CCG V3-1 Conversion:Part 1 Weapons

From NWN1 Custom Content Guide

Weapons

Let’s start by modeling a new weapon. I want to be able to create Wave, the trident from S2 – White Plume Mountain. We will start by creating a simple trident head and test it out. Then, after we have it working, we will tweak the content to add additional features.

Where do we begin? Well, it usually helps to start with something that at least vaguely resembles the final product you want to create – at least until you have done a few of these. We would start with an existing Bioware model but NWN does not include a trident as a standard weapon. But wait, a spear is similar to a trident (a pointy thing on the end of a long stick) and you attack with it in a similar motion (by jabbing the sharp end at your opponent). So we will start with a spear as our base model.

Part 1: Understanding How NWN Represents Weapons

Let’s look at how NWN represents the different components of a weapon by actually building an existing one in the Aurora Toolset. Try this exercise:

1. Open up the Aurora Toolset.
2. Create a new Module (we will call it Weapon Tutorial for lack of a better name). Use the Area Wizard to create at least one Area. Use the defaults to set up the area and choose something simple like a Castle Interior.
3. Select Wizards | Item Wizard.
4. For Item Type select a Spear (we will talk about the standard weapon types later in this section).
5. CLick Next.
6. Enter a name(Trident).
7. Click Next.
8. Add to the Weapons, Polearms category (we will talk about the standard categories later in this section).
9. Click Next.
10. Check the Launch Item Properties checkbox.
11. Click Finish.
12. Select the Appearances Tab.

You can now modify the appearance of the item. The options you choose correspond to the different Model Ids and Position Codes.

Take a closer look at the Appearance tab. Note that there is both a 3D model (used in the game engine to render a character actually wielding the weapon) and a 2D icon (used in the game engine for the inventory functions).

Image:Ccg fig 01.jpeg

What you don’t see directly is that each of these models is actually made up of three distinct pieces (top, middle, and bottom). By mixing and matching these pieces, you can create a lot of unique weapons with the basic items included in the game. In our example, the basic spear consists of the spearhead (top), the shaft (middle), and an end cap (bottom). A sword consists of the blade (top), the guard (middle) and the hilt (bottom).

While we are here, play with the Model and Color values. By changing the Model values, you can change the shape of each component. By changing the Color values, the shape of each part does not change but you can change the color of each component.

Now that you understand the different parts of a weapon model, let’s get started.

Part 2: A Rose by Any Other Name

…would not work in NWN.

We are going to model our trident on the existing short spear weapon. Remember, it is generally easier to start from something you know and build your content from there. Where do I get the standard weapon models used in NWN? What about NWVault? Sorry. While you will find a few models on the vault that are NWN-ready, most are in other model formats. So, while they may look nice, they don’t work directly in the game.

So where do I go? That’s what NWN Explorer is for. The content is already stored in the NWN game, you just have to learn how to access it.

1. Open up NWN Explorer.
2. Select File | Open Neverwinter Nights.
3. Use File | Open Neverwinter Nights to open the game files. You will use the File | Open… option later for opening individual custom content files. Don’t open the NWN .BIF files directly using File | Open… - if you do, NWN Explorer will not show all of the context information with each file.
4. Click on the boxed ‘+’ sign beside NWN Main Data from the tree on the right.

What you get is a listing of all of the core content files for NWN. Each BIF file (Binary Information File) is a packed file like the hakpaks we talked about earlier. They contain standard NWN content.

If you look through these you will find that the core NWN models are stored in two files:

data/models_01.bif 

contains the character and creature models

data/models_02.bif 

contains the armor/model pieces, placeable items, and weapon models

We will use data/models_02.bif because we want the weapon models.

Model Type

Scroll down, way down. What you want are the models that start with w.

Weapon models are named using the format: wxxyy_z_nnn. The prefix represents the model type for a weapon. The remainder of the name represents the weapon class and name for the model.

Image:Ccg fig 02.jpeg

Weapon Class and Name

After the w, the next four characters (wxxyy) describe the class and name of the weapon:

For example, wplss_t_011 equates to:

w for weapon

pl for polearm

ss for short spear

We’ll get to the _t_011 part in a moment. First, here are the standard weapon resources for data/models_02.bif:

Position Code

Okay, sounds easy enough so far. But what are all those other numbers and letters I see in data/models_02.bif (the _t_011 stuff)?

