This VFX pack modifies certain spells within the game, allowing them to emit actual light as opposed to a non-light emitting glow effect. I always found it odd that several types of spells that you would think would emit light (like a fireball spell, or lightning, or magic missle, etc) do not. This VFX pack is my attempt to correct that, and in a manner that has the least performance impact, while preserving a realistic look to suit the spell effect modified.
Version History:
1.0 - initial release, added lights to most fire-based spells.
1.01 - added certain acid and lightning-based spells; minor tweaks.
1.02 - added ice and holy-based spells; added light effects to magic weapons that use an elemental visual effect (ice/fire/acid/lightning/holy).
1.03 - added magic missile-types, plus a few other various spells, and all Evocation-based spells. Added Mordenkainen's Sword. Added lighting effects to Turning Undead.
1.04 - the 'Warlock Patch' - added all Eldritch-based spells/invocations. Fixed minor positional error with light emitters on cone-based spells.
1.05 - added all Abjuration/Conjuration/Cures/Divination/Enchantment/Evil-based spells. Modified/tweaked a few stand-alone spells. Added ERF and HAK versions of this vfx pack.
1.06 - added all Illusion/Inflict/Necromancy/Transmutation-based spells. Added light emitter to negative weapon effects. Added light emitter to the spell Summon Creature (all levels).
1.07 - added light emitters to various creature appearance/attack effects. Added support for several more spells.
1.08 - added shadow-casting properties to 99% of light emitters (see readme for details). Added support for two more spells. Fixed numerous positional emitter errors.
1.09 - fixed positional errors on several spells, other minor fixes.
1.09a - the 'Cone of Cold' patch. This spell now acts as it should without 'breaking' other effects.
1.09b - adds a visual effect to your weapon when casting 'Magic Weapon' and 'Greater Magic Weapon' spells.
1.10 - numerous fixes/changes to spells and invocations. See the included readme for the entire list of changes.
See the readme file or the discussion thread here for complete details and install instructions.
This is a simple merge of Kaedrin's PrC pack version of the spell 'Cone of Cold' and the light emitter I created for the same spell. Be sure to follow the directions in the included readme.txt file.
Posted by 3miLy_raNgeR at 2011-11-04 09:23:22 Voted 10.00 on 11/04/11
Beautiful.
Posted by BlakOrkz at 2011-01-22 00:28:43 Voted 9.75 on 01/22/11
Combining this with Grinning Fool's Visual Darkness has helped make NWN2 into DnD for my friends and I. Thanks!
Posted by Corwin z Amberu at 2010-04-13 00:08:06 Voted 9.00 on 04/13/10
Outstanding, a Must Have
Great mod! Really does make the game look much better.
From my point of view it would be better if you separated the spell and weapon effects. The latter I try to reduce as much as possible without removing them rather then highlighting the weapon glow and the on-hit explosions. But there are other mods for this and I could remove the weapon files from your Pack easily enough.
Thank you!
Posted by E.C.Patterson at 2010-02-26 19:42:56 Voted 9.75 on 02/26/10
Adds so much to the look of the game! Excellent! Highly recommended!
(Some lights are a tad strong though IMO) _________________________ E.C.Patterson Gaming Parents Studios
Hello, may I ask you, what graphic settings are required to show your effects? Or will it work always regardless my graphic options in-game? Thank you. _________________________ Whenever someone says "pls" because it's shorter than "please", I say "no" because it's shorter than "yes".
hi im confused ,i know i have to unzip lights_spell_effects_1.10.zip to override directory,the question is:
can i put it directly into C:programs file,atary,neverwinternights 2-override or into My Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2\override? does it matters?
also what do i do with lights_spell_effects_1.10.erf and lights_spell_effects_1.10.hak?
where do i put those files?
thanks in advance
Posted by wes471 at 2009-09-07 07:34:29 Voted 9.50 on 09/07/09
Was just recently brought to my attention that there's a conflct between my VFX pack and Kaedrin's PrC pack in regards to the spell 'Cone of Cold'. I just included a fix, which merges Kaedrin's version of the spell with the light emitter effect I made for it. You only need this file if you use both his PrC pack and my VFX pack together.
