This post is a couple of days late in coming but hey, better late than never. Craggy Island was officially released late Sunday night and can be downloaded from DANexus. Paul has an extensive post about the journey from conception to release on his blog, make sure to check it out; it's a good read.

For me, Craggy Island was the first fruitful collaboration in the Dragon Age space. When Paul first posted the island's screenshots and posted for scripting help, I was a little wary about offering help since the other projects I had done that for had died away after a while. However, this one looked to be different since he continued to work on the other aspects and post progress updates. In the end, I caved in and decided to do the scripting portion - couldn't let a fine island like that go to waste!

It's been a bumpy ride at times when I've been tied up with RL or Blood and Lyrium or the Community Contest entries and couldn't devote the time required to complete the tasks assigned to me, which led to delays on the overall project release. It's been a learning experience too - the most important lesson being sometimes the game and Toolset behave like sentient entities. Serious! The only recourse in those times has been to take a deep breath, let the Toolset throw it's tantrum, do the same sequence of steps again and voila! it's working!

Anyway, enough on the journey. The destination has been reached and Craggy Island has been released. Now, the most nervous phase of a project starts - what will the reception be like? So, go play Craggy Island and make sure you post your feedback - good or bad - in the comments section; it will definitely help in us maturing as better game designers. Cheers!

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Well, almost there. I'm talking about Craggy Island, of course.
The past week was a bit unsettling because of all the various ways the game decided to test our conviction that the module was ready for release. B2B area loads didn't work, quests working in one build didn't work on another, plot actions that had been working for a long time were suddenly breaking - it was like a pre-go-live crunch period, which in a way, it was, I guess.

After numerous exchanges of full and incremental B2Bs, we finally decided to take the big step of wiping out the database on Paul's side and loading everything from scratch from a B2B on my machine - which had a bigger percentage of the anomalies working correctly. Things finally started going in the right direction yesterday though Paul had to spend some hours renaming the VO files - I always import B2Bs with 'Create New Strings' checked.

Don't worry, son; you are almost there

Still, what's done is done. We are currently testing the B2P package on both our machines and while some snags are hit, they are being speedily resolved as we encounter them. So, Paul's stated release date of 16th looks like being the D-Day for sure!

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Over the weekend, I had one minor issue to fix for Craggy Island - there is a quest which isn't getting updated after meeting the required conditions. Pretty trivial, eh? That's what I thought and I had put an estimate to get it completed (along with a few other minor things to implement) by Saturday evening.
You would have already guessed that this was not a trivial fix (or why else would I write a post about this?). I was testing it with some debug scripts so I didn't have to play through from the beginning and it worked fine. Then, I loaded the full B2B I got from Daeltaja a few days back and again, worked fine. The problem? It didn't work on his setup. 

The chest that won't co-operate...on a selective basis

 We went over the relevant pieces of code line by line to make sure we both had matching scripts - shouldn't be necessary since I had just loaded his B2B but sometimes the Toolset works in it's own strange ways. Recreated the offending resources, refreshed the objects in the area and in general, made sure everything matched up. I even did a full run-through to make sure it wasn't something happening earlier that was affecting it - worked fine.
We must have spent like 4 hours trying to nail the problem down without any success.

I am doing one of my periodic database refreshes on my office laptop and after that, will import the B2B again and if it works, send that to Daeltaja and hopefully, get this issue out of the way by today. Goes to show, even the littlest of things can screw up things in a big way.

Till later...

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The lull at work, that is. We have one more deployment this weekend which should take a couple of hours at the most but other than that, there's not much going on at work. I've started compiling a list of things to complete over the next 2 weeks since this will be the time when I can focus on developing.

Towards that, I've been concentrating on wrapping up Craggy Island as best as I can and barring one issue where ambient animation is not resumed once combat ends, everything is good to go from my end. Sometimes, even the smallest thing that you know you could probably get to work while you are asleep gives so much trouble and that was the case here with codex entries not appearing. After a lot of debugging, it was due to the infamous duplicate GUID bug. Anyway, all's good now.