We have already looked at how NWN represents the different components of a model by looking at the item properties under Appearance for a custom-created item. The options you choose correspond to the different model types in the data/models_02.bif file.

First is the position code. We know there are three position codes for each weapon:

So in the earlier example, wplss_t_011 equates to the top piece (the head) of the short spear.

Model ID

There is a specific format for the id as well: nnz. There are two characteristics:

So in the earlier example, wplss_t_011 equates to the first model # and the initial color (usually metal, followed by bronze/brass/gold, followed by wood) of the top piece of the short spear.

Special Models

Now you understand the weapon models and their naming conventions. Well, almost. What about some of those other models with names like waxbt_fxacid? There are special purpose models for special effects:

So waxbt_fxacid shows the model for a weapon, an axe, in fact a battle axe, corresponding to the effect you would get if that battle axe were magically enchanted to drip acid.

There are a few weapons (e.g., the bullet) that do not have the full 3 parts. These are represented with a format of wxxyy_nnn. Just exclude the Position Code.

Part 3: Creating the 3D Model

So with all of that in mind, I am going to create my models for a trident. If I look at the spear models, the first thing I see is that the standard shaft (m as in middle) and end (b as in bottom) models for a spear work just fine for a trident. So I’m just going to create a new model for the head of the spear (t as in top). Here are the basic steps using gmax. Directions may vary according to your software.

1. Open NWN Explorer.
2. Select File | Open Neverwinter Nights.
3. Select data/models_02.bif from NWN Main Data.
4. Scroll down and select the model wplss_t_031.mdl.
5. Right click on the row and select Export.
6. Save the file to a new directory. This is a binary model file. You cannot easily open or read it in binary format.
7. Open a command prompt window.
8. Run NWNMdlComp –d wplss_t_031 on the binary model file to convert it to an ASCII model file (it should have the name wplss_t_031.mdl.ascii).
   • Image:Ccg fig 03.jpeg
9. Open gmax. The NWN MDL Tool pane should automatically open on the left side. If it does not, load it manually using Maxscripts | Run Script…
10. Load the spear model into gmax by opening the Import MDL sub-menu in this pane (not the File | Import… function) and using the Browse pushbutton to select the ASCII file you created in step 6.
    • Image:Ccg fig 04.jpeg
11. You can minimize the MDL window after you open the file. Take a close look at the model you loaded. Note the relative size and position of the model. This is important because the relative orientation and offset of your model now will be used when the game engine renders your weapon in three pieces. The reason your spearhead is not centered at the origin (0, 0, 0) of the gmax space is because it must be far enough out to rest comfortably on the tip of the spear’s shaft model (the middle piece). You must keep it there; otherwise it will not appear to be attached to the rest of the weapon when the game engine assembles the three models later.
12. Note the base item. This is used by the import/export scripts to link special attributes to models (animations, etc.). The spearhead is a child mesh of the base. Don’t change the name of the model for now, or of the base (this is important for now – we will change it for later models). The spearhead model has a name of wplss_t_031.
13. Now modify the standard spearhead or replace it with your trident model (read the tutorials for gmax to see how to actually create 3D models).
    • Image:Ccg fig 05.jpeg
14. If you created a new model, be sure to link it to the base item as a child object.
15. Open the Export MDL sub-menu of the NWN MDL Tools pane. Select Export MDL.
16. Wait? Where is my exported file? It didn’t even ask for a filename. The gmax import/export utility does not have the ability to write files. What it does is dump an ASCII version of your model to the MAXScript Listener. What you need to do is open MAXScript | Listener… and then copy and paste the listing into a text file. Save it as wplss_t_031.mdl<tt> and you are done.
    • Image:Ccg fig 06.jpeg
17. Copy your <tt>wplss_t_031.mdl file to the /override directory of your game installation. If you used a .tga file as a texture, put it in the same directory.
18. Open up the Aurora Toolset. If it was still open from before, save and close the module and toolset first then re-open it.
19. Open your Weapon Tutorial module.
20. Select the Area you created, and then the Item icon on the right toolbar (it looks like a sword).
21. Choose the Custom tab.
22. Your original spear should be under the Weapons, Polearms category.
23. Right click Trident and then select Edit from the pop-up menu.
24. Select the Appearance Tab.
25. Select Top model 3 if it was not already selected. I also chose the Bottom model 4 (one of the default models) because I like the bladed end better than the rounded model #1. And I made the shaft gold (color 2).
26. Click OK and then save your module.

