This hakpak contains a set of 47 placeable buildings with built-in interiors. There are 14 large houses, 3 medium-sized "two-story" houses, 7 medium-sized houses, 7 small houses, a small log cabin, 6 small shops (3 with counters, 3 without), 6 "two-story" shops (3 with counter, 3 without), and 3 towers in the current version. There are four wall textures (plaster, marble, wood panel, and stone) for each house except the log cabin and the two-story houses (the latter come in plaster, wood panel, and brick), and 2 floor textures for most of the houses (wood and cobblestone). The tower wall textures are brick, stone and fieldstone (Danmar's LOK Fieldstone texture). Three passable doors are also provided (wood, stone, and metal). A set of 6 placeable "night window" objects are included so you can make the house windows do a day-to-night transition by scripting their placement and removal. Placeable wall sections with and without doorways or windows are also included for the available textures. This allows the creation of rooms within the houses, among other things. There are also two placeable staircases (one with a black "opening" at the top, the other without). Finally, a version of BioWare's wood stove that has flame and smoke animations is provided for that extra lived-in touch.
Posted by NWC_Snake at 2011-04-04 21:05:22 Voted 9.50 on 08/14/06
I created these models with a UO-style placeable housing system in mind, and was also quite disappointed to find that tilefade does not work with ANY objects that are placed dynamically in the game rather than in the toolset. Unfortunately, there is nothing I can do about the way the game deals with meshes that are placed dynamically. That is not something that can be worked around without recoding the engine, which obviously is not something I can do myself. As for the 2da incompatibility, that was introduced by BioWare in the final patch, which was released long after this hakpak was posted. There was no Building Adornments palette at all when this hakpak was made. By the time of the final patch, I had already moved on to a new set of building models with thicker walls. About the time I finished them, I also changed jobs and no longer had time and energy to expend on NWN custom content. The models have languished on one of my old computers for a few years now, and I'm not all that fired up by the thought of composing a new hakpak so I can post them. I'll think about it, but taking the time for it is just as challenging now as it was when I first made them.
Posted by Henesua at 2011-02-19 08:57:30 Voted 8.75 on 02/19/11
Snake, this is a very interesting addition to the vault. I've played with the pieces this morning, and while I see some potential with what you have done (especially with bare tilesets) it is unfortunate that tilefade does not work with dynamically placed houses. My primary desire in downloading this was to use these houses with some custom spells that summon/create temporary buildings.
The whole set also has 2da issues. I notice conflicts with all of the Building Adornments in the toolset palette.
The walls are also still quite thin. I think a much thicker wall would have worked better. Somewhere between four and eight times as thick (for interior and exterior walls). Another thing missing are corner pieces for the walls.
All that said, I still think this is a superb effort and very creative. You deserve praise for the idea alone, and even with the issues I mention above there is some potential here. I have used your placeable stairs and walls in Six Thrices Rural Interior tileset for good effect in a few tests I have run. Nevertheless what I really wanted were dynamically placeable houses. I'll have to keep looking for that. _________________________ Vault Submissions | Arnheim | Beyond Vives
Posted by NWC_Snake at 2009-11-19 13:20:48 Voted 9.50 on 08/14/06
Hail! I don't know how many of the people who have downloaded this hakpak are actually using it, but I hope most of them have found it useful. I did discover that the tile fade setting I applied to the roofs doesn't work if you place a building dynamically (in other words, while actually playing the module), but does work if the building is placed using the toolset. That is kind of annoying, since my original reason for making them was for use in a UO-style system for player house placement. That can still be done, but you have to change your camera angle and distance to see inside the building. This is obviously not ideal, but I think we're stuck with it. This is not a problem for buildings you place with the toolset, tile fade works perfectly on them.
Your Humble Serpent,
Snake
Posted by Styxx42 at 2009-06-29 17:38:40 Voted 10.00 on 06/29/09
This is a really great tool. I wonder how many hours you have saved everyone on the Vault with this little beauty.
Thanks and Props to you.
Posted by NWC_Snake at 2006-09-17 10:51:19 Voted 9.50 on 08/14/06
Hail! There are wall sections with and without doorways and windows included, as well as a set of placeable doors with textures that differ from the ones BioWare provides. Eventually I may add placeable floor and roof sections to allow complete customization.
I have been working on houses with thicker walls. This requires a somewhat different way of handling the placeable walkmeshes, but I have it figured out. I am dealing with the details of a 2100 mile relocation at the moment, so it will be some time yet before I have anything new to release.
