Dark Sun for NWN
Tonden
Member Posts: 224
NWN Dark Sun: Website and Discord Channel
Twitter Page
Yes we are still working on Dark Sun for NWN and are looking for more people who are willing to help.
Dizzitt Gardan and I played PnP AD&D 2nd Edition Dark Sun for years in the 90’s and to say that we both really enjoyed playing the campaign setting would be an understatement.
This is just one of the main reasons why two years ago Dizzitt Gardan and I (Tonden Ockay) teamed up to create Dark Sun for NWN. However we didn’t know how to create custom content for NWN1 back then, so we had a lot to learn in order to do this project right. Now two years later, with everything the two of use has learned, we both feel more then confident that we not only can make this project happen, but also do it justice giving it the attention to detail it deserves.
The Project is all about bringing Dark Sun to NWN
If this is something that you would like to see happen please contact us to see how you could help.
Post edited by Tonden on
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Here is a Screenshot of the Sandard Desert Tileset Revamp I’m working on for Dark Sun. I was going to make a total custom desert tileset, but I decided to do a revamp of the standard desert tileset. The reason I decided to go with the revamp is so more people/projects could use it.
So yes the screenshot posted above is the Standard Desert Tileset with a new sand texture, raised ground, and sloped hills added.
I'm not sure, I do know that when we were first starting out that we searched the Vault over looking for any Dark Sun Content we could find. We gathered everything up and put them into haks, which can be found here https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/gameworld/nwn-dark-sun
However this was just a starting point for use and we have continued to grow, but we haven't uploaded any of our new stuff as of yet. Although at some point we will.
All that said would you like to help out with this project?
forum and haks. I used to be a builder for them over a decade ago when i remembered how to do all of this lol.
http://athasreborn.com/community/index.php?topic=2685.0
Here is the link, dudes trying to figure out how to get it up and running on his linux machine it looks like.
I have quite a few projects i'm working on to relearn the system, but once i do get it all figured out again i'll help out as best i can.
Good work so far!
We also have a day and night as well.
Our project is mostly all custom work.
We have all of the following so far.
- Races - all the Dark Sun playable races working
- Classes – all the Dark Sun playable classes are working
- Custom Armor
- Custom Weapons
- Custom Skyboxes
- Custom creatures (we even have working Dragon King and Avangion models)
- Totally New Custom Desert Tileset
• Raised ground
• Hills
• Cliffs
• Main City Walls, Main Gate, Stairwell towers, Battlements and so on.
• Adobe City Buildings
• The Ziggurat for the City State of Tyr
• The Arena for the City State of Tyr
• Water
There is still a lot of work to be done yet.
A lot more custom
- Tilesets to be made yet
- Creatures
- Weapons and Armor
- Placeables
- Scripts
- Area Building
So we are looking for more people who would like to help with this project.
We have a Website NWN Dark Sun and just created a Discord Channel NWN Dark Sun. As you can see from the website we have even started looking into using a Trillo Board as well (we are still thinking on this).
Oh we also now have a dedicated server up and running just for hosting a NWN Dark Sun server, so soon as we get a test module together we can start testing things out as we work on them.
All we need now is more people helping with the project.
If this is a project you think you would like to help with just contact me here, the Vault forums, or on our discord channel.
Would you want to help with this project at all?
Is the Athas Reborn server even up and running any more ?
I have been asked a few times about new screenshot and we will be getting back to posting updated screenshots again soon.
We also just wanted to say that we are still hard at work on the project. Dizzitt and I are putting large amounts of time into this project each and every week. There is hardly a day that goes by that we are not working on something for this project.
We are currently working of the tileset needed for The City State of Tyr.
We have made custom desert tileset just for Dark Sun with all of the following so far.
- Water
- Hills
- Cliffs
- City Walls, Gates, Battlements
- Adobe City Buildings (We will be creating a lot more of these)
- The Ziggurat
- The Arena
- The Golden Tower
Our goal is to build the City of Tyr first to give us a good base/starting point. Since the buildings are adobe we want the tops of them to be walk able to give another level to the city. Also for those that don’t know Tyr it is built upon an ancient city, so there is a lot to explore under the city as well. We really feel we can do a lot with just the city of Tyr which is why we are starting with it first.
However we do plan on creating all the different terrains that Dark Sun has. We also want to build the other City States as well. However all of this is going to take time and a lot of work.
So if anyone wanted to help with the project Dizzitt and I would be willing to help you learn whatever you would like to help wit0h.
For example Dizzitt and I didn't know anything about scripting or making custom content at all for anything just a few years ago. Shoot we didn’t even know what a 2da or even a tga was. But we have learnd so much that we now feel that are able to do just about everything needed.
That said If a true scripter doesn't join us then that is one of the things we still have a lot more to learn yet.
Another area we haven't done a lot with is creating custom creatures, so that would be another area we still need to work on more as well.
However we are very stong at working with 2da's, Haks, and model making, which is why we feel that we can help others to learn as well.
Now we still have a lot of tileset work to do. Along with a lot more custom placeables and items for Dark Sun. Along with a lot of Area building, Quests and really good stories to create. We want NWN Dark Sun to look like the Dark Sun that we all see in the artwork and feel like the world that it was meant to be. I have even been looking into custom music to help give our project a different feel then the Standard NWN. We really are putting in the work and would love to have help from others.
So if you would like to help, even if you don’t know how to do anything we could help you learn.
Just contact us
Hi all
I thought that I would share a screenshot of one of the many things we have been working on for the Dark Sun project and explain on how I came up with it.
