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NWN2 News August 10, 2007

Rob McGinnis

Entry posted by Rob McGinnis

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Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update

August 10, 2007

 

Another week, another update. This one should be fun... (Make sure you read to the bottom. That's where the juicy bits are).

 

 

For The Music Lovers!

Many of you have been seeing me prattle on about how much I love the music for MoTB. Well, today you get your chance to hear for yourself.

 

This clip is the main theme from Mask of The Betrayer. Please right-click it and save the file to your hard drive before listening.

 

Alexander Brandon, our Audio Director, gives us a bit of insight into the theme:

 

The piece was written by Rik Schaffer of Womb Music, and I provided some additional instrumentation. It's intent was to communicate a darker more tribal feeling than the original Neverwinter Nights 2 theme. Rik combined percussion with strong thematic elements signifying the struggle between the player and [some of the darker themes in the game], and afterwards I mixed in the Neverwinter Nights 2 theme for a strong link to its predecessor.

 

I hope you find it as enjoyable as I do.

 

Community Works

 

Bridges!

The folks over at Robinson Workshop have been working on a bridge pack. You can see more screenshots here.

 

 

SuspensionBridge.jpg

 

 

TwoBridges.jpg

 

 

Build your own Castle

 

NytirPack.jpg

 

NWVault member Nytir has brought us something I thought was pretty cool. He has created a system of placeables that will allow you to... well, it's better if he explains it:

 

his package contains 116 building parts ranging from floorboards, staircases, walls, columns, beams, doorways, windows to rooftops. The aim of this Mod to provide an easy way to create complex structures in NWN2. The dimensions of each individual part are all in integers and most of them have the same origin so that you can put them together seamlessly with ease.

 

You can piece together a structure of any size without worrying about overstretching the texture. You can scale specific parts of the structure to get the proportion you like (For example, if you want a steeper roof, you scale only the roof).

 

You can build a wide range of structures with these parts including castles, towers, ramparts, houses, bridges, cloisters, docks, curbs and staircases.

 

The parts are fully tintable.

 

You can check out this great building pack here, on NWVault.ign.com.

 

 

Instant Area, Just Add Encounters!

 

ExteriorRuins.jpg

 

NWVault user SGK73 has created a series of area prefabs desinged to make your building efforts easier. From the screenshots, they appear to be well-made and have a lot of character. All you need to do is add encounters and place these areas in your module.

 

InteriorCaves.jpg

 

SGK73 has made four great Area prefabs:

 

Exterior Ruins

Urban Ruins

Interior Caves

Exterior Forest

 

 

Expotron (Granny) Animation Exporter Released!

Alright animators, the day has finally arrived!

 

Bring your custom creatures to life in Neverwinter Nights 2 with the Expotron plugin for 3dsMax! This plugin, used by the developers at Obsidian, will allow you to animate the creatures, buildings and other objects you create in 3d Studio Max for use in the Neverwinter Nights 2!

 

We are also releasing a series of videos we used internally for learning to work with the plugin. You can find all this artistic goodness hidden away on our website.

 

 

Dedicated Server Creator Released!

We are also releasing the dedicated server creator today! You can find it here. This little application will copy all of the necessary files to run the server by itself into a new directory. This new directory can then be copied and placed on a separate machine.

 

 

That's about it for this week. The PW spotlight will be continued next week. We just had so much to share, I didn't want to dim the spotlight for them. As always, if you have anything you want to see reported in the Community Update, send me a PM. If you would like your PW to appear in the Community Update, send me a PM. Have fun!

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14 Comments

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samm

The theme sounds a bit too dissonant and is probably quite disturbing during character creation for my taste. Also, ask Jeremy Soule if he lends you his synthesizer for the strings ;) The drums are cool, imo. So is the release of the granny tool. Go to work now, custom content creators! :lol:

 

Btw, does someone actually use downloaded area prefabs in his/her module?

 

I don't mean to be to negative, sorry if it sounds as if.

