Discuss Input cards here (unless the ticket you want to discuss is big enough for a separate thread)

JuliusBorisov

Heya!

In this subforum, you can not only discuss cards from the Roadmap board that "Need More Discussion", but also any cards from the Input board

There's already a thread about Area Rendering/Camera Customization, but you can use this thread to discuss any Input card here, unless the ticket you want to discuss is big enough for a separate thread.

JuliusBorisov

For example, I've got a message from @ildaron : "I noticed you were moderating the discussions on the Trello board. As the topic of opening up the spellbook is being voted on Trello, would it be appropriate to discuss why we wish for this done and how we might see it implemented?"

Feel free to discuss it here.

Zwerkules

A question about the "Update the player character models" card: The further details of this card have "Better heads and hairstyles" on it. Would this include the possibilty to have transparency for body parts?
I've seen every single custom content creator who is still active and has been working with heads express their wish for this on the forums, yet it is nowhere to be found on the trello board.
I think transparency is essential for being able to create better body parts, especially heads (for eye lashes for example).
I understand the need to combine some ideas on a single card so there aren't far too many.
If the need for transparency for body parts is part of this card, please let it say so because this important feature is nowhere else to be found and many people asked for it.

shadguy

Regarding the initial area height in area wizard request, ( https://trello.com/c/fGCRbpaV/49-area-initial-height-in-area-wizard ), there's a way to do it with a few clicks right after area creation:

1) Create area in whatever tileset
2) Reduce area size to minimum, 1x1
3) Raise area to desired height
4) Increase area size to desired size

What would be interesting is a way to raise/lower an entire area, or subset of an area, all objects included, for when layout changes are desired further down the design process. IMHO. That said, I still wouldn't vote for that feature over some of the other proposals.

-Dave

Symphony

@Zwerkules said:

A question about the "Update the player character models" ...the need for transparency for body parts ... this important feature is nowhere else to be found and many people asked for it.

I would not make a card for "transparency on heads" or "PLT's with transparency" even.

The issue isn't body parts, but rather the environment mapping engine. PC's have been able to have transparent body parts from day one.

The engine, however, uses low alpha value transparency as the environment map replacement texture, however. Now, you can have transparent values in the environment map, but the default environment maps (per tileset) do not have transparency in them by default, which wouldn't be helpful anyways, since the texture data for them changes with camera angle anyways.

Now, there can be other models in the game that have both environment mapped (shiny) textures AND transparent textures, that's possible, but that is possible because those models can use multiple textures, some of which can have environment mapped textures for their alpha, and others can have transparency for their alpha. Models using PLT bitmaps, I believe, cannot also use normal 4-channel bitmaps for other meshes in the same .mdl.

So the real culprits here are that
1) A single texture cannot differentiate between which pixels should be transparent and which should be "shiny", which has nothing to do with parts/PLT's, and

2) PLT's do not "get along" side by side with normal color textures on the same model.

This is a texture format issue.

It is the case that normal mapping and specular mapping is something on the Roadmap Beamdog Trello. Any advancement in "shininess" in NWN will have to be done in such a way that the environment maps and 2da specifications for those are not "broken" for wrapped-and-finished modules. Meanwhile, I have some ideas for textural format support of both transparency and environment mapping, which I hope to spell out once they are more solid. That's something I was working on when I realized I could "accidentally" have the ability to make 360° panoramas.

For now, I'll put "use of both transparency and environment mapping on the same model" on the Trello board, even though I'm not really sure what Beamdog has in mind for specular mapping.

FreshLemonBun

A lot of the cards seem awfully similar like the roadmap metamagic, and the input creatable metamagic, the unlock spellbooks, prc spellbooks, and other things. These are very intertwined things and it seems unlikely someone only wants metamagic soft coded but doesn't want to create any, besides you can check metamagic in the spell script so I'm not sure what just the first provides.

Having custom spellbooks but not being able to control spell gain and caster level like in a prc seems similarly odd. These things seem mutually dependent to me, like if someone buys a car they might not think to also ask for the wheels.

Symphony

"Remove hard coding for unarmed damage, sneak attack, attacks feats, Metamagic" Is a fairly broad topic, and not an all inclusive one for the suggestions made in the forums so far. The cards I made for things like metamagic are an attempt to get things a little more divided.

It is worth noting that that card is in the "Needs more discussion" category, and the records I have of similar suggestions in the suggestions threads include different versions of each (Ex. Making prestige classes vs. Making prestige classes with spellcaster bonuses (like Pale master) vs. fixing prestige classes with spellcaster bonuses)

It can certainly be the case that like the framebuffer shaders, the metamagic feats could be exposed in code to each do as a designer pleases, without giving the community the facility to make more. With some divided discussion about that sort of topic, it could become known to Beamdog that there is an equal or higher interest in making metamagic feats as there is in customizing them.