Image:Ccg fig 07.jpeg

This is what you get when you look at your spear. It is starting to shape up. There are a couple of problems with this model that say we aren’t done.

• Note the picture on the right side – it still looks like a spear with a default spearhead! Where is our trident? We need to create a 2D weapon icon to fix this.
• Now all basic spears using model 3 will look like tridents because we have overridden the default spear model. We need to change a few more things to fix this problem as well.
• Our trident is actually a spear. It will work fine this way but we may want to actually add an entirely new weapon, a trident, rather than piggy-backing on the spear forever.
• "FIller for the end of section note"

Part 4: Creating the 2D Weapon Icon

Let’s start by fixing that picture. NWN 2D icons must be 32-bit Targa Bitmap (.tga) files (with an alpha mask channel). Once you understand how the 3D weapon models are named, the 2D icons are easy. Just add an i to the beginning of the 3D name. For example, iwplss_t_011 equates to the 2D icon of the model # 1 and color # 1 (usually metal, followed by #2 bronze/brass/gold, and #3 wood) of the top piece of the short spear.

There are two game files that contain all of the textures:

data/textures_01.bif

data/textures_02.bif

You may need to use both. Use data/textures_02.bif for axe and short sword icons. The rest of the icons are in data/textures_01.bif.

Image:Ccg fig 08.jpeg

How big do I make the icon file? Note that in this example the icon for the spear top is 32 x 128 pixels. But the different icons can be different sizes, just make sure they are a multiple of 32 and that all the pieces for a specific weapon are the same size. In the case of our spear, we will use the same 32 x 128. Why do we need to do this? We do it for the inventory management system of NWN. Each box on the inventory grid is 32 pixels x 32 pixels. Our models have to align with this grid perfectly. Again, I suggest using an existing model to start.

Creating a Trident Icon

I use the same basic process to create the 2D icon as I did for the 3D model:

1. Open NWN Explorer.
2. Select File | Open Neverwinter Nights.
3. Select data/textures_01.bif from NWN Main Data.
4. Scroll down and select the file iwplss_t_011.tga.
5. Right click on the row and select Export.
6. Save the file to the directory with your 3D model.
7. Open the .tga file with an image manipulation program. I use Micrografx Picture Publisher because it came with my scanner and does most of what I need. Modify the standard spearhead or replace it with your trident model. Keep the name the same (this is still important for now). Don’t use any of that black space below the model – when the game overlays the middle and bottom pieces it will use that space. I chose to do a screen print of my 3D model as it shows in the Aurora Toolset, shrink it down, paste it over top of the sample file I extracted using NWN Explorer, and then tweak the image to get it to look cleaner and brighter.
   • Image:Ccg fig 09.jpeg
8. Now, to do the overlays of the 3 model pieces, NWN uses a mask channel to know which portions of the bitmap to lay down. What you need to do is create this mask channel for it before you save your image. Details on how to do this will vary depending on the software you use. Using Picture Publisher, it has a magic wand for creating a mask. I start by creating the mask of the black space surrounding the image (magic wands work best if given a single color to encapsulate). Then invert the mask so that it is a mask of the trident head instead of one excluding it. I could have done a mask directly of the trident but it has many colors and I would probably have needed to zoom in and select the mask area manually.
9. Now save your image as a Targa Bitmap. Again, be careful. I needed to select Options first and explicitly tell Picture Publisher to save the mask channel. Otherwise it just saves the image as a 24-bit Targa file instead of a 32-bit one with mask.
10. Close and re-open your saved file in your image program. If the mask is still there you got it right. If not, try again.
11. Copy the new iwplss_t_011.tga file into your /override directory.
12. Open up the Aurora Toolset. If it was still open from before, save and close your module first, then close and re-open the toolset.
13. Open your Weapon Tutorial module.
14. Select the Area you created, and then the Item icon on the right toolbar (it looks like a sword).
15. Choose the Custom tab.
16. Your spear should be under the Weapons, Polearms category.
17. Right click Trident and then select Edit from the pop-up menu.
18. Select the Appearance Tab.
19. Your trident should now have a 3D model and a 2D icon. If you only have the head of your trident in the 2D icon, your mask was probably not done properly and NWN is overlaying the other two components with your entire image file. Check the mask again and repeat these steps.

