The Adventurers' Guild

caars wrote:Looking very good Methuselahs! I especially like the cube

I haven't made the blend shapes yet, for it to animate. Been too busy working on this. It didn't turn out like I was hoping, but it's still nice.



Oh, in my test module, BTBuilder can officially support 1600 x 1000 (which is roughly the size of my laptop screen.) I hope the Windows version can get True Type Font use soon.

Yeah, I really like using VRay and IRay (I'm playing with both right now - IRay just costs too much. XD) I get some great subsurface scattering on skin textures and mesh based lighting (which would allow me to make windows that would "light up" at night, if I were using ming files.) IRay allows dome lighting based on the time of day. I could set it at 12 pm, then 4 pm, then 8 pm, then 12 am, then 4 am, and then 8 am. If I know approximately how many seconds pass per hour, I can delay the animation frames by that much and the tilesets will change on the fly. I really wish BTBuilder supported transparencies for animations.

The upside to this is I get incredible lighting, which will help alleviate the problems you had previously, about it being too dark and much crisper animations at smaller resolutions. The downside is I have to edit all the material sets, by hand, for each model and convert them to shader/texture hybrids, depending on the model.

Yeah, slimes IMO are really hard to get to look right when you animate them. I can give you some (hopefully) constructive criticism for what you have there ... I think the thing that I'm noticing is the "static" skin. It looks like a tough "skin" attached to jelly like innards. If there was a way to actually get the skin to "flow" relative to the inside of the slime? (I don't know if that makes sense)

I've tried more iterations of things to get "regenerate skill: bard song" to work (set it be "bard song" type, versus Archmage, and a few other things). Nothing would regenerate a song.

I did find something interesting: I *can* set "unlimited use" to "true." If that's done with something that has a duration (like "combat") then you only have unlimited use for the duration. Note that as long as "unlimited use" is set, you can use the ability even if "uses" is currently at zero (which works just fine for me).

Right now I've got it set so that using an equipped wineskin in combat will let the bard sing as many songs as he/she wants during that combat only. Out of combat (long duration) songs work normally, and can only be "reset" at a tavern. That's at least a decent stopgap for now.

Monsters *definitely* cast spells on themselves only (regardless of the intent of the spell) - and it tends to crash the game when they do. It *doesn't* seem to be related to them being level 0, since the monsters in my first dungeon are all level 1, and the game crashed when my conjurers arc fired themselves.

Minor other thing I noticed: when the bard is out of songs, the "throat is dry" message always refers to the bard as a "he" regardless of gender. Not that big of a deal, but figured you'd want to know.

Also, I'm still unable to reset values on the "monsters encountered" percentages in the properties screen for a dungeon. I can open up the xml file and change the percentages directly, but it won't let me do it in the editor.

caars wrote:Yeah, slimes IMO are really hard to get to look right when you animate them. I can give you some (hopefully) constructive criticism for what you have there ... I think the thing that I'm noticing is the "static" skin. It looks like a tough "skin" attached to jelly like innards. If there was a way to actually get the skin to "flow" relative to the inside of the slime? (I don't know if that makes sense)

Yeah, originally, I planned on making it a "jelly", like the Gelatinous Cube, but then, when I went to do research, I dug up my old Monster Manual and found this:

"Green slimes are strange plant growths found in subterranean places. Although they cannot move, they slowly grow, feeding on animal, vegetable and metallic substances. They are sensitive to vibrations and will often drop upon passing creatures from above."

Green slimes are evidently plant life so, I went for more of a "plant look." I still want to make ochre jellies, black puddings, etc, but I'm re-doing the model, as I used a sphere, but didn't turn it, so I have texture stretch at the poles.

Oh yeah ... I remember reading that ages ago - it's been pretty consistent in just about all editions of D&D (except for "classic" or OD&D which didn't mention much about what exactly it was), now that you mention it.

I agree, the skin does give a plant-like impression for sure. Nice.

caars wrote:I've tried more iterations of things to get "regenerate skill: bard song" to work (set it be "bard song" type, versus Archmage, and a few other things). Nothing would regenerate a song.

That's a stupid bug for me to not notice. I really need to add test cases to automatically test the system. This is fixed in the newly released 0.5.8.

caars wrote:I did find something interesting: I *can* set "unlimited use" to "true." If that's done with something that has a duration (like "combat") then you only have unlimited use for the duration. Note that as long as "unlimited use" is set, you can use the ability even if "uses" is currently at zero (which works just fine for me).