Meanwhile, I certainly won't expect Beamdog to have as many cards on their roadmap Trello as are on the input pool Trello. Right now the input Trello is a bit of a mess, but, removing cards while there are still a few folks in different places mentioning all that is still missing doesn't seem like a good option right now. Redundancies have been avoided where obvious.

JuliusBorisov

FreshLemonBun said:

A lot of the cards seem awfully similar like the roadmap metamagic, and the input creatable metamagic, the unlock spellbooks, prc spellbooks, and other things.

This is because the Input Board is being filled in by me and @Symphony . The board is there only for 4 days, we're still editing things.

So any feedback is appreciated.

Edit: Based on the feedback of the community, the card now is changed from "Remove hard coding for unarmed damage, sneak attack, attacks feats, Metamagic" to "Allow Customization of hardcoded feats" to make it a more generalized card.

We'll see what we can do with over crossing Input cards.

voidofopinion

shadguy said:

Regarding the initial area height in area wizard request, ( https://trello.com/c/fGCRbpaV/49-area-initial-height-in-area-wizard ), there's a way to do it with a few clicks right after area creation:

1) Create area in whatever tileset
2) Reduce area size to minimum, 1x1
3) Raise area to desired height
4) Increase area size to desired size

What would be interesting is a way to raise/lower an entire area, or subset of an area, all objects included, for when layout changes are desired further down the design process. IMHO. That said, I still wouldn't vote for that feature over some of the other proposals.

-Dave

I agree but it depends on how much work it would be.

If this is something that could be done with minimum effort and not really affect things then It would be nice to have. However, not at the exclusion of something vitally important.

It's a "Nice to have as an aside if it's really easy" thing.

FreshLemonBun

Thank you for clarifying.

I do think that it's easy to get lost in the minutia. If custom spell casting classes becomes possible by defining a custom spell book for that class but the rest isn't addressed it still places an excessive burden of working around or replacing regular spellcasting subsystems on the creators. For alternative magic systems like warlock and psion you would need entirely separate sets of metamagic and it would be helpful that they also work similarly. Since neither of those two examples prepare their spellbook it would also be helpful if they could have prestige classes that have working caster progression tables. It seems to me that custom spellbooks implies the other subcategories just as the improved character models implies all body parts instead of each appendage individually.

Shadooow

voidofopinion said:

shadguy said:

Regarding the initial area height in area wizard request, ( https://trello.com/c/fGCRbpaV/49-area-initial-height-in-area-wizard ), there's a way to do it with a few clicks right after area creation:

1) Create area in whatever tileset
2) Reduce area size to minimum, 1x1
3) Raise area to desired height
4) Increase area size to desired size

What would be interesting is a way to raise/lower an entire area, or subset of an area, all objects included, for when layout changes are desired further down the design process. IMHO. That said, I still wouldn't vote for that feature over some of the other proposals.

-Dave

I agree but it depends on how much work it would be.

If this is something that could be done with minimum effort and not really affect things then It would be nice to have. However, not at the exclusion of something vitally important.

It's a "Nice to have as an aside if it's really easy" thing.

1x1 areas works. It is possible to make them via gff edit, so the only thing blocking this is toolset input field limitation.

Rifkin

Can we please change the Event's card to be more generic? We should be opening up Events in general, and I would hope that dynamic event binding could become a thing

FunkySwerve

Could we have a card for the following, please?

Scripted functions to retrieve names of, rename, and delete bicfiles.

This is pretty much the only functionality we will lose from not being able to port over the letoscript plugin, and we use it for our Hardcore play mode (deletion on death). We have other options, but my hope is this is a low-zot ask.

Thanks,
Funky

Barry_1066

FunkySwerve said:

Could we have a card for the following, please?

Scripted functions to retrieve names of, rename, and delete bicfiles.

This is pretty much the only functionality we will lose from not being able to port over the letoscript plugin, and we use it for our Hardcore play mode (deletion on death). We have other options, but my hope is this is a low-zot ask.

Thanks,
Funky

yes and there are a few other scripting requests:
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/932243#Comment_932243

That should be included so yes - a card for scripting requests. Some of these would be minimal investment in development and max effect in functionality.

JuliusBorisov

Rifkin said:

Can we please change the Event's card to be more generic? We should be opening up Events in general, and I would hope that dynamic event binding could become a thing

How do you want this card https://trello.com/c/lMiLEGsr/69-expose-combat-events-for-scripting-custom-item-properties to be renamed?

dafena

Symphony said:

@Zwerkules said:

A question about the "Update the player character models" ...the need for transparency for body parts ... this important feature is nowhere else to be found and many people asked for it.

I would not make a card for "transparency on heads" or "PLT's with transparency" even.

