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 Inizio  Indice del forum Neverwinter Nights 2 NWN2: Builders - NWN2 Toolset Area Building Tips & Tricks
NWN2: Builders - NWN2 Toolset
Anduraga, son of Kosaraga
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 Inviato: domenica, 05 agosto 2007 06:24 |
I find that many people find area building a very difficult task, and when they do make areas, they are often basic, because of the lack of tutorials, tips, etc. I can relate that to somewhat in a different department. Scripting isn’t really my strong suit, but I can manage to do the basics. But anyway, to the point of this post/thread. I have designed this thread to help new builders, adept builders and even master builders with tips and tricks of the trade. I haven’t checked out many of the tutorials on the vault (Shame on me, I know), so all this stuff I’m throwing out here now might already have been covered.
Believe it or not, some of Obsidian's areas aren't that hard to mimic if you just know the technique that they used. I find a lot of a new people have a tendency to gear themselves to rural areas for their first area to start learning, and I would have to say that was probably one of their worst choices they could have done. Yes, forests are the hardest to do. With rural regions people need to know quite a bit of texturing techniques for them to even begin to look decent.
From my own experiences (and I have also taught a few others how to texture through this same area), I find that the Mt. Galardrym and Wasteland regions to be the best starting places for texturing, but not only that, they are rather easy to create. And when I speak of Mt. Galardrym, I’m talking about the texturing techniques, not the rather massive mountain in the middle of the area.
Note: 8/05 - There's little mentioned in the ways of terrain-molding, except for the cliffs. I intend to add more later, but for now other modders can chip in their two cents on this subject.
If you have any techniques for terrain molding or texturing, please come and share them with the rest of the community. ( This offer also goes to Obsidian as well  )
Anyway, onward to my pointers!
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This is a lot of information for one to take in at once, so my suggestion would be to read it bit by bit for the newcomers to building.
Common Tips:
• Grey-scaling – This is a coined term that I use for using the color tool when dealing with the white/black color spectrum. Grey-scaling is an essential tool for creating realistic environments, and also if you are creating grassy rural regions, you can use darker greys to make our area appear that it is using two different textures, when it’s only using one.
• Coloring – Similar to above, but you have to exercise caution with what colors you decide to use. Before using the color tool, decide what color schematic would best compliment each other
o Water – Use blues for underneath water and waterfalls. You may also use greens and browns for a different effect.
o Grass: Mostly just greens here. Small tinges of brown would work, but only small bits. Blue, red, Yellow (unless it was yellow grass to begin) and Violet don’t really work.
• Texturing Variety – In order to make something look good, you have to do more than just place something down most of the time. In the case of texturing, you have several techniques you can use. I have incorporated these techniques into the subsections below (Cliffs and Roads). Just know that when you are texturing, your roads and cliffs shouldn’t be straight, in fact, they should be jagged (info below).
• Tedious Details - When dealing with the details, use a small brush. 1x2 (Inner by Outer) is needed most of the time and sometimes, for tedious details, a 1x0 brush is required.
• Blending - When texturing, many times you want to blend out from the current pressure. Usually decrementing the pressure by 10% each time as you go out should do the trick.
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Anduraga, son of Kosaraga
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Inviato: domenica, 05 agosto 2007 06:25 |
Basic Cliff Design
-> When sculpting out cliffs, use the flatten tool to set it at a height. Doesn't really matter that it has really sharp edges at the moment. Afterwards whip out the Smooth tool at 15% and click on each cliff face about 3 times. Sometimes this takes more than that, so you really have to go about using your eyes. Just wait till all the rough looking edges are mostly gone.
-> Many times at the base of cliffs you will almost always find twigs and rocks at their base. There's placeables and a texture for rocks and twigs. Don't be afraid to use them. Note: Do not use Twigs texture at 100%! This texture was not really designed for that in mind. At the very most you should probably never exceed 50%, but for me, that is kind of pushing it.
-> Many times you don't really need a second texture on your cliffs, so they are not too much of a problem. However, you should make use of grey-scaling with the Color Tool.
-> When texturing cliffs, give them some variety. Don’t always the rock part of the cliffs the same height. Texture in zig zags or just randomly to create this effect. There is also another efficient way of doing this. Turn on the walkmesh and wherever it says the PC cannot walk, place the texture down. If you aren’t happy with how it looks afterwards, add some touch-ups! Note: This step is intended after you used the smooth tool on the cliffsides.
This is a very basic way of creating cliffs, and many people can do it with little effort. There are more complicated and advanced techniques that I cannot even find that Obsidian uses that I wish I knew, particularly an easier way of creating their cliffs in places like High Cliff would fill me with glee.
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Grass Texturing
Texturing grass can be a pain. There's not much you can do with blending and make a wide impact, so you have to resort to other techniques for grass.
