, are we sure there arent such animations maybe in d20modern hak? Never really looked into d20 modern since my attempt to play one campaing ended with crash at character screen so I abadoned that idea.

Oh and btw, that cistern and other object they have on their back would be so cool to have as a wing/tail, what do you think?
And one more thing, but I suppose this is done since you based this on a gnome - be sure their eyes matches in position with gnome so player can use a eye glow visual effect for them perhaps.

as to my own submission for this challenge, i would like to do plenty of stuff but what would I like to see is mostly beyond my abilities :/ but if you guys know about some scripting challenge I could help you with, lmk I can help with that, also can do new feats/spells but not icons.

So far I plan to update my mapmats to tileset conversion so it can be used for space properly. Did TR already done some space object flat placeables?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               @ShaDoOoW, I was (very slowly) working on it, but data on dead laptops hd - see my earlier post. Also see Rolo's post of 5 days ago regarding tilesets.

I do have details of scripts/etc but it is probably easier if you look at Spelljammer.org. Look under the sub-heading of "Heroes of Wildspace" but note that these are additions to the printed material.

TR
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Tarot Redhand, 13 septembre 2013 - 10:48 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shemsu-Heru]

               @The Amethyst Dragon:
Thank you; I'm having some problems with the alpha channel and 32 bits TGAs, in GIMP, which is the program that I use; However I'm working on it...

@ShaDoOoW:
I have designed those "Backpacks" for the Autognomes, and I don't have plans for doing something more with they; Also, I think that, in a medieval fantasy universe they could look too much technological, if they are wearing by anybody who are not a gnomish construct.
However the "Backpacks" are independent objects, just linked to the chest; Also they have their own textures. So if someone wish to make wearable backpacks with them, that wouldn't  be too much hard.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <splattering a little...>

Re tilesets: part of the Spelljammer collaboration with Hellfire, based on Arcane Space v1.5, are the Wildspace and Atmosphere tilesets. Although I've run the all through CM 3.5 and packed then into a separate hak (I'm redesigning the system to use 4 haks; common, creature, placeable & tileset), I'm not currently planning to do more with the tilesets (have my hands full with placeables & creatures).

The Wildspace tileset has two terrains; Wildspace (walkable) and nebula (wall). It has a few features (shooting star is rather neat). The actual feel of the tileset, with 4 layers of stars giving a nice parallax effect, is quite good. Note that Wildspace is the region inside a crystal sphere (if I'm following Tarot's cliff notes correctly), so we have geometry for everything from the surface to the edge of the crystal sphere, but we still need a cool Flow or phlogiston tileset for actual Spelljamming between realms.

Anyway, I've a few screenies I'll put up in a bit, including a preview of a few of Hellfire's unreleased models.

Re gimp: make sure when you export the TGA (not DDS! Bioware's DDS is not standard), that you uncheck compression and have the origin in the bottom right.

<...white on a lotta black>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shemsu-Heru]

               @Rolo Kipp:
I always save TGA without compression. The problem is that Gimp apparently doesn't allow me to save it as 32 bits image, or edit the alpha chanel, But, I can export a tga with transparences in 24 bits....
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Shemsu-Heru, 13 septembre 2013 - 02:14 .