The focus for the next 2 weeks is going to be tying things together in the new areas and creating NPCs and ambient behaviour for them. And then, finish up the remaining abilities for the custom classes since those will be needed to play-test these areas.
I do have to spend some time to finish my PBEM tourney for Shadow Magic. Now that I am at the semi-final stage, I want to make sure I go all the way through and regain my Championship crown! So, I'll have to spend some time to map out the strategy for the finals - assuming I win the semis, of course!

Till later...

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Past few days have have seen a lot of behind-the-scenes work, both on Blood and Lyrium and Craggy Island and mostly on Skype.

I think I've mentioned this before, DahliaLynn is working on an important cutscene for BaL and so far, it's looking absolutely terrific! We've been going back and forth over it but it is mostly complete now except for some fine-tuning. Today, we got the revised voice samples for that scene and will be integrated into the conversation shortly. After this is done, I hope to retain her services for a few more cut-scenes; frankly, the ones I've done so far are not good. Of course, I've received a lot of suggestions and advice on cinematics from her but going back and re-doing them will not be a quick task and with the amount of things still left to be done, they will have to wait.

How do you know this is from the Toolset?

The good news on the progress side of things is that the Evermist re-work is complete (well, except for the final polish but that's true for all my levels) and I've started integrating the area work done previously. There is also an extremely cool side-quest in that area, if I do say so myself. One that's innovative in it's use of the game resources; I got caught up in implementing it and while it's not working as intended currently, it's just a question of hacking away at it because that's primarily what it is ;)

I also fixed most of the big issues with Craggy Island, including that auto-level up templates for companions. I was kicking myself for not double-checking everything after finding the causes - the character template had a min-level and preset abilities that was screwing up the final output. I was calculating the XP needed to level from Level 1 to 7 and the min-level was already set to 5. So, what happens? The game bumps her up to level 9. I tell you, I was pulling my hair out trying to figure this out.

In addition to the fixes, some more cool VFX effects have been implemented that gives the scene that authentic touch. I know I said this previously too but these ones are way better, trust me! One more day will be dedicated to CI to code in the character pre-set and fix some niggling issues but after that, it will be time to beta!

For those out there wondering, I have not completely succumbed to the temptations of WoW...yet! But the pull is strong! :p

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As mentioned in the last update, I've been working on two things primarily - finishing up the scripting for Craggy Island and reworking the Evermist level.

The work on Craggy Island is almost done. We've added some VFX to the final area to make things seem a little more coherent. The actual VFX that was to be implemented is not present in the default VFX_base worksheet. For now, a similar VFX has been added and while it does look fine, I think the original one (fxe_mist_p) had a 'blowing-out' animation that's missing from this one. In the end, we might just have to extend VFX_base and use the VFX that was originally intended to be in the area.
There is also an annoying issue with the auto-level up template for the companions - just doesn't seem to work. I'll have to spend some time tomorrow going over that and trying to fix it.

This weekend, I spent a considerable amount of time on the Evermist level. Even if I do say so myself, it is starting to look much more like a proper village than a random collection of houses on elevated ground. I've taken pains to bring in some distinction to the various areas within the level - for example, rich farmers will have shingled roofs on their houses and the immediate area around them will look better with cobbled pathways and bigger houses, the poorer sections will have thatch roofs, closer-spaced houses, patch-worked walls.

I had planned to take some before/after close-up shots to show the difference but didn't have time yesterday night. Maybe in the next post :)
Here is a screenie of one of the streets that is near the entrance; still need to add a few more props but I also have to make sure not to overdo it. As it is, the level is prop-heavy due to all the constructed structures!

Oh, and I managed to spend only a few hours on WoW - enough to advance my gnome by about 7 levels. Reading about the latest patch on the WoW forums, it appears that the initial leveling process has been made faster ;)

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That's right! THE drug, going by what I've read and I must say, it's true to an extent!

