Messing around in the toolset for the first time and I noticed that changing a placeable to static undoes the custom scaling.
Is there any way around this?
Basically I wanted something like an oversized tree, but without static it fades out of view when you’re too far and pops in badly. I assume static would fix that, but it undoes the size scaling when I turn static on. If there’s a custom model out there of a big tree I supposed that would work, but I did not see anything like that on the vault.
There are all kinds of trees in the CEP you could check out and then try to hunt down the original project they came from if the CEP is too large for your purposes.
Here are some results that might fit your needs but they all seem to be outdated and you’d have to modify the placeable 2da’s at least.
Static objects do not change during gameplay, but are baked into the scenery like tiles.
So, scripts and animations, which change the object dynamically during play, don’t work on a static object, even OnSpawn.
Dynamic objects vanish at about 40m. At present, there are two workarounds.
You might design the area so that players can never be more than 40m from the placeable.
Alternatively you can exploit the fact that the 40m applies to the “origin’” of the placeable model, which is invisible. Cracking the model open in a text editor, you can shift the origin up to 40m from the visible part. That way, players up to 80m away in the direction of the shift can still see it.
Thanks for the info and suggestions. I’ll look around at the vault more and CEP. Thanks for the insight into the origin as well. I suspected there was a hacky way around it and I appreciate the expertise!
So… I exported a tree from nwn_base.key – the tnp_tree_t52.mdl. Got blender setup with Neverblender and imported the model. It was without texture, but I was able to scale up the model 10x and export it. Loaded into a placeable, into a hak, and then into the toolset as a giant 10-story tree. Was properly sized even in the toolset as a static object.
Then, in game, it was normal sized!
Is there something I missed in my attempt to make a 10x size static tree? Used the same bitmaps cause an issue?
… I found the neverblend tutorials by symmetric, I see there’s a lot I didn’t understand, will report back
Was able to export a model (and walkmesh) from the NWN assets, scale it up, and have it as a large “world-tree” type placeable in NWN.
Here’s a quick how-to for anyone else.
Get NWN Explorer, go to the data folder and open nwn_base.key
The tree models are under data xp3 bif
Export the ASCII text .mdl and .pwk files of the tree (or whatever placeable)
Get Blender and NeverBlender – I think 2.79 Blender is the most recent NeverBlender supported
Use the import function that NeverBlender provides, it’ll grab the model and the walkmesh (the part that keeps you from just walking through models like they’re air)
On the top right there’s a window that shows a folder-tree like display
There’s a lot going on here that is best learned through symmetric’s tutorial https://nwn.wiki/display/NWN1/NeverBlender+101%3A+Part+2+-+Creating+a+simple+Placeable
But, shortcut with an imported model is to just double-click on the name of the model and change it to something else, like test_blah
You’ll notice there’s other stuff in folder tree that has the old model name we’ll fix that quick
Under that top-right folder tree is a bar of icons, with the main base you have selected you’ll see an icon that looks like an orange cube, click that and the options on the right will expand
Scroll down toward that bottom, the bottom few are tools that NeverBlender added to help work with NWN models
Node Setup Helper is what you want, leave placeable clicked (if you’re working on a placeable) and click Setup Placeable
That will rename all the child sub-folders of your model to the new test_blah name
Now, do whatever you want to the model – I just used the transform helper function right above – but remember to click apply transform if you use that helper
Now, export and make sure to name the model the same test_blah name
You’ve just made a model for NWN! Depending, you can place it into override, but you might have to mess around with a placeables.2da to add your new placeable to a new line if you don’t want to just replace a prior one