Image:Ccg fig 10.jpeg

Part 5: Using a Hakpak

Up until now we have been using the /override directory to load our new model and icon. This overrides the standard spear model 3 for any module you play. There are two shortcomings to this approach:

• Using the /override directory is the wrong way to override content (except as a quick way to test your changes).
• You are replacing an existing model. This is a common way of adding new custom content (select an existing object that you do not plan to use in your module and replace it with your content). But it does not allow you to use the overridden item in that module. And your new model must behave exactly the same as what you are replacing (same damage dice, etc.)

We will examine more sophisticated ways of adding new weapons. We are going to introduce two new concepts here:

• Using a hakpak to load the content into NWN for a specific module (instead of using /override which affects all modules you play on your machine)
• Adding a new spear model (instead of replacing an existing model).

Start by moving your files out of the /override directory. Don’t forget this step! This is one of the reasons I strongly recommend against using the /override directory – it is too easy to forget and leave things in it. A month from now you will be wondering why one of your spears looks like a trident in spite of everything you do to change it.

1. Move wplss_t_031.mdl and iwplss_t_031.tga from the /override directory. We will put them in a hakpak instead.
2. Rename the icon file we just created as iwplss_t_051.tga (don’t put it in the /override directory!). That way they will not override model 3.
3. Go back and resave your model file as wplss_t_051.mdl. You should change the internal model name to be wplss_t_051 as well. You can do that either from within gmax (change the name of the model from WPlSs_t_031). Or, open the .mdl file with a text editor and changing all instances of wplss_t_031 to wplss_t_051.
4. Create a new hakpak (see appendix for instructions).
5. Add your model wplss_t_051.mdl and icon iwplss_t_051.tga. If you used a .tga file as a texture, add it as well (if you used the standard w_metal_tex.tga, you do not need to include it again because it is already in the game).
   • Image:Ccg fig 11.jpeg
6. Save your hakpak.
7. Open up the Aurora Toolset. If it was still open from before, save and close the module and toolset then re-open the toolset.
8. Open your ‘Weapon Tutorial’ module.
9. Select Edit | Module Properties… and click on the Custom Content tab.
   • Image:Ccg fig 12.jpeg
10. From the drop-down for the Hak file, add your hakpak. If it does not appear in the drop-down, your hakpak is probably not in the /hak folder of your game directory.
11. Save and close the module and then reload it.
12. Select the Area you created, and then the Item icon on the right toolbar (it looks like a sword).
13. Choose the Custom tab.
14. Your spear should be in the Weapons, Polearms category.
15. Right click Trident and then select Edit from the pop-up menu.
16. Select the Appearances Tab.
17. Switch the top model type to 5 and you are done. It should look the same as it did before. Now I can use all four original spear models and the trident.

Part 6: The Weapon Resource File

There is one major problem outstanding: our trident is actually a spear. It looks like a trident. You fight with it like a trident. But in its heart-of-hearts, it is a spear. We can fix that, too.

What we have to do is add a new weapon resource in the baseitems.2da file (2da stands for ‘2 Dimensional Array’ because each .2da file is a matrix of rows and columns). This will allow us to define an entirely new type of weapon. This is a similar procedure we will use for other custom content as well.

I would suggest you open up NWN Explorer and select the baseitems.2da file from the data/2da.bif file. But don’t do it. Bioware has made changes to the .2da files as part of their patching process. Your best bet is to always get 2da files from \source\2dasource.zip. Or, you can download all the SoU 2da files from the Custom Content forums on http://nwn.bioware.com/. So, instead,

1. Copy the new baseitems.2da file from \source\2dasource.zip to the directory with your model and icons.
2. Open baseitems.2da using a text editor – Notepad works fine although some people use Helios Software Solutions' TextPad (http://www.textpad.com/). Turn off Wordwrap in the Format menu so everything aligns nicely.
3. Go ahead and take a look at it. Scroll down until you get to the shortspear entry. You should see this:

1. These different entries describe the many items in the game. I don’t show all of the columns here because there are too many.
2. Copy the shortspear entry and paste it at the bottom.
3. Modify the entries as appropriate for your new weapon.
   • Table ?????????.???

