D&D General NWN Dark Sun Video Game

[Tonden]

Hi All

We are creating the world of Dark Sun using NWN (Neverwinter Nights)

We have been hard at work on this project for sometime now. Dizzitt and I are putting large amounts of time into this project each and every week. There is hardly a day that goes by that we are not working onsomething for this project.

We are currently working of the tileset needed for The City State of Tyr.

We have made custom desert tileset just for Dark Sun with all of the following so far.

-Water
-Hills
-Cliffs
-City Walls, Gates, Battlements
-Adobe City Buildings (We will be creating a lot more of these)
-The Ziggurat
-The Arena
-The Golden Tower


Our goal is to build the City of Tyr first to give us a good base/starting point. Since the buildings are adobe we want the tops of them to be walk able to give another level to the city. Also for those that don’t know Tyr it is built upon an ancient city, so there is a lot to explore under the city as well. We really feel we can do a lot with just the city of Tyr which is why we are starting with it first.

However we do plan on creating all the different terrains that Dark Sun has.We also want to build the other City States as well. However all of this is going to take time and a lot of work.

So if anyone wanted to help with the project Dizzitt and I would be willing to help you learn whatever you would like to help with.

Forexample Dizzitt and I didn't know anything about scripting or makingcustom content at all for anything just a few years ago. Shoot wedidn’t even know what a 2da or even a tga was. But we have learndso much that we now feel that are able to do just about everythingneeded.

That said If a true scripter doesn't join us then that is one of the things we still have a lot more to learn yet.

Another area we haven't done a lot with is creating custom creatures, so that would be another area we still need to work on more as well.

However we are very strong at working with 2da's, Haks, and model making,which is why we feel that we can help others to learn as well.

Now we still have a lot of tileset work to do. Along with a lot more custom placeables and items for Dark Sun. Along with a lot of Area building, Quests and really good stories to create. We want NWN DarkSun to look like the Dark Sun that we all see in the artwork and feel like the world that it was meant to be. I have even been looking into custom music to help give our project a different feel then the Standard NWN. We really are putting in the work and would love to have help from others.

So if you would like to help, even if you don’t know how to do anything we could help you learn.

Justcontact us

Our Discord Channel
My Discord Name is: Tonden#9076
Our Website

The NWVault

 

[Tonden]

Hi all


I thought that I would share a screenshot of one of the many things we have been working on for the Dark Sun project and explain on how I came up with it.


When we first started this project I didn’t know how to make a custom model let alone a custom time or tilesets. So we started off with a tilset that someone else had created. However as I learned more aboutmaking models and tileset I decided that it might be nice to create our own.


So we talked it over and decided to just do addons for the standard Desert tileset. However the tiles that we have been creating are so different from anything in the standard Desert tileset that if we left it as an override, we would have to rework all the older tiles to try and match them up with what we are creating, which would be even more work for us.


This led us to splitting off from the Desert Tileset override and creating a totally custom tileset for our project. That said I’m still glade we went through everything that we did because we learned a lot.


So for our custom tilset we decided to go with flat tiles instead of uneven tiles


-Uneven tiles are tiles that are raised a little higher on the corners, while not raising the middle edges of the tile. This helps to create an uneven ground look to a tileset.


The reason for not going with the uneven ground was because it makes a tileset look really bumpy and since we are creating a desert with blowing sand we felt that the ground would be more level. Which is why we went with flat tiles but we still added in tiles that are raised and/or lowered in the middle of the tiles to give the ground a little uneven look about them in places which can be seen in picture#2.


After deciding on making a custom tileset and going with flat ground I created raised ground terrain along with slopes/hills. As you can see from picture #1 I went with an uneven edge along the top of the hills. The top wasn’t that bad to get it to look the way I wanted,but rather the bottom was a little more of a problem getting it to blend well from the lower ground to where the ground starts to slant up. All in all as you can see in picture number #3 I think it didn’t turn out too bad.


Well I thought instead of just posting a screenshot that I would take the time to give some background on how and why we did what we did.

 

[Tonden]

When I first started out with trying to learn how to create custom content for NWN1, I began with texturing. I would just pick different things in tileset I liked the looks of and retexture something I felt may look a little better to me if I was to change it.

So when Dizzitt first started talking about Dark Sun for NWN he showed me a sky that someone had made for NWN1 to be used for Dark Sun. After looking at it for a while I started to wonder what kind of sky I could make using paint.net (which is the first paint program I started working with beyond paint that comes with windows).

I looked around online and found some sunsets of here on earth and played around with them a while until they started to look like how I felt a Dark Sun sky should look, from all the Dark Sun paintings I had seen over the years. I then took the twin moons from one painting and the sun I used from another painting. However the sun wasn’t complete so I had to do a lot of work to it in order to get the full thing.