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Patcha

May be the effect of the "first time you hear something"...

I think that while you hear it continuosly, you can find it even more catchy.

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Venture
Btw, does someone actually use downloaded area prefabs in his/her module?

 

I don't mean to be to negative, sorry if it sounds as if.

 

I do. I DM a multiplayer weekly campaign, and using prefabs is the only way to build fast enough to stay ahead of the group. For a while, I was using 2 prefabs for every 1 area I created, but now I've increased that to more of a 3:1 ratio.

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Ovocean

Expotron's out at last ! Gives me a feeling of great power :sorcerer: . Thanks for the polished docs.

 

I don't know how useful is the dedicated server creator as I'm building a solo module, but I've tried it anyway and I could appreciate the translation in French for it (and won't be the only one). :thumbsup:

 

As for the theme music, I find it too dissonant, like samm. I think nice harmonious and (more) original yet dramatic themes could have been shaped using more of these exotic drums and flutes.

BG I and II main titles were also a bit harshy, though...

But after listening to MotB theme and the musics at Womb's site, I don't expect MotB's music to really surpass Michael Hoenig work on the BG series. I think there will be some nice tunes with some originallity, but I anticipate the conventional boring and/or irritating battle/caves/dungeons tracks that I've heard in almost all games I've played until then.

Thanks for sharing, anyway. :)

 

Edit : Weeeee ! ZBrush 3.1 just been out ! What a great day !

Zbrush 3.1 + Expotron + 3dsmax + NWN2 Toolset = Most tremendous power ever given to amateur world builders :grin:

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Pavlos

I liked the theme - awesome stuff. If it's a dark and disturbing game you're working for then the main theme certainly will add to that effect. And if you don't like it for character creation... ? Well, you could always turn your speakers off :).

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nicethugbert

Granny is here, the monstrous hordes are near.

 

Mmmm, eye candy overdoes in progresss.

 

We have scriptable lego? Awesome!

 

Like the theme song, needs some more bass.

 

WOW WOW WOW, super friday. :)

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Ovocean
And if you don't like it for character creation... ? Well, you could always turn your speakers off original.gif.

Yes, or replace the mus file with something better for our liking. ;)

 

Your avatar made me launch Planescape Torment's music... whaaa, what an atmosphere in it ! :wub: Some are boring or grating of course, but still they are really instrumentally and melodically original and have a lot of personality, wich made them excellent in-game music.

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chris421

Sometimes I whistle the NWN tavern song till my lips are chaffed and bloody.

 

New theme song was OK.

 

All-time favorite game sound tracks would have to be Lineage2 and

.
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samm

It's good to see that prefabs are indeed used, and how they are used. And it's even better if people pick up Expotron. Go, cc-people, go! :sorcerer:

And if you don't like it for character creation... ? Well, you could always turn your speakers off.

Yes, or replace the mus file with something better for our liking.

The second solution is probably closer to what I'll do, or just turn the music's volume down, while leaving the rest of the sounds up... Turn my speakers off :lol:

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Cailte

I'm in the love the music category.

 

I'm looking forward to hearing more as I'm definately done with the NWN1 music which is where most of it still comes from atm.

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Patcha

LOL: I'm hearing NWN2 songs (I bought the Collector's Edition)... I created a Winamp list where I putted the MoTB Theme downloaded here, too.

 

When the MoTB Theme starts, the dog of my neighbor starts to howl... but to me it sounds as a part of the music.

So I said to myself "uhm... I wasn't remembering there was wolfs on background"! :D

I have to say that wolfs' howls dosn't sount bad at the start of the MoTB Theme! :D

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chris421

 

Any bets on how long it'll take the community to use Expotron to revamp Zylch's models with jiggly T&A? :brows:

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Baron Rosencheck1
Any bets on how long it'll take the community to use Expotron to revamp Zylch's models with jiggly T&A? :brows:

 

*groans* nope.. no bets from me ;)

 

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