The Harvest Moon Consortium

[Izk The Mad]

Hello, everybody! Long time no see!

I took a break from NWN for a bit to get caught up on other things. My somewhat lengthy post a couple weeks ago had more to do with some personal matters than NWN, I think. I had a few unfinished projects to deal with in real life. Add to that a little birthday-related anxiety about things I should've done, and a little "practical side" guilt about spending so much time on a video game at my age, mix with lack of sleep... Ha! I regret nothing! Somehow I did find the time time to get my 2das updated, and thanks to Excimer's program, it was a breeze. I also managed to make a couple new skies.

@chaos, those ceiling skybox ideas sound interesting. I'm not sure how well they'd work, though. I'll have to experiment a little. I'm assuming there'd be no walls to them, with just a ceiling fading off in the distance, like the Underdark sky. I think it might be a little tricky to get the perspective right, especially for something with straight lines and "man-made" looking. See bottom pic and descrip for more on that.

As for new skies: The goddess sky, which changes color with the area fog, thanks to Lord Rosenkrantz and his friend Morikahn for that idea:

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... tureid=210[/IMG]

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... tureid=211[/IMG]

I was able to make some decent looking subtle clouds for the background. I accidentally overwrote it with a previous version while trying to adjust the eye spacing (doh!), but I'll redo it. The previous version is looking straight ahead, instead of down. Here's the previous version texture. I'm using a .txi with "Blending Additive" (alpha blending, IIRC?) to make the color change:

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... tureid=214[/IMG]

I've been trying to make some more deity/celestial skies, and playing with different effects. This next one ended up with some interesting clouds to it while I was experimenting with different filters in PS6. I had weird problems with one of the seams on this one, but I think it may actually be related to my vid card and some NWN texture problems I'm having, somehow. I call this one the "Helm" sky:

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... tureid=212[/IMG]

I wanted to show the whole sky of that one, and you can also see how the eye image is stretched, by comparison:

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... tureid=213[/IMG]

Lastly, a reference sky I made while messing around. The top quarter of the texture isn't visible, and the straight lines show how the skybox mdl is really shaped in-game, though I have opened these in NWmax before. The sides bulge out a bit, instead of being flat. I'm fairly sure that's what is stretching some of the images, including the spacing between the goddess eyes. And I tried making the numbers match at that seam just for the heck of it, but of course they didn't line up quite right. I mainly wanted to see how much of the top and bottom were getting cut off in-game. I divided it into 8 bands, and 7 and 8 are cut off, and 1 is barely visible over the fog from that terrain height. Just thought I'd share that as an FYI to anyone else experimenting with skies.

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... tureid=209[/IMG]

Anyway, I'm back to work on these, when I can find the time. Note: And I have to laugh about time and sleep, because I started this post late last night, then went to bed, and I finished it this morning, when I was awake enough to proofread my lousy typing.

[chaos_theocrat]

I can see you've been busy creating some marvelous looking new ideas for skies! I like the Helm sky, it's intense. The "goddess eyes" look great too.

On the subject of the interior skybox ideas... if it turns out that they just don't quite work out, then perhaps it is best for folks to continue making use of the CEP's placeable ceilings and things like that. But, of course, if they do work out it will be a solid addition to Nwn so let me know how it turns out with your efforts on them. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that. :thumb: Your style of clouds is very good, very ethereal, by the way!
I've noticed that in all of your skies, there is a lot of attention to them. When your skyboxes are finally released, I think they'll become classics.

[Christopher]

[quote=Izk The Mad;12088]
Lastly, a reference sky I made while messing around. The top quarter of the texture isn't visible, and the straight lines show how the skybox mdl is really shaped in-game, though I have opened these in NWmax before. The sides bulge out a bit, instead of being flat. I'm fairly sure that's what is stretching some of the images, including the spacing between the goddess eyes. And I tried making the numbers match at that seam just for the heck of it, but of course they didn't line up quite right. I mainly wanted to see how much of the top and bottom were getting cut off in-game. I divided it into 8 bands, and 7 and 8 are cut off, and 1 is barely visible over the fog from that terrain height. Just thought I'd share that as an FYI to anyone else experimenting with skies.

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... tureid=209[/IMG]
[/quote]

That is really useful! I kept trying to adj. the UVW settings and could never quite tweak it to the level I needed with my skies. I could improve, but not perfect. It's been a long time... This sky box most likely started with Danmar's work. That is the template I worked from. I tried to match up sunrise and sunset with N/S/E/W.

If you continue to pursue this I would suggest a new template that shows that may not have have the bulged sides, shows the viewable area and N/S/E/W for those that have sunrise / sunset.

[raven280]

[QUOTE=Izk The Mad;12088]
@chaos, those ceiling skybox ideas sound interesting. I'm not sure how well they'd work, though. I'll have to experiment a little. I'm assuming there'd be no walls to them, with just a ceiling fading off in the distance, like the Underdark sky. I think it might be a little tricky to get the perspective right, especially for something with straight lines and "man-made" looking. See bottom pic and descrip for more on that.

[/QUOTE]


Keep us updated on how the interior skyboxes are looking. The CEP interior ceilings are not particularly good, but are better nothing. Someday I hope someone makes ceilings for interior tilesets (which would be the best option), but I thought interior skyboxes may be the second best option. I have already used the underdark skybox on interior tilesets, and thought they looked pretty good (granted they are not man made looking like an interior of a building). Can a skybox be made that looks like the inside of a cave ceiling with matching cave wall textures and some stalagtites hanging down? That might be a good skybox that would be well received. On a different note, I like your new skyboxes with the eyes on it. Have you tried making one with the NWN eye? You have some good stuff in progress...