Using the different layers in paint.net I was able to have two copies of the sky with the sun and moon in between them, which allowed for me to delete parts of the top layer/first sky to allow for the moon and sun to show through and allowed for the other sky behind them to help blended everything together.

Anyway this was the first thing I really did for the Dark Sun Project over 2 years ago. I have learned so much since then and at some point I will try to see if I can create a better looking sky for the project. However for now this sky is the one we are currently using.

 

[Tonden]

Raised Ground Cliffs

It took far more time then I ever thought that is would creating these raised ground cliffs. I learned so much from then, when it comes to what can and can’t be done. That is part of the nice thing when it comes to creating something from scratch.

Now what was it that I wanted from these cliffs one might ask?





1 - No flat clear cut sharp straight line along the bottom of the cliffs where they meet the ground. I didn’t want it to look as if the cliff had flat bottoms to them being placed on a flat even ground. Instead I wanted it to look more blended and natural as if sand has blown up against the bottom of them.

2 - No straight clear cut lines where the sand ends and the rock begins on top of the cliffs. I wanted it to look more natural. So I created a custom texture that slowly blends the two together.

3 a - No sand at the top of the cliffs along the edge ( so it looks as if the sand get blown of the top next to edges)

3 b - Smoother tiles so that they look as if blowing sand has sanded off their sharp edges over time.

When creating these cliffs they really made me have to think outside the box to get what I wanted and work with in the limits of the game engine. So I have to try a few different ideas before I came up with the current look I now have.

 

[Eltab]

You are making me want to watch the advertising video.

Even though I don't understand a word of the technical "make this look good" terms.

 

[Tonden]

Thanks if you or anyone would like to help we are still looking for Team members who have the time and would enjoy working on this project.

 

[Tonden]

 

[Tonden]

We are always recruiting for this project.

- (Classes) We need for someone go class by class tweaking each one for Dark Sun. There are a good bit of changes that will need to be made for different classes.(edited)

- (Creature erf) We need someone to go through our creature hak and one by one create each creature in the toolset leveling them up, giving them the correct AC, BAB, HP, Attacks, Skills, and Abilities. Then take in game screenshots of them and make custom portraits for each one. After all of them are done they would need to be exported in one large erf. This will allow for use to import the erf into the server module and have all creatures created and working.(edited)

- (Spells) We need someone to go through some of the spells to make them more Dark Sun and MMO compatible.

- (Advertising) We could use someone who would take and create a really nice "Weekly Highlight" every week of something we have done the the project. These things could range between a Creatures, a Player Model, an NPC, a Class, a Placeable, a Tilesets Model, a Script, a spell, and so on. You only only need to take a nice screenshot or two of it and if there is a Dark Sun painting/picture of the same thing on the internet you could post it as well or do a side by side to show how close we are trying to be. Then you would do a write up talking about who created it, thanking them and so on. Again this would only need to be done once a week and then post it to all the websites that we are Advertising on. Then through out the week check on those sites in case someone has a question or is looking to join the team.

- (3d Modeling) Making 3D models creatures, items, placeables, clothing, armor, weapons, NPC's, mounts, or tilesets. We have 5 people in this area so far, but we still need a lot of help in this area.(edited)

- (Scripter) Creating Custom Scripts, We have 4 people in this area already but we could always use more help.

If you have the time and think you would enjoy working on this project please contact me here on the forums or on Discord (My Discord name is Tonden#9076)

 

[Tonden]

Draygoth is a member of our team here at NWN Dark Sun, who is responsible for creating custom 3D Mounts and Creature models for the project. We really love the work that he is doing because like most of us on this project Draygoth is more concerned with the quality of work he is doing vs speed. He is a valuable member of the team and we are luck to have him.

So thanks Draygoth for all you have done and are still doing for this project.




We are still currently looking for more people who would like to join our team and help with this project. Here is just a small list of things you could be working on.

- Website work
- Recruiting
- Art work
- Interactive Map
- 3D model creation
- Scripting (code)
- NWNX Setup (yes this is something we are looking into for the online server)
- Website to Server features
- Discord to Server features

So if you have the time and would enjoy working with a great group a people come join us.

 

[Tonden_Ockay]

We now have a Twitter page for our NWN Dark Sun project and I thought I would share the link for those who would like to follow our progress. NWNDarkSun (@NwnDarkSun) | Twitter

I can also be reached by Twitter as well. There are so many websites that we post on I don't get to them all the time, so Twitter or Discord would be the fastest ways to reach me.

I'm Tonden#9076 on Discord
Discord - Free Voice and Text Chat