TheBarbarian had made the caged fairy for me.
Nice job Stonehammer
Since that particular fairy looks like Tinkerbell or one of her friends, I think it fits the theme.
TR
So I got Prince C. finished and started with the project, which I had in mind right away for the “once upon a time” theme: Garden-Zwerkules-ses! Once upon a time I stumbled upon some free 3D-printer-gardengnomes and I thought to myself, that they could be a fun project for this theme! Here are some examples:
In general: All are very high poly, so I have to simplify them quiet a bit, but that is not really a problem. (The original zombi-model has 153116 faces! Well, I brought it down to about 2900 faces. Of course it lost some detail, but I think, it’s still OK (for NWN1). But before announcing it here, I started to do a test port - to find out, if it’s doable. Well, I like the zombi-version quit a bit, so I decided to start with that one - which was not a good idea… Since it’s a Zombi-Garden-Zwerkules, I want it with the zombi (which is the mummy) animation and the model and the animation don’t really like each other a lot! But after some rigging fights, I think, I’m heading into a workable direction:
There is no texture for them (of course) and, as you can see, I decided to use simple colors as it is often found on real Garden-Zwerkules-ses! Also this makes texturing pretty easy for me. Hope, that I some fancy maps will make the texture a bit more “special”.
Not sure how much more time the zombi will eat up, but I hope, that I manage a couple more before the theme ends…
6 Likes
Regarding the rig: I accidently forgot to remove the created “impact bone” from the armature and thus it was included in the first basic (blender-auto-) rig. I removed it afterwards - using the torso instead, but I found, that the impact bone gave the best result! So it’s now a part of the rig. 
I played a bit with textures. My first approach of plain colors with no “structure” just looked too sleek and flawless. So I created new ones, which kind of shows the paint brush strokes. Together with a normal map, it now look the way I want it to be:
Well, this dude has issues, if it is to be used: 1st you need to scale it, because it has a “regular” size due to the mummy skeleton. But that is not a real problem. 2nd issue is, that many of the other animations (eg. the attack) don’t really work very well. So you’re probably limited to idle and walk.
And I rigged a second model:
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Looking good. Now for a couple of cheeky comments -
Any chance to do the gnome wife too?
Any chance to have one sitting on a toadstool with a fishing rod?
TR
@Tarot_Redhand : As to be seen in my first gg-screen: Yes, I have a female model and I really like to have it converted. Thing is, that I’m running out of time! January is nearing it’s end and the second one is not completely finished. If I get some more time, I’d try to get the female one done, too.
And no: I don’t have a sitting version. You would want that as a placeable, not a creature?
Sorry for the confusion. The second one was only added with my tongue firmly in my cheek (e.g. a joke). In the UK there are garden ornaments called Garden Gnomes (featured in Wallace & Gromit “A Close Shave”). So don’t stress on doing one of those.
TR
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Could I disassociate Scotland from these Garden Gnome comments? This is largely a weird English obsession . . . ? 
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This is an update on the starry sky placeable. As you no doubt remember, this is a large (500m diameter) spherical placeable with the texture on the inside. It is now as complete as I am going to make it and for a couple of reasons is now EE only. For the demo module I created a 6x6 desert area. I made it that small because @TheAmethystDragon’s Bubble placeable becomes invisible if you get too close to it. Anyway, in the toolset it looks like this -
and in game it looks like this -
As you can see, just like a skybox, there is limited visibility of the actual placeable and this results in the stars, etc. appearing larger than one might expect from a 4k by 2k texture. There is a possibility that they would appear smaller if the diameter was increased but I haven’t explored that due to the possibility of it ceasing to be visible at all at larger sizes.
In order to use this placeable it must be placed exactly at the centre of the area otherwise parts of it disappear. For the best view of this placeable it advisable to edit the area properties so that the lighting is reset to black and to customise the environment so that it is always dark and the fog clip distance is 600m. Also, it is probably a good idea to leave adding this placeable until after everything else has been added to the area where it is used.
As I said at the start, there are a couple of reasons why this is EE only. The first is that it uses a .mtr file so that it has a glow (_i.tga) map. I haven’t actually used 2 maps though. Instead the *.mtr points to the same map twice. One thing I did notice initially was that, because the free texture by kirriaa on deviantArt was based on NASA images, there were way too many faint stars. I got rid of them by adjusting the contrast. Due to this texture being based upon telescopic images, closer stars take on a spiky appearance. Nothing I can do about that I’m afraid.
The other reason that this is EE only is because I have made use of an EE specific script function in order to achieve something that is at least very difficult in 1.69/Diamond. By using SetObjectVisualTransform() in the demo module it has been possible to actually rotate the sky’s visuals to give the impression of the passage of game time. So stars and other celestial objects rise above and disappear below the horizon over time.
During the course of doing this I quickly found out something I didn’t realise about SetObjectVisualTransform() (at least when applied to rotation). The angle that you pass to that function is absolute and not additive. As an example if you pass it the value of 30.0f (as in degrees) and later pass it the same value you will see no difference. This means that you have a choice between having a single uninterruptible rotation if you use Lerping. I didn’t use that because I figured it was better to be able to start and stop the rotation. That means calling the function that manages the rotation at set times by using the technique known as a pseudo-heartbeat. This prevented me from using Lerping because the rotation would go back to the original start position before smoothly going to the newest position.
As one game hour equates to two minutes in real time and the sky would need to rotate through 180 degrees in 12 game hours I calculated that it would need to rotate by 1 degree every 8 seconds of real time. To my eyes this turned out to be way too jerky. So I tried halving both values and testing it in game again and again. What I finally ended up with was… The sky placeable rotates 1/32 of a degree every 1/4 of a second in real time. This is a compromise for smoothness of rotation vs. processor load. It is calculated so that in game time the rotation is accurate assuming an Earth-like speed of rotation.
Of course you don’t have to use my script but it does open another possibility. If you are creating a space based travel system, by using SetObjectVisualTransform() you can simulate changes to a spacecraft’s heading in space. Just a thought.
TR
3 Likes
Regarding the fishing garden gnome and Tarots explanation: 
I am hoping that this is a reply to what I posted yesterday and not what I posted just a few hours ago 
TR
Tr, just use your model by referencing it in skybox.2da. This sucks for 169, as it is placed in a fixed location, maybe a corner, but works great in EE, as the skybox is centered on the PC .
I’ve experimented with the same placeable a bit myself, but moved on before achieving anything useful. I’d love to have a replacement for the space cylinders though some day.
Dave
@shadguy The only problem there is I wouldn’t be able to use SetObjectVisualTransform() if I made it into a skybox and therefore wouldn’t be able to animate it.
TR
Fair enough.
Dave
Got the 2nd one in. That was some fight, because the model I rigged to has a supermodel, which has a supermodel (each having different animation scales), which lead to my model jumping into the air with certain animations. Well, I think, I found a way. And I was inspired by the tiny bit of shininess on the fishing garden gnome picture and added something like that to my textures.
And sadly, I won’t find the time to do the female garden gnome within January. If I get some more time though…
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Delivered the two Garden- @Zwerkules -es, Prince Charming (head) and the Pink Unicorn (which @jimdad55 mentioned) to the CCC mail address.
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BTW: Every part of the gnomes uses a differently colored texture. So it’d be easy to create cloth variants by exchanging the textures. The files are in ASCII, so easy to edit with a simple text editor.
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