[Izk The Mad]

Thanks for the compliment Raven! I'm still playing with ideas for the interiors. If you know of any good pics that you think might work as resources, feel free to link them here. Preferably nothing too elaborate. I have to be able to blend it at the corners/seams.

@Chris, thanks! I thought about direction before while testing these in-game, but I always forget when I'm working on them later! Fortunately I still had the guides set up in PS, so I whipped up a new version of the reference sky. I grayed out the top bands that aren't viewable in game, and added the compass directions. I also highlighted band 3, because that seems to be the best height for stuff like what I'm doing.

I attached a jpeg if anyone wants to play with that sky. It's only 600x600, though. I have another template I've made, which is a long band with five squares set up. That whole ABCDA thing I was talking about before for making seams. I wonder if I should make a small set of just these, as sort of a guide for others trying to make skies, include a readme and put it on the vault? If anyone here is interested in any of the full size templates, let me know.

I still need to do a little more testing with viewable area, I think. I have a rather steep mountainside I made with Chandigar's Aztec Exteriors, and it just occured to me that it may be high enough to see more of the top of the texture. That area doesn't have a skybox, but I'll have to try it as a test.

On a skybox side note, I was checking out the new CEP starter module in-game yesterday, and the TNO exterior area is so long that I was able to walk through the skybox at the far end. It's 16x32, just as an FYI. That's the first time I'd seen that happen, and I'll keep it in mind when I'm building from now on, though that just seems too large. I've tried to keep my own areas at or under 256 squares (figuring 16x16=256), and even my longer areas are fine performance-wise. Anything bigger seems to have some slow-down, which I noticed with that CEP area.

[Bannor Bloodfist]

[quote=Izk The Mad;12111]

I attached a jpeg if anyone wants to play with that sky. It's only 600x600, though. I have another template I've made, which is a long band with five squares set up. That whole ABCDA thing I was talking about before for making seams. I wonder if I should make a small set of just these, as sort of a guide for others trying to make skies, include a readme and put it on the vault? If anyone here is interested in any of the full size templates, let me know.[/quote]

Yes, please. In fact, you should probably also put an update on the ccg wiki as well. That wiki is located here: NWN CCG Wiki

Any tips, tricks, tutorials, guides etc, are always welcomed, even if the total number of downloads doesn't get very high. We have fewer and fewer people still developing for NWN 1. However, those people still need help occasionally, AND we still get new folks attempting things from time to time. Anything any of us can do to make the learning experience easier will only help us all out!

[Izk The Mad]

[quote=Bannor Bloodfist;12113]Anything any of us can do to make the learning experience easier will only help us all out![/quote]

Exactly what I was thinking. I've always tried to find good tutorials or helpful posts before asking for help. This is also why I've been sharing my progress and findings here all the time, along with all the encouragement and suggestions I'm getting, of course. I think I'll wait until my set's done, but I've been taking notes, so once I am finished I should have some halfway decent experience to share. I still have some things to work out. I need to further test the viewable area, and I'm just getting into using the fog color, which has a lot of potential for future skies.

I do have a question to ask. Can anyone tell me what the "shininess" should be for a skybox mdl? I recently noticed that in Wordpad. The mdl I'm using is set at a shininess of 12, and it made me wonder about a couple of the seam issues I've had, where the textures matched but there was a shadow effect visible in the corner. I'm curious about a few of those settings, like inheritcolor and transparencyhint. They sound like they have potential. I'm not looking for a personal tutorial, but can I do anything interesting with these?

[Christopher]

[quote=Izk The Mad;12117]it made me wonder about a couple of the seam issues I've had, where the textures matched but there was a shadow effect visible in the corner. I'm curious about a few of those settings, like inheritcolor and transparencyhint. They sound like they have potential. I'm not looking for a personal tutorial, but can I do anything interesting with these?[/quote]

Do you use gmax or 3dsmax? Try clearing all the smoothing groups (reset all) and see if the shading goes away. That's my 1st thought. I don't know much about the other settings. I think they have to do more with the alpha settings.

[Izk The Mad]

Thanks Chris! The forum gremlins made a new thread with my question over in The Learning Curve forum, Link. I responded there, in case something informative comes out of my questions about this. I'm not prepared to do anything with the smoothing just yet. I'm more curious about what I can do with these settings just using WordPad at the moment. I am taking notes though. Eventually I would like to try that, or even make a new mdl for my skies.

[Izk The Mad]

Hi all! I thought I'd post a couple pics of something I've been experimenting with for "interior skies". While not a ceiling as Raven requested, I wanted some feedback. The effect in-game is really interesting. This is worth exploring, and I could see adding more elaborate elements with different textures, like some wall art or niches with statues.

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... tureid=219[/IMG]

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... tureid=220[/IMG]

I was even thinking it would be interesting to try a few with a sky over the top of the wall texture, as a walled exterior. I've been playing with textures from the xp3.bif, and there's a lot to work with. Beams, bricks, planked floors... I think I might be able to skew the floor texture to create a ceiling with proper perspective. I'm still thinking about how to do that and make decent seams.