PHoD Things

[Legacy_Grymlorde]

               

 

Beautiful work as always. Any plans to create a sari or two (or three. . .)?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

I think it was Page 4 of this thread where I first mentioned my attempts to make saris.

You will gather by the fact that I haven't got any proper saris yet that my attempts thus far have been... disappointing.

 

(Fifi wishes it to be known that when then Shabby Hyena Loony says "disappointing", what he actually means is "miserably pathetic").

 

Thank you, darling; as unflinchingly supportive as ever... That's the last time I let you touch this keyboard whilst I'm posting rubbish whassname things...

ANYWAY, despite the fact that I have made more or less no satisfactory progress thus far with the saris, this dismal mushulizing has not squashed my dribblingly insane inability to deal with reality and I'm still not only attempting saris but also lehenga-choli as well. And poking vaguely at the idea of doing anarkali and churidaar type dresses as well IF the saris work out... And for the men, I'm trying to do a decent sherwani, which is hardly the world's most complicated garment, but... Well, I'm no expert when it comes to Robes. Hate robes! Hate their reeking skinmesh that sticks itself to itself if you let it and their utter inability to adhere to the underlying animation parts for more then ten seconds, rrrrrrgghh, foam, froth, gnaw the furniture, fall over with improbable velocity, stick all four paws in the air!

 

(It's the cane baskets that have done this to him, you know. He used to be quite norm... actually, it's probably nothing to do with the baskets).

 

Hm... Anyway, I'm still working on Indian attire - badly - but, he said apropos of absolutely nothing at all, if anyone else who was really good with Robe models wanted to do some, I wouldn't be objecting... The trouble with the sari is that half the darn thing is a sort of immense, veily, python-shaped curtain in freefloat over your arm and occasionally on your head having been wrapped around your body in assorted impenetrably complicated ways.

I spent some little time with my friend Vineeta (who's being my token India advisor), asking her to help me fathom how you'd create a NWN sari and she waved all sorts of bits of silk at me and tried to explain the mystical inner workings of the sari but the fog of confusion just grew thicker as figuring out how it all works just made it seem even more complicated despite Vineeta's ceaseless assertion of how simple it all is - so eerily simple she managed to end up tying herself to me inextricably and we fell over... and Fifi just dismissed the entire debased exercise as my fifteenth most imaginative excuse yet for trying to get a beautiful woman out of her clothes...

 

But you don't need to know all the fascinating and probably illegal behind-the-scenes manufacturing processes of the Maldrapur CC and so to completely change the subject - there'll also be more new statues. Here we start with the nice, easy, simple ones.

Basic Devi/Deva Statues, both available in a dark stone version for sticking in jungles and murky places and a pale stone version for nice clean cities like Rajatnur and temple courtyards and so forth.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Mecheon]

               

I'd almost say for a sari you might want some sort of combination of robe and cloak might work. Somehow.

 

Of course I'm the type of person who has that exact same problem with skinmesh, except my attempts resulted in failed multi-headed linnorms who's other heads loosely flomped to the side and didn't animate. So slightly different situations there.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

Just noticed this should've been in that other post...

Pale and dark stone versions of those ubiquitous Tantric Statues that get everywhere in Maldrapur... I've done "normal" ones, little tabletop ones and so now, through the not at all miraculous miracle of making them go all big, there are now Meganormous Versions. (No, they're not that big, but Meganormity is relative, you know...)

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

These were also floating about loose...

Some more additions to the set of Black Lacquered Furniture as piled copiously into the first Maldrapur Chronicles Heap of Lumps. With bits on.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

There's something lurking in the jungles of Maldrapur... It's big, it's grey and it has tusks, stupidly flappy ears and a trunk...

It's an elephant.

No... No, that's not a reeking elephant... Elephants don't bite people in half.

The Makara - a terrifying Aquatic Hybrid Monster of Hindu Mythology... Part Crocodile, Part Elephant and Part Fish...