0x00000 – Not equipable
0x00001 – Helmet
0x00002 – Armor
0x00004 – Boots
0x00008 – Arms
0x00010 – Right Hand
0x00020 – Left Hand
0x00040 – Cloak
0x00080 – Left Ring
0x00100 – Right Ring
0x00200 – Neck
0x00400 – Belt
0x00800 – Arrow
0x01000 – Bullet
0x02000 – Bolt
0x1C000 – Creature Weapon
0x1C010 – Two-handed Weapon
0x1C030 – One-handed Weapon
0x20000 – Creature Armor

0 if no
1 if yes

0 – simple (e.g., torch) 
1 – layered (e.g., helmet)
2 – composite (weapon)
3 – armor

0 if no
1 if yes

Part 1 – bottom
Part 2 – middle
Part 3 – top

0 if no
1 if yes

1   Non-weapon
4   Two-handed items (e.g. halberd)
5   Bow
6   Crossbow
7   Shield
8   Double-headed weapons
9   Creature weapon
10  Dart and sling
11  Shuriken and throwing axe

0   None
1   Piercing
2   Bludgeoning
3   Slashing
4   Slashing and Piercing

1   Tiny
2   Small
3   Medium
4   Large
5   Huge

20 only 1
19-20   2
18-20   3, etc.

0 - none
1 - melee
2 - ranged
3 - shield
4 - armor
5 - helmet
6 - ammo
7 - thrown
8 - staves
9 - potion
10 - scroll
11 - thieves' tools
12 - misc
13 - wands
14 - rods
15 - traps
16 - misc unequippable
17 - container
19 - healers

0 – Armor
1 – Shield
2 - Wood Melee Weapon
3 - Metal Melee Weapon
4 - Ranged Weapon
5 – Ammo
6 – Potion
7 – Paper
8 – Treasure
9 - Generic

XX_YYYYY

0 – Armor and clothing
1 – Weapon
2 – Potions
3 – Scrolls
4 - Miscellaneous

44   Exotic
45   Martial
46   Simple
48   Druid
49   Monk
50   Rogue
51   Wizard

0   Dodge
1   Natural
2   Armor
3   Shield
4   Deflection

AC1   (e.g., Small Shield)
AC2   (e.g., Large Shield)
AC3   (e.g., Tower Shield)

1 – arrow (0 in ammunitiontypes.2da)
2 – bolt (1)
3 – bullet (2)
4 – dart (3)
5 – shuriken (4)
6 – throwing axe (5)

0 – default
1 - select spell, targets normally
2 - select spell, always targets self

%AnimSlashL
%AnimSlashR
%AnimSlashS	

1. Back through the same routine. Save the .2da file, load it into your hakpak.
2. Rename the WPlSs_t_051 model to WPlTr_t_011 (WPlTr, remember, is the new ID for our trident) and change all the internal references.
3. Wait, where are the rest of the WPlTr_x_nnz models and icons? Good point. We only have a model for the trident’s head. That worked fine when we are attaching the trident head onto a spear’s body but now we are creating a new weapon and it needs all three components. Now, remember that the spear shaft and end worked fine for us? Copy the WPlSs_m_011 and WPlSs_b_011 files to make trident files as well (named WPlTr_m_011 and WPlTr_b_011 respectively) and change those internal references as well. Now it is starting to look better.
4. Do the same for your icon files.
5. Load all of these into your hakpak. You should have, at a minimum, the following:
   • Image:Ccg fig 13.jpeg

1. Load up your module in the Aurora Toolset.
2. Now you can create a new trident using the Item Wizard.
3. • If you follow these steps exactly, you don’t get a lot of options for spear components to choose from. Duplicate some of the color versions as well (_012, _013, etc.) and/or the other shaft and end models so that you have a nice selection of components. You can make multiple copies of the trident head as well, with different colors or shapes, if you desire.
   • For some weapons you won’t find an entry in dialog.tlk. Chose another appropriate name (I used Custom #1 for some items). This is annoying in the Aurora Toolset because you need to remember that Custom #1 in the Item Wizard is your new weapon. But there is a workaround for this that avoids the problem in game. In the next section we will talk about creating a Weapon Blueprint. Once you have a blueprint, you will not need to remember that Custom #1 is actually your new weapon because you can create new items directly from the blueprint.

