In my previous prefab of arabic interiors I was asked what I was doing for an external area....
The author of Solvheil: Tahamman Prefab (http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2PrefabAreas.Detail&id=360), has graciously granted me permission to release this heavily reworked version. Please remember to go vote for that prefab.
This release also includes all the prefab arabic interiors of my previous release, plus some more. The mod version is all connected, and has placeholder map icons. Some areas are connected via area transitions rather than door transitions because of a toolset bug with the estate tileset (at least in my toolset). The main town area has music assigned, but the rest are blank musicwise. I especially like this area at night.
(Some npc's are visible in the screenshots, but all npcs have been removed)
Contents:
1 main town area
1 extra outside area, the "spice farm"
4 houses (one with a wizard's basement)
1 inn (multiple floors on one map)
1 temple (3 floors)
one government building (two floors)
uses the following Vault content (go vote for them):
Aquarium by merecraft
Lan's Placeable Groups v1.1
inspired by (go vote for it):
Storytellers Desert Town Adventure Pack (you can see these npcs in some screenshots)
Posted by Apep at 2011-02-27 23:28:39 Voted 9.50 on 02/27/11
It's funny, I started playing through Quest for Glory II and Gothic 3 recently and got to thinking I'd like to see some Middle Eastern-inspired areas for NWN2, and then I stumbled on this. Presumably this isn't the only set of areas that share this theme, but I have to agree 100% with Starwars on the interesting feel of the areas and the effective use of contrasting colours. _________________________ AP Magical Miscellanea Package (v1.5, over 750 items): Link
Posted by Qrizz at 2010-05-11 01:47:10 Voted 9.00 on 05/11/10
Great ! _________________________ Qrizz
Middle Earth Arnor PW Link
The al-Qasr demo is a finalized version of this, and demo of area styling for the Path of Evil campaign. _________________________ Shadow Thief: Crimmor and Path of Evil blog Link
@Starwars: thanks for the vote. The city square area you like is straight from the original Tahamman prefab.
Interiors I tried to match up to the idea of Calimshan's "Status is measured not in wealth in and of itself but in the ability to live comfortably in that wealth." (from the Forgotten Realms wiki) So interiors are purposely colorful and richly decorated. The paintings are almost all landscapes because of the Arabic aversion to depiction of humans (and non-humans by extension). The temple interior is meant to be suggestive of a mosque, so there is a distinct lack of obvious decoration on purpose. There are very few chairs as most people sit on the ground. I'd remove the statues from the houses for that reason as well, but they are part of the house in the toolset.
What I did to the prefab:
Added the oasis (those floating trees are my fault)
Changed many buildings into the "tent city" part of the town.
Retinted the remaining buildings.
Added the "flag path".
Changed the government building into three seperate "House" buildings (the original used a City Watch building in that spot iirc)
Changed the city walls to their current type (tinted and enlarged "Estate Interior walls").
Some slight recoloring of existing tents.
Lighting and placed effects.
The "spice farm" prefab is mine but isn't much, but I tossed it in there anyway for people as there's not much arabic prefab work out there. The interior are all mine (except where I used the aquarium and Lan's placeable groups of course).
For the NPC's for this area, Storytellers Desert Town Adventure Pack fits perfectly, and npc's from that will be populating this town when it appears in my module. _________________________ Shadow Thief: Crimmor and Path of Evil blog Link
Posted by Starwars at 2009-03-13 04:32:46 Voted 8.50 on 03/13/09
Hi there. I'm really glad to see areas with a middle-eastern flavour to them. There's something very appealing about adventures taking place in a crowded city, where the sun bakes the sand underneath all day long.
I think this captures that feel quite well. I especially liked the city square, or bazaar. I can just see this totally coming to life with some good scripting of NPCs milling around, stores with cool goods to sell, colorful characters etc. I'm also pleased that you added the sand whirling around. An effective device of bringing the player even further into the atmosphere.
The interiors fit the theme rather well also, and are colorful and interesting to look at.
I guess a personal preference would be to have the area feel even tighter and crowded. A lot of this could be "fixed" by adding NPCs walking around of course, but I'm always preferential to those tight, small streets. :) I noticed there were some plants/trees floating slightly above ground near the water, but no biggie there.
Well done, and like I said, I'm glad to see Middle-Eastern themed stuff. One of my favourite NWN1 mods was Almraiven which definetely feels a bit like that. :)
Thanks for the upload!
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at 2011-02-27 23:28:39
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