Friday, December 14, 2007

Quick update

Well, I'm due a fortnightly update on the forums so I'll keep this brief (easy as there isn't much to report!)

Wrote my first cutscene in a while as previously been focusing on areas, and scripting - man, i'd forgotten how long they can take, including all the conditionals to get the companion interjections right, adding speaker tags... But think it was worth it - the first key sidequest, and it plays a lot on the companion interactions, so there's lots of opportunities where a player will be winning influence with one, but losing it with another. Which will ultimately change the game experience (I hope!). Got some more conversations sketched out on paper to type up - I tend to type on the fly with only rough thoughts planned, and I know when i do write these up, new ideas will come in to play.
Also been playing with the VFX editor (major kudos to Amraphael who is a major talent in custom content, and has been helping me out). It's more simple than I thought, but part of me wishes i hadn't found a new toy in the toolset to play with when i need to focus on plot! Will post details later.

Played H&C. Wow. Nuff said.

Updated the blogroll - I'd encourage any reader (hello...?) to look around these just to get a feel for the hard work going on out there. The dedication and talent out there is great.

Patch 1.11 up - and like others I'm going to wait before looking into this, given some of the reports on the toolset. I think 1.10 has got the toolset about as functional as I'd like - and unless there's new content, I'm not keen to change it too much right now.

More general news... after Robert Jordan's death, it's now sad to report that Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. My science background is in neurodegneration, so I know a fair bit about this disease. He's never been an author I've gone out of my way to read, but what I have read I enjoyed and he's got an impressive catalogue. I've also played in enough campaigns DM'd by his fans that I've vicariously picked up on all his humour anyway. Great to see he's taking the news with his usual stoic humour.

Right... convinced my girlfriend to go visit her relatives tomorrow, which gives me a day's uninterupted toolset time to get something worhtwhile to report to the forums... >:o)

5 comments:

Ernie Noa said...

I'm frightened to hear that the VFX editor is easy. I've stayed away, I fear I would get caught up in it in the manner you have described. Amraphel is an amazing talent, and very willing to share his knowledge and content.

I'm always impressed with the NWN community.

Wyrin said...

well, 'easy' might be misleading. Especially as Amraphael has just returned my first homework effort covering in red pen, and graded a D- ;)

The VFX editor does seem simple to use, but take some work to get the results running as smoothly in game. Somehting that I'll take longer to do.


Been working on some other custom content myself - will post more i nthe update on the forums

Nalencer said...

Wyrin! Thanks for the link, man.

dirtywick said...

I can't in good conscience recommend you patch the game, at least until the hotfix. The toolset's kind of messed up with 1.11.

Amraphael said...

D- :)
To say it's an easy-to-use tool is to exaggerate. But it is powerful and very addicting! I would like a stand-alone version that I could have on my portable PC and play with while sitting in boring meetings. "Of course I'm listening, I just typing down some, eh, notes so I don't forget that, eh, important thing you just told me."