The issue isn't body parts, but rather the environment mapping engine. PC's have been able to have transparent body parts from day one.

The engine, however, uses low alpha value transparency as the environment map replacement texture, however. Now, you can have transparent values in the environment map, but the default environment maps (per tileset) do not have transparency in them by default, which wouldn't be helpful anyways, since the texture data for them changes with camera angle anyways.

Now, there can be other models in the game that have both environment mapped (shiny) textures AND transparent textures, that's possible, but that is possible because those models can use multiple textures, some of which can have environment mapped textures for their alpha, and others can have transparency for their alpha. Models using PLT bitmaps, I believe, cannot also use normal 4-channel bitmaps for other meshes in the same .mdl.

So the real culprits here are that
1) A single texture cannot differentiate between which pixels should be transparent and which should be "shiny", which has nothing to do with parts/PLT's, and

2) PLT's do not "get along" side by side with normal color textures on the same model.

This is a texture format issue.

It is the case that normal mapping and specular mapping is something on the Roadmap Beamdog Trello. Any advancement in "shininess" in NWN will have to be done in such a way that the environment maps and 2da specifications for those are not "broken" for wrapped-and-finished modules. Meanwhile, I have some ideas for textural format support of both transparency and environment mapping, which I hope to spell out once they are more solid. That's something I was working on when I realized I could "accidentally" have the ability to make 360° panoramas.

For now, I'll put "use of both transparency and environment mapping on the same model" on the Trello board, even though I'm not really sure what Beamdog has in mind for specular mapping.

Well, you can put a cloak model with a hair mesh, align it and k-boom, tinteable hair with transparency support. The thing is that we are ocuppying a cloak slot. If we had the same thing for a new "hair node" we could mix hairs with heads... And with the new align/scale function try to make them.

Symphony

I am saying that the heads are already the same as cloaks. They support transparency or environment mapping, but they do not support both.

The cloak models that have transparency in certain servers/content do not have metallic "shininess", you can either have one or the other. The same is true for parts based PLT's, if the environment map for the player is removed, low alpha values provide transparency in the stock texture.

Meanwhile, the transparency included on cloaks is not part of the cloak's texture, it is part of the cloak's color ("shiny" metals, or, most commonly, color 61, which is completely colorless, and therefore completely transparent or completely environment map, depending on whether the object using color 61 has an environment map defined).

The PLT format that parts and cloaks use does not have an alpha channel. It only has a 256 value single channel (For choosing the corresponding color's "brightness" from the material palette), with a second channel for choosing which palette that pixel (/texel) belongs to (e.g. Metal 1, Tattoo 2)

These palettes are 4 channel RGBA textures that are 256 across by 176 down, the 62nd row of which is completely 0 alpha (color 61 full transparent), on all 10.

The "shiny" (partial alpha) colors are then blended with the environment map, which is usually, for PC's, based on the current tileset ("default" EnvMap). If no environment map is defined (**** Envmap) then the colors are blended with the objects behind them (transparency).

JuliusBorisov

@FunkySwerve and @Barry_1066

It does look like what you are requesting would be in the domain of NWNX.

NWN content that does things like check folders, check the OS, connect to web pages, stuff outside of the game, - that's all NWNX domain material.

@Rifkin

If you would like to add non combat events, specific ones, their cases should be named, and a new card created for them.

"Add more events" may not be sufficient for a card's title.

The combat events card exists because combat is missing those specifically requested events, which were requested by forum users.

Rifkin

JuliusBorisov said:

@FunkySwerve and @Barry_1066

It does look like what you are requesting would be in the domain of NWNX.

NWN content that does things like check folders, check the OS, connect to web pages, stuff outside of the game, - that's all NWNX domain material.

@Rifkin

If you would like to add non combat events, specific ones, their cases should be named, and a new card created for them.

"Add more events" may not be sufficient for a card's title.

The combat events card exists because combat is missing those specifically requested events, which were requested by forum users.

I suppose the most important one I can think of to be added, is dynamic event binding. As in, the ability to at runtime, in game, change a creatures event script. This would allow us to avoid using large switch statements (or if/else if/else) to create separate logic for basic events (OnHeartbeat, OnDeath, OnDamaged, etc) without having to always have this AI/event handling be the thing that is bound.

Also, opening up event binding for player characters would be a huge boon. Allowing better solutions than recursive delay commands or recursive functions.

Barry_1066

Although I do not need head transparency, I support those who do want/need it. They should not have to resort to NWNX. Lack of NWNX support (for windows) broke my world once and I will not use it again for that reason. Dependence on a third party option for critical functionality of a PW is not something I will ever do again.

I had a custom plugin - custom made for me - for NWNX (windows version) with some spell hooks - POOF gone - and there it is in a nutshell.

NWNX is linux ONLY at this point - another option I will not use. Yes I know about running an app under windows but again that requires another level of dependence with a delay for an update - if there is one at all.

