@Acifer
I LOLed at the slaads' animations that looked like they were scratching themselves, and felt amazed at the simple, beautiful screenshots of new areas. I at least eagerly await the release of this mod. Thankee for sharing your progress! Alleluia!
The recommended level of the mod is 9-10, so you can start at the beginning of SoA. You might at least need some weapons +2 since you encounter a lot of natives of the Inner Planes with some immunities. But I try to give as much player agency as possible. If a fight is too difficult, you can go back to Amn, do some other quests, return later and kick butts with more experience.
Oh, and lore will have an impact on your exploration as well. With higher lore skills you will be able to decipher ancient runes and recognize strange symbols in the areas more precisely.
@Acifer
To clarify, did you intend to put these new locations on the World Map mod for those who use it? There's space on the biggest map size for Calimshan!
I haven't decided yet how to implement the new areas in the world map mod. The airship graphics are displayed in each of the destination areas, so it might break immersion if the party travels to Calimshan only to find out that the airship is already there
Since the new areas are all in remote regions of Calimshan (Calim Desert, Spiderswamp, Memnonnar), it would be safer to travel by airship.
The first version will not include any worldmap additions to facilitate beta testing.
I haven't decided yet how to implement the new areas in the world map mod. The airship graphics are displayed in each of the destination areas, so it might break immersion if the party travels to Calimshan only to find out that the airship is already there
Since the new areas are all in remote regions of Calimshan (Calim Desert, Spiderswamp, Memnonnar), it would be safer to travel by airship.
The first version will not include any worldmap additions to facilitate beta testing.
If you link all your new areas featuring the airship to each other and to Waukeen's Promenade and don't link them to the other basegame areas, you can imply that the quicktravel involved the airship. Not sure if it's feasible in terms of what you have put together so far, but this would be the least complicated I guess.
If you link all your new areas featuring the airship to each other and to Waukeen's Promenade and don't link them to the other basegame areas, you can imply that the quicktravel involved the airship. Not sure if it's feasible in terms of what you have put together so far, but this would be the least complicated I guess.
That's a good idea. Thank you! For the first version, however, you will only be able to select the appropriate areas through the dialogues with the gnomish airship operator.
Well, thank you! This project is inspiring me to start modding again. I actually have a reason to play the game, which is helpful to stay motivated
This is really great news! Thank you very much!
In this update, I would like to talk about some obstacles I have encountered over the last few months and how I have - hopefully - been able to solve them.
Water
One big question in the progress was the implementation of animated water. In the original areas, I really enjoyed the way Bioware visualized water. By the time BG2 was released, the water looked really fantastic (and still does, in my opinion).
Since a lot of the areas I created contain some kind of water, I had to figure out a good way to achieve the same effect. Unfortunately, I had to realize that all modding tools available lack a straightforward approach to create pixel-perfect water overlays (as the water regions are called in the Infinity Engine).
In my first tests, I tried to separate critical regions (like trees) from the background. So I created trees and placed them on top of the area.
Fig. 1 Isolated palms
Fig. 2 Area without palms
Fig. 3 Area with palms and animated water
This looked good, but the palm tree would "pop up" when the figures were around. Also, this approach is not suitable when adding water around smaller regions such as grass or branches.
Finally I managed to solve this problem in a way that works really well, at least for me.
Spawn points
The second problem was the difficulty setting of encounters using spawn points. In BG1, I loved the concept of random wilderness encounters. However, in BG2, the difference between experience levels is huge. The developers of the IE created a very interesting spawn point system, though.
With help from Taimon and his knowledge of the IESDP I managed to create a random, fun spawn system in most of my wilderness areas. The path was very errant, though, as you can see in the next screenshot.
Fig. 4 How many eyeballs do you count?
Messengers
The third problem - and a bit of a weird surprise for me - was the extent to which the NPCs in the original content would perform their tasks. Many literally go the extra mile and show up in the middle of the Calim desert just to talk to you. From a technical point of view this is not a big problem, but keeping track of all the things going on in the engine while you are supposed to be away can be frustrating at times.
Fig. 5 Terl showing up in the middle of the desert, being the employee of the month of house Delryn
Fig. 6 Yes, Jaheira, please walk back from the elemental plane of fire to Athkatla.
Area graphics refinements
I changed some area graphics that I created a long time ago. For example, my first model of the Great Brass Gate wasn’t big enough, so I created a new one. This cost me a lot of time, but now I am really satisfied with the result.