Your Humble Serpent,
Snake
Posted by Soopachi at 2006-09-13 05:07:01 Voted 9.75 on 09/13/06
Something sorely lacking in NWN especially since the likes of Diablo2 and dungeon siege managed this (in a fashion).
I would recommend putting Doorway gaps and possibly even window gaps in there. There are placeable windows and doors and a nice door use system in the CEP. Granted you would lose a little flexibility if you did but then again there are 47 of them so how much flexibility does a layman want or need eh?
Thicker walls and door/window gaps would have earned a 10. Overrall though this is outstanding work!
9.75/10
Posted by crazycam10 at 2006-08-30 11:20:35 Voted 10.00 on 08/30/06
Woot Houses :D _________________________ Ut2004 Champ :D
I LIKE TOAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by NWC_Snake at 2006-08-25 08:56:34 Voted 9.50 on 08/14/06
In reply to Helvene's vote comments:
"almost unusable with tilefade turned off"
Don't turn off tilefade, or use the camera angle control to adjust the camera position so you aren't looking down on the building.
"grass grouws through the floor"
Turn the dynamic grass off.
I have to work around BioWare's design decisions, just like everyone else. Players can decide to leave tilefade on, and they can decide to turn the dynamic grass off. They can also decide the opposite. I can't control those decisions, any more than I can control the way the game itself works. Could I have made the houses roofless, so tilefade settings would not matter? Yes, and nobody would want to use them, because roofless houses would look incredibly stupid. Could I have set the models above the ground plane high enough so the dynamic grass wouldn't protrude through the floors? Yes, and they would cut the character models off at the knees, which would look even more incredibly stupid than roofless models. If I did both, they really would be unusable. I did what I had to do within the constraints of the game engine.
Your Humble Serpent.
Snake
Posted by NWC_Snake at 2006-08-22 21:17:26 Voted 9.50 on 08/14/06
Helvene, you might try reading the previous posts before posting your comments. If you had done so, you would have seen that I have already said that I will be working on models with thicker walls. As for the grass sticking up through the floors, there is no way to prevent BioWare's dynamic grass from sticking up through the floors except having the user turn off the grass. Raising the floor won't work because it clips off the character's legs, which is at least as unsightly as a wavy green carpet of grass.
By the way, I released these because people asked me to. Nobody has to use them. If you don't like them, don't use them.
Your Humble Serpent,
Snake
Posted by helvene at 2006-08-16 09:47:12 Voted 5.00 on 08/16/06
Posted by NWC_Snake at 2006-08-14 20:55:55 Voted 9.50 on 08/14/06
303 people downloaded it but didn't vote, so I figure it's OK for me to at least put the vote count into double figures.
Your Humble Serpent,
Snake
Posted by BigBene at 2006-07-10 14:05:40 Voted 10.00
Hey, people, don't forget voting!
Posted by BigBene at 2006-07-10 14:04:04 Voted 10.00
Your're just great! Take your time, this is already superbeous
(of course, personally I cant wait... :) )
I think, even walls of 50 units (cm) would be perfectly realistic in a "medieval" setting.
Posted by NWC_Snake at 2006-07-09 20:29:01 Voted 9.50 on 08/14/06
Hail! I am planning on rebuilding the buildings with thicker walls myself, now that I have more experience with making things like this. I think 25 units is about the right thickness to prevent the clipping problem. I tried 20 units this evening, and it was still just a little too thin. I also want to rebuild most of the multi-section walls as single sections. I'm just too tired right now to do it immediately.
Your Humble Serpent,
Snake
Posted by ShadowM at 2006-07-09 15:09:12 Voted 10.00
Great job snake, keep up the good work. I still going to make your wall thicker hehe do not like the clipping with monster sticking through walls hehe. I seen some minor issue with some pwk mess missing off some of the doorways and some minor issue with miss aligned/nonweld vetices but other then that great job :). The thing with either walkmesh meathod(with placables) is they do not really overide the tileset mesh but just layer on top of it or even under it. I wish it overide them then we be able to make placable bridges etc.. I could go into more detail but I found I ran out of space on the comment LOL.
Posted by NWC_Snake at 2006-07-09 13:39:56 Voted 9.50 on 08/14/06
Hail! The updated version is now available. Enjoy!
