This past weekend was spent mainly in adding props to the existing levels to flesh them out and playing around with the textures.

It is embarrassing to admit but I only recently discovered the UVTile setting in the terrain mesh properties. I had been going back and forth between my levels and the official ones to figure out why my terrain looked so blotchy, for lack of a better word. I had just decided to post in the BSN forums for help when Eguintir Eligard created a thread about the very same thing last week. After setting the UVTile to a higher number for the levels, the effect was instant. If only everything else in the toolset was so simple to fix!!

I also went in and played around with the atmosphere settings and lighting to get that misty morning effect since the area the players start out in is at the top of a mountain. I might add some fog effects on the ground later too to firm in the idea of a Misty Mountain...then, all we need is Bilbo to complete the picture.

Below are a couple of screenshots before and after the texture and prop/vegetation work done this weekend (you can open the images in a new window to see the full-sized image).

Camp Before

Camp After

Start area - Before

Start area - After

I am really pleased with the effect and have exported the atmosphere settings to maintain some semblance of consistency between the immediate areas the player can transition to. Obviously, there will be certain areas that will have a both day and night version (including the start area) so the time frame of the transition should also be taken into account.

All in all, a good weekend's worth of work given that I was tied up with RL (Woodbury Days took up almost an entire day and I was too tired after that to do any work) and Divinity 2 (still haven't finished it but am close)

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If I were a Blizzard employee, I would probably say 'When it's done'. If I were employed in the game industry, I would probably be bound by contracts, deadlines, etc. However, as a hobbyist working on a module in his spare time, where should I draw the line?

When I started writing the story for this module, I had a very clear objective in mind - the story should progress in a very organic manner and the character driving the story (you, the player) should never feel that the story is taking a backseat to some inane side-quest. Of course, there will be times when the story takes precedence over the player's actions - the bane of every RPG in the eyes of the hardcore role-player but that is a limitation of the process.

As the plot progressed and I started making the levels and writing dialogue, so many possibilities sprung to my mind - why is this character behaving like this? Should he have a back-story? Should I have a side-quest where the player uncovers the truth behind the NPC's actions? After spending a week revising the story, I realized - why would the character, undertaking a critical task that is of personal importance, take the time to learn about every person he meets? It just didn't seem logical; the flip side is, without a convincing backdrop against which the player-NPC interaction occurs, the experience can turn out to be shallow, to say the least.

Then, I had what can only be termed as a serendipitous moment - in my attempt to provide many of the NPCs a background, distinct patterns had emerged. Taking that a step further, I revised the story again to introduce multiple factions into the story - each with their own objectives - and while they might collide with the player's story at some point, the ends are distinct.

...and then came DA2 and a brief PM chat with David Gaider.
After the initial DA2 announcement, I hadn't been following that too closely. I needed some clarifications on certain things I was including in the module and wanted to make sure it would fit in with the lore so I pinged David. Between the PMs and the initial promos for DA2, I realized some of the story I was including would vary from minor interpretational differences to portraying a completely different world. That resulted in the final revision which I have decided I won't change, come what may.

That defiant stance is primarily because most of the areas where I have applied my creative license to the lore would likely be delivered in a sequel to the current module - more on this later (it's all in a flux in my mind right now)

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AmstradHero pointed out that the Comments feature wasn't working on my blog. I had been wondering about that for some time now - the stats show that I am getting new and old visitors consistently and yet, no comments!
It seems this is a fairly common problem with custom templates on blogger. I remembered switching the Comment posting option to a 'pop-up' in my earlier template; after switching it on this one, it is finally working now! Made a mental note to test the comment functionality every time I change templates.
So, go ahead and post those comments!

I've also done some minor changes to have the Comments and Email link on separate lines and increased the line spacing to avoid the clustered look.
Since this is a custom template, I couldn't get the Reactions widget to work out-of-the-box too. I've added the required code in but for the life of me, I can't get the damn reactions left-aligned. Looks like I will have to ask Google for help on that one.

Lastly, I have added 2 more blogs to my reading list (well, Daeltaja's blog has been there for some time now).
Craggy Island is a stand-alone module being developed by Daeltaja and the levels are looking just fantastic. Check out his blog for some excellent screenshots.
The Dark Times Chronicle is a newsletter penned by MysteriXOX and is set in the Confederacy of Malkuth. It is an excellent source for all kinds of information on the DT:CoM world - interviews, culture, weather (yes!) and even classifieds!

Happy Reading and expect an update on BaL in a day or two!
Till later...

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This weekend was a good one. In-game testing revealed that the level I had termed as 'functionally complete' in my mind (the one mentioned in the last post) had some issues that had to be ironed out. One major problem was that the important interactions and areas were all in one side of the area - which means there was no reason to have the rest of the level. I spent some time reworking the structures and adding a small sub-quest to the area to accommodate that.