Only, because I'm currently still bioengineering all my Dinosaurs in gmax (see Page 9), my Makara sort of accidentally mutated and became Part Tyrannosaurus Rex, Part Elephant, Part Fish.

But, you know, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Indian Marsh Crocodile, what's the difference really? Theropod or Eusuchian, they're all Archosaurs...

Besides, ancient Indian depictions of the Makara vary considerably, ranging from creatures that look much like a Gharial to bizarre reptilian elephants with fins. Mine is evidently just another different subspecies... Makara Rex.

All you really need to know about the M-Rex is that it's big, freakishly strong, maniacally aggressive, will attack on land or in water, can run faster than you think, has extremely acute visual, aural and olfactory senses and is an OBVIOUS SPLEEN!

As I think I mentioned in the Timingila post on the previous page, when the Timingila rises from the ocean depths, the Makara scatter ahead of it and enter Maldrapur's river systems, causing no end of mayhem and carnage. Which would be bad enough without the even bigger problem of the Timingila itself heading for shore... This particular story, as you will gather, is the Maldrapur Chronicles' Hommage a' Gojira with all the rampaging chaos you'd expect.

The Makara's daft trunk, indecently flappy ears and fins are all danglymesh which give it a somewhat odd, fluid sort of motion that possibly helps it seem more aquatic or, if not, makes it weirder. Not that it isn't filthily weird anyway. I'm reasonably confident from the play tests though, worried as I initially was, that the farcical proboscis and flappy ears don't detract from the supposed, alleged, so-called horror of the M-Rex. When it comes charging at you in-game, it's quite terrifying enough that you don't just stand there and mock its ludicrous nasal appendage. Not if you want to live.

And, since heaving about in the jungle is not necessarily the surest route to clear depictions, we went out early one misty morning and surprised a Makara ambling through the estuary in plain view, just so's you can see it properly. Note the huge slashing claws of the forelimbs as opposed to the berkish, stumpering, elephantomatic, useless, pseudofeet of the rear limbs. All for additional weirdness. Fear Makara Rex for it is, as has been observed, an OBVIOUS SPLEEN... and they hunt in packs.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grymlorde]

               

I spent some little time with my friend Vineeta (who's being my token India advisor), asking her to help me fathom how you'd create a NWN sari and she waved all sorts of bits of silk at me and tried to explain the mystical inner workings of the sari but the fog of confusion just grew thicker as figuring out how it all works just made it seem even more complicated despite Vineeta's ceaseless assertion of how simple it all is - so eerily simple she managed to end up tying herself to me inextricably and we fell over... and Fifi just dismissed the entire debased exercise as my fifteenth most imaginative excuse yet for trying to get a beautiful woman out of her clothes...

 

But you don't need to know all the fascinating and probably illegal behind-the-scenes manufacturing processes of the Maldrapur CC […]

 

Sounds oddly similar to my honeymoon with my Indian wife.   I think that the sari is a beautiful garment, but then again I'm biased.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

Nothing whatever wrong with bias so long as it's going the right way...

 

I suppose I ought to point out that Vineeta and I have been intimately acquainted since college and I'm not just pouncing upon any passing woman in a sari... Vineeta, Natasha (or Fifi as she insists upon calling herself here) and I have spent more years together than we care to admit, prowling about the planet in order to be vexingly strange and get chased by fierce animals - so doing abstruse and incompetent things with clothing is nothing new or unusual... And since Vineeta's as mad as Fifi and I, it's actually her long-suffering parents who keep getting screenshots and debased descriptions of stories foisted upon them in order to have them determine how authentically Indian/Hindu my NWN efforts are... or aren't.

 

We obviously don't distress them too much since they actually let Vineeta bring "Fifi" and I over to their home last month for the festival of Diwali which is where I commenced measuring all their colourful lanterns in order to make NWN versions (see last page). And also the equally necessary Diya - small, votive oil lamps used at Diwali.

