nwnic project - amazing textures, models, and animations!

Drakon

I just stumbled on this project called nwnic for EE. Fluid animations, detailed models. Beautiful showcase of what 64 bit will open up for this game. They have a Patreon linked in the video description if you wish to support their effort.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QEGnawvS6k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2KI6VmMsX4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owOu9pclMPk

FreshLemonBun

Could you explain what 64bit has to do with it?

Drakon

FreshLemonBun said:

Could you explain what 64bit has to do with it?

Just speculating based on how 64 bit will vastly increase the performance of the game memory-wise and make jamming all these custom animations and textures throughout the game more feasible. Similar to how Skyrim visuals really took off after it became 64 bit with the Special Edition. It will also remove certain hard coded limits, I believe there are limits to skeletons and polygons, so this will enable smoother, more detailed, fluidly animated creatures and props. Also, more things on screen at the same time without the fading in/out of creatures and props you see in many modules.

Sherincall

Please don't hype up the 64 bit update; It will do none of those things. The greatest improvement 64bit brings to NWN is that Apple will allow it to continue to work on MacOS as they kill support for 32bit apps. Second greatest is that it will be possible to port to iOS.

Other than that, not much is likely to happen with 64bit.

FreshLemonBun

I think I would er on the side of caution. I am not quite a technical minded person but from what I understand the graphics card handles the graphics separately in terms of graphical fidelity. I also haven't seen any differences in graphical fidelity for anything I've searched on Google, comparisons of games look the same with maybe a slight difference in performance for some.

We know the graphics engine is being improved as it has been said on the streams but it probably wont be because of 64 bit.

Drakon

At a bare minimum 64 bit will allow NWN to use more than 3.5 gb of RAM. That's the hard limit for 32 bit software on Windows. It already runs very smoothly for most people, but that may help computers with weaker graphics cards that lean on RAM when the GPU buffer fills up (integrated graphics).

For what it's worth, my top of the line GPU + CPU already sees a significant frame rate drop in richly modded modules, such as Knights of Noromath (still playable, but it must be worse for weaker computers). That's a classic sign of game asset loading capping out memory. If the community is moving toward cramming each zone and interior with an increasing amount of richly detailed models and textures (and they should!), any lifting of technical limitations will help.

These gigabytes of graphical haks and overrides that we download take up memory in-game when they are loaded. And they are certainly larger than what the original game was packing.

FreshLemonBun

For what it's worth I only recently updated my PC and previously had the same one for a decade. Performance was consistent on Diamond with a 64bit OS and 32bit game, on servers with about 20gb in haks. NWNEE was okay but a bit buggy, with the new PC it's much the same but now I can run multiple things at once. That is YMMV but I don't think it's primarily a 32bit/64bit issue, because the performance is good for me and I'm not using a secret 64bit version or anything.

I'm sure there are advantages to 64 bit, I think I've heard people say the module resource limit might be tied to it but I don't know. What I'm saying is I think you might be overestimating the impact of 64bit, and what will you do if it doesn't significantly improve your performance?

That said there are a lot of things that NWN EE is missing which are only available in Diamond, so I would be more excited if they added those things rather than increasing some specification number from 32 to 64.

dTd

FreshLemonBun said:

That said there are a lot of things that NWN EE is missing which are only available in Diamond, so I would be more excited if they added those things rather than increasing some specification number from 32 to 64.

