BG Builder Module Feedback & Archive

[Ariella]

This is a copy of the BG Builder, basically a directory to use when building BG areas. It includes blueprints for most of the added custom content and has the haks connected. The Devs have decided to make this public just in case any of you are looking at trying your hands making areas for BG, I will try and add some helpful guides as I get free time but in the mean time feel free to poke me if you need any help.

To get setup first extract this file into C:\Users\YourUser\Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2\modules

Then find your games main directory D:\games\Neverwinter Nights 2\NWN2Toolset or D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Neverwinter Nights 2\NWN2Toolset if you use steam. Then unzip and copy these files into their respective folders.

Then when you want to start up the module you simply boot up your toolset and go file > open as directory > select the BGTSCC Builder and your in. When saving it's better to also save it as a directory and not as a module. You will fine it's a bit more reliable, don't worry you can still jump in and test your area.

Now once it's loaded up you will notice there are none of the BG areas or scripts and so on. If what you want to work on requires these you will have to send a PM to dev's requesting a copy.

[Steve]

[Hakken2]

Excited to test!

[Hakken2]

got the following warning when trying.
bougth a complete game from GOG. X1 should be Mask of the betrayer?
any advice would be appreciated!

[Ariella]

Hey Hakken,

That just means you are missing some files. Unzip this into your terrain folder as listed in the error message. You can also just ok through the messages and build.

[MockingBird]

The Witcher placables are not showing up at all in my toolset. Any suggestions?
I'd appreciate any help I can get
Thx


Also, is there a place that now stores the prefabs like the walkbles?
The vault apparently no longer hosts them

[Heretic]

The Witcher placables are not showing up at all in my toolset. Any suggestions?
I'd appreciate any help I can get
Thx


Also, is there a place that now stores the prefabs like the walkbles?
The vault apparently no longer hosts them

Many of the placables you see in game aren't available to player builders in the module. I ran into this constraint when I was building the House Divine Estate.

[Rhifox]

Look at what haks you have in your haks folder and if any are not currently associated with the builder module, attach them yourself. That should help make some content show up.

[MockingBird]

Thanks. NO idea how to attach things but PH got me straight <3 appreciate all the help and advice.

[MockingBird]

That I do know how to do. I've already added them all and unfortunately I still have a ton of things not showing up

[Lux]

Hi everyone,


Here is an up-to-date version of the builder's module:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/ ... 022-05.rar


There's a working candle/lamp in it that you can copy + paste and appearance change if you want useable light sources in the area you build.

And just so that everyone is aware, as I'm not sure exactly what errors people have been encountering, I wanted to say that not being able to place all placeables (particularly the non-bold / original blueprints) because of error messages is something builders encounter too. We just avoid using those.

For those interested here's also an extract of tfunke's excellent toolset guide:

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Toolset Basics:

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First and foremost, switch off the auto-save feature in the options menu.
Second, save your module as a directory (which will save all the modules contents inside a folder). It is significantly more stable saving this way, as well as easier access to the files you are working on.

Ctrl+right mouse = pan camera or click hold middle mouse button
Shift+right mouse = rotate placeable etc (once selected).
Shift+mouse scroll up/down = raise lower placeable etc on the Z axis (once selected).
“+” & “-“ = raise lower placeables etc a small amount (once selected)
Ctrl+Shift+ move mouse forward or backwards = moves the camera up or down on the Z axis. Good for keeping the camera level with whatever terrain you are working on.
Arrow keys = move a selected object around on the X and Y axis.