With regard to the model type, there are four different options with the following values:

Part 7: The Weapon Blueprint

The last thing you need to understand is how to create a custom blueprint. A blue print goes into a specific module. Take the spear we created earlier. Change its name and tag on the General tab to Wave if you did not already do so. Under the Properties tab, give Wave a +3 bonus, and whatever other characteristics you think are appropriate. In this case, I will allow Wave to cast the spell Elemental Shield to simulate the Cube of Force effect it should have (maybe at some point I will incorporate the cube of force script Solias wrote). I will grant “On Hit, Wounding” as a special property to simulate the dehydration property.

Image:Ccg fig 14.jpeg

Add a description to be used when the item has not been identified and another when it has. Now save Wave by exporting it as an .erf file (Exported Resource File). It can now be packaged together with your hakpak and distributed to others to use (do not load it into your hakpak – a .erf file is imported into the NWN Toolset separately using File | Import…)

By setting the item description you will find another way to overcome that nasty dialog.tlk problem I mentioned earlier. When you create a blueprint like this, you can override the item name and the default descriptions with appropriate fields for your weapon. This way, as long as module builders load in your .erf file, they won’t have to worry about what dialog.tlk thinks your file should be called because they can build right off the blueprint instead.

You cannot override the BaseItemStatRef this way but you can do something just as good. Remember where we put 59 in the BaseItemStatRef of baseitems.2da? This blanks out the item statistics description – a good first step. But now we are missing the stats. How do we get them in? Put them at the end of the regular Description in the blueprint – at the very end. This works in the game engine because it always displays the item description followed by its statistics. Now the inventory will look just like it does for any other weapon: a description, then the statistics, and then any special items or properties. You’ve tricked the game engine into looking the same as it does if you had a real BaseItemStatRef entry.

Part 8: Special Touches

When we created the resource declaration for our model, we separated our trident forevermore from thinking it was some sort of poor third cousin of a spear. Unfortunately, it loses something in the translation. We need to add back in some of the special effects that a spear enjoys but are missing from our trident. Pictured below is the Frost effect:

Image:Ccg fig 15.jpeg

There are seven magic effects that you need to account for:

Each of these is a special emitter, generally placed somewhere along the blade of the weapon. To recreate these, the simplest approach is to load in an existing model of this type and then move the emitter to the appropriate spot for your models (remember, the positions of the different components of the weapon models should be the same for a given weapon). For our trident, we will just copy the spear effects models. We can even leave the emitters in the same place because the tines of the spear are roughly in the same place as the head of the spear. If we wanted, we could duplicate the emitters, one for each tine, but I don’t think this adds anything to the effect so I chose not to do this.

To test out the effect, create a weapon in the Aurora Toolset. Select the Properties tab and give it a Damage Bonus, frost. Press Edit Property and then change the damage bonus to 5 (you need to choose a damage value > 1 otherwise the toolset does not apply the effect). When you close that pop-up, you will see the special effect from the emitter. If it is not in the right place you may need to move the position of the emitter in the standard model. There is also a motion blur model (_mb). This shows the standard arc of the weapon when being wielded in the game. Again, because the spear is so similar to the trident we have built, I will not adjust the motion blur model. We will just copy the spear model and rename it.

Textures

Let me add a few words about textures. If you include no textures your model will take on a uniform chromed finish or be completely white (depending on whether or not your baseitems.2da file specifies the weapon part be metal or not).

Textures are bitmaps (Targa bitmaps, 24-bit or 32-bit, RGB Color, uncompressed) used to introduce features like the special gold and wood-grained models in the game. The default weapon texture that almost all of the Bioware weapon models use is w_metal_tex.tga (it can be found in the data\templates.bif file using NWN Explorer). This file is a matrix of squares with different textures on it. If you use this texture you can get a good selection of metals (plain, gold and bronze) plus wood, a few colors for gems, etc. You do not need to include this file in your hakpak – it is already available in the game.

