Merricksdad's Questgiver VFX

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

I'm trying to finish up a small VFX project which is mostly comprised of overhead VFX for NPCs. These give the PC an indication of what an NPC does, mostly so they can easily interact with known figures in town, especially by locating them at medium distance much easier.


Another aspect of this package is floor-based icons for certain spells. This is far less important that I get any feedback on, as most of these are for my 4E mod, and I'm just trying to get them out to the public.

 

The third aspect of this kit is a collection of default icons for on-floor loot. The intention of these icons is to make it easier to loot bodies, or to see immediately what a creature has/had, and to be able to either click-to-collect or touch-to-collect. Many current games drop a generic spinning item so that you can see what you are looking at. It also hovers above ground, which makes it very easy to see and collect, especially on tilesets which are generally not flat everywhere (like mine).

 

Quest Giver Icons:

 

So far, I have the following icons:

• Storyline Quest Offer - Yellow jumping exclamation point


• Storyline Quest End - Yellow spinning question mark


• Side Quest Offer - Same only blue


• Side Quest End - Same only blue


• Special Quest Offer/End - Same only green


• Goods Merchant - Jumping baggie


• Skill Merchant - Crossed swords


• Potion Merchant - Spinning vial


• Spell Merchant and Arcane Spells for Hire - Spinning book


• Banker 2 - Spinning gold padlock


• Blacksmith - Banging hammer


• Blacksmith 2 - Spinning helmet and sword


• Tailor/Magical Clothes Sales - Scissors and thread


• PC to PC mail - Jumping sealed envelope


• Banker - Blue Chest


• Enchanter - Spinning flashy weapon


• Enchanter 2 - Weapon with a rune behind it


• Gem Enchanter - Spinning Red Gem


• Unidentified Item Sales - Golden Clover Charm


• Divine Healer - Blue Plus Symbol with gold sparkles


• Timed Buff Dealer - Spinning Scroll


• Marked Status - Fancy arrow pointing down


• Teleport/Gatekeeper - Compass


• Tech Workbench - Gears and a hammer


• Alchemy Workbench - Potion and a scroll


• More...

Generic Loot Icons:

• Sword (used for all blades)


• Axe (used for all axes)


• Mace (used for maces and flails)


• Spear (used for all polearms)


• Bow (used for all bows)


• Crossbow


• Arrows (used for arrows and bolts)


• Wand (Rod staff wand and the like)


• Shield (all shields)


• Armor (all martial style armors)


• Robe (cloaks robes and capes)


• Gold Coin Stack (when you walk near these you can auto-collect them)


• Potion


• Collection Quest Counter (glowing chest icon)


• Spellbook (for offhand item)


• Scroll


• Orb (for offhand item)


• Rune (special effect consumable)


• Helmet


• Boots


• Gauntlet (for all glove-like items)


• Event Quest Counter (a golden goblet, or a stone statuette)


• Gems (represents upgrade materials)


• Arcane Component Box (same for all component types)


• Pendant (all necklace items)


• Ring


• Lore Counter Book (represents learning about creature weaknesses)


• Portal Gem (blue hexagonal gem opens town-portals)


• Healing Kit (medical box)


• More...

I also have a few ground icons specific to the stuff I was making for my Selvetarm's Adventures module & Dark's Gate. These include some RTS type boons:

• Attack/Damage Bonus (Blood red gauntlet)


• XP Bonus (Drop of silver-blue water)


• Gold-find Bonus (Green Horseshoe Potion)


• Key of Opening (Golden key, forces any chest open in certain areas)


• Haste Blessing (White winged shoe)


• AC Boost/Damage Resistance (White shield)


• Instant Health Replenish (Turkey leg)


• Fire Buff (Flame)


• Ice Buff (Snowflake)


• Poison Buff (Green bottle)


• Lightning Buff (Lightning bolt)


• Radiant Buff (Silver Pendant)


• Necrotic Buff (Black Skull)


• More...

 

Are there quest giver icons, or ground icons, that you would like to see? Remember, I'm trying to keep it very generic.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grymlorde]

               

This is a bit different from what you're asking but it gave me the following idea:

 

What if buffed up creatures (henchman, monsters, etc.) had an in-game VFX similar to Diablo II showing that 1) they were buffed and 2) what kind of buff (spell school or spell-specific) they had?