The Placeable Diyas are as diya-shaped as they can be and retain a low enough polycount that you can have millions of them without bringing the game to a halt. Because that's the whole point of Diwali; you can't have a "Festival of Lights" with ten lights. No, you needs PILES of 'em!

The above star-shaped display dais is based on the one Vineeta's parents had in their big room... the one near which guests kept tripping over the Shabby Hyena Weirdo crawling about on the floor measuring the dais for NWN use and disturbing everyone with his eerie resemblance to a stalking tiger... Well, that was the description I preferred; there were others that made reference to drunken stick insects, but...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

Following the M-Rex above, to the surprise of absolutely nobody at all... Another Spleen!

Like the ferocious Makara, Kabandha will do everything in its power to eat you into tiny pieces.

Unlike the Makara, however, it is not just a terrifying predatory beast.

Its tale appears in both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, the name Kabandha literally meaning headless torso...

Once a happy, harmless little Gandharva (celestial bard), Kabandha incurred the wrath of Indra and was thus cursed to be transformed into a huge, lumpy, mindless, carnivorous blob monster (or Spleen, as we scientists call them). Disgustingly, its head having vanished somewhere during the cursing process, Kabandha's entire body split open to become a vast mouth into which he stuffed anyone he could catch as he rampaged madly about, Spleen fashion, very much in the manner of a Spleen.

As well as elongate arms to catch people with, an eye also appeared on its nastily lumpy torso, for the purposes of seeing people so's it could lumber over and devour them without so much as sprinkling pepper on them first; or even asking if they minded being devoured. No manners, these Spleens. (Some depictions give it two eyes, but I stuck with one, which is what it should have).

I also made it somewhat more disgustingly gross than most of the traditional Hindu pictures and made the filthy great gob take up even more of the body area... I mean, its appearance didn't really allow for the presence of the copious stomach area it would need to house all the semi-liquescent people it's eaten anyway, so what the hell? It's a freak, cursed Spleen monster, so who can say what bizarre digestive abilities it has?

In the Ramayana, it is, naturally, Rama and his brother who battle the Kabandha - but for my purposes, when the ArchEvilist Jhurgha (remember him from Page 3?) resurrects and unleashes the cursed Kabandha upon Maldrapur, it's Kali who has to deal with the ravening middenheap... The old "see if the Spleen explodes if you feed it the raw power of Deva'Loka" ploy...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

In the jungle just outside Maldrapur's capital city of Rajatnur, there stands the Royal Lodge.

Up until now, this fine building has been depicted in my NWN Modules as something akin to a colossal cardboard box. This is not really acceptable for the private retreat of the Maharani (Maha great - Rani ruling queen) (female equivalent of Maharajah - of whom there was one but he got splattered by Spleen Beasts way back in Demoness Tales 37 - Rakshasa's Gate, so his daughter rules now).

I crushed the old, shoddy box version to a paste with a big brick and then reinflated it with the handy pump provided into a new and better form.

Now it actually looks somewhat like the drawings in my huge folder of designs for the Maldrapur Chronicles and lacks any true resemblance to a cardboard box... A closer view confirms the suspicion that I've been messing around with Enterable Building Placeables again.

Lurking at the threshold (not that I'm suggesting a Supreme Goddess "lurks" as such), it is immediately obvious that the door is not so much a door as an arch with the wilds on one side and the nice clean floor and carpets of the lodge on the other? Should a Royal Lodge not have slightly better security against thieving villains?

Having the Lodge interior open to the jungle is the security, however, allowing wild animals to enter freely. Maharani Apsarvati has a natural bond with animals (the ones that aren't gargantuan rampaging Spleen Monsters) and thus is in no danger from them and, what's more, they don't even sharpen their claws on her expensive furniture. Furthermore, they instantly fall upon any intruder who isn't known to them. (Clever sods, most of Maldrapur's animals).

The Interior of the Lodge is... well, you can see what it is, that's why I'm posting all these incessant damned images. It's a big empty square space with walls round it. Into this space you can pile all that Maldrapuri furniture I keep making... Well, not ALL of it, 'cause the whole lodge would be clogged up something chronic and then you couldn't get in 'cause it'd be all full of cabinets and chairs and shelves and beds and things, just stacked.

