Venice - The city on the water. Get lost in the twisting turning streets as you explore this sprawling city. Crystal blue waters run in the cannals as the colorful boats of the locals bob in the waves. This 16 x 16 area is a great haven for pirates and rogues. Hope you like it. Note: I have updated this area to add a bit of mystery. Can you get into those things?
Posted by Qrizz at 2010-05-11 22:29:54 Voted 10.00 on 05/11/10
We use this in our PW.
Thanks ! _________________________ Qrizz
Middle Earth Arnor PW Link
Posted by MokahTGS at 2007-04-22 07:29:06 Voted 9.25 on 04/22/07
This is an excellent prefab just begging for usage by the community. I'm insipred to make piratey things just by looking at this!
I did take a run around town and found a couple things that would make this better.
First, I think there are too many houses. I think I know what you were going for with a cluttered sea shanty town, but in many places it looks too crowded and makes for strange walkways that don't feel right.
Second, the palm trees really do need dirt patches. They look odd growing out of the cobblestone. I'm not sure if there is a sand/dirt placeable so this might not be able to be helped.
Third, the houses should be tinted in different colors, but should not be as bright as the boats. When you go to the tropics you see houses colored in bright colors but the sun has faded them. I would suggest the same here to give the boats and houses a lived in feel.
After working with water a bit more I have realized that my earlier explaination wasn't quite right. This is what resulted in the water in this area. I swapped all the grass for sand so that the sand doesn't have any under tones to it. Then, I used the terran color tool to paint a bright sky blue on the sand under the water. The water is almost completely clear, with a hint of blue. In other words, let the land under the water give it it's color. That's it. Sorry about the mix up earlier. _________________________ The toolset has gotten much better.
Posted by Zonzai at 2007-01-24 18:59:02 Voted 9.00 on 01/24/07
This is one of th ebest prefabs so far. By far. _________________________ NWN2 Voting Standards - Tattoo it on your forehead.
10 - A Masterpiece, Genuinely Groundbreaking
9 - Outstanding, a Must Have
8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone
7 - Very Good, Deserves a Look
6 - Good, Qualified Recommendation
5 - Fair, Solid yet Unremarkable
4 - Some Merit, Requires Improvements
3 - Poor Execution, Potential Unrealized
2 - Very Little Appeal
1 - Not Recommended to Anyone
Posted by Altaem at 2007-01-02 06:42:53 Voted 10.00 on 01/02/07
I was struck with awe the moment I set foot in the city. This has a great feel to it & even empty, it felt far more alive than Neverwinter in the OC. This is a prefab begging to be used in modules. It doesn�t fit in with any of my module building ideas, but I�m very tempted to bend them all around it.
Just a couple of niggling questions:
What�s with the brightly coloured boats, yet dull houses? I had expects some sort of consistency.
How to the trees grow out of solid stone? Surely dirt patches or pots would make more sense.
Posted by dandosama at 2006-12-14 16:07:39 Voted 9.00 on 12/14/06
Superb. Really gives you a feeling of *place*, unlike most prefabs and even, I am sorry to say, most of the locations in the OC.
Posted by Rowne at 2006-12-13 21:32:05 Voted 9.25 on 12/13/06
To be honest, I was somewhat wrong about the lighting. Seeing it in-game conveys it better than the screenshot does, which is why I'm glad I waited before rating.
This definitely shows off the potential of the toolset and creates a beautiful area. It's definitely a great nod towards having a city on the water in a persistent world someday as I find it to be rather inspiring.
The walkmesh was a bit difficult but that was to be expected, considering the nature of the city itself. It's a bit confused, all in all but that only adds to the effect.
All in all then, a really nice prefab and one that deserves to be built upon. Fine work.
In the case of the water the canals are very deep so in most cases you are looking at a side wall. Beyond that just adjust the smoothness, and the reflection/refraction levels. _________________________ The toolset has gotten much better.
Allmight makes a good point about the bridges. I'm sure if I spent a bit more time on them I could make some adjustments that would improve that although anyone who has tried to make a bridge can tell you that they are a bit of a pain. My current project has hit a snag so I'll go look at that. Thanks for the good advice. With regaurd to the lighting I didn't not put that in for the same reasons that I didn't put in alot of placeables. Again, I suggest populating the area with your NPCs and then adding light, etc. Just to be on the safe side. _________________________ The toolset has gotten much better.