 

Back when I used to play D2 LoD Hardcore Ladder, it was frightening to see a Lightning Enchanted Boss (LEB) with a conviction aura!

 

Does that strike your fancy?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

This is a bit different from what you're asking but it gave me the following idea:

 

What if buffed up creatures (henchman, monsters, etc.) had an in-game VFX similar to Diablo II showing that 1) they were buffed and 2) what kind of buff (spell school or spell-specific) they had?

 

Back when I used to play D2 LoD Hardcore Ladder, it was frightening to see a Lightning Enchanted Boss (LEB) with a conviction aura!

 

Does that strike your fancy?

oh yea, an aura style visuals would be soo nice

 

also what about charge visuals like d2 assassin? always wanted to code something like that in nwn but there were no appropriate effects

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Excellent ideas. I already have a few icon-code buff floaters, but if you would like more, they can easily be part of this.

 

One question though, the townie floaters are not head-based, so if the character moves without changing x-y coordinates, the icon stays above their position. Do you prefer head-based icons for buff/debuff effects? I think my last set was rootdummy, or wherever the non-head non-base one goes.


I could do the following again, but better:

• Physical strength bonus (attack or damage bonus, or strength increase)


• Physical speed bonus (dex bonus, num attacks, or move speed)


• Armor/damage reduction bonus


• Element enchanted


• Vampiric healing/Level drain


• Champion level bonus (same icon but with different colors to represent difficulty bonus)


• Blink/Teleport enchanted


• Special Sense (blindsight, tremorsense, cloak of eyes)


• Explode on death


• Element resistance


• Damage reflection

I also have miniature status icons which go over the head and fit into a pattern so as to not overlap. These are graphics that always point to the camera and always follow the head. They include all the 4E statuses you would ever care to see on a friendly PC, or detrimental ones you would normally look for on enemies. I'd rather upgrade the graphics for those before I release them. They're an alternative to magical sparkles which can miscommunicate what is actually happening to a player. Nothing says you can't still use sparkles, this grid of condition icons just breaks the ambiguation.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Beccarte]

               

I'm trying to finish up a small VFX project which is mostly comprised of overhead VFX for NPCs. These give the PC an indication of what an NPC does, mostly so they can easily interact with known figures in town, especially by locating them at medium distance much easier.


Another aspect of this package is floor-based icons for certain spells. This is far less important that I get any feedback on, as most of these are for my 4E mod, and I'm just trying to get them out to the public.

 

The third aspect of this kit is a collection of default icons for on-floor loot. The intention of these icons is to make it easier to loot bodies, or to see immediately what a creature has/had, and to be able to either click-to-collect or touch-to-collect. Many current games drop a generic spinning item so that you can see what you are looking at. It also hovers above ground, which makes it very easy to see and collect, especially on tilesets which are generally not flat everywhere (like mine).

  These are excellent ideas. I would be very interested in this content if you were to release it.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

redoing the question mark today. It looks too cartoony.

 

Found a good setting for animation length. 2 seconds to totally turn 360 degrees, and while doing so, bounce up and down smoothly 3 times. Just gotta write a tiny script to modify my jerky up and down from previous animations. Looks like the formula is position.z = sin 2Pi(t), if anybody is wondering.

 

I have 5 colors of secondary glow which can be applied to various qualities of item, or used for other reasons.

 

light green glow

brighter blue glow

brighter magenta glow

intense golden glow

and sparkling white glow

 

You can use these to represent your item qualities above common. I see most games are using similar colors now. One bonus green, two bonuses blue, three bonuses magenta or red, gold for 4, and white (or bright aqua) for 5

 

 

Edit:

Kingsroad uses white, green, blue, purple, gold, red, cyan, and yellow, where the colors represent common, fine, superior, epic, legendary, relic, artifact, and mythic

 

Drakensang uses white, green, blue, magenta, orange, and yellow, and possibly others I have not yet seen.

 

Sword Coast Legends uses white green, blue, pink-magenta, and yellow

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

How about a golden glass mug for "drunk"?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Tarot Redhand]

               

With a semi-transparent, slightly out of sync twin to represent the double vision?

 

TR

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

With a semi-transparent, slightly out of sync twin to represent the double vision?

 

TR

Spectacular visuals!