When we first started this project I didn’t know how to make a custom model let alone a custom time or tilesets. So we started off with a tilset that someone else had created. However as I learned more about making models and tileset I decided that it might be nice to create our own.
So we talked it over and decided to just do addons for the standard Desert tileset. However the tiles that we have been creating are so different from anything in the standard Desert tileset that if we left it as an override, we would have to rework all the older tiles to try and match them up with what we are creating, which would be even more work for us.
This led us to splitting off from the Desert Tileset override and creating a totally custom tileset for our project. That said I’m still glade we went through everything that we did because we learned a lot.
So for our custom tilset we decided to go with flat tiles instead of uneven tiles
- Uneven tiles are tiles that are raised a little higher on the corners, while not raising the middle edges of the tile. This helps to create an uneven ground look to a tileset.
The reason for not going with the uneven ground was because it makes a tileset look really bumpy and since we are creating a desert with blowing sand we felt that the ground would be more level. Which is why we went with flat tiles but we still added in tiles that are raised and/or lowered in the middle of the tiles to give the ground a little uneven look about them in places which can be seen in picture #2.
After deciding on making a custom tileset and going with flat ground I created raised ground terrain along with slopes/hills. As you can see from picture #1 I went with an uneven edge along the top of the hills. The top wasn’t that bad to get it to look the way I wanted, but rather the bottom was a little more of a problem getting it to blend well from the lower ground to where the ground starts to slant up. All in all as you can see in picture number #3 I think it didn’t turn out too bad.
Well I thought instead of just posting a screenshot that I would take the time to give some background on how and why we did what we did.
Would you like to work with us on this project?
We have had 3 or 4 other people help with the project here and there but Dizzitt and I are the only two full timers on the project so far. That said I started talking with another person today as well who may join the team so we will see.
https://discord.gg/GrjEgF
Website: NWN Dark Sun
Facebook: NWN Dark Sun
Discord Channel: NWN Dark Sun
Trello Board
We started recruiting this past week and now our team is growing, we currently have:
1 – Tileset creator ( we could use more )
2 – Scripters ( we may be able to use another one )
1 – Creature/NPC creator ( we could use a few more )
1 – Quest/Story creator ( We could use a few more )
0 – Area Builders (We could use some help here)
1 – Floater – (Our Bard) someone who can do a little bit of everything yet not a master in anyone area. They help out in any of the areas that they are needed.
The nice things is that most of us are BIG Dark Sun Fans which should help out a lot going forward.
If you think you would like to help with this project just contact me.
My Username on Discord is Tonden#9076
Any and all help are welcomed.
When I first started out with trying to learn how to create custom content for NWN1, I began with texturing. I would just pick different things in tileset I liked the looks of and retexture something I felt may look a little better to me if I was to change it.
So when Dizzitt first started talking about Dark Sun for NWN he showed me a sky that someone had made for NWN1 to be used for Dark Sun. After looking at it for a while I started to wonder what kind of sky I could make using paint.net (which is the first paint program I started working with beyond paint that comes with windows).
I looked around online and found some sunsets of here on earth and played around with them a while until they started to look like how I felt a Dark Sun sky should look, from all the Dark Sun paintings I had seen over the years. I then took the twin moons from one painting and the sun I used from another painting. However the sun wasn’t complete so I had to do a lot of work to it in order to get the full thing.
Using the different layers in paint.net I was able to have two copies of the sky with the sun and moon in between them, which allowed for me to delete parts of the top layer/first sky to allow for the moon and sun to show through and allowed for the other sky behind them to help blended everything together.
Anyway this was the first thing I really did for the Dark Sun Project over 2 years ago. I have learned so much since then and at some point I will try to see if I can create a better looking sky for the project. However for now this sky is the one we are currently using.
Raised Ground Cliffs
It took far more time then I ever thought that is would creating these raised ground cliffs. I learned so much from then, when it comes to what can and can’t be done. That is part of the nice thing when it comes to creating something from scratch.
Now what was it that I wanted from these cliffs one might ask?
1. - No flat clear cut sharp straight line along the bottom of the cliffs where they meet the ground. I didn’t want it to look as if the cliff had flat bottoms to them being placed on a flat even ground. Instead I wanted it to look more blended and natural as if sand has blown up against the bottom of them.
2. - No straight clear cut lines where the sand ends and the rock begins on top of the cliffs. I wanted it to look more natural. So I created a custom texture that slowly blends the two together.
3a. - No sand at the top of the cliffs along the edge ( so it looks as if the sand get blown of the top next to edges)
3b. - Smoother tiles so that they look as if blowing sand has sanded off their sharp edges over time.
When creating these cliffs they really made me have to think outside the box to get what I wanted and work with in the limits of the game engine. So I have to try a few different ideas before I came up with the current look I now have.
Oh and that is a helm on the Females head so it can be taken off.
Plus we are still looking for more model creators and A main story writer.
- Model Creators
- Main story creator
- Class designer
Since the old forums had a lot of content posted on them and may never get seen I felt that we should repost some of it here. There for this week we are looking back and thanking Shemsu-Heru for giving us a Fire Drake for our project.
During the former challenge "Dinosaurs", I had developed a new set of animations for my dinosaurs. So I have made use of the carnosaurs animations for a DS creature with similar appearance, the Fire Drake: http://www.lomion.de/cmm/drakafir.php
it uses a highly modified version of the wyver's animations. The model is from the final fantasy 8 t-rexaur, free model at "models-resource .com": https://www.models-resource.com/playstation/finalfantasy8/model/3903/