Resources used for our school project

As promised previously I’ve compiled a quick list of the main resources we used during our year working with NWN:EE with a Games design class. Intended for teachers thinking about taking the plunge. Most if not all of these are available in some form on the Vault. Much of what we did was adapt and shorten materials to fit the time constraints in a school. The originals will be better !

Disclaimer ahead: There is no guarantee of quality ( although most were compiled either through advice given to us on these forums by those who certainly DO know what they are doing) or by updating old tutorials ( all credited, naturally). Those we made up ourselves all work but may not be the easiest or best way of doing anything. They worked for us with a specific class.

We are happy to share any of them with any teacher looking to try NWN with a class, given the disclaimer above. I will in time create a project page and put the resources up in the normal way but since there has been some interest already I thought I’d give a rough idea of what we have so wheels are not reinvented.

Starting off

Playing the Game (mov+mod) - a short-ish video covering the basic of playing the game using a quick module we created.

Returning the Book - a set of tutorials( video and written) around a very simple quest using Plot Wizard to get the kids started. Took us about 4/5 periods ( 3hrs) to complete and worked well.

Fern Tutorial ( the gold standard of tutorials for us but would have taken too long for us to complete at the start - there are 10/11 YT videos available from Mr Hanson which are excellent) No materials from us as our Returning the Book covered ( simply) a bit of the same ground.

Moving on ( Custom Content)

This was a key part of our course. We were both keen that the kids learned how to create and import assets into the game as it was a requirement for their Games Design award. However, we realised early on that not everyone ( especially me !) could handle Blender well enough and quickly enough to succeed so we started with more easy objects.

Floor Decals - Very simple tutorial to put different sized decals onto floors in a tileset. Used a text editor and image program. Very easy but satisfying ! There are written tutorials for this - and possibly a video, I actually can’t remember :see_no_evil:

Shields - an excellent addition we felt. Tutorial on how to create and import shields with your own choice of logo into the game ( one of our guys put Kermit onto his) ! Same as above. Definitely written tutorial but possibly video. I should say this was a much shortened version of @Tarot_Redhand’s excellent longer tutorial on shields which includes grunge etc.

Clothes - Just used Lisa’s clothes mods. Easy to do and made a huge difference in achieving different looks to characters. I should point out here that Lisa also had a simple flag tutorial which again looks great and works well in game. Simple written instructions available but project is on the Vault.

Blender - This was the gold standard and way above my pay grade. However, several of the class had a go a this and a couple produced really high class assets. I’m gonna say very difficult but maybe not if the kids have dabbled in content creation or Blender before. New version of Blender is much easier and better organised the kids say. Excellent tutorial available on Vault from @TheBarbarian ( using earlier version of Blender)

Custom Sounds - we had a go at importing free sounds/music and voiced some conversations using Audacity. Very easy and enjoyable. Written and video tutorials available.

Storytelling

Coming from a background of English teaching, one of my main thrusts in this project was to insist that the kids paid attention to the plot and building characters. In connection with this, it was important to us that they knew the ways in which they could do this through game features and scripts.

Backstory - We used floating text above PC’s head for this but also self conversations ( thanks @Proleric). Videos, written tutorials and scripts available.

Conversation Editor - although Plot Wizard was great to start with we knew we would want to move onto CE eventually. Videos available and scratchy written tutorial but tbh much better ones are available on the Vault.

Getting in deeper

As the year progressed we moved into other more sophisticated and niche areas.

Hallowe’en - thanks to @Tarot_Redhand and his various glowing in the dark objects we were able to give out a Hallowe’en task which went well. Haks/ written tutorials available

Cutscenes - just towards the end we were looking at this using the Gestalt system. I updated John Bye’s excellent original ( nothing added, just sorted into pdf for easy searching) so all credit to John ). Looking back I’d like to have done more of this earlier butter time was against us. It takes a while to get to grips with camera angles etc.

Henchmen - written and video tutorials available about hiring henchmen.

Multiplayer - @niv , who supported us from the start in our project (heavily) suggested we look at MP which we did at Christmas. A bundle of fun, easy to organise and we used the totally hack and slash, morally bankrupt “Pillaging of Waycrest”. Nothing available from us as its all on the Vault ( apart from maybe 4/5 levelled up Orc files which I gave the kids for playing it.

Extra movies - throughout the year I did some quick movie tutorials on various subjects to help the kids as they arose. Without looking too deeply into our files they include using Waypoints for setting paths for guards/animals/ townspeople etc to follow, using map pins, how to place a working drawbridge ( not as easy as it sounds at least for me!), building with Estelindis’ excellent high forest tileset and even how to get sunsets . . .

Finishing off

The last piece of the educational puzzle I’m afraid we don’t have yet. It was our intention to post some of the best final build modules the kids created towards the end of their course. Unfortunately, a world pandemic arrived and so we haven’t been able to get them off the kids’ drives but it is our intention to put some of them up later as a rough guide as to what can be achieved in a ( very) limited timeframe.

Odd items

Just to round off, at the beginning I posted a spreadsheet of all the terrain , groups and features for each of the tilesets. This was done to save time in class and is somewhere on the Vault.

The Witcher - This popped up about halfway through the course as The Witcher Season 1 appeared on Netflix. It became a huge hit with the kids and thanks to @BlackRider’s porting of the area of Vizima and various excellent characters from the game we were able to offer these to the kids. No resources from us as all his stuff is easily found on the Vault. I can recommend it though. Looks great.

The Hermit’s Chalice - I came across a module at the start of the year from Firestarter and created a series of four tutorials for the kids, slightly frustrated by their need for visual reinforcement rather than following written tutorials. I see @angry_yard_gnome has redone the original on the Vault and it looks very good but be aware these don’t follow the original - at all really. I put them up on YT but they ended up nothing like the original as I became a little excitable and kept adding features of the toolset I wanted them to try. They are still up if anyone wants to check them out but were never finished as time moved faster than I did.

So , a rough guide to what we have. Mostly draw from various folks here either through their projects or their constant, untiring advice to a couple of beginners. Thanks again to them and if anything is of interest for teachers lurking out there with a hankering for trying this I’m more than happy to share anything that might be of use.

Hmm, not such a quick list I see . . .

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