My point is - if it is in NWN EE, all that dependence is gone and it is much better at a native level.

ShadowM

Our end goal for new/updated head system with bald heads and hair rotation and facial hair rotations with plt support that can be switch with scripting. So that open face helms can call hair to change to bald to avoid clipping and then reset to default hair type on unequip calls. If we cannot get transparancy hair calls then above option may work. As for backward compatibility maybe keep all default head styles and then in the upper numbers support the new bald heads and hairs. This is high on the community list of items as you can see with the voting and is usually the first thing mentioned with people interesting in NWN is Are the character models still ugly and un-flexible, ohh if they fix that I might try it out. I understand this is a very difficult / maybe not possible update. Thanks for any feedback and thought on moving forward.

ShadowM

Possible workaround / short term solution

Here another possible thought
Redo current heads to separate hair to a separate mesh from the head meshes same look/model just the heads would be bald and hair link to the head or the aurora base or node then base. Tag the hair mesh/node so the engine will hide the hair mesh and not the whole head(which is the default right now) We know meshes can be hidden with the engine as we can see with the current function. This would allow you do just resize helmets to fit the heads(layer over heads) without worry of the extra hair mesh affecting size. This would give us open face helmet with ptl support out of the box, and with the function we can hide the helmet(loss of hair) for masks, monocle eyepiece etc.. that do not need hair hidden). Custom content creators would just have to separate the hair/head mesh with there custom heads to support this with your instructions on how to tag the hair mesh for the engine.
Just some thoughts thank you.

sandronejm

Henchman issue: I realized is possible to equip a torch, rings (anything) to a henchman even if it is an animal race.

For example, my henchman boar is able to use a torch. I would like to prevent this behavior, because players can EXPL01T using this.

Is possible to add a way to script OnHenchmanEquip or similar?

Thanks, WhiteTiger

(note: you can check my henchmen playing in my nice fan made module and don't forget to send me any feedback)

___

Have you ever played my nwn module? Click here: Amnesia Chapter 1

Dark_Ansem

I want to make a clarification about this: perhaps it would be worth making the soundsets more "interactive" - basically, if you issue a "heal me command" and then someone heals you in a short timeframe, make the character say "thank you"!
Other things could work, but this is the first thing that came off the top of my head.

fkirenicus

Regarding this: https://trello.com/c/oC7cBW1Y
It would be nice with the proper tools to edit .tlk files in the toolset also.
All file format should be editable in the toolset, basically (well, perhaps .mus and .bik and their modern counterparts excepted).

JuliusBorisov

I've added this card to the Input card:
https://trello.com/c/rATiqfuJ/150-add-an-in-game-list-with-search-ratings-voting-and-easy-access-to-player-made-modules

ShadowM

JuliusBorisov said:

I've added this card to the Input card:
https://trello.com/c/rATiqfuJ/150-add-an-in-game-list-with-search-ratings-voting-and-easy-access-to-player-made-modules

This might go under a steam thing also, the workshop need more categories like modules / overrides /utilities etc...

Proleric

JuliusBorisov said:

I've added this card to the Input card:
https://trello.com/c/rATiqfuJ/150-add-an-in-game-list-with-search-ratings-voting-and-easy-access-to-player-made-modules

Good idea, but maybe not "in game". Steam is just one hosting site. Better for each site to maintain its own ranking IMO.

JuliusBorisov

ShadowM said:

JuliusBorisov said:

I've added this card to the Input card:
https://trello.com/c/rATiqfuJ/150-add-an-in-game-list-with-search-ratings-voting-and-easy-access-to-player-made-modules

This might go under a steam thing also, the workshop need more categories like modules / overrides /utilities etc...

Thanks for the idea!

tgx

So, with this one: "Add an in-game list with search, ratings, voting and easy access to player-made modules", I hope we end up with a way to downvote things as well. I notice that most forums leave out "negative" options of expression. You don't often come across a button for "hate this" or such.

But, when there's to be ranking of PWs, then I think there should definitely be ways to express a negative opinion of them. I'd hate if it the proposed model only accepted favorable votes, and the one with the most of these votes ranked higher. That's one way to do it, of course. But I'd hate it. I can't stand that way of doing things.

tgx

I'd find it very helpful to have some kind of "attraction video" come up when looking through the PWs. Kind of like steam has obligatory attraction videos for any and all games that are sold on that platform. It's just a thing the game needs to have to get on there.

So, what if there's a similar imposition to PWs? Or maybe there could be a way to filter out ones that don't have this or that. What think? I don't really like downloading stuff just to see what it's like. I'd at least like example pictures. If not an example video. Lots and lots of current PWs don't have anything other than lore and examples of how they've changed mechanics. I guess I'm visually minded?