-> First off, there's the color tool. Grey-scaling is vital here. Use a darker brush and etch "veins" into your grass, but stay away from any roads that you might have. Do not make it too dark or else it'll just look like an outcast. Also, Grey-scale under trees as well as if you’re painting the shadows. By doing this, you’re adding a little flavor to the lower end systems and you are not impacting the upper-end systems at all. Small things go a long way.
-> After grey-scaling, the next best step to do is start placing your grass. At about... 25% put your grass on the grey-scaled parts and not outside of it. These darker spots are more luscious spots where grass has grown taller. For the lighter spots, lower the pressure and lower the height of your grass. If you follow these tips for grass placing, it'll make a nice impact to your mod.
IMPORTANT NOTE!: I have noticed quite a bit of builders using excessive amounts of grass (similarly you can pin Excessive Tree Types and Random Seeds on them as all typically). This is a very, very bad habit. The NWN2 system is not as efficient as the Oblivion system to handle massive amounts of grass. Lots of grass (and very tall grass) have a high tendency of creating quite a bit of lag.
-> For complimenting textures of rurals, Grass_01 usually does well for small rocks when you're using green textures. Twigs_01 as well underneath trees and near cliff edges. The dirt texture you used for the road can also be used elsewhere randomly for dirt patches. There are a few combinations of textures that you may find useful. I won’t detail them all, I’ll leave some things for some of you to suggest
Basic Road Texturing
This isn't as hard as I make it sound, but it's best to make roads completely from scratch rather than deal with something pre-placed. Note: This applies to both dirt and cliff textures! If it’s a road, this can apply! Note 2: This technique is not recommended for cities.
Scribbling: That’s right folks, it’s time to scribble. Grab a small brush at 50% pressure, and start to swing your mouse around like crazy from side to side along where the road should be. Don't go too crazy about it, you want to be able to see a faint road from a distance after you are done. When you are finished with this step, admittedly it will look like crap, but the ending effect is phenomenal if done right.
-> Fill in the Gaps: The point of not tracing it out at first is to create jaggedness in your road. Even the most well maintained roads have some jagged edges to them. After you are done with that go back and fill in the major guts of it but leave the jagged edges alone. And after that increase your pressure to 80/90/100 and then go back through the middle and apply tid-bits here and there (Employs Blending Techniques).
-> Jagged Edges: We're not done with the jaggedness yet. You still need to go back and do touch-ups on them. Set your brush to about 50+% pressure and a 1x0 size (outer is 0) and make some shapes here and there. I can’t accurately describe this to you as it is purely random, so I have provided a screenshot of what techniques I use for my road texturing:
Click here
Sure it’s a bit of a chore to do, but the impact it has is well worth the effort.
-> Road Sinks: Roads are very rarely above the grass levels unless there happens to be a hump on road. So, whip out your Lower tool and set it 10% pressure. The size depends on your road. Usually a 6x6 Medium brush does it for me. Click about once or twice or thrice and go up along the road and make it sink in a little bit. Small effect, but again, every tid-bit helps.
-> Road Coloring: Add some flavor to your road by coloring it! Use complimenting colors to achieve the desired effects. Brown dirts would take grey-scaling (it’s universal), browns, yellows and light reds. Possibly very very light violets, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
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-Coming SoonEdited By Anduraga, son of Kosaraga on 08/05/07 06:32 | |
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Grinning Fool
Registrato il: 26 nov 2003
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Inviato: domenica, 05 agosto 2007 09:16 |
Good topic, thanks for posting 
Collection of more tidbits: http://nwvault.ign.com/fms/Download.php?id=77640
Many of the tips in that document came from Obsidian artists.
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NWN2 ChatEdited By Grinning Fool on 08/05/07 09:17 | |
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Banshe
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Inviato: lunedì, 06 agosto 2007 10:34 |
Excellent stuff!!!
This will come in very handy for me. Thanks.
There is one thing you should probably change though (just the terminology).
Greyscaling is using black and white (and everything in between) pictures that when added to a program like Terragen or YATT (for NWN2) generate terrain. The lightest parts represent the highest points (mountains) and the darker parts the lower points (chasms).
So this term actually has a very specific usage. Therefore you may want to invent a different term that doesn't already exist to avoid confusing those who know this term as something else. Maybe:
Greyshading
Shading
Coloring
Shadowing
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Click HereEdited By Banshe on 08/06/07 10:34 | |
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Elrahc
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Inviato: lunedì, 06 agosto 2007 05:35 |
Good stuff, I encourage you to contribute more in this way.
