Shipping original art assets with the game

[Frenetic Pony]

So a lot of mods are made using a game's original art assets. But, in Project Eternity, those assets are going to be baked into the environment, unusable by modders to create new environments.

 

Thus this is a simple request for any 3d models and textures and other relevant assets to be shipped to players, maybe in a separate "mod kit" download, for modders to re-use as they see fit. I know, there will almost certainly be assets bought from Unity's asset store, or contracted out to artists for hire, that might not be able to be made available as such due to legal issues. But certainly any in house stuff made could just be put up so that modders can use them in their own, new areas.

[Frisk]

This would be nice, *but* we don't yet know how hard it will be to make new areas at all. However, we will (presumably) have some art assets in reusable form - item, character and monster models and textures in partucular, but possibly some animated objects and effects (trees/water/whatever)

 

Also, keep in mind that some of the art assets might be incomplete - for example, they might have a building model with an unfinished/untextured backside - they might not need it as the back side would never be seen. So, even if you got the model for use in creating your own scene, you might be limited to a particula viewpoint (I really don't think this will be the case, as the artists developing the model might not know exactly how it is supposed to be facing, but it's a possibility - "We neeed the front and right side of a large temple")

 

Another issue might be the ownership of the art assets (models, incl. animations and textures) - we don't know if they are all created in-house, or if Obsidian will be licensing some of them for specific use, but without the rights to redistribute them in original format.

 

There might be another way to get some nice-looking models to play with, though - take the NWN2 models, maybe retexture them with higher-resolution textures, and you would have a pretty nice selection of buildings to use.

[Aoyagi]

Well, for once I would like to see something similar to NWN toolset along with its assets scope and ease of use.

[Frisk]

Well, for once I would like to see something similar to NWN toolset along with its assets scope and ease of use.

 

The chances of getting that from Obsidian are close to zero. Obsidian is not going to write a toolset just for the community. Although they have said they will make the game moddable, and provide some information to the modding community, they will probably be relying on 3rd party tools too much to be able to release everything required to build the game.

 

Let's look at various categories, and what we need and might expect to get from Obsidian, and what the community will (presumably) have to build.

 

To start with, the use of Unity 3D probably means that anyone wanting to get a head start in creating content for PE should get the free version of Unity and start playing with it. It does not have all the features of the Pro version, but it is a VERY nice tool - (and "Knowledge of Unity 3D" is always good to have on a resume)

 

So, a few categories:

 

SCRIPTS

 

The big question with the scripts is if they will be stored in source format or as some sort of compiled bytecode. In the second case, the community would have to write a decompiler, or Obsidian would have to release the script source separately for it to be possible to modify the game behaviour. If the scripts are stored in source form, things are much easier -it should be trivial to extract/replace/add/modify them as needed - If we get tools from Obsidian, fine - otherwise we'll write them.

 

Another issue is which script language will be used. If it is Obsidian's own language, we would appreciate a language reference document, but perhaps they will just use one of the languages already supported by Unity3D (and personally I think it would by kind-of appropriate if the used "Boo", but perhaps that's just my warped sense of humour).

 

DIALOGUE

 

I am assuming the dialogue will be separate from the scripts (but you will be able to execute scripts as a result of dialogue selections). Obsidian will presumably have some kind of a dialogue editor - I think there is a fairly good chance they will make it available. If not, the community can write one.

 

MODELS

 

Compared to games like NWN2 and DA:O there will presumably be relatively few models included with the game - most of the models created for the game will have been "baked" into the bitmap backgrounds. It is possible that Obsidian might release some of those models, but I would not bet on it.

 

What we will have in-game will be models for items (armours, weapons and such), characters and monsters. Perhaps Obsidian will provide information on the file format - if not, it can be reverse-engineered with minimal effort. Now, Obsidian will presumably have some utility for converting models from whatever 3D modeling tool they use to the in-game format - something like a 3DS Max plugin, for example, and if there are no legal/licensing issues, they might well release that tool, which would be a great help for people wanting to create new animated models (monsters). Unfortunately there might well be legal issues, in particular if Obsidian uses some 3rd party middleware (like Granny was used in NWN2).

 

What Obsidian will not have, however, will be any tools for converting game models back into something that can be edited in a 3D modelling tool. The community will have to develop that. It should be relatively trivial to make the tools for reskinning existing models, but (as always), handling animations might be complicated and take time.

 

TEXTURES

 

Textures for the in-game models should be relatively straight-forward, but again, as the models will be relatively few in number, so will the textures.

 

AREAS

 

This is the big one. Making the game moddable requires us to be able to modify existing areas - for example to add new interactive objects, or to add new exits. For this we need file format information - we can reverse-engineer the files, but getting the information from Obsidian would save a lot of time.

 

We also need to be able to make new areas. Now, perhaps we will be able to use the free version of Unity for that - but keep in mind that the free version has some limitations compared to the pro version - for example regarding shadows.

 

It is very easy create things like trigger zones and walkmeshes in the Unity scene editor, but (and that is a pretty big "but") I have no idea how easy it will be to convert such scenes into a working game area - I can only hope that Obsidian will provide any necessary conversion tools or file format information.

 

AUDIO

 

This should be a relatively problem-free area. I expect Obsidian to use some standard file format (mp3/wav/ogg) and to provide information on how to add new sound effects, music and such.

 

CUTSCENES

 

I have a big question mark here. We have no idea how important cutscenes will be in the game or what tools will be used to make them - so anything I might say would be utter speculation.

Edited November 7, 2012 by Frisk

[Semper]

Perhaps Obsidian will provide information on the file format - if not, it can be reverse-engineered with minimal effort. Now, Obsidian will presumably have some utility for converting models from whatever 3D modeling tool they use to the in-game format - something like a 3DS Max plugin, for example, and if there are no legal/licensing issues, they might well release that tool, which would be a great help for people wanting to create new animated models (monsters). Unfortunately there might well be legal issues, in particular if Obsidian uses some 3rd party middleware (like Granny was used in NWN2).

 

regarding the fact that unity's got a great pipeline obsidian simply should go with a "universal" format like fbx or collada. there're tons of free exporters and the majority of apps do support them right from the start. there's absolutely no need for third party plugins and licensing issues. hopefully obsidian's that smart... they should also release a sample scene setup for rendering (correct camera angle!) and all the needed supporting maps (light, height, walking zones, overlays, etc.), if there're any.