The other issue was that the level almost extended to the edge of the level grid - which meant I needed to have some way to block the player from going past the green box without it being too obvious. One simple option was to place an area transition there but it didn't make sense. I ended up with a solution that, if I say so myself, makes me quite happy! It is one of those instances that go against the player mentality when playing games like these. I am throwing around ideas to see if I could tie this in later with subsequent plot points but that's undecided at this point.

Here is a screenshot of the level - it is now officially complete except for texturing and additional vegetation work. Comments welcome!

Leeward, as you see it when you enter it

Next up is to do 3 more cutscenes in this area. Now that I am relatively comfortable with the cutscene editor, things should go along pretty smoothly. One of those will be a very complex scene and I am not even sure if the animations exist for those. If not, I might have to get creative with the camera angles but I will be asking for help in the BSN forums before I go that route!

Till later...

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... is a lot of work, I've come to realize.

The problem is that the conceptualization keeps changing when the cutscene is being developed and sometimes, that involves reworking a few seconds completely and then, making sure it blends in seamlessly. As an example, I had initially planned for an actor to pour wine from a cup he held in his hand but later, I felt it would be better to walk to a nearby table and use a bottle. A very simple change but the blending with the previous and subsequent animations took some work and not least because I am still not that experienced with the cutscene editor.

The first really big cutscene I am working on involving 4 actors

I also had problems with the cup (and later bottle) as I was initially animating them separately. I thought, what the heck, let's post in the cutscene forum to see if there is an easier way and presto! there is! Sunjammer and Eshme pointed me to the 'Link to Actor' option and SJ, in particular, gave a very detailed post that was very helpful.
However, there were still issues with that - for one, the Use Offset is not really that useful as you still have to pretty much set the orientation in a lot of frames (I believe that is called 'bracketing'). The other one was that DA doesn't really come with a decent cup - there is a goblet that will look totally out of place in a tavern and a huge mug straight from the Prancing Pony in LotR (which was another reason to switch to a bottle)

Anyway, the cutscene is almost complete - after another minor rework once I realized you can't have a conversation cutscene if there are dialogue options.

Till later...

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Lately, I've been spending a lot of time on the BSN forums - not browsing the actual forums but taking a shot at the various riddles and puzzles being posted in The Dark Times Chronicle group. Created by Team Z, which is a dev team for the Dark Times: Confederacy of Malkuth, the group plans to release regular newsletters to keep the folks interested in learning more about the DT:CoM universe entertained. And so far, they've done that rather splendidly!

The Team Z logo

With lots of riddles, puzzles and threads dealing with weird happenings, truisms, etc., the group has been an enjoyable place to go to for a break and MysteriXOX is almost always around to keep the momentum going! The most important thing, though, is that the first edition of The Dark Times Chronicle is being released in 2 days so keep an eye out for it. It will contain information on the DT:CoM module and interviews with the developers as well as more riddles and puzzles.

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In the last post, I had set a target for myself to complete the exterior level I had started earlier by the past weekend. Unfortunately, that didn't happen due to a variety of reasons. One thing I realized after putting all the structures in was that some of the interiors didn't match the exterior portrayed in the level. This may be a minor thing but once I saw the discrepancy, it just became a niggling thought that just wouldn't die!! Below is an example of what I mean -

The interior shot of the room

The exterior of the same room

(Sorry about the exterior shot but that's the best I could salvage from an earlier screenshot I had taken - all my 5 backup saves have the updated design)
If you look at the exterior shot closely (you can enlarge it), you would see that the door is set in a small alcove and there are two corners were the edges are not perpendicular and instead have another wall at around a 120-degree angle between them. Neither of those were reflected in the interior area.The other minor thing was the windows' placement but that really was a very minor difference.

Changing the interior level would have meant reworking a lot of things - more/less space which I would have needed to fill/empty, rearrange NPCs and tables and most important, rework a cutscene that takes place inside. Changing the exterior meant using different models in the same space - I had been too lazy before and just put together two house models back-to-back. Instead, I just put together the walls and windows as in the interior - didn't take too long to do that either :)

As I am writing this, I *think* I could have got away with the cutscene if I had just enlarged the interior to accommodate the differences but oh well, what's done is done and I did have to rework more than that one structure anyway. The level is close to completion now; I need to fill out the level with more props and do the lighting but at least all the required pieces are now present to test in-game.

Alongside this, I have also been working on dialogues and one big cutscene in the interior area shown above. I had mentioned earlier that the module will require a Dalish Elf player and the cutscene should help set the tone on how certain NPCs within Orlesian-occupied Ferelden react to Dalish - keeping in mind the historical tensions between Orlesians and Dalish.

Till tomorrow...

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