~Elrahc | |
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Dr_Sascha
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Inviato: lunedì, 06 agosto 2007 06:15 |
I don't understand this grayscalling thing
is there somewhere a button switch slider in the toolset that I missed?  | |
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Grinning Fool
Registrato il: 26 nov 2003
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Inviato: lunedì, 06 agosto 2007 07:06 |
Quote: Posted 08/06/07 18:15 (GMT) by Dr_Sascha I don't understand this grayscalling thing is there somewhere a button switch slider in the toolset that I missed?
He's referring to using the color brush tool, but only with colors in the black/white range. (I dunno the technical term for that, though I'm sure that there is one better than "range"  )
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Banshe
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Inviato: lunedì, 06 agosto 2007 08:21 |
Quote: Posted 08/06/07 19:06 (GMT) by Grinning Fool Quote: Posted 08/06/07 18:15 (GMT) by Dr_Sascha I don't understand this grayscalling thing is there somewhere a button switch slider in the toolset that I missed?
He's referring to using the color brush tool, but only with colors in the black/white range. (I dunno the technical term for that, though I'm sure that there is one better than "range" )
Spectrum?
Or does that just work for light.
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Anduraga, son of Kosaraga
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Inviato: lunedì, 06 agosto 2007 08:48 |
This should help in your understanding of what Grey-scaling refers to:
Click Here
Greyscaling simply means the first 3 rows in the color palette of the Color Tool. The rest of the colors are actual colors. The difference is that grey-scaling can be used just about anywhere whereas the colors are limited to their environment (which I detailed about earlier, blue for water, green for grass, etc.)
You can also view Greyscaling colors as numbers instead. They may vary from 0-255; however you'll notice that the whites, greys and blacks all have the same RGB numbers. [255, 255, 255] White [115, 115, 115] Grey. And so forth. But if that confuses you, don't worry about Just use the palette as drawn out above.
Also, here is a tutorial for how to create a Mt. Galardrym-like area. It's fairly basic and the appearance is pretty cool. The cooler looking areas are typically easier to make for some reason than livid and detailed grassy rural types.
Click Here
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-Coming SoonEdited By Anduraga, son of Kosaraga on 08/06/07 20:52 | |
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Daronas
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Inviato: lunedì, 06 agosto 2007 11:19 |
Shading= adding black
Tinting= adding white
I think in the case of the toolset, shading would be appropriate. Since, you can't truly tint with the color tool.Edited By Daronas on 08/06/07 23:21 | |
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Nine of Nine
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Inviato: lunedì, 06 agosto 2007 11:27 |
Awesome few posts there You've got a very nice touch, I love your technique for texturing roads. Greyscaling/shading/colouring is grossly underrated among NWN2 modders it seems.
My own main tip is this - shade around buildings. Get a reasonably soft, 5% pressure black colour brush and just airbrush around the base of a your buildings/streets. It does a wonderful job of making buildings seem more natural and organic in the landscape, as opposed to looking like they've been Copy/Pasted from another scene. Adding a bit of grass and rocks around the edge also helps, especially if it's a rural area.
Something I also love for cities, are the extra spare 'panels' they provide of buildings - 2d cutouts that you can use in the background. Similarly, its safe to place a few more houses themselves in the surroundings around the active area of play, elevate them a bit and hence give the impression of a bigger, surrounding city. | |
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Anduraga, son of Kosaraga
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Inviato: venerdì, 10 agosto 2007 04:05 |
City Road Texturing
There are several types of cities and choosing the right technique may not be as easy as it may first seem. First you have to decide what kind of area/city you’re making. Is it a slum? Is it a busy street with loads of merchants and people bustling along the streets? Or is it a well-to-do noble district where all the fine lords reside? Once you have this in mind, you then have to decide several other types such as regional qualities (forest, desert, mountainous, plains, bordering the water, on top of the water [though this one requires very little in the ways of texturing]).
Actually to be honest, there is little to do as far as texturing goes when you are making a city. Most of it relies on your ability to place objects and make the scene appear real with placeables.
All of these things are important when considering how to make a city. So where do you start? For a city, it’s best to plan ahead on what you want on paper, so you can scale it to the way you want.
Curbs – In most cases, curbs can help portray that city feel. Some of them may be difficult to mess with as the walkmesh can be rather a big pain. Try putting buildings on top of these. I also helps save some work.
In the cases that the buildings are on the same level, put some grass around their house. To blend cobblestone and grass together you may want to use the Jagged Edges technique from above.
If your city is more rural, you may want to consider using the scribble method as demonstrated in the Mt. Galardrym tutorial. And then for the rural pieces, just follow suit with how they should textured.
Another tip would also to create some unevenness to your terrain. Use the Raise tool at small pressures and give it some shape.