Yes. It is designed to allow you to create a bardsword where your have unlimited songs as long as you have it equipped but it does not give you song uses.

caars wrote:Monsters *definitely* cast spells on themselves only (regardless of the intent of the spell) - and it tends to crash the game when they do. It *doesn't* seem to be related to them being level 0, since the monsters in my first dungeon are all level 1, and the game crashed when my conjurers arc fired themselves.

Actually it is picked a member of your party and casting the spell on that member of the monster group. So if you have 6 party members and 1 monster. Odds are the monster will cast it on monster #2 to #6 which will crash the game. This embarrassing regression is also fixed in 0.5.8.

caars wrote:Minor other thing I noticed: when the bard is out of songs, the "throat is dry" message always refers to the bard as a "he" regardless of gender. Not that big of a deal, but figured you'd want to know.

I believe it now says the name of the person everywhere instead of "He".

caars wrote:Also, I'm still unable to reset values on the "monsters encountered" percentages in the properties screen for a dungeon. I can open up the xml file and change the percentages directly, but it won't let me do it in the editor.

Hmm... I don't know about that one. I will try it under windows when I get a chance.

Bt Builder 0.5.8 released. Allow you to select continuous and indefinite for duration of spells. Added some spells to sample 2 game. Fix monster spell casters to target the player and not crash the game. Fix regenerate skill spell. Introduce a new picture search functionality.

Methuselas wrote:Okay. Got the fork setup properly. I should have synced the new orc animation to my fork. Check the Slot0 file for an animated Orc (I accidentally did more than one push.....). If it works, great and you should have a replacement for both 320 and 640. If not, I did something wrong again.


Oh, one more thing. GitHub doesn't seem to like dragging and dropping .ng files. Always errors out, so I had to use the Desktop client, which is why I don't know if it worked or not.

I don't see any commits in your github branch. Did you only commit them locally and still need to push them to the github servers?

I've put out a new version anyway without your images. I didn't like seeing caars's bugs. Try the new picture search out. One undocumented feature, if you press F1 it will display only images with an author specified. It allows you to filter out the blank images. (My son wanted to see the images in the game and didn't like having to go through the blank images so I threw in that filter.)

dulsi wrote: I don't see any commits in your github branch. Did you only commit them locally and still need to push them to the github servers?

I thought I pushed it, as when I log in, it shows my fork. Originally, I had only the new images I created in the folder, but when I went to push it, it synced with yours and downloaded all the other files, which is what I was trying to avoid, as I don't want you downloading old code. I wonder if I'm doing something wrong. I'll hit up my coder friend and see if he can explain it better to me, than the help topics.

I'm in the process of creating static images for the 48 default slots. I have all the models done (well almost all - some need new texturing), just not posed and materials set up for Iray.

Hunter/Ranger Animation.

Male Hunter/Ranger Animation. Evidently staring Charles Manson.


Hey, Dulsi. Any chance we could get some upgrades to the Monster Editor? Just gimme notice before you release something, so I can get you some new images.

Monk Animation (WIP). I need to tweak the animations a little. It's using the original monk animation. Female looks the same, but with a Red Cheong Saam, instead of a black one.


The question is, should I leave the dou li (bamboo hat) on the male or not. The female doesn't use it.

Methuselas wrote:

Monk Animation (WIP). I need to tweak the animations a little. It's using the original monk animation. Female looks the same, but with a Red Cheong Saam, instead of a black one.


The question is, should I leave the dou li (bamboo hat) on the male or not. The female doesn't use it.

Good question. I *think* I'd go hatless by default - but maybe have the hatted version available for placement in a custom slot?

Without the dou li. I'm still having sync issues with the animation loop, though.

Methuselas wrote:


Without the dou li. I'm still having sync issues with the animation loop, though.

Wow. Tough call - I like the way both look. I think I'd still go without the dou li for the PC portrait, if anything just to have symmetry between the male and female versions.

I see what you mean regarding the animation loop syncing. Although the counter to that is if you hadn't mentioned it, I don't think I ever would have seen it ... it's certainly a very subtle mismatch.

I have the old animation, before I "fixed" it. I'll just go back to that one. As an animator, I can see it, but most people can't and wouldn't notice it. I just have OCDs about that stuff.

As for with or without the dou li, I wanted the PC monks to be different. I plan on using this as the Monster Monk, but with color changes for Jade Monk, Scarlet Monk, Azure Monk, etc.

Skeleton Animation. I'm not feeling the "glowing eyes", though. Maybe brighter? Maybe not at all?