I saw a BF deal for a free monthly pass for WoW and decided I'll give it a shot. I got one of those 10-day trial invites so I can decide whether to sell that pass or not and it looks like I *might* subscribe instead. I should have taken a screenshot of the first time I entered Eitrigg. I guess it was a busy time in the realm - there were scores of characters around! That first glimpse sucked me right in though I couldn't log on to that realm after that (almost always full!)
Instead I created a gnome mage in Norgannon and it's been a blast playing that little 'un. I don't know about others but I find the graphics extremely appealing. It's so colourful and lively, compared to DA.

The starting area for a gnome character

The other thing I noticed was that even for unimportant quests - simply to go to another place, for example - you get a detailed reason. Far more detailed than any of those Chanter's Board/Blackstone Irregulars/many other side-quests in DA. I really liked that there is a story behind all these fights against the Troggs, Rockjaws and Frostmanes.
The other important distinction from DA that I immediately noticed were the ambient animations. Here is a screenshot (badly taken) of a guy carrying another. He actually goes and lays the guy down on a makeshift bed and goes back and waits for another survivor!

Anyway, as much as I am enjoying this game, I am making a conscious effort not to play for extended lengths of time. I still have a module to finish; make it two actually. I am in final stages of scripting for Craggy Island and after that, it's just going to be bug-fixing (which we've already done a lot) and polishing. Hopefully, it gets out around Christmas; last I heard, VO is in progress.

Meanwhile, while re-working my Evermist level, I've also been taking breaks on and off (it feels like I've been working in the level editor most of the time!) and re-working dialogues to change references to the locations that have moved. I'm also working on fleshing out the setting with a lot of ambient dialogues during these breaks so it doesn't get boring - which is quite easy when re-working a level as huge as this one. I'm also making sure some of the buildings fit more into a village setting; an example is the marketplace which was very big and spacious under a huge tent-like awning previously. Now, the shops are more closely-packed and cluttered with make-shift roofs.

Re-worked market

Once I finish this, I have around 4 cutscenes I need to create in this area. That will definitely take some time! Till later...

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So, it turned out to be not so bad after all.

I managed to finish the scripting required for Craggy Island on Sunday morning. There is still a niggling issue where a particular item is not getting added to the player's inventory - there is no fancy code in the back end, just a simple call to UT_AddItemToInventory. It is working in other places so I am not sure why it is not working here. The only difference is that this is an equippable item and the initial testing was with an uninitialized character (Jaden). However, even after generating the correct player character, it is not working. Not a really big deal but I am curious to find out why it is not working in this case.

Out of the 2 cutscenes I had planned to finish, I managed to finish only one. I don't know whether to call it fairly short or lengthy since it is only 20 seconds but it is lengthiest one I've created so far and also the most complex. It has around 9 characters and 2 creatures and a bunch of VFXs. The hardest part was finding the animations for the bears and in the end, I couldn't find anything suitable. I had to resort to taking a small portion of an existing animation and repeating it a few times.

The doors can only be opened by the bears!

In the end, it didn't turn out all that bad. I figure I still have some tweaking left to do with the weights and transitions but I am happy for now! I also have to start investigating the facial expressions for the characters as, right now, they are a little bland and static.

I tried to use Sunjammer's new tool - the Cutscene Companion - but I wasn't able to capture anything. Then, I tried to use Fraps but in-game, the cutscene was playing at location (0,0,0) in spite of having a stage assigned to it. I was hoping to generate a movie and club it with some other shots and create a sort of trailer but I guess it will have to wait for another day.

The target for this week is to complete the remaining cutscenes while I still have that directing bug and create/modify some VFXs for my custom classes and integrate all that into the module. A big task, I admit, but it has to be done at some point and the sooner the better.

Till later....

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In my earlier post,I had mentioned that I would be able to get the level I submitted for the contest tweaked and ready by the weekend. Well, that didn't happen. In spite of the long list of ideas I had on Friday, the weekend for the most part was a complete bust. I had to work on a production-critical demand issue and after spending almost an entire day on it, I was drained. I did open the toolset but I couldn't even get myself to write a simple trigger script - completely blanked out! Towards the of the weekend, I finally wrung out some energy to fix some of the glaring omissions in the level - floating buildings. I also went through the level in-game, both in tactical camera mode and third-person view to find anything else that was amiss and I recalled Mike's comments about the carts balancing on wheels and went about fixing those.