Posted by Silver-Calibur at 2006-12-13 08:07:52 Voted 8.50 on 12/13/06
Holy crap that looks nice. How did you get the water to be so opaque? Whenever I place some, you can always vaguely see the ground underneath. _________________________ "Time spent bitching is time wasted"
~Silver
Posted by Rowne at 2006-12-13 07:51:19 Voted 9.25 on 12/13/06
Usually I don't look at prefabs because I'm not a developer, it isn't stuff that would generally interest me unless it happened to be in a substantial module. However, I do love Venice so I decided to poke my nose in here, hoping for some screenshots.
The only criticism I have is that it could use perhaps a little more lighting at night, a few torches here and there.
Other than that it looks beautiful, so much so that I had to download the file, hoping that there would be a mod inside so I could play around with it (I wasn't sure how prefabs worked, exactly).
Seeing that there was, I'll certainly take a wander around in there later.
As an aside: This looks like it would make an awesome area for the angling mod too, so I hope someone uses it sooner or later and sees the potential of that.
Anyway, I don't rate lightly (never have) so I'll be back to rate it after I've done a little walking around in it.
A tip. Try to scale the bridges to fit better. Looks kind of odd when they sometime cover large land areas, and on some other places they start near water on one edge, and end up in the middle of the island on the other end. Other than that, i have not tried it yet, but looks good.
Posted by Quessir at 2006-12-13 06:01:04 Voted 7.00 on 12/13/06
Very good.
Posted by Simon05 at 2006-12-13 05:17:49 Voted 10.00 on 12/13/06
Ok, I've updated the file to add a little something to give the place a central focual point. What kind of treasures could be found inside? _________________________ The toolset has gotten much better.
The building thing was nagging at me the whole time I was working on it. I looked at some different stuff but, nothing seemed to work right. I'll give it another go and see if I can come up with something because I completely agree that while the area is nice it does need a center piece. _________________________ The toolset has gotten much better.
Posted by DavionShores at 2006-12-12 23:30:39 Voted 8.75 on 12/12/06
You beat me to it! I was wanting to try out doing a town/city on the water. I'll just have to try and top this one ;)
Anyway...
The layout of the place is great and it was fun wandering through the area. Looks like you did a pretty good job of masking the walkmesh in most parts. Especially liked the ropes around the torches ;)
I think the area could stand for some kind of interesting building somewhere, though. Like maybe a building made out of a half sunken ship or something, just to break up the style of buildings seen. One thing that sucks about building areas right now is the fact that we're pretty limited on buildings and content right now and stuck with what the campaign gives us, which isn't much when you want a variety of houses.
So I'd just suggest maybe adding an interesting landmark for the players so the area will be memorable visually to people playing.
Those of you who look at this area in the toolset will notice that the walkmesh looks like a mess. That is because it isn't being used. Your character will be walking on the curbs the whole time and they have thier own walkmesh. Also, you may find that you can walk through the trees. Again, this is because the walkmesh cutter doesn't work on the curbs. There were a few places where the walkmesh just would not work. You'll know these spots when you find a pile of crates in an odd spot that blocks off a street. They are there for a reason. I have tried to find all the strange walkmesh areas but, this place was a monster to playtest so I may have missed some. Hopefully not. Oh, and if it seems a bit sparse in the placeables department, that is because I wasn't sure how much the area could handle and still be playable with NPCs and such running around. I suggest populating the area first and then adding more placeables as the game engine will allow. Enjoy. _________________________ The toolset has gotten much better.
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10 - A Masterpiece, Genuinely Groundbreaking 9 - Outstanding, a Must Have 8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone 7 - Very Good, Deserves a Look 6 - Good, Qualified Recommendation 5 - Fair, Solid yet Unremarkable 4 - Some Merit, Requires Improvements 3 - Poor Execution, Potential Unrealized 2 - Very Little Appeal 1 - Not Recommended to Anyone
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