chevalier
Wed, 26th Jan '05, 12:20am
Here are today's Neverwinter Nights 2 forum highlights, collected by NWVault (http://nwvault.ign.com) from Obsidian Forums (http://forums.obsidianent.com/index.php?showforum=21). Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Erik Novales, Programmer</font>
** Your biggest fear ** (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407523&post=3372502&forum=100&highlight=)
<hr />Biggest fear...that would be the game looking cartoony. It's one of the few things that'll stop me buying it. I reallllllly hate the cartoony look that seems to be creeping into games these days.<hr />Not going to happen.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Jason Keeney, Programmer</font>
Dual Monitor Support (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407147&post=3372258&forum=95&highlight=)
<hr />Why run it widescreen anyway? Most monoters aren't widescreen? ?!?!?<hr />It doesnt *only* run in widescreen... its just that you *can*.
Dual Display (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=406894&post=3372455&forum=95&highlight=)
Of course we would never make it a requirement to have 2 monitors... but the idea of supporting dual monitors certainly has a lot of merit.
Everyone on the NWN2 team has 2 monitors on their desks, so we're certainly set up to develop dual monitor features... but of course I'm not making any promises...
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Brian D. Lawson, Programmer</font>
Dual Monitor Support (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407147&post=3372121&forum=95&highlight=)
<hr />and/or widescreen out of the box support.<hr />It currently runs widescreen.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Ferret Baudoin, Lead Designer</font>
** Your biggest fear ** (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407523&post=3372811&forum=100&highlight=)
Another thing that isn't going to happen is that the scripting engine is going to get dumbed down. More options are going to be available to the power-modders. A lot of the designers on NWN2 are pretty technical, and we'd like more control of some aspects of module creation not less.
So rejoice.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Frank Kowalkowski, Lead Programmer</font>
Size on player characters UV-map??? (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407509&post=3372273&forum=99&highlight=)
You're likely to see smaller meshes than 3000 polys for most non-PCs. Much of the lighting detail will come from normal mapping. We're looking at 'what looks good' right now with respect to the diffuse and normal map resolutions. Keep in mind, that while we will be loading 2x the textures (or more...) than NWN1, in some cases we can use lower resolution textures and look much better because of shader technology. NWN1 also had to support some very low VRAM requirements, much lower than the min spec for NWN2 will be.
The finer details (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407715&post=3372297&forum=99&highlight=)
<hr />what i meant is that you need to calculate clothing colisions if you want to have capes flapping in wind.. they have a hard enough time to make skirts and robes look right in computer games still... stuff like clothes flapping loosely in the wind would be way to dificult to deal with.<hr />Cloth simulation has its issues. We are getting to the point where it is viable in a game like NWN, but I don't think we are there yet. That's not to say we can't hand animate a cloak or skirt ala a game like World of Warcraft.
Dress up and good to go (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407741&post=3372317&forum=99&highlight=)
We have plans to take care of the clone wars. We've already demo'd a handful of similar creatures all decked out in creature specific armor, but with a variety of combinations. The effect is subtle, but it looks very nice. We're looking into some shader effects for further generating uniqueness in creatures.
Scaling creature size is already in the game. We will definately be putting some constraints on the resize though, this is mostly because animations start looking a little strange as you scale further away from the creature's intended size.
2 AI / Behavior changes BW is making that NWN2 needs (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407543&post=3372785&forum=100&highlight=)
We can look into the ActionQueue settings. No promises. We have plans to go over the AI, including 'call for help' or 'stay within range of your leader'. Once the project is a little more advanced, I'm sure the designers will be overwhelming us with AI requests =)
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Erik Novales, Programmer</font>
** Your biggest fear ** (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407523&post=3372502&forum=100&highlight=)
<hr />Biggest fear...that would be the game looking cartoony. It's one of the few things that'll stop me buying it. I reallllllly hate the cartoony look that seems to be creeping into games these days.<hr />Not going to happen.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Jason Keeney, Programmer</font>
Dual Monitor Support (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407147&post=3372258&forum=95&highlight=)
<hr />Why run it widescreen anyway? Most monoters aren't widescreen? ?!?!?<hr />It doesnt *only* run in widescreen... its just that you *can*.
Dual Display (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=406894&post=3372455&forum=95&highlight=)
Of course we would never make it a requirement to have 2 monitors... but the idea of supporting dual monitors certainly has a lot of merit.
Everyone on the NWN2 team has 2 monitors on their desks, so we're certainly set up to develop dual monitor features... but of course I'm not making any promises...
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Brian D. Lawson, Programmer</font>
Dual Monitor Support (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407147&post=3372121&forum=95&highlight=)
<hr />and/or widescreen out of the box support.<hr />It currently runs widescreen.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Ferret Baudoin, Lead Designer</font>
** Your biggest fear ** (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407523&post=3372811&forum=100&highlight=)
Another thing that isn't going to happen is that the scripting engine is going to get dumbed down. More options are going to be available to the power-modders. A lot of the designers on NWN2 are pretty technical, and we'd like more control of some aspects of module creation not less.
So rejoice.
<font size="3" face="Verdana, Arial" color="#cc6600">Frank Kowalkowski, Lead Programmer</font>
Size on player characters UV-map??? (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407509&post=3372273&forum=99&highlight=)
You're likely to see smaller meshes than 3000 polys for most non-PCs. Much of the lighting detail will come from normal mapping. We're looking at 'what looks good' right now with respect to the diffuse and normal map resolutions. Keep in mind, that while we will be loading 2x the textures (or more...) than NWN1, in some cases we can use lower resolution textures and look much better because of shader technology. NWN1 also had to support some very low VRAM requirements, much lower than the min spec for NWN2 will be.
The finer details (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407715&post=3372297&forum=99&highlight=)
<hr />what i meant is that you need to calculate clothing colisions if you want to have capes flapping in wind.. they have a hard enough time to make skirts and robes look right in computer games still... stuff like clothes flapping loosely in the wind would be way to dificult to deal with.<hr />Cloth simulation has its issues. We are getting to the point where it is viable in a game like NWN, but I don't think we are there yet. That's not to say we can't hand animate a cloak or skirt ala a game like World of Warcraft.
Dress up and good to go (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407741&post=3372317&forum=99&highlight=)
We have plans to take care of the clone wars. We've already demo'd a handful of similar creatures all decked out in creature specific armor, but with a variety of combinations. The effect is subtle, but it looks very nice. We're looking into some shader effects for further generating uniqueness in creatures.
Scaling creature size is already in the game. We will definately be putting some constraints on the resize though, this is mostly because animations start looking a little strange as you scale further away from the creature's intended size.
2 AI / Behavior changes BW is making that NWN2 needs (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com//forums/viewpost.html?topic=407543&post=3372785&forum=100&highlight=)
We can look into the ActionQueue settings. No promises. We have plans to go over the AI, including 'call for help' or 'stay within range of your leader'. Once the project is a little more advanced, I'm sure the designers will be overwhelming us with AI requests =)