Pro Tips:

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Never drag-select multiple objects quickly, particularly if you have things disabled from being selectable (in the menu up top). Also, NEVER drag-select objects when the camera is panned to be looking straight down, ie: a bird’s eye view of whatever you are trying to select. Doing these in my experience, is one of the fastest ways to crash the toolset.
If you are having trouble selecting something you have already placed down, consider using the tab up top to disable selection of certain things. This is useful in particular when working on an exterior and trying to select something that is inside the boundary of a tree (which have large boundary boxes for the most part). You can also do this with other things, but as mentioned above, be careful when using this that you don’t hastily drag-select things.
If you find the spheres surrounding the sounds and lights to be distracting, consider using the tab up top to disable showing them. Disable showing light spheres and sounds and it makes things easier to see.
Try to limit all light sources from overlapping more than twice. Especially if you do not have shadows disabled. This helps performance.
When placing down carpet/rugs or other placeables that are very thin and do not have much height, use the “+” and “-“ keys to move one of the objects up or down slightly on the Z plane axis. Doing this will stop the overlapping objects from flickering in game when someone pans their camera, which can be very distracting to players.

Frame Rates for areas:

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Up top in toolset, you have a button to toggle on/off = Frame Rate. Clicking it will bring up a bunch of data on your screen. What you want to focus on is the far right bottom number.
Everything you put in an area adds to the overall framerate of an area. Though regarding placeables and trees, you can put down multiples of the same placeable and it will not increase the overall framerate. Same goes with NPC guards etc.
As a rule of thumb, we've always tried to keep an area below 2000 frames, give or take. Keep in mind when adding NPC's to an area (which most guilds do), these also add quite a bit to the overall framerate. Me personally? I try to limit my exteriors to 1400 and my interiors to 2000 (after NPC's).
Things that add to the framerate include; every different model you use, NPC's, VFX's, terrain textures, grass, trees and light source (shadows). As for trees also, you want to try and use only 8 or so different tree types in an exterior area. So you would change the size and proportions of trees to make it less obvious you are using the same model repeatedly.

Plugins:

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Airbrush.dll plugin – saves hours! For example, I have q, w and e bound to airbrush, so that when I push down the e key and scroll the mouse, the outer rim of a paint brush will enlarge or shrink. If I press the w key and do the same, the inner paint brush will enlarge/shrink. Saves heaps of time when painting or doing heightmesh on an exterior, because you can change the size of the paint brush on the fly. - http://neverwintervault.net/project/nwn ... s-toolbars
Multibrush.dll.bak plugin - I have this disabled (.bak) unless I need to use it, as it can be a little unstable –but brilliant all the same. It takes a little practice to use, you can find instructions on the nwn2 vault if you download it. This plugin will save you HOURS when painting an exterior. - http://148.251.86.81/project/nwn2/other ... ush-plugin
TerraCoppa.dll plugin – great for moving whole sections of a map to another map or merging areas. - http://neverwintervault.net/project/nwn ... acoppa-v18

Terrain:

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Try to limit an exterior to 4 particular textures you wish to use across the whole area. What I do then, is select each of the four textures and turn the texture down to about 5% and then use that texture inside every box on the exterior. This way, you can still leave 2 texture spaces free to add an additional texture you might want to use somewhere on the map, such as a riverbed texture etc.
Grass should also be used sparingly. Grass significantly increases the size of an area file. I usually paint down grass at 20% pressure.
One of the most important parts of working on terrain is using the colour palette under the terrainterrain tab. Once you are finishing off an area, I HIGHLY recommend using the colour palette to give your area a more authentic feel. I usually use a dark gray colour set at about 15% and go around the map using it on contours/cliff edges etc. You can even use actual colours to spice up the area. Maybe some green colour thrown about the map, to make the grass really appear healthy in certain parts.

Sounds:

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Sounds are vital too. Think of the best area you may have ever seen and if you turn off the sounds in the area, it will suddenly feel bland. There are an insane amount of sound files you can use, not just the ones available under the sound tab. If you throw down a generic sound and go into the properties under the sound tab, you can browse the game for numerous different sounds.
The properties in the sound tab that are mostly used:
Interval (how long until the sound plays)
Interval variation (how long until the sound plays above, plus or minus this number)
Looping (I almost always turn this off)
Pitch variation: Changes the pitch of the sound slightly. Rarely used, but can be useful.
Random: I usually always have this ticked, so that one of the sounds I have attached to this particular sound object, will randomly be selected to play.
Sounds: The sound files that will play.
Maximum distance: Distance in which the sound can be heard. Usually default is 10, so I often increase it to at least 15 minimum.
Minimum distance: Good to increase this, if the sound file is fairly quiet when it plays.