Bazaars – These tend to be very crowded marketplaces filled with bustling patrons and merchant stands with salesmen yelling at you as you walk by to purchase their fine goods. Bazaars are probably rather difficult to make but the environment that you’ll notice the most is not the texturing but the placeables. You’ll find many merchants standing off to the sides of the street and patrons walking up and down the aisle, occasionally stopping to buy something. Crates, Merchant Stands, Food placeables, wine bottles, barrels, tabletoppers, tables, all do well in a place like this. The aisle itself is fairly open with little in the way. In some cities, you may find torches/lamps lining up the aisle in front of the merchant stands. In shadier cities, you may few lights, but if there are any lights at all, they would be on the building itself behind merchant stands. This way, it makes the merchant stands a little shadier than they would look otherwise.
Design: Since the nature of the bazaar is that is almost always busy except at night, cleaning the streets probably isn’t done all that often. You may notice some dips in the road, which it is likely that water will sit in them if it likes to rain in this region (if you’re adding water, make sure to make it mostly smooth.
Choose your texture: As far as Obsidian textures go, there isn’t much you can use a base texture for your city. The Orange/Red cobblestones are often used in desert-like settings (fancier ones at that) or used to portray cracks in dirt textures. The most popular texture seems to be Cobblestone_02 because of its fancier designs and more attracting appeal (as its only 1 of 3 textures that don’t tile so poorly). But for a bazaar, we don’t really want fancier textures. We want something plain and simple. I find that Cobblestone_05 is probably the more ideal for a bazaar. Look around at the textures and just seem which one appeals to you the most. If it’s a white-based texture, note that you can change its color greatly (over that of the orange/red/black textures since you can’t tint [or add white] to them), so do not rule out a texture based on its color.
You may also want some streets with cracked surfaces. Depending on your texture and its design, you’ll want to find one with a similar design. For both Cobblestone_02 and _05 you can use Cobblestone_47. When texturing cracks, 50% pressure usually suffices more than enough. When you’re texturing the cracks, you can make more “veins” and occasionally dot them along the area.
Coloring: Not all cities are clean, and we have to find a way to portray this. If you’re designing a filthy pestilent city, then you’re going to want it to look shady and unfriendly looking. Bazaars are typically never known to be clean and in some cases, they’re rather shady at that. So for Bazaars, you can use light shades of yellow (lighter colors than what the palette gives you), tans, light browns, and greys. For somewhat more cleaner bazaars, you’ll want less of browns and more of really light shades of blue (again lighter than the colors in the palette).
Merchant District - You’ll probably notice this with many city areas is that it mostly relies on your ability to place placeables efficiently. For merchant districts we want similar placeables as a bazaar (merchant stands, goods, tables, etc.), but we also want some newer stuff. Since merchant districts have a tendency to be larger and more open than bazaars, the city may plantery around. Put planters with trees, bushes and flowers in them, or use statues on pedestals.
More importantly, merchant districts are more likely to be cleaner than a bazaar in most cases, so you’ll want to use less browns (including any dirt texture you may use for blending) and more light blues. Cracks may still be noticeable in some spots but they are typically few in number.
For Merchant Districts, the texturing is about the same as a Bazaar but a little cleaner (less dirt, browns and water dips).
Here is an example of what a Merchant District might look like:
Click Here
Taken from Anphillia II PW Project. Builder: Charlotte
More will be coming later... so keep looking
-A
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-Coming SoonEdited By Anduraga, son of Kosaraga on 08/10/07 16:05 | |
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Elrahc
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Inviato: venerdì, 10 agosto 2007 05:01 |
Thank you for the City Roads add-on. =]
~Elrahc | |
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Anduraga, son of Kosaraga
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Inviato: sabato, 11 agosto 2007 09:31 |
Here are some screenshots of other people's works that can possibly give you ideas or inspire you into making such an area:
If you're looking for ideas on how to make good mountainous rural regions, Maerduin's technique is great for this.
Click Here by Maerduin for Harp & Chrysanthemum module.
If you're looking for the slums look, I would check out some of jclef's stuff stuff. It is really rather a depressing looking place, so it can create a rather nice effect. There are also forest shots that are rather well done as well.
Click Here by jclef for The Rogue
And of course, we can't possibly forget Rogue Dao. Although some of their stuff is custom content, you can gather ideas on how to place placeables and pick up some texturing tips.
Click Here by Rogue Dao for Purgatorio
There are also some related area screenshots in their blogs as well:
Click Here
And for more city shots and ideas, you may want to check out Moonsea Adventures PW:
Click Here by the Moonsea PW Team
And last but certainly not least, we have Amn:
Click Here by Finamenon (Rashidi) for Fianchetto's Fable
Next time I should have the Noble District and possible another type of area perhaps.
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-Coming SoonEdited By Anduraga, son of Kosaraga on 08/11/07 21:33 | |
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Patcha
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Inviato: giovedì, 16 agosto 2007 10:57 |
This should be sticked on top!
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