Note the large decorative Peacock Pot... Full selection of large decorative Indian Pots will be available. Image soon. You'll also by now have noticed that there are new carpets too...

Note also the complete absence of cane baskets. I'm all over that now. Mostly.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

One thing I frequently find useful in my Modules are nice big arches set into barrier walls for putting across roads through canyons and at approaches to towns, that kind of thing. So I've added some to Maldrapur's growing heap of architecture.

The first wall arch has the dharma chakra over it and so I'll probably use it near temples, the other is of plainer, less decorative stone and... well, they're all just made of squashed trimesh that's been hit with a big brick really, but...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

Just recently contrived an entirely new way of importing and organizing stuff in Custom Palettes in the Toolset and so don't have to be quite so wary of cramming billions of Placeables in and thus clogging things up. So I've allowed myself to add a few more Maldrapuri tapestry/painting/whassname things (for nailing to walls) to the already available selection I did before...

Just a largely random assortment of things that happen to be relevant/required in some of the new Maldrapur Chronicles stories... Aside from a couple of yantra things for temple interiors, the lady with the sitar is Saraswati, goddess of learning, music, arts and knowledge, who is supposed to turn up in two of the Modules, just as soon as I get this Indian clothing sorted out (some small progress there). The blue lady with the blades and the anger management issues is - well, you know who she is by this point... The lady with the Crocodile (properly a Makara) is the goddess Ganga, so we'll assume that river is the Ganges...

I couldn't leave Lakshmi out, what with all the Diwali whatsits and, since this selection was getting more or less entirely female dominated, I threw Lord Shiva in just to vaguely even things out slightly... Oh, and there's lots of elephants too. (Whopping elephant statues still to come - I mean, how many places can you go in India and NOT see elephant depictions of some sort?).

More Architecture, Spleen Monsters, Furniture and Stuff to come also...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PLUSH HYENA of DOOM]

               

One of the best known tales of Kali is the battle against the Blood Demon, Raktabija...

Raktabija was an Obvious Spleen...

One of the most powerful of the Asuras, his name literally means Blood Seed and any drop of his blood that was shed upon the ground would arise into an entirely new duplicate; some texts suggest that these "blood clones" had a thousand times the power of the original. Naturally, this low, vile, underhanded, contemptible, cheating activity gave him a certain advantage in battle...

Leading a vast, demonic army - which is easy to do when every drop of your blood near instantly grows into another vile Asura - Raktabija obliterated all before him. The gods attempted to stop him but were driven back before his filthy, despicable self-cloning activities, overwhelmed by his nasty, smug "every time you stab me, there's another hundred of me" presence.

Then Kali appeared. Being the Supreme Goddess and just generally tougher than everyone else, Kali single-handedly (if someone with multiple arms can be said to do anything single-handedly) did battle with the entire demon army and completely mushed them all (this is the short version, you understand). Facing Raktabija himself, with a fury beyond measure, Kali cut the Evilist's head off and drank all his blood to the last drop, thus ensuring it couldn't fall anywhere and become more dirty enemies.

Crazed in her battle fury and bloodlust, Kali's victory dance threatened to destroy the world and Lord Shiva was sent to stop her - only she trampled him into the dust too. But when she noticed, she immediately became chastened and calmed down, thus sparing the world the earthquakes her power was causing. And no doubt she picked Shiva up, dusted him off and smiled an apologetic sort of smile...

Anyway, that was the end of Raktabija... But for the purposes of Maldrapur Chronicles, I'm assuming one or two filthy blood clones managed to flee the battlefield unseen and have been lurking, waiting to attack Kali once again... which suggests they're not very bright.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_3RavensMore]

               

and smiled an apologetic sort of smile...

 

Yep, I can see that. 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_werelynx]

               

That Raktabija fellow would require scripting and quite a powerful machine to render almost infinite army of spleens