The following points about textures are from Aethelwyn and Danmar and are things to check when your texture doesn’t work:

1. Check your filenames.
   • Naming for textures should be 16 characters or less. For weapons and most other models, as long as you apply the texture to your model (in the ASCII model file you can check this if the bitmap= line in the model node entry equals the name of the texture minus the tga extension) the reference will work.
   • For some custom content (e.g., anatomy) the name of your texture needs to match that of your model, save for the extension (.tga, .dds, .plt, etc.).
2. Check your texture size.
   • Pixel dimensions for NWN textures must be an even multiple of 16. This is a common goof, as it's pretty easy to miss something while cutting/pasting/resizing/etc. your texture. Not all even powers of 16 work either. Your best bet is to use one of the following:
     • 16x16
     • 32x32
     • 64x64
     • 128x128
     • 256x256
     • 512x512
   • You can use higher textures, but this is hard on performance for most machines. You can mix multiples of 2's in the same texture, as a general rule. For example,
     • 64x128 works. 64x256 works. 64x192 (64x3=192) doesn't.
     • 128x256 works. 128x512 works. 128x384 (128x3=384) doesn't.
3. Check your file types.
   • Not all game elements in NWN take the same texture files. If you try to use the wrong one, it won't get read by the game. There are three types:
     • .tga Used on placeables, tiles, most icons, portraits, weapons, etc. -- resources whose colors are not customizable.
     • .dds A compressed variety of .tga, thus to be preferred over them whenever possible.
     • .plt The special file format used for body parts, clothing, armor, and their associated icons. Allows different "materials" to be given their own color, thus allowing for a lot of variety without texture reduplication.
4. Check your internal references.
   • This requires you to crack open the .mdl file. If everything else checks out, make sure that all the references in your model itself are good. It's easy to misname something, forget to change it, etc. This goes for both texture references and node names themselves. "Find and Replace All" is your friend!

1. Your textures must be uncompressed.
   • Your textures have to be 24 or 32 bit Targa or TGA files in uncompressed format.
2. Replacing textures.
   • If you are overwriting an existing texture you must replace both the lo-res .tga version and the MIP (mulitple image) .dds version.
3. Dark textures.
   • The diffuse setting on a texture in the MDL will cause your texture to be dark if you accept the default diffuse in either Max or Gmax when you create your item. Unless you're specifically have a need for it you should always set the diffuse to pure white or modify it in the ASCII model file so that it reads:
     • diffuse 1 1 1
   • There are many models in various collections that are a lot darker than they should be because of this often overlooked fact.

Most of your texture woes are going to be caused by one of the items above -- and a simple check is often all it takes to solve the problem.

If you are going to include a custom texture, include a high resolution one (512 x 512 or at least 256 x 256) and pick up Bioware’s DDS Compression Tool or DDSTools to run against your .tga file. Include both the .dds and a lower resolution version of your .tga file into your hakpak (say, 64 x 64). Higher-performance graphics cards will use the dds for high detailing. Older machines will use the .tga file with slower graphics cards. If you leave out the .tga file, machines with lower end graphic cards will see your models in plain white. Not pretty.

While you are at it, you may want to turn your 2D icon files into DDS files as well. You will find DDS files for all of the icons in the \texturepacks\GUI_32bit.erf directory. I think it is done so that they are compressed and take less space than a .tga file. My experience so far has been that the game works fine without them but that may not be true for some hardware.

Normals

Faces (3d model faces, not your character’s face) in NWN are two-dimensional. If viewed from the backside (or inside), they have no ‘existence’ and do not render. A normal is a unit vector that is used to define which way a face is pointing. The direction in which the normal points indicates the front of the face (more specifically, the normal points out from the front of the face). This is the side of the surface that is normally displayed with its texture in the game.

This is important because you will sometimes find your polys don’t render properly (some are see-through, for example). You must manually flip or unify face normals to fix these types of errors (they are typically caused by activities like mirroring objects). To do this, enable Face, Polygon or Element sub-object mode on your editable mesh, and then use the buttons on the Surface Properties rollout to change the directions in which normals point. Flip Normals will reverse the direction of a normal vector. Unify Normals makes all of the selected normals point in a consistent direction (if an object has normals that are inconsistent - some point outward and others inward - it will appear to have holes in its surface).

