Faithless: The Making of an NWN2 Module

I recently found out that the Neverwinter Vault had closed for good about a month ago. Although I had already said farewell to Neverwinter Nights a couple of years back, I feel as if a part of me had just died. Quite a few of my creative efforts were at the Vault – some 3D models, a couple of scripts, and my piece de resistance , the popular and highly rated Battle of the Builds module. I should also add that I had contributed a short but atmospheric adventure to BouncyRock's Halloween campaign, another popular mod that also garnered high ratings. All those contributions amounted to several months of my life. Now they're gone, all gone. To me, the death of the Vault marks the passing of an era, a golden age of prolific modding that I had never known before or since. It was through modding Neverwinter Nights that I learned how to program combat AI and create 3D models. I had helped and been helped by fellow modders at the official forums. It was a wonderful experience, and I w...

I haven’t been working much on my 3D models these past several days, having been instructed by Dirtywick to design a puzzle for our module, Shattered Dreams. While trying to come up with a good one, I pondered quite a bit on the difference between good and bad puzzles as well as what principles go into designing different types of puzzles. I’m writing my thoughts here, partly as an aid for other game designers and modders who want to make their own puzzles, but mostly so I can refer to my own notes when the need arises. None of these ideas are written in stone, of course, and I may change or refine my opinions at any time in the future. Please note that the puzzles I’m referring to here are the ones that may be used in adventure or role-playing games. Puzzles to Avoid There are various kinds of puzzles, some of which are so bad that they deserve special mention. The following are the ones that I feel deserve to be in the Puzzles’ Hall of Shame. Mazes . Seriously, mazes are not fun at a...

Several months ago, I identified the members of the Shattered Dreams team , all of whom have contributed their unique talents to our creative undertaking. While a few have since left to pursue other projects, most are still active with us. Since then, we’ve had some noteworthy additions to the team, whom I’d like to welcome in this blog post. Here they are, arranged according to when they joined us: Henry Solberg, Composer. I first met Henry online when he messaged me with an offer to compose music for Faithless , the module that is supposed to be this blog’s reason for being. (Ahem.) It became obvious that I wasn’t about to release Faithless any time soon, so Henry asked if he could be a part of what was then known as the “secret bouncyRock project.” After listening to samples of Henry’s music, Dirtywick said yes. Henry joined the Shattered Dreams team last December, but it’s only now that I finally got around to blogging about his involvement with us. Thanks to him and Gallaen Frost...

Meet Mister Grin, one of the potential companions that player characters may take up in Shattered Dreams. The picture shown here is how I envision this character to appear. I’ll make a 3D model of this NPC later. For now, I’d like to say a few words about him to give a preview of what he is like: Although Mister Grin is dressed in the height of fashion, people tend to be taken aback by his appearance for three reasons. Firstly, almost every part of his body is covered with some article of clothing. Mister Grin explains that his heavy clothing helps him resist the ague, to which his frail constitution is highly susceptible. Secondly, while Mister Grin is obviously a man of breeding, it is not entirely certain what breed he is of. An occasional peek at his pointy ears suggests that he may be of elven stock, although he is taller and bulkier than the typical elf. Also, even with Mister Grin’s hat, scarf, and dark glasses on, it is easy to tell that he is completely devoid of hair. Mister ...

“My name is Enemigo Monstruoso. You killed my minions. Prepare to die.” Well, that’s what the big boss seems to be saying in the picture to the right. It may look impressive, but I’ve found that from a modeling standpoint, this monster has a whole slew of new challenges to hurdle. The most obvious problem is the sheer size of the thing. Having a monster this large means that in combat, players will almost never see it in its entirety. To make it more visible, I lowered the height at which the creature hovers above the ground, but I can’t get it lower than fifteen to twenty feet without its appendages sinking below ground during its animation cycle. I could bring the mob to a more manageable size, but its background story would hardly make sense unless the creature is as large as possible without making it unplayable. Another problem is that I may have made the creature’s collision spheres too large, because even at fifteen to twenty feet away, a player character can still hit it in me...

I spent the last few days constructing a low-poly version of Shattered Dream’s ultimate boss. With 5,208 triangles, however, this mesh exceeds the poly count of most, if not all, official NWN2 models. Considering that this creature is one of a kind, I think that the relatively large number of polygons can be forgiven. As can be seen from the in-game screenshot on the right, I’ve also textured the mesh. My next task is to rig and animate the model. Because none of the skeletons of the existing NWN2 models fits this creature, I’ll have to make one from scratch. This, together with creating the animations, will probably be easier than building the mesh itself. Here’s another picture of the creature. If, during the game, you can see the pupils of its eyes, you are too close. Update, May 31, 2009 Stop the presses. Feedback from Nicethugbert and Josh/Anduraga has prompted me to try to retexture the boss to make it look more natural. The new look is shown on the right. Oh, by the way, that cu...

In my previous blog post, I presented a new design for the main boss of Shattered Dreams. When I started working on the high-poly model, I realized that what looks good in 2D does not necessarily look good in 3D. In particular, the crown of heads really didn’t work out so well, so it had to go. Also, the tentacles make more sense when put in front of the model rather than behind it. Anyhow, I hope this latest incarnation of the main boss will have the desired effect on players of our module. Time will tell.

