Witching NWN1 - A Witcher area conversion project for NWN1

[Legacy_TheOneBlackRider]

               

I sized all other meshes to have the size/hight of the custom mesh. So testing...

OK, removed all the faces of the NWN1 dummy door, except those on the bottom floor (which are facing downwards), but I still get the same high frame / glow.

To be aon the safe side, I changed the "Name-ID-Ref" to the tlk file to "Wood_strong" = 63750, but that wasn't the cause either. When I assign a standard appearance to that door, the green frame has the size of the door mesh, when it hits the custom appearance, I get the "tall" frame again.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_TheOneBlackRider]

               

Found it! Though Zwerkules' proposal was not the cause of the flaw, but it pointed me into the right direction. Thanks!

 

So, it was the pivot of the SAM! It was way above the SAM-mesh and that seems to define the hight as long as the pivot is higher than the SAM-mesh itself. With this finding, I checked other doors-SAMs: Some have the pivot exactly at the top, some centered, some at the bottom center, some at the botom all the way to the one or other side.

It seems, as long as this pivot is on the outer rim or within the SAM-mesh, the green toolset selection frame / IG-glow will use the size of the SAM.

 

And it seems, TCN_UDoor_02 seemed to have been a bad pick for a start to use it as a reference: If you import that one, the DWK is way out of place - not matching the position of the door mesh at all plus way below z=0. And the SAM-pivot is, as mentioned, far above the SAM-mesh. I wonder, how that model is working correctly at all. I have to admit though, that I simply picked the version from the original NWN1 data. Maybe this was adjusted somewhere within SoU / HotU / 1.69 patch.

 

Well, riddle solved.

 

So I'm slowly nearing to get the tavern area into a working shape. Still quiet a few adjustments to do, but this group taught me much and thus for other models, like the more simple houses, the porting should be done more quickly.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               

For what it's worth, for what's left of this weekend you can buy The Witcher Enhanced Edition from GOG for £0.99.

 

TR

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Frush O'Suggill]

               

This project looks great - thanks for all the hard work, TheOne. And I've already merged Zwerk's placeable conversions into my module and they are very nice. I rescaled a few of them to be slightly bigger, but that's just personal taste... Adding the damage/death and lighting animations was a great touch, and is very much appreciated.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_TheOneBlackRider]

               

I managed to find some time to push this project.

 

The tavern area is more or less finished. It's still missing the gates and I have to think of a way to handle the windows (this is something, which applies for all house models): They have a nice glass texture with a pretty high transparency. "Problem" is, that, if you look through them into the building, you look right through them into the landscape beyond, because there are mostly no walls inside (you can see it in the first "door" screen: The blue sky shows behind the upper window). I test wise created a little "room box" to be positioned behind the windows, but the original witcher game handles this in a different way. It looks like there is something (blurry) behind the window, which moves with the player:

(Screen from the Witcher Toolset - same would be IG.)

 

I have no idea, how this was accomplished. There is no (untextured) mesh behind the window mesh and I wasn't able to locate a texture, which looks like the one in the screens.

 

Else I created something to mock the ground texture mixture from the witcher. It still doesn't look the same, but it's a workable compromise (IMO). Some parts did get simple shadow meshes and cast working shadows. There are still some small issues with the walkway parts, but if the shadows aren't turned up to high, they are barely noticeable.

The wagons don't cast shadows ATM. Plan was to maybe remove them (in a later release) and make them available as placeables.

 

 

 

 

 

The doors of the tavern building are working.

 

 

 

This house is from the original mesh, not the placeable.

 

 

From here, my plan is to port the other buildings and make the first release around December. It may not hold all of those Wyzima  outskirts buildings, but at least a usable number. 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               

Looking good so far. With the windows - why not put a simple plane behind them with a picture of a darkened room or curtains on it?

 

TR

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Zwerkules]

               

I managed to find some time to push this project.

 

The tavern area is more or less finished. It's still missing the gates and I have to think of a way to handle the windows (this is something, which applies for all house models): They have a nice glass texture with a pretty high transparency. "Problem" is, that, if you look through them into the building, you look right through them into the landscape beyond, because there are mostly no walls inside (you can see it in the first "door" screen: The blue sky shows behind the upper window). I test wise created a little "room box" to be positioned behind the windows, but the original witcher game handles this in a different way. It looks like there is something (blurry) behind the window, which moves with the player:

For placeables set the "Reflection" column in the placeables.2da to "default" and you'll get pseudo-reflections instead of transparency. For tiles add a .txi for the texture which specifies which texture to use for reflections. You can add such a .txi for placeables, too. That way they'll have a reflection no matter if they are static or not.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_TheOneBlackRider]

               

For placeables set the "Reflection" column in the placeables.2da to "default" and you'll get pseudo-reflections instead of transparency. For tiles add a .txi for the texture which specifies which texture to use for reflections. You can add such a .txi for placeables, too. That way they'll have a reflection no matter if they are static or not.

Now that sounds intresting! Having this info, I was searching for txi within the witcher folders and stumbeled upon "cube_..." textures - one of them might actually be the one of the window screen in post #35 (cube_interslv.dds). But then, there is no cube mesh behind those windows...

 

And the txi, which came with the dds (eg. cube_interslv.dds) says "cube 1" only and I couldn't find a texture called like this. I have no experience with txi, but I guess, that "cube" is not a texture call, but a txi function or something.

 

I checked other witcher-txi and found this:

envmaptexture fx_nieboZaok

alphamean 0.1

 

Besides the fact, that I couln't locate a "fx_nieboZaok" file, but none the less, would "envmaptexture" be the call needed in the txi? Is "alphamean" needed?