Sometimes objects will look fine in the modeling tool but will not display correctly in the game or the Aurora toolset. If this happens it may be necessary to ResetXforms and flip normals to fix this issue (refer to part 3 of this Weapons tutorial for detail on ResetXforms).

Smoothing Groups

Smoothing groups define whether a surface is rendered with sharp edges or smooth surfaces. You create smoothing groups by assigning group numbers to the faces of an object. If two faces share an edge and share the same smoothing group, they render as a smooth surface. If they don’t share the same smoothing group, the edge between them renders as a corner.

Smoothing does not affect geometry. It affects only the way geometry is colored when rendered; it blends colors at the edges between faces to produce the appearance of a smooth curved surface. You can control how smoothing is applied to a surface so your objects can have both smooth surfaces and sharp faceted edges where you wish.

When the existing scripts import NWN models, they automatically assign all faces to the same smoothing group. To improve the way that they render in NWN, you should review these objects and reassign smoothing groups as necessary to get the right mix of corners and smoothed transitions.

Part 9: Models that bend

When I started to make a Nunchaku model, I was faced with an interesting problem: Nunchak’s bend in the middle. How do we make this work? The answer lies in looking at the Morning Star, Heavy Flail and Light Flail models. They use a special technique that we can emulate: animation.

Take a look at the heavy flail model. Like other weapons, the flail is made up of several parts. The bottom two parts are what you would expect: g_WBlFh_b_011 and g_WBlFh_m_011. But the top is actually four different parts: g_WBlFh_t_011a, g_WBlFh_t_011b, g_WBlFh_t_011c, and g_WBlFh_t_011d. The first three parts are links in a chain. The last is the flail head itself. At the point where the chain links to the head there is an Fx_Node. The bottom two models work as you would expect. The top model is animated. Select the Aurabase item for that node and look at its animations.

I won’t go into detail in this section on animation – I would suggest coming back to this section after you have completed the Creature tutorial in this guide. You will be treated to an “Aha!” or two. These represent the standard game animations for combat, walking etc. The game engine will treat the components of the top model differently than any other weapon by playing these animations in game. This is what gives the Flail its unusual behavior in melee and as you walk.

The reason I don’t launch into a discussion on animation here is that it is a complex topic and you don’t need to understand animation fully to take advantage of this feature; for weapons like flails, nunchaku, etc. You can use the Supermodel parameter to have your weapon inherit this behaviour.

Take a look at the light flail model. Like the heavy flail and other weapons, the light flail is made up of several parts. The bottom two parts are what you would expect: g_WBlFl_b_011 and g_WBlFl_m_011. But the top is actually named after the heavy flail: g_WBlFh_t_011a, g_WBlFh_t_011b, g_WBlFh_t_011c, and g_WBlFh_t_011d. Also, if you select the Aurabase object, you will see the Super parameter points to the heavy flail. The NWN game engine will use this parameter to impose the heavy flail animations on this model. Animation behaviour is stored component by component in a model (i.e., for each part of the model it stores how that part rotates and moves). The NWN game engine matches the parts up between the Supermodel and child model files by name and applys the animations of the heavy flail to the light one. This is why top of the light flail (where the animations are) is named the same as the heavy flail.

So, to create my Nunchaku I built a similar model with the lower parts named according to what you would expect (g_WBlNn_b_011 and g_WBlNn_m_011). For the upper parts I had to keep the same names as the heavy flail (the g_WBlFh… names) although I used Nn again on the Aurora base item. I was even able to put two more links in the chain so that it looked more realistic. The key is that the Aurora base links to the ‘a’ model, the ‘a’ model links to the ‘b’ model, the ‘b’ model to the ‘c’ model, etc. The final node in the top piece links to the Fx_Node. And I made sure the Super parameter was set properly.

After you go through the tutorial on Creature animation, you could probably come back and do a full set of animations on a new model to create a hooked chain, Manriki-Gusari, bullwhip or other flexible weapon (this is left as an exercise to the reader).

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