Custom Content Challenge - June 2022 : Celebrate 20

[Tarot_Redhand]

The theme for this month’s challenge: “Celebrate 20”

Celebrate 20

This would be for anything that indicates a Celebration is going on. This could include bunting, flags, signs, a fair, party hats, Giant Birthday cards, etc. Also scripting routines for say dancing, letting off fireworks, party poppers, etc. Then there could also be new music on this theme. Maybe a cutscene involving monsters having a party. How about pre-fabs of an area where a party is taking place.

This theme was suggested by Tarot Redhand.

Guidelines:

• It must be fully working in game.
• Use of vanilla NWN or publicly available texture is fine. Just remember that NWN textures must have dimensions in powers of 2 (2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc.).
• Teamwork is welcome.
• Beginners most welcome. Don’t be afraid, just try, you’ll be surprised!
• “Custom Content” includes many sorts of things: models, scripts, prefabs (areas, items, creatures, conversations, quests, etc.), sounds, portraits, or anything else new for the game.
• All submissions must be finished, working, and emailed to nwvaultccchallenge@gmail.com (or a non-Vault link provided) by July 1st, 2022. Sooner than that is perfectly fine too.

Some things you could include in the download/email that would make packaging everything up easier and faster:

• Any 2da lines needed.
• Screenshot from in game for use on the Vault page. Formats: .bmp, .jpg, .png, or .tga
• Portraits (if needed) of your new goody. Placeables and monsters should include a portrait.
• Inventory icons (if needed) of your new goody.
• Any credits you would like listed.
• If this is your first entry, please tell me what name you would like your work listed under and provide a link to your other NWN content if you want that displayed as well (the link bit is totally optional).
• Remember, the Challenge is all about fun, sharing, creativity, and surprise!

This thread is for all sorts of discussion about this month’s theme: ideas for things to make, questions/concerns, announcement of what you intend to make, screenshots of work in progress and/or finished projects.

If you want to discuss the Monthly Custom Content Challenge idea as a whole or wish to submit ideas/themes for future monthly Challenges, please post in its thread here - Custom Content Challenge - Theme Suggestions.

When submitting a new theme, please provide a title and short summary of the theme.

If you have a technical question about some custom content creation, please create a separate thread so that the answers can be found later by anyone, not just people interested in this Challenge.

We’ll try to help!

Have no fear and join the fun!

And finally, you can:

Custom Content Challenge - Theme Suggestions.
Vote 4 for July’s theme.
Email content to: nwvaultccchallenge@gmail.com

TR

[Tarot_Redhand]

For more information about this month’s challenge see this thread -

CCC June 2022 - a Proposal and a Poll

To explain what the ‘20’ in the challenge’s name is about for those that don’t know, I’ll quote myself from that thread -

As some of you will be aware, this coming June will be a special month as far as NwN is concerned. On the 18th of June 2002, Neverwinter Nights was first released on Windows making our game 20 years old come 18th of June 2022. 1 Year later ports of the game for Linux (June 2003) and Mac OS X (August 2003) were released too.

TR

[Tarot_Redhand]

Right let’s kick this off -

Using my models from TR’s Custom Shield Designs and giving them totally new designs, here are 16 new large shields. These should be 100% compliant with 1.69/Diamond too.

I have also created 30 new large banners and 10 new small banners -

Gotta love those Roman numerals

Currently working on something bigger…

TR

[Tarot_Redhand]

As some who voted for this month’s CCC had a wish that content wouldn’t all be specific to this anniversary, here’s a thought. How about something like this -

Ely Cathedral: Table made from ancient tree ready for Jubilee (UK) - BBC News - 18th May 2022

the Jubilee Table. For a little more information on it - The Fenland Black Oak Project

TR

[Tarot_Redhand]

Two weeks today it will be the actual anniversary. So is anyone other than me making anything for this?

In other news… I’ll reveal what else I’ve made for this later today.

TR

[DM_Wise]

Sorry, I am not. But to be frank, after 20 plus years and what feels like a dozen lifetimes, I feel like they should be celebrating us.

[Mecheon]

I got a silly idea in the works for once I’m done with the bugs in the ice age stuff

[Tarot_Redhand]

So here is the big thing I mentioned. It is now as good as I can make it. It is definitely both new to NwN and not just tied to the anniversary. It is also entirely my own work using the tools available to me.

It is in fact a full set of characters in 3D - A to Z upper case, a to z lower case, 0 to 9 digits and 25 punctuation characters (87 models in total) -

They feature a dark grey rock PBR texture. So now you can write whatever you want in your module. Note before you overblow my abilities of working in 3D modelling, I have a full registered version of Milkshape. This has a tool for converting strings to 3D models. While it works it’s not perfect and still took a lot of effort to get to work how I wanted. While I was able to get the UK pound ‘£’, US Dollar ‘$’ and Japanese Yen symbols, for some reason I couldn’t get the Euro symbol to work.