Thus far, I’ve constructed a number of mobs for Shattered Dreams, some of which are bosses in their own right. Nevertheless, all these creatures are mooks compared to what I’m about to make. Behold the boss of bosses, the thing that will have players’ adrenalin pumping on overdrive as their characters hang on to dear life. Actually, the picture shown on the right is my initial concept for the main boss. When I first drew this picture, I had not yet learned about making silhouette studies . With my newfound knowledge at hand, I decided to make a quick and crude silhouette of the creature to make sure that my design is on the right track. Below is the result. What’s wrong with this picture? Simply put, the silhouette does not look dangerous at all. It’s generally bell-shaped, which brings to mind not only bells but also pears, statistical graphs, and women in Victorian dresses. How threatening are those? Clearly, a redesign is in order. It didn’t take me long to come up with a silhouette...

If you plunge the depths of your subconscious, what will you see? We may never know the answer to that question, but players of our upcoming module Shattered Dreams may encounter the creature shown on the right… that is, if I succeed in constructing and rigging a low-poly version of it. We’ll know for sure in my next blog post.

Author's Note, 29 May 2012: Looking for an animation tutorial? This one is next to useless. It was intended to show how statues can be made into enemy creatures without having them move. For a full-blown animation tutorial, check out my blog post here . In my last blog post, I showcased my latest 3D model, a statue of an elven warrior. It’s perfectly fine as a placeable, but Dirtywick wanted me to make it a creature. The statue is supposed to be some kind of magical defense against intruders, but there seem to be problems with trying to get placeables to be targeted by NPCs and to fire visual effects without resorting to a bunch of workarounds. Dirtywick wanted to keep things simple for the area designers on our team, which leaves me with the burden of providing a solution. In this particular case, one solution is for the statues to be implemented as creatures that can shoot spells from the crystals they are holding. None of the existing skeletons and animations in NWN2 is suita...

I assume that most people who try to learn 3D modeling start with something inanimate such as a box. My first 3D model, on the other hand, was a monster. I could never focus my attention on anything as banal as a box, so I jumped right into creature modeling. Took me over a month to figure out. For Shattered Dreams, Dirtywick told me that he needed a custom model – something like a tripod, a little taller than a human, topped with a crystal. Since all the other 3D artists on the project were still busy with their current assignments, I decided to try making my very first placeable. Looking for picture references on which to base my design, I searched the Internet for tripods, preferably those that looked arcane, but the ones I found were either too plain or too modern. I eventually decided to search for candleholders because some of them can be pretty fancy, and their design can conceivably be tweaked for holding crystals instead. It didn’t take me long to find some beautiful ones. The...

A few of the areas in Shattered Dreams were inspired by the Arizona desert, of which we gathered several photo references. Anduraga was not happy with the cliff textures that come with the game, so he requested that some new ones be done based on the Grand Canyon. I took a break from 3D modeling to try my hand at creating terrain textures. It wasn’t easy for me to find information on the image files that comprise them, so Dirtywick passed me information that he found at the Rogue Dao website . When I was done, I quickly assembled a test module to see how my cliff textures look in the game. I rather like the way the textures turned out. I created two cliff textures that can actually be used together fairly seamlessly even at 100% pressure. The landscape shown here won’t appear in Shattered Dreams, by the way. This area is strictly for testing purposes. Besides, this place is decidedly less grand than the canyon that inspired it. Hopefully, our area designers can make better use of the t...

Three weeks. That’s how long I’ve been working on this armored creature model. I estimate that the model is about eighty percent done, which for all intents and purposes means that it’s completely done. Everything else amounts to patching flaws here and there that most players probably won’t even notice in the heat of battle. Discerning players may catch these flaws if they pause the game and scrutinize the creature in various stages of animation, but I’m hoping that most won’t bother. When I envisioned this model, little did I realize what sort of hardships I’d undergo to create it. The entire mesh is composed of smaller meshes representing different armor parts – the breastplate, gardbrace, rerebrace, couter, tuille, and many other strange-sounding accessories that I won’t bother to list. The high-poly version of these armor parts are difficult to make because of the complex details in their design. Many of these components overlap other parts, so I have to make sure that no polygon ...

It’s actually been a hard two weeks for me. I’ve been busy constructing a highly detailed mesh of the knight that I featured in my last blog post. Along the way, I made several changes over its original concept art. This is especially evident in the creature’s helmet. The one that I initially designed looked rather prosaic to me. I wanted a helmet that was more intimidating. Since Chaos Wielder and I had emailed each other recently about our drawing inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft, I thought of giving the helmet that calamari look that’s so in vogue among eldritch horrors. When I showed my work in progress to Dirtywick, he suggested adding horns to the helmet. I was skeptical at first, thinking that horns might detract from the helm’s cephalopod look, but it looked quite nice when I stuck them on. Of course, the helmet wasn’t the only thing I worked on. I’ve tweaked, enhanced, or replaced every part of the model except for its head, which is now barely visible behind the helmet. Below ...