Version 1.10 is released. This fixes numerous issues covering a range of spells and invocations... see the readme for the entire list of changes. This is the final installation of the 1.x series. Next version will be version 2.0 and will focus on MotB spells and effects. As of this post, just the updated override is available - I'll update the hak and erf packages later on tonight.
New update! This one gives some love to the spells 'Magic Weapon' and 'Greater Magic Weapon'. Here's the quote from the readme:
Modified x2_s0_magcweap and x2_s0_grmagweap scripts so that the spells Magic Weapon and Greater Magic Weapon now have a visual effect assigned to them. This a quick n' dirty work-around - the original file that each script calls for a visual effect (fx_defaultitem_magic.sef) is missing. I can recreate it, but the scripts in their current form assigns the effect to the casters BODY, not the weapon. So for right now I am using an existing effect that's easy to call - when cast, the weapon affected by each spell will look charged with electrical energy and cast off a small bit of light. As per the spells, on a successful hit, MAGICAL damage is applied, not electrical.
To be honest, I'm not interested in 'fixing' something that personally I don't feel to be broken. I like seeing and hearing the exploding effect when my flaming battle axe hits an enemy (when I ever get to play, that is). I understand if you don't have the time to address your proposal yourself - I barely have time to update my own stuff. However, it really isn't too difficult. It'd be along the some lines as the other visual effect package that makes buffs less obtrusive on the eyes. It's a matter of telling the effect not to use this or that effect, or to use a completely different one. If you had one hour of free time to play around with the visual effects editor, I have no doubt you or anyone else that wanted the same thing could figure out a solution.
Posted by foil at 2009-02-09 16:35:42 Voted 9.25 on 08/02/08
Foil - you should be able to fix those effects yourself with the visual effect editor.
Not a chance in hell really. Time, experience, all that jazz.
I was thinking along the lines of an add-on like these overrides that change it for all modules and OC...not just my own creations. If your saying that your really not interested and we are barking up the wrong tree, that's understandable. Although if it was extremely simple I would have expected an override for it already since there are quite a few members in the community who dislike the effects including some well known modders.
Version 1.09a is now available. All this minor update does, is modify nw_s0_conecold so that the Cone of Cold spell effect properly originates from the casters hand, without 'breaking' other spell and creature effects (like winter wolf breath).
OK, version 1.09 is up. I'll update the hak and erf versions very soon.
So what's new? Ever notice when ya cast burning hands, or cone of cold, or color spray, that the major spell effect shoots out of your face or your torso? Annoying as hell. That's basically is what has been fixed in this small update. It takes care of those spells, as well as a few others. See the included readme for details.
Black and Red Dragon's breath got some extra attention as well. Nothing major, but it is a difference.
One downside to this recent update, is that since the winter wold uses the same spell effect as cone of cold, it's breath affect now shoots out of it's right paw. There's an actual winter wold breath .sef, but it's not referenced in the visualeffects.2da file. I may make a small update to fix that here in a couple days.
Foil - you should be able to fix those effects yourself with the visual effect editor.
Guess what? version 1.09 will be submitted within the next 24 hours. It fixes a few spells in the way they look when cast, has been buggin' the hell outta me for awhile now. More details to follow on that.
Posted by foil at 2008-08-02 09:33:33 Voted 9.25 on 08/02/08
I've also been using this for quite a while and it makes the visuals much more immersive. I like that weapons will cast a little light in dark places. Now if OE will just tone down their VFX (explosions of hit) and let yours shine a little more, the game would be a contender. Actually, do you have the ability to fix the flaming weapons and exploding weapon fixes or is that hard coded in by OE?