Now you've got me listening, what things aren't available? I also agree, 64b might help the toolset and with stability but little else. Skyrim ran like ass on my old box, had a great gfx card but slow cpu with only 1 core. When it went 64b I didn't notice any difference so I bit the bullet and upgraded to a phenom x4 processor, after that it smooth as silk

dTd

Oh, and let's never forget my favorite nwn thing ever created:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfJjb6jzZIA

FreshLemonBun

Off the top of my head several nwnx plugins, nwncx features and plugins, and NWShader features. Quite a few are trello cards now but Beamdog has made very little progress on them. Only a few like armor per part coloring and creature size/rotation/position adjustment have been added.

dTd

nwnx and nwncx aren't features of the original game though. Shaders? Did nwn1.69 even use them? Frankly with the support that nwnxee has online I find I have many more options than before and let's not forget the server list, and the best feature of all nwsync which make this version invaluable to me. How about the whirlwind fix updated gfx, running the toolset under wine for linux users? There's more but I think these are enough examples for my opinion

Elvin_Rath

It looks amazing, I hope that they release something someday,

Or post more information. What are they doing? I mean, those animations they are showing are cool, but most don't have much use. I like the models, but I wonder how do they plan to release them. Separatly? Like a CEP-Alternative?

Sherincall

For the nwic project, you can follow it most closely here: https://discord.gg/H9r8TTq

FreshLemonBun

@dTd
Really going down the route of arguing "no, but they were never official features" is absolutely pointless and pedantic. It doesn't change that they are features available and used by people today. Yes it's a fact NWN EE has more features than the initial launch in 2002 or the last official update, but that isn't the point is it?

So many of those community made features are still only available for the Diamond Edition version of the game 13 months later. NWN EE would be a much better game with those as native features that reflect where NWN should be at this point in time, and it would make it easier to unify the community too. Nobody ever said "if only NWN EE had a 64 bit client I could realistically port my mod/server over."

@Elvin_Rath
I believe they imported several character models from other games so you could use them for npcs but I don't think they can be used as player characters, at least not with part customization.

dTd

I really wasn't intending to argue but I never needed or used nwncx so I guess I don't see it's importance. Sure it'd be cool if some new features get added. Pretty sure nwnxee is working on those missing plugins and if we give it a little time should be nicely fleshed out. There are already new features I'm using that I didn't have before. From my perspective it's all good

FreshLemonBun

That's fine but it's good to understand that some people do use those features, and while you might not use them some of the NWN EE features and those on Trello are directly inspired by those features. That is you are now benefiting from them indirectly whether you realized it or not. So issues exist whether you wish to believe it or not. On the whole NWN EE would also be a much better game with more possibilities for community creators if it made those missing features native, whether you're currently aware of them or not.

Prince_Raymond

With hands being able to open and close and individual digits being able to extend and flex, it seems to me that proper application of the grappling rules for combat in NWN:EE just might be on the table. Here's hoping. I love the fighting stance and the warm-up routine of the two characters getting ready to duke it out, by the way. Thank you for reading, and happy gaming to all.

Wall3t

So whats the application for this exactly for builders like myself? the patreon website gives very little reason for me to want to subscribe to it as whoever set it up has taken no time to post anything at all. Only 7 people contributed from the website, which to me tells me me there might be a lack of communication between the patreons and the people who are behind the project.

Looking at the video's, they look to have made new models (which are extraordinary and amazing btw! the tilesets are the reason i wanted to be a part of the patreon so it did sell me on this!) and rigged them with new animations, it doesnt look to me like theyre very dynamic (ie can they wear or change outfits? changes their heads or size? what about weapons and shields?)

Sherincall

Donating on patreon will not give you any privileges. The plan is to release all the work for free for everyone, regardless of whether they donate or not. The money from the donations goes towards software licenses to make more content, so if you donate you'll just be contributing to produce more/better art.

For communication, they're very active on various community discords, and have their own: https://discord.gg/H9r8TTq

FreshLemonBun

All D&D/NWN community content must be distributed free of charge as per the WotC fan content license from what I remember. On the other hand if they're using content from other games they probably have permission from the original company to create mods or the company turns a blind eye, usually. Either case they couldn't sell the product but they can probably take donations for their time.

In the case of things being dynamic or not I believe it will have to do with whether or not the models were converted from other games. In those cases you will probably expect a static full body mesh that cannot be altered in any significant way. It's possible they could change it to work as dynamic pc parts but that would probably require extra work.