I am very excited by the new NWN:EE. I have some questions.
I currently have the GOG version of NWN, should I uninstall that when I get EE?
The Enhanced Edition is version 7.x, correct? Meaning horses and all the features and tilesets associated with 6.9 will still be available in 7.x?
Will Gmax still be good enough to make tiles for EE? Do all other CC tools associated with Gmax work? (NWN Explorer, NWMax, VelTools, etc)
Last question. IS it the 27th yet?
Now the wish list portion.
Jump, swim, fly, crawl. Perhaps more animations, like kneel and use a tool (hammer, saw?), chop a tree with an ax, climb a ladder, scale a cliff. (Does RPG mean fighting?) I know some of these animations have been added by the community, but it is always a workaround, never a fix.
My message to Beamdog, Thank you. If you keep updating it, I will keep giving you money.
NWN:EE will be backwards compatible with everything yea.
Gmax should still work but I would recommend checking out NeverBlender. Gmax doesn’t really compete imo.
All the features you listed like Jump / Swim / Fly can be done by our very community. It’s just gonna take some scripting and elbow grease. (I think we have swimming already)
Some of the animations are already made by community - there’s jump, climbing, swim, swim in barrel (not joking, it was done), flying and crawling. Also, we have drinking from tankard/drinking while seating, crouching, custom walk styles (“old people”, high heels). Plus sleeping “catlike”, dancing, kissing (and the other, “adult” interactions. And there’s playing the banjo, all kinds of “prisoner” animations (bound, in stacks, etc.).
Plus some older ones in vaei/s custom pack (using anvil, etc). there’s a long list, as you see.
@DrA i have downloaded Blender and your tutorials. This information couldn’t have come at a better time, now I will have something to do until the release. I am no expert at custom content, but I have fudged with Gmax for years, trying in vain to make my vision a,(virtual) reality.
It’s getting hard to have those animations all available at once. Switching phenotypes is a pain, so I’ll be happy if BD just adds some new slots for animations.
@verilazic Precisely what I meant by fixes not workarounds.
@DrA having a great time with Neverblender and your tutorials, thanks for the heads up. I have some questions,. When I visit this link, it gives a warning saying blender has limited NWN support, what are the limitations compared to Gmax?
In answer to some of my own questions.
If you have the Good Old Games version of NWN, you should either uninstall it or delete user\Documents\Neverwinter Nights folder before installing NWN:EE. Both the GOG and Steam installation depend on that folder. Useful tip, before you delete the GOG installation, grab the NWHak.exe and NWHak.ini files, the Steam version seems not to ship without it.
@Nomad, there’s only one thing (as far as I know) which causes “limited support” - of NWN in Blender - emitters. You can import/export them into Blender, but you can’t edit and change them (you can do it in Gmax). I’m not sure about other materials - like txi (flowing water, lava, etc. - but this can easily be changed in .mdl file with any text editor).
Other pros and cons:
Blender supports all the OS - like Windows, Linux, even Mac
you can see and render textures in Blender, and you can’t do that in Gmax directly. You must use external renderer
there’s robust texturing system in Blender - much better than Gmax, even with plugins like chili skinner
you can “bake” and paint your textures in Blender, and you can’t do it in Gmax
you can use Blender to make an intro movie (with sounds) - impossible in Gmax
the interface of Blender is very customizable - you can decide, how your version looks like, you can use numerous add-ons, to make modelling easier - like automated creation of cogs.
But:
Gmax is essentialy old (ca. 2000 year) stunted (without some tools, like an internal renderer) 3DS Max - theoretically more compatible with NWN (created in 3DS Max)
You have direct support for some pseudo - reflective materials in Gmax (like “mirror”)
obviously, you can create emitters in Gmax
you have well developed “prefabs” - so you can create all things for the tile (like lights) with one click, or import animation from one placeable to another
And a controversial advantage of Gmax - Sanity check - in my experience (and I tried Gmax before switching to Blender) some placeables which didn’t pass it, worked ok. in game.
Hope it clears the subject more. If you have any questions about creating models in Blender, send me PM - I would do my best to help you.
Not in my experience. I have both sitting in win 10 now and they do not interact. The 1.69 version from gog uses the same arrangement as the original Bioware installation. The only thing I did when I installed the GOG version is to place it in a different folder to the one suggested so that my installation sits in C:\NWN Diamond. All the user files for the GOG installation go in subdirectories of that.
So my experience is that you can happily have both EE and the GOG version of 1.69 on the same HD with no problems whatsoever. The only caveat to this is to remember to install the official Bioware critical rebuild 1.69 patch found on here.
@DrA Thank you for that information. I will bear that in mind, especially regarding the emitters.
@Tarot_Redhand Thank you for that clarification. Also, for reminding me of the critical rebuild. I downloaded the critical rebuild from here, but when I run the exe it tells me :Neverwinter Nights not found.". Where should I place that file before I run it?