HAK texture feedbacks

[Sockss]

Maybe we can get an override pack to keep it old style?

I'm not a fan of most of these changes myself, but it is very subjective.

[Irongron]

The new textures do not render correctly on Android phone or Tablet:

Need to Fix the link will do it later....


Fixtures are transparent with no visual model, applies to many fixtures from what I see both permanent as well player craftable

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=24935


Staff are looking at ways to fix this. Same issue will prevent some premium modules being released on Android so I expect it will be taken seriously.

Edit: having though about this I came to the decision that without a swift fix we will have to revert. I love the changes, but losing tablet and mobile support? Too high a price.

[Diilicious]

the city change i can live with, but my couches now look like they belong in manor of mourn they're ugly as hell, same with the spiked stone thrones, Altars also, the dark stone colour... not a fan

[DeepWebAssassin]

I actually liked most of the changes. Sure, there are things that were probably unintended (like the moldy couches), but overall, I really liked it. I know a lot of it is personal taste, but I felt like it was a net improvement and people would come around more once they get used to the shock of "wow this is different." Hopefully they get the mobile issue sorted and we can see some of this content return! I really appreciate the time and effort, Devs.

[Irongron]

Regarding the mobile issue:

viewtopic.php?f=23&t=24944

And as stated in regard to the couches we'll work on a model that's an improvement to both (I really dislike the original too) and probably include both the new one, and the moldy version. I'd be extremely tempted to have all revert to the moldy one when placed outside!

For altars/vases etc I'd like us to a get a really quality marble texture we can use there.

[Reallylongunneededplayername]

Maybe we can get an override pack to keep it old style?

I'm not a fan of most of these changes myself, but it is very subjective.

This would be awesome I'm like 70-30 on the haks view, A few things look amazing, But the majority I can do without, Am neutral about or find plain ugly.

[Subutai]

When I read our community taking that tone with volunteers I wonder how we have any volunteer staff at all.

I may be a bit guilty of this, too. My first post here came across harsher than intended. I genuinely do appreciate all the tremendous work all the devs have been putting into the haks. Thank you all for all of it.

To phrase my initial post more nicely, while I don't think we'll ever agree on tilesets with ceilings (I don't think the movement, camera, or combat systems in the game were ever designed for such a low, zoomed-in camera), I really do like a lot of the new textures.

The streets and buildings of Cordor look beautiful, as do the textures for quite a few fixtures. My only quibble with them is the coloring. Everything is very drab in Cordor now. The mercantile is too white (and the floor sections are all different colors?), and the streets and buildings are too dark and sad.

I'd really love to see the same textures keep, but made a little more colorful. If not the buildings themselves, then a lot more in the way of brightly colored banners, window dressings, etc.

[Diilicious]

i think it would be fair to have a sofa if placed outside in a raining environment that it should go mouldy, it would be absolutely disgusting and gross, it would also stink to high heaven. haha.

[Peppermint]

Responding to this kind of release with a comment such as "new clothes when?" Is just plain rude, and doesn't deserve an answer. When I read our community taking that tone with volunteers I wonder how we have any volunteer staff at all.

Dude.

No one is flinging poo at any of the developers. I've noticed this weird sort of "us vs. them" mentality from certain members of the team lately (e.g. as was noted by Cortex on another thread), and it's really unhealthy. I get that some developers are probably very stressed. But most players aren't actively out to get anyone.

As for me, I think it's cool to have new stuff. Am I excited for this particular update? Not really, no. It's effectively an override package, when I already use an override package of my own. Do I get that the developers put work into it and that some players will love this kind of stuff? Yes, absolutely. So that's great.

I'm not being dismissive here. Like Ork said, I'm just noting that I'm excited to see new things moving forward. Clothes are kind of my jam. And I recognize this kind of stuff is a stepping stone toward that.

Anyway.

There are plenty of great clothes models on the vault that work perfectly fine. This game is nearly 20 years old by now. Some incredible stuff has been made during that time. There's also a lot of crap, true, but with just a little bit of digging I can assure you that you'll find a wealth of stuff to use.

[Vrass]

Do not under any means get rid of all the new trees, they are awesome and add greatly to the server.

[NauVaseline]

Great work, looks good. People should keep posting the bugs so they can be ironed out.

As for clothes: Project. Q.

Also no one is ungrateful, and if they are, they're in a miniscule minority. Some peeps can probably word stuff better tho

[Elaetheus]

I have always appreciated the approach of higher quality standards adopted here, and I’m glad that the content is delivered with this in mind. Bravo, and thanks.

In my opinion the places like thoramind magic shop do not feel the old way anymore, the new wooden floors feel a bit out of place. But that’s up to the taste and vision of the dev team. The exteriors of cordor feel properly enhanced and put less pressure on the machine than the facelift project.

[Diilicious]

Okay so after walking around a fair bit, im going to finally say that in general i disoprove of the new textures.

The colour palate has gone from a mutitude of ,browns, reds, vibrant greens, to dark stone grey and 1 single shade of dark olive green.

The mountains are dark stone grey, the tree bark is now dark stone grey (???) , the ramparts are dark stone grey, the cobblestones are dark stone grey, the new altars are dark stone grey. a lot of these share the same textures i know, but because the lighting engine in the game is so ancient, these drab textures do not have any specular highlight or definition to them to make them interesting, theyve just sucked all of the vibrancy out of the parts of the world where they exist.

[Irongron]

As for clothes: Project. Q.

We really have looked at all available clothes, and indeed reviewed every existing HAK for NwN (very nearly)

Nearly everything has significant issues as outlined above, while the very few things that don't are mismatched to the style of NwN.

Furthermore once added to the game these things can be very hard to remove. If we wish to maintain Arelith's professionalism we must go item by item here and not introduce anything that causes performance drops or crashing for players.

I know a lot of these clothes look fine (even stunning) at first glance. The trouble is, they're not.

And we really want to get these added. So if you're an artist/animator with time to work upon hundreds of parts, per clothing item, spread across all nwn races, please don't hesitate to approach us.

[Irongron]

Okay so after walking around a fair bit, im going to finally say that in general i disoprove of the new textures.

The colour palate has gone from a mutitude of ,browns, reds, vibrant greens, to dark stone grey and 1 single shade of dark olive green.

The mountains are dark stone grey, the tree bark is now dark stone grey (???) , the ramparts are dark stone grey, the cobblestones are dark stone grey, the new altars are dark stone grey. a lot of these share the same textures i know, but because the lighting engine in the game is so ancient, these drab textures do not have any specular highlight or definition to them to make them interesting, theyve just sucked all of the vibrancy out of the parts of the world where they exist.

The best thing here is to leave feedback on exactly which textures are most problematic, and we will do our best to improve them, should the art team agree.

[Oaks]

After looking around Cordor and Skaljard, I'm just gonna say, I really like the new texture look. I kinda dislike clear-cut stark colour contrasts. This is less anime-y and has a more authentic feel to it. Cool!

[Sockss]

Do not under any means get rid of all the new trees, they are awesome and add greatly to the server.

This is probably the worst part for me, they interfere with actually playing the game.

Regarding clothes, I'm sure we don't have that high standards, we've been using 1h spears for a while now which cause silly combat animations, not to mention horses.

[Spyre]

Do not under any means get rid of all the new trees, they are awesome and add greatly to the server.

This is probably the worst part for me, they interfere with actually playing the game.

Regarding clothes, I'