CEP Content Request: Animals (Updated and New)

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

               

Hello, all.

 

Being a NWN institution for many, many years now, some of the content within the CEP is definitely showing its age.  One of the things that could really help would be if some of the "normal" animal models were to get updates.

 

I'm thinking mainly of some of the older hydromancerx and CCP wildlife.  There's "monsters" that could really use some attention as well, but improved animals would go a long way toward helping immersion.

 

Since I do have permission, I'm sampling from the newer critters in Project Q already (moose, a rhino, a camel, an elephant, and a mammoth) and will have to now check out the newest since I just read there's a couple more new animals in there as of this evening.  But there's still a lot of options left for improvement.

 

CEP still doesn't overwrite original BioWare content, but older CEP content can be updated if the community says so (or if I think it really needs it).

 

 

 

 

As far as totally new critters, if anyone wanted to make some cool underwater creatures (octopuses, squid, lobsters, crabs, giant shrimp, fish (just borrow the shark animations!), starfish, jellyfish, whales, dolphins, otters, rays, water snakes, etc.) and put them up on the new Vault, I'm sure they'd be appreciated.  Even better if we also go permission to include them in the CEP. '>

 

Oh, but for want of a well-modeled and -animated giant squid to strike terror in the hearts of adventurers daring the depths of the oceans... And just today my 10 year old son suggested a killer giant starfish covered with black and red spikes that creeps up onto ships at night, finds sleeping PCs, and eats them. '>

 

Or squirrels.  Can't forget the squirrels.  Grey, black, red, zombified. '>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Randomdays]

               

I sent tons of animals over to Draygoth and Killmonger to import, including a dolphin and a squirrel among others, and they're being worked on bit by bit  These are from various sources like Zoo Tycoon 2, Wild Animal Park 2, Civ 4 and Dark Age of Camelot. I would get with them to get a list of what they have and where they're at and what they might need help with to speed things along. These were almost all normal animals with few or none monster types.

 

I'm starting what might be my last group of placeable imports and after that I'm going to try to learn to skinmesh and help out.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Mecheon]

               

Random man, you do not know how badly I want a vulture model in the game. I want a vulture so bad.

 

Lemme know if you need my hyenas a moded, as it probably could make a half decent striped with the right texture

 

Also worth checking out this in regards to sea-snakes

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Randomdays]

               

I'm pretty sure I sent out the vulture seen before out to them, possibly a second version as well. Striped hyenas are out there as well.

 

Below is a pic of a bunch of creatures I imported and rigged for animation for the game "Freedom Force" back at Christmas time. FF uses a skeletal mesh system with nif files, and kf files for animation. I've gotten pretty good at animating for that system at least.

 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_The Amethyst Dragon]

               

Hopefully we can get some more of these as original content or from royalty-free download sites.  Don't want to bring in more content pulled directly from others' intellectual property.  There's that (clearly from WoW) treant model already that makes at least one builder refuse to use CEP (not removing it from the haks themselves, but it's 2da line will be "nameless" starting in 2.60 for default CEP installs).

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Randomdays]

               

Understood if you want to go that way, though I've seen a lot of content on the royalty free sites that is actually pulled from other games.

 

 Such animals also might be hard to find with the right polycount and style for NWN.

 

As for original content, that would be best but hard to find on the web and getting harder here as membership shrinks. Luckily there are a few creators left.

 

Since all I have any skill at is importing, I'll keep going that route and let other members use them or not as they see fit.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_KlatchainCoffee]

               

I totally get TAD's hesitation to import directly from other games, but maybe there is a 'workaround'.

 

If I find the time to teach myself how (my modelling/gmax skill level is at 0.1% right now) I could try to specialize in 'tweaking' such models beyond recognisable - namely, re-manipulating some of the model's points and giving them a totally new (and maybe improved?) skin - slightly different in tone and texture.

 

 

*admits to self that all this sounds rather far-fetched, considering the failure so far to bake even a simple cookie into the game from Nwnmax*

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

I totally get TAD's hesitation to import directly from other games, but maybe there is a 'workaround'.

 

If I find the time to teach myself how (my modelling/gmax skill level is at 0.1% right now) I could try to specialize in 'tweaking' such models beyond recognisable - namely, re-manipulating some of the model's points and giving them a totally new (and maybe improved?) skin - slightly different in tone and texture.

 

This is definitely my suggestion. Why reinvent the wheel when you can simply take its shape and improve upon it. Make it more detailed, rather than less detailed, and you have no problem at all using somebody's content. I gotta suggest the same for the treant. I do have an alternate treant I started making two years ago that would probably be a great fit to instantly replace the old CEP one, but it does not have any custom animations.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               

<petting his vulture...>

 

Random man, you do not know how badly I want a vulture model in the game. I want a vulture so bad.

...

You *did* see the vulture in the ArcaneSpace.hak, right? ;-)

(I did *not* include it in our Spelljammer project, but I did think it was pretty cool :-).

 

<...-loving raven>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pearls]

               

I don't know if this counts but Rubies did some more skinmesh versions of the original NWN animals that I can pack up and send to Rolo, IIRC it was the badger+wolf+bear.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_rjshae]

               

If I find the time to teach myself how (my modelling/gmax skill level is at 0.1% right now) I could try to specialize in 'tweaking' such models beyond recognisable - namely, re-manipulating some of the model's points and giving them a totally new (and maybe improved?) skin - slightly different in tone and texture.

 

I'd be very careful about that; the U.S. copyright law covers derivative works, and the copyright owners have the right to sue if you don't have permission.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_KlatchainCoffee]

               

I'd be very careful about that; the U.S. copyright law covers derivative works, and the copyright owners have the right to sue if you don't have permission.

 

I see. Although  If you take an apple and 'derive' a pear or a banana from it - who the heck will be able to tell? '>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               

<badgering the heck...>

 

I don't know if this counts but Rubies did some more skinmesh versions of the original NWN animals that I can pack up and send to Rolo, IIRC it was the badger+wolf+bear.

We do have the badger in the CCC: Animals... it was the last contribution I remember from her :-(

I'd love the others. 

And anything else we've missed in our Rubies archive :-(

 

<...out of pearls>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Randomdays]

               

I try to be clear in the haks and readme's that all work is imported from other games, what those games are, and that my only contribution is porting them in. I've seen where people have imported and tried to take credit for the work as their own and find that in very poor taste. 

 

For the original copyright owners angle, if I was contacted by anyone I would stop right away and remove any content requested from online. It would still be in my personal projects but I would no longer be able to share. Sad, but that's the way it would be and hopefully that would be the end of it.

 

I think the odds of this happening are very small though. NWN is a very old game now and not getting a lot of attention. EE2 and EE3 were made by Sierra and they are no longer in business. Zoo Tycoon 2, Wildlife Park 2, and most of the other games I'm working with are also fairly old and are no longer active, some with sequels out. There's only a couple I'm a bit nervouse about.

 

I think that as long as everything is upfront on source and any users that want them know where they're coming from, plus there was no money involved (which was a big problem years ago for some Sims skins), there should be little or no issues. If there is, I'd deal with it as stated above.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Killmonger]

               

'>

 

If the original authors' of these old assets are acknowledged and accredited and there are no commercial gains being gathered there should be no problems. The original artists' works can come alive again and are appreciated by an audience like they were meant to be.

 

That said, the original works of ongoing games, like WoW, should be avoided. Because "they" currently reap reasonable commercial gains from the assets.

However, the "cross platform use of alternate assets" could be construed as progressive brand advertising. Introducing users to new media.

They really should thank us.....

 

Derivative works should also acknowledge their sources but consent to allow for free public use, expecting no profit.