Where are those invisible oxen?!

I did manage to have a long conversation with Daeltaja on Sunday evening and have a list of things I need to complete for Craggy Island - minor scripting stuff for the most part. The one important thing I'm overdue on is getting a play-through done so I can get a feel for the current state of things. I plan to get that done with today so I can finish the work required from my side - after all, I volunteered for this so I definitely don't want to be the one holding things up!

On the Shadow Magic front, two of my first round games were won successfully and the last one is in progress. I want to win this too so I can be assured of a second round slot - with the modified swiss sytem we are using, two wins might not cut it if the opponents don't get many points. I would probably need to spend some time preparing for the second round once the map is announced and that will likely happen toward end of this month.

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One of the good things with the level building contest was getting feedback from the judges. Mike and Semper have given some valuable feedback, including a tip about ambient animations that will go a long way toward polishing my level-building skills. So, that's what I've started doing now - fixing up the contest entry to remove some of the obvious mistakes - there were two floating buildings a small distance off the ground that I am really ashamed of as I went through the level specifically looking for that! I will also start addressing some of the things I wrote down in my earlier post and hopefully, get the level finished this weekend.

In the meantime, I've started dabbling in 3ds max when I get time so I can do some basic stuff. One of the first things I wanted to do was to get the fence prop with a relatively straighter upper post so it would look better when placed in a chain. I was able to do it though the end result wasn't that good - I just pulled all the vertices up and exported it, which I guess is not the way to do it :)

There is also a scripting contest coming up and I've already got ideas for 3 possible mini-games. All of those would fit in nicely with BaL though the 2 mini-games/puzzles I had planned for BaL won't be entered in the contest - I need to keep some original stuff for my module as well! I also have a cool idea for the setup for one of the games that would involve some new models but after going through some video tutorials yesterday night on 3ds max, I think it should be pretty simple (the available options to create models are staggering!)

Now that the contest is over, I'm also spending more time working on Craggy Island to get the scripts written as and when Daeltaja finishes writing a particular sequence and so far, there haven't been any real hurdles there. I might have to write a custom placeable script to strip out some of the features in placeable_core but again, the core functionality isn't being changed so that should be relatively simple.

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I finished the area (Leeward) I was working on for Blood and Lyrium a couple of days back - finished as in, the required NPCs for the various quests are in place and their dialogue is written and plots and associated scripts are done. Technically, that means I can play through till this area and the story will progress accordingly. Of course, there is some additional play-testing to do to make sure everything is alright. I can't speak for other module-makers but for me, it is very difficult to do more than one or two runthroughs of an area if I haven't added something new to test. I know there are alternate options to choose and different approaches to the same goals (well, most of the time at least) but I just can't seem to muster the willpower to do it. I don't know - is it that the content is not interesting enough or is it just my psyche?

Anyway, the good news is, as I was play-testing, I got a very good idea for a quest at the beginning of the game. Now, some players might not like having to answer lore questions to progress through a main quest line. I even thought of adding in an alternative way to do it but then, ditched the idea. After all, Blood and Lyrium is about a Dalish protagonist and I didn't want to dilute the experience right at the start. I just made sure that the player can find the required answers either through conversations or codex entries before starting the quest.

New Quest - The camera needs a bit of adjustment still

A few posts back, I was talking about Craggy Island and how the island itself was looking beautiful. As it turns out, Daeltaja was looking for some help with scripting and I've decided to set aside some time to do just that. This last week, we went through a few hurdles getting B2B to work right but after the initial hiccups, managed to complete the initial plot and associated scripting. The module is not planned to be very lengthy so I expect, if we keep up the kind of communication we had going last week, to be done with the scripting front by end of this month. I hate to put an end date on things still in development (I've already revised BaL's release date twice!) but I reckon I will take a chance with this; especially as the main developer (Daeltaja) will have a couple of weeks vacation this month.

Till later...

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