Lighting:

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As a rule of thumb, all object light shadow sources should either be switched to 0, or at least under 0.4. This increases performance, particularly in an online environment. Heavy shadows are intensive.
Sls2 (scripted lighting system) comes with some nice premade light sources, that I almost always use. You only need the light blueprints from the module, the rest is useless. http://148.251.86.81/project/nwn2/scrip ... ion-2-sls2
COLOR:
Ambient color: not sure. Seemingly useless? Slight effect if anything.
Intensity: how bright the light is. Has no effect on shadows.
Diffuse color: the color of the light.
Specular color: The colour this light casts on items and players nearby.
Behavior:
Flicker: This is set to true or false. True means the light will flicker/fluctuate.
Flicker type: jumpy/bounce/linear. These are hard to explain in words, but play around with them to get a feeling for what they do. NOTE: "jumpy" flickers are how you get fireplace/torch effects.
Flicker rate: how quickly the light flickers. Higher number = faster (for good jumpy effects, you need a fairly high number).
Lerp: lerp if this is set to "true," then the light will shift between its main color and its "lerp" color (i.e. the lerp target color settings above).
Lerp period: how quickly the light changes from its main to its lerp color.

Placeables:

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99% of placeables in an area should be set to environmental objects.
Try to be creative with your use of placeables and refrain from putting in too many different ones that raise the overall frames of an area.
Make good use of the “scale” properties on your placeables. Increasing or decreasing or warping the placeable out of shape, can give you alternate uses for placeables. A bad example, but the only one I can think of right now, is if you wanted four pillars in a room. You could take a chair and make its scale 7,7,7 and then the legs of the chairs could look like pillars coming down from the ceiling.
If you are using a placeable that is attached to a VFX and light source, then it is recommended to switch that placeables “Cast Light” properties to – “Don’t case shadows”. For example, if you are using a brazier and have a light source on it, then switching off the shadows of the brazier, will stop the sickly looking shadows that can emanate from the placeable attached to a light source.

Tilesets:

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Each variation you use on a tileset, increases the overall frame rate of an area. So try not to go overboard on different tiles, because it will limit your overall use of placeables, VFX’s etc in an area, that all contribute to framerate.
Some tilesets will not connect with each other, even though they look like they should. If you are using two different tilesets that cut the walkmesh at the door, then use a walkmesh placeable over the part of the ground that is blocking the walkmesh and players will now be able to move from one tileset to another. This only happens with some variations.
Don’t forget to look at the properties tab of a tile you have placed down. In there you will see Ceiling, wall and floor textures. We have many variations that can be used with lots of different types of different tilesets. Keep in mind, each variation will contribute to framerate.

Tip from me:

Keep at least two blank tiles between interior sections to make sure voice range doesn't carry. Talk range is just over two tiles (but because of wall thickness two tiles is enough.)

In the Area Properties tab, there's an option to turn on/off Directional Lighting. Having it on makes it easy to build in an interior. Shutting it off and using point lights gives a more immersive lighting for gameplay. Also light turns out a bit brighter in game than it looks in the toolset.


Happy building!

[wangxiuming]

Any chance there is an updated version available?

[Ithilan]

Shameless bump if theres an update

[wangxiuming]

Even more shameless bump!

[Flights of Fantasy]

Is this still up to date? I wanted to try building something, but a lot of the tiles do not appear if I try to place them. I'm also getting a .NET error after I copied the files into my toolset folder.