 

@TR: Of course, you suggestion is also an option, which I will try, if this txi thing doesn't work out.

 

Thanks to both of you!

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Zwerkules]

               

I checked other witcher-txi and found this:

envmaptexture fx_nieboZaok

alphamean 0.1

 

Envmaptexture specifies the texture used for reflections, but unlike in The Witcher those are not cube maps. You have to use those of another tileset (for example ttr01__ref01) or make your own.

Alphamean 0.1 makes the texture almost completely transparent and that transparency is used for the reflections. An alphamean this low might work for a mirror, but means far too much reflection for a window. If the window texture already is a little transparent don't use alphamean at all.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_TheOneBlackRider]

               

Envmaptexture specifies the texture used for reflections, but unlike in The Witcher those are not cube maps. You have to use those of another tileset (for example ttr01__ref01) or make your own.

Alphamean 0.1 makes the texture almost completely transparent and that transparency is used for the reflections. An alphamean this low might work for a mirror, but means far too much reflection for a window. If the window texture already is a little transparent don't use alphamean at all.

 

That is working nicely! "ttr01__ref01" is doing a good job here (with no alphamean). And it saved me some time, because I don't have to add interior backgrounds behind those windows!

You made my day! Thanks again!

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Fester Pot]

               

The windows on all of the buildings will glow a soft warm light at night, yes? With today's tileset technology and knowledge, it's a given. They must glow.


FP!

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jedijax]

               

This game needs more Witcher stuff. Is Dragon Age Origins material harder to port? Pardon the question and request, but I know nothing of these things.

Close

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_TheOneBlackRider]

               

The windows on all of the buildings will glow a soft warm light at night, yes? With today's tileset technology and knowledge, it's a given. They must glow.


FP!

 

Not ATM, but it's on my ToDo list. Plan is to first get some more models ported and giving the window light a try after I have some.

 

 

This game needs more Witcher stuff. Is Dragon Age Origins material harder to port? Pardon the question and request, but I know nothing of these things.

Close

 

 

 

As long as you get those models into a program like Gmax or Blender, it is possible (in theory). Question is, if the engine can handle a higher poly count or when does it start to slow...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_TheOneBlackRider]

               

Since I didn't manage to reach my goal to release something usable in December, I thought it's time for a life sign.

 

So meanwhile, after countless morning coffees, I have converted all rural houses (3 plus the tavern), 2 of 3 outskirts stone houses and the outskirts church.

 

I started to work in textures for cobble roads. The original texture didn't work with the tiling method of the existing models, so I had to hand edit it, so it so tile-able not only top-bottom / right-left, but also when rotated. In general, this mixed terrain appearance they were able to create in TW1 is a challenge to mock. The set NWN square tile structure is a bit of a hindrance here.

 

Since the roads use the middle of a tile and houses would be on the next tile, there was always a grass gap. So I'm experimenting with a feature addition, which adds cobble to one or two sides of the road to get cobble close to placed house groups. It's still not a perfect visual connection, but it seems to be working. Well, when released and in use, you'd probably need to decorate the area with placeables to make transitions from one tile to the next look a bit more smooth, eg. with those placeables converted by Tchos/Zwerkules:

http://neverwinterva...-game-witcher-1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, what is my aim for the first release or what is still to be done before it's released?

- Convert the last rural stone building (I think, I'll leave out the river side buildings)

- Finalise the road models (I left off some where in the middle of my road work...)

- Add some more (quickly to do) features (sheds, birdhouse, wells...)

- Convert the doors for the outskirts stone buildings

- Adding the needed doors into the doortypes.2da

 

 

I do have a question regarding the doortypes.2da:

Based on the version by Zwerkules, the entries go all the way to 1465, so it would make sense to add these Witcher doors there after. My question is: Do I have to actually use an existing doortypes.2da, which has all the entries eg. up to 1456 or could I just take the HOTU version, leave out all entries up to 1456 and just add them there? (I did not take the time to test it and I thought, I ask here first to save some time. ) Or should I use those Reserved/User entries 116-164?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Zwerkules]

               

I do have a question regarding the doortypes.2da:
Based on the version by Zwerkules, the entries go all the way to 1465, so it would make sense to add these Witcher doors there after. My question is: Do I have to actually use an existing doortypes.2da, which has all the entries eg. up to 1456 or could I just take the HOTU version, leave out all entries up to 1456 and just add them there? (I did not take the time to test it and I thought, I ask here first to save some time. ) Or should I use those Reserved/User entries 116-164?

If nobody else used those you won't have a problem with those "User" lines. I'm not sure who reserved those that only say "Reserved", so I wouldn't use those or you'll get incompatibilities with older tilesets.
There are also whole ranges of "reserved by" lines that I'm pretty sure are save to use, like those reserved by Sixes Thrice (except 1165 to 1170), because he never used any tileset specific doors or those by Dragonessa because it's unlikely she'll return and use them.
Note that those lines reserved by Tom Banjo, Maxam, CTP, Michael Darkangel, S030363L, Lord of Worms and Lord Rosenkrantz are used by CTP tileses or by tilesets made by these authors.
Since Chandigar's and JDA's names don't appear in the file they may have used some of the lines that just said "Reserved" or "Padding".
I also don't know which lines Sen used, I found lines 1351 to 1355 used by his underdark tileset, but I don't know if his terria tileset uses more doors.

Edit: 116-122 are used by the Hills and Homes tileset expansion, also by MGS Egypt which has an empty line between 115 and 116 which is very bad.
Line 181 is used by Baba Yaga's spider caves tileset.
319-321 are used by CODI.
Also Tom Banjo uses the "PADDING" lines despite having reserved lines 1251 to 1350. Maybe those lines are completely unused.