Your Humble Serpent,
Snake
Posted by Chaos_Theocrat ( 205.188.xxx.xxx ) at 2006-07-09 12:26:56
Sounds like it will be a great update, especially the new 2-story buildings; I will definately be looking forward to that one! Truly, excellent stuff Snake.
Posted by Arminath at 2006-07-09 07:22:47 Voted 10.00
Snake, as always your contributions to the community are innovative and create exciting possibilities!
Posted by NWC_Snake at 2006-07-08 17:29:19 Voted 9.50 on 08/14/06
Hail! I will probably upload the first update of this hakpak late tonight. The update will add the new pwks, 3 "two-story" houses, 6 one-story houses/shops (3 with service counters, 3 without), 6 "two-story" versions of the shops/houses (same deal on the service counters), a placeable staircase, and a woodstove with flame and smoke emitters and activation/deactivation animations.
After this update, I need to take a break!
Your Humble Serpent,
Snake
Posted by chaos_theocrat at 2006-07-06 14:57:35 Voted 10.00 on 07/06/06
This is a magnificent step forward in placeable buildings. What I would love to see done next with this awesome new idea would be the addition of more than one entrace/exit on the houses so that they can be linked together by builders to create larger structures. The towers could then be linked to the houses to make mansions or forts, and so forth. As a follow-up to this hak pak, I think the next logical step would be a set of placeable castle pieces with interiors, that could be linked together so that you could build your own castles too. Some things to think about for updates. But in any case, even as is, this set is amazing and truly an innovative work!
Posted by NWC_Snake at 2006-07-06 10:05:10 Voted 9.50 on 08/14/06
Hail! I think what happens with the aabb walkmesh on placeables is that the placeable walkmesh overrides the tile walkmesh, but sits actually sits on top of the tile. This makes it slightly higher than the base tileset elevation, and characters get bumped up to the level of the tileset height transition when they try to walk in that area. I am just guessing, about this, but it is consistent with what I have seen.
It may be that this could provide a way to create "split-level" placeables, in which part of the placeable is higher than the rest. I just don't know at this point how controllable this phenomenon is.
Your Humble Serpent,
Snake
Posted by BigBene at 2006-07-06 09:54:35 Voted 10.00
Quote:
Thanks for the tip, ShadowM! This works a LOT better than trying to apply an aabb tile walkmesh. All that did was turn my test character and the monster that was chasing him into skywalkers, and I don't mean Luke!
That's right, the PWK approach is WAY better than the aabb one, which I suggested. I do mainly tilesets, don't know much about placeables, but try to help anyways...
But the aabb version MAY be a way to do real second storys, whose main problem is to raise the characters to a higher level (not in the RPG sense...). Just put a floor under the skywalker'S feet. Or am I wrong?
Posted by hehehe at 2006-07-05 14:27:12 Voted 10.00
Nevermind _________________________ -�Mariska
Posted by hehehe at 2006-07-05 14:07:00 Voted 10.00
PLzzz help...
_________________________ -�Mariska
Posted by hehehe at 2006-07-05 14:06:57 Voted 10.00
PLzzz help...
_________________________ -�Mariska
Posted by hehehe at 2006-07-05 13:32:31 Voted 10.00
:S cant find it
_________________________ -�Mariska
Posted by hehehe at 2006-07-05 11:35:25 Voted 10.00
Ah okey.
_________________________ -�Mariska
Posted by NWC_Snake at 2006-07-05 08:46:18 Voted 9.50 on 08/14/06
Hail! Once you move the placeables.2da lines, the erf file that contains the premade houses will not work any longer, and any pre-existing houses in your module will no longer have the correct appearance. They will have to be have their appearances reset using the toolset. That's not hard to do. Select the house in the Placeables - Custom toolset menu, right-click and select Edit, then use the appearance dropdown menu to choose the appropriate House appearance.
BTW, thanks to ShadowM's tip, I have changed the way I am making walkmeshes for the buildings. The new method eliminates the line of sight issues, which is a major improvement. The first update of the hakpak will contain all new pwk files that incorporate the new method. You won't have to do anything special to use them, just replace the current hakpak with the updated one, and the new pwks will automatically be used. I have not yet uploaded the update. I will post here when I do.
I will consider making a combined hakpak of placeable buildings. I have received a request to add interiors to the huts. It would make most sense to do that before releasing a combo hakpak.
Your Humble Serpent,
Snake
Posted by hehehe at 2006-07-05 08:13:04 Voted 10.00
Snake can you make from all placeable haks one ? (the houses and huts) _________________________ -�Mariska
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