Posted by Andros_Forever at 2008-04-24 07:06:18 Voted 10.00 on 04/24/08
Yep, every weapon shadow was perfect Imo except for spear and probably quarterstaff because of their lenght. The light is emitted from the front of the character and back at the same time, which creates a shadow buggy animation, but besides that little problem I want to congratulate you again on this awesome mod. It seriously brings the game to the next level with the beautiful lights affecting the scenery. Good job again! _________________________ -------------Role Player since 1997-------------
MyHouse - all ya have to do is use the visual effects editor in the toolset, an open up the .sef file that corresponds to the effect you want to modify. I've labelled the added light effect as 'light_fx' - there's a single shadow setting that you can set to true or false.
Andros - glad that ya found a way to make the changes you wanted to make. When I initially set out to make this vfx pack, I wasnt going to add shadows to weapon effects at all. When I finally got around to doing that, I wrestled with how they looked; I probably spent a lot more hours than I normally would, getting the placement as right as I could. Granted, I only tested on great axes and swords, but unfortunately, one setting affects all weapons. But hey, that's the beauty of a game like this - don't like it? Change it.
Andros_Forever-
No idea how you did that. Care to let me know how. I'm having the same problem...
Posted by Andros_Forever at 2008-04-17 08:00:10 Voted 10.00 on 04/24/08
Update:
I have edit your Visual Effects with the Editor and have taken out the shadows cast from weapons, that problem is solved. If you wish to make the next version better, fix the spear's enchanted effect to make a normal shadow. txs bye. _________________________ -------------Role Player since 1997-------------
Posted by Andros_Forever at 2008-04-17 07:22:28 Voted 10.00 on 04/24/08
Update on my situation from above:
I have deleted the default_item files in the Battle sub folder and that got rid of the lighting all together for enchanted items, but what I would prefer is to have the Items mantaign their glow WITHOUT casting shadows. I want the spells to cast shadows thought so turning off point light shadows is obviously crossed out as an option. K2 when you see this post pls help me out. _________________________ -------------Role Player since 1997-------------
Posted by Andros_Forever at 2008-04-16 22:53:27 Voted 10.00 on 04/24/08
You know I was thinking about it and If you could just tell me which files from the overrides you made make the weapons glow with fire/ice/lighting etc. I could delete those and they would not create shadows anymore, solving the crazy shadows problem created by spears/multiple enchanted weapon users in group... txs :) _________________________ -------------Role Player since 1997-------------
Posted by Andros_Forever at 2008-04-16 20:24:39 Voted 10.00 on 04/24/08
Hello K2 I love your mod, it adds TONS to the gameplay, but there is a problem. My system can handle the point shadow of light emitters from all spells but the light emitted from element enchanted weapons makes the shadows move like crazy drawing back from realism. Every other shadow emitted looks fine... Is there a way to remove the shadows emitted from my weapons only? (Btw the enchanted spear is the most annoying every other weapons does a pretty normal shadow, maibe you can fix the spear weapon only in next version..) _________________________ -------------Role Player since 1997-------------
Thank you very much ladyelvenstar, khoover, and PNJ.
OK, here's what I am gonna do. I am going to force myself to make time to get version 2.0 out for my light emitters in spell VFX. The current version, 1.08, will be left as-is, and will be for players that have the official campaign only. Version 2.0 will be all of that, plus updated light emitters for the new spells introduced in MotB, as well as any other effects I see that are new for MotB that could use some love (various creature breath effects, etc). I will start researching what needs to be looked at tomorrow my time.
Just bear with me folks. Many of ya probably aren't aware - I'm currently 4 months into my second deployment to Iraq. I'm infantry, so I am away from base on missions more often than not. When I am back on base, I usually just wanna sleep ;) Our CO is finally starting to pull his head out of his ass, and is giving me and my men some actual days off. Sorta ;) So on those days is when I will start knockin' this out.
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