TR

[Tarot_Redhand]

So I discovered a nice image that is free under the creative commons licence and made a couple of models using it. Both a horizontal one -

and a vertical one -

I’ve also made another model using Milkshape’s string to model feature. Now if BD will just fix all the reversions that have crept into EE… Mind you that’s a big if -

At 5 metres tall that is a pretty big if…

TR

[Tarot_Redhand]

Couple of giveaways for anyone who is going to make something for this. Both giveaways are just textures. First I have created graphics that can be used for bunting (google images if you don’t know what that is) . Real world bunting -

So these are the images contained in the small archive -

Thing is I haven’t a clue how to make a string of these connected together by white tape, such that they each, individually blow in the wind while affecting the others on the same string. The only thing I have figured is that each one of them will need a double sided model. All of which is way outside of my skill set. Here’s the tiny archive -

textures - bunting.7z (342.2 KB)

The other archive contains a mix of images including the large banners’ textures without any device on them, the Roman numerals used for the banners, the Neverwinter eye (two sizes) and the ‘20 Years’ medal from above. This latter would be ideal for merging into custom main menu images if anyone wants to do that. Second archive -

textures.7z (292.1 KB)

Nearly forgot, all images are in PNG format. I just find it easier because Windows Explorer will display them but not TGA. Don’t forget these can all be resized too.

So more in hope than expectation, have fun and give it a go.

TR

[Symmetric]

I think the only way to do it properly is using skinmeshes, meaning you’ll nee a set of bones for the rope and each of the the buntings. I think that’s overkill and another drawback is placeables with a skinmesh can’t be static. That leaves two options:
A. Animmesh would move together, but not be affected by wind. They are simply animated, can be made fairly realistic though. Another drawback is the mesh would have to be kept relatively simple.
B. Danglymesh is even easier, but the rope won’t be moving.
I think I’ll have a go at option A. I have some ideas to bake Blender physics simulation into it

[Tarot_Redhand]

Thank you so much for taking a look at it.

TR

[Tarot_Redhand]

So I have done a few Main Menu image replacements -

They are in full HD (1920 x 1080), are mainly based on the wallpapers that are part of the extras that GOG supplies(d) for NwN Diamond and use the two models that are part of Alternate Main Menu by @rookfive which in turn are based on Splash screen/button override v4.0 by @ShadowM. In case anyone likes the default EE main menu image I have included a version of it too. All have the 20 Years image from above as part of them.

In total that is 22 full HD main menu images, 21 of which I believe are new to NwN EE (not sure if they work with earlier versions though) and that includes 6 Aribeth images for those who seem to be obsessed with her. All tested on the latest version of EE.

TR

[Tarot_Redhand]

So I have proved to myself that I am clinically sane but mad and I am not going to repeat what I have just done. So what have I done? Only gone and edited all 456 1.69/Diamond standard load screen images (should work on EE as well) so that they have ‘20 Years’ logo in the same place on the images. Here are a pair of examples (I may be mad but even I am not going to post all of them here!) -

At 177mb they are probably best used in a hak but if you don’t mind putting that many files in your override folder…

So I am away to seek a darkened room…

TR

[Tarot_Redhand]

To anyone who thinks I may be flagging with this ccc… you may be right -

23 Placeable flags and

23 holdable flags (same flag textures in same order) using Lisa’s techniques and based off of her models via my NwN Flags.

You may have noticed there are a preponderance of ‘XX’ flags. These are there to complement the corresponding ‘eye’ flags in my earlier package which I couldn’t include because they have already been released.

TR

[Tarot_Redhand]

Halfway through the month. I am now working on a prefab (totally empty) “dungeon” that will have both a 1.69/Diamond version and an EE version.

TR

[Tarot_Redhand]

Given the number of people who voted for this theme who are also capable of creating things for it, I am somewhat disappointed that so far I seem to be the only person who has created anything for it so far. So I wondered why? There must be a reason. Have I over done it with the stuff I made? Now I know that some here have the experience to create new nui elements (other than the main menu) for it. Whatever the reason, I had a thought that just might get more people participating.

What exactly are we supposed to celebrating here? While the longevity of the game that we make stuff for is in itself cause for celebration, it is not the reason most people make and release stuff. No, it is NwN and its toolset that we are celebrating. I am not even going to ask you to make something from scratch for this theme. If you’ve got something sitting on your HD/SSD that you haven’t released yet, why not throw it this way? I will take anything as long as it is working in game and it hasn’t been released before. Heck, I’ll even take things from Lisa’s Clothes Horse as long as you recolour them in a way not seen before. I don’t care what tools, conventional or otherwise (bricks are more than welcome ) that you use, just please submit something. After all this is not supposed to be a one person show.

To give you an example here is the prefab I mentioned previously and which is probably not what you were expecting - The Black Tower. This is a complete dungeon over 6 levels. It is a mighty fortress that suffered a catastrophe a few hundred years previously wherein the entire population were wiped out in a single night. Strangely, even after all the time that has passed, it seems to be in relatively good order. It is also completely empty. Apart from ladders, trapdoors and a couple of portals, it contains no placeables. No creatures either. Just three tiny scripts to make those placeables work. It is based off of an ancient PnP module published by the Midkemia press before even the novel “Magician” was published. Note I said based off; it is not a room for room copy. I did however try to retain the secret doors and passages.

Toolset view of the second above ground level. This uses 4 haks from the ctp - common, loadscreens, generic doors and dungeon_lok. In addition the EE version also uses my PBR texture hak for that tileset.

TR

[Shadooow]

Module/Server Logo | The Neverwinter Vault check this out

[Tarot_Redhand]

Interesting. Had I known about that I could have saved editing 456 individual images by hand… (see earlier in thread)

TR

[Symmetric]

Buntings are ready. There is a plain variant as well without any symbols.

They are animated (slightly swaying) as on/off. I messed around with Blender physics simulation as animesh but settled for a simple rotation, the difference is not noticable.