Fig 7: The new Great Brass Gate
Rest
The last thing is not a problem at all, but it has also been bothering me for a while.
Imagine lying down in the desert on a cloudless night, the stars shining above you, you put yours arms around your beloved NPC, press the "Rest" button.... and the generic forest camp rest movie appears.
So as a little goodie, I created a new desert rest movie (in glorious 640x480 resolution for vanilla BG2 as well ). A shooting star will eventually move through the screen, so there's a possibility for wishes as well....
Fig 8: Screenshot of the desert rest movie. Imagine all things (except the dunes) moving.
Apart from all these things, of course, I also continued to work on the everyday things like dialogues, scripts and the like.
I was hoping to progress much faster with Skyfire. As I mentioned in one of my last posts, I'm still busy polishing another mod of mine. I've been getting a lot of feedback from my beta testers regarding the quest design of that mod, and I'm going to continue heading down that path as I feel like I'm on the final track. That said, I can't say when Skyfire will be ready for an English beta test yet, but I will continue to post updates on my progress and hope to release some of my other stuff in the not too distant future.
Seriously though, this area graphics looks just stunning. Just tell me you've put the actual City of Brass in this mod and I'm going to cry for joy.
I've been toying with the idea to go back and finally do my one last EET run, but I just need to wait for the Skyfire. It's just, there is no other way.
I've been toying with the idea to go back and finally do my one last EET run, but I just need to wait for the Skyfire. It's just, there is no other way.
Except no one said it's going to be EET compatible just yet :P On the first page:
• At the moment I am fleshing out the quest lines, the main quest will soon be ready to play in Vanilla BG2
So it's not going to even be for EE right away. That's the sad part :P
But I too can't wait to try it out. I truly want to try it out already.
Just tell me you've put the actual City of Brass in this mod and I'm going to cry for joy.
It will only be a small part of an Efreet city. A very small part of it. I even dare to call it the City of Brass.
The main reason for the delay of Skyfire is that most of the time in the recent months has been consumed by fleshing out a city I created for my other mod, so I swore I would never ever create a city again.
As for the EE version – my main concern is that once I have traified all the dialogues and switched them to UTF-8 it will be very difficult to change quest lines again (which might be necessary after beta testing).
I admit, it might look like I'm wasting time on trivialities.
I assure you that I work most of my time on serious things like quest debugging, but for the post I decided to present only the more entertaining things.
Huh. Apparently saying "woah, hold your horses, it will require time to have it EE ready" is like "there won't be any EE compatibility" for some :P My concern was mostly Cahir shouldn't stop planning his new EE(T) run or resign from playing other mods meanwhile as it may take time. It's funny what kind of turn the discussion suddenly took.
I would love to see EE version of this mod, it would probably get more feedback and I told that Acifer before, BUT it is his call to make. I do understand his concerns, because hey: I too don't release mods with EET compatibility right away.
Comments
Animations:
Blue Slaad, Death Slaad, Green Slaad
Red Slaad, Vrock
Areas:
Battle Arena:
Desert Arboretum:
I LOLed at the slaads' animations that looked like they were scratching themselves, and felt amazed at the simple, beautiful screenshots of new areas. I at least eagerly await the release of this mod. Thankee for sharing your progress! Alleluia!
Oh, and lore will have an impact on your exploration as well. With higher lore skills you will be able to decipher ancient runes and recognize strange symbols in the areas more precisely.
To clarify, did you intend to put these new locations on the World Map mod for those who use it? There's space on the biggest map size for Calimshan!
Since the new areas are all in remote regions of Calimshan (Calim Desert, Spiderswamp, Memnonnar), it would be safer to travel by airship.
The first version will not include any worldmap additions to facilitate beta testing.
If you link all your new areas featuring the airship to each other and to Waukeen's Promenade and don't link them to the other basegame areas, you can imply that the quicktravel involved the airship. Not sure if it's feasible in terms of what you have put together so far, but this would be the least complicated I guess.
That's a good idea. Thank you! For the first version, however, you will only be able to select the appropriate areas through the dialogues with the gnomish airship operator.
Thanks! Once vacation is over, I'll give a new update on the project.
Well, thank you! This project is inspiring me to start modding again. I actually have a reason to play the game, which is helpful to stay motivated
That is double awesome… thanks
Skyfire hasn't been publicly released yet.
In this update, I would like to talk about some obstacles I have encountered over the last few months and how I have - hopefully - been able to solve them.
Water
One big question in the progress was the implementation of animated water. In the original areas, I really enjoyed the way Bioware visualized water. By the time BG2 was released, the water looked really fantastic (and still does, in my opinion).
Since a lot of the areas I created contain some kind of water, I had to figure out a good way to achieve the same effect. Unfortunately, I had to realize that all modding tools available lack a straightforward approach to create pixel-perfect water overlays (as the water regions are called in the Infinity Engine).
In my first tests, I tried to separate critical regions (like trees) from the background. So I created trees and placed them on top of the area.
Fig. 1 Isolated palms
Fig. 2 Area without palms
Fig. 3 Area with palms and animated water
This looked good, but the palm tree would "pop up" when the figures were around. Also, this approach is not suitable when adding water around smaller regions such as grass or branches.
Finally I managed to solve this problem in a way that works really well, at least for me.
I have created a small tutorial at G3 that describes the process. If you are interested, you can find the thread here:
https://www.gibberlings3.net/forums/topic/35837-adding-water-to-new-area-graphics/
Spawn points
The second problem was the difficulty setting of encounters using spawn points. In BG1, I loved the concept of random wilderness encounters. However, in BG2, the difference between experience levels is huge. The developers of the IE created a very interesting spawn point system, though.
With help from Taimon and his knowledge of the IESDP I managed to create a random, fun spawn system in most of my wilderness areas. The path was very errant, though, as you can see in the next screenshot.
Fig. 4 How many eyeballs do you count?
Messengers
The third problem - and a bit of a weird surprise for me - was the extent to which the NPCs in the original content would perform their tasks. Many literally go the extra mile and show up in the middle of the Calim desert just to talk to you. From a technical point of view this is not a big problem, but keeping track of all the things going on in the engine while you are supposed to be away can be frustrating at times.
Fig. 5 Terl showing up in the middle of the desert, being the employee of the month of house Delryn
Fig. 6 Yes, Jaheira, please walk back from the elemental plane of fire to Athkatla.
Area graphics refinements
I changed some area graphics that I created a long time ago. For example, my first model of the Great Brass Gate wasn’t big enough, so I created a new one. This cost me a lot of time, but now I am really satisfied with the result.
Fig 7: The new Great Brass Gate
Rest
The last thing is not a problem at all, but it has also been bothering me for a while.
Imagine lying down in the desert on a cloudless night, the stars shining above you, you put yours arms around your beloved NPC, press the "Rest" button.... and the generic forest camp rest movie appears.
So as a little goodie, I created a new desert rest movie (in glorious 640x480 resolution for vanilla BG2 as well
Fig 8: Screenshot of the desert rest movie. Imagine all things (except the dunes) moving.
Apart from all these things, of course, I also continued to work on the everyday things like dialogues, scripts and the like.
I was hoping to progress much faster with Skyfire. As I mentioned in one of my last posts, I'm still busy polishing another mod of mine. I've been getting a lot of feedback from my beta testers regarding the quest design of that mod, and I'm going to continue heading down that path as I feel like I'm on the final track. That said, I can't say when Skyfire will be ready for an English beta test yet, but I will continue to post updates on my progress and hope to release some of my other stuff in the not too distant future.
Seriously though, this area graphics looks just stunning. Just tell me you've put the actual City of Brass in this mod and I'm going to cry for joy.
I've been toying with the idea to go back and finally do my one last EET run, but I just need to wait for the Skyfire. It's just, there is no other way.
But I too can't wait to try it out. I truly want to try it out already.
The main reason for the delay of Skyfire is that most of the time in the recent months has been consumed by fleshing out a city I created for my other mod, so I swore I would never ever create a city again.
As for the EE version – my main concern is that once I have traified all the dialogues and switched them to UTF-8 it will be very difficult to change quest lines again (which might be necessary after beta testing).
I admit, it might look like I'm wasting time on trivialities.
I assure you that I work most of my time on serious things like quest debugging, but for the post I decided to present only the more entertaining things.
I then do not understand why publish news about a mod that will not have ЕЕ\ЕЕТ compatibility on the site of ЕЕ edition of the game?
Who said it won't have EE compatibility? What time scales you think IE modding takes place in?
I would love to see EE version of this mod, it would probably get more feedback and I told that Acifer before, BUT it is his call to make. I do understand his concerns, because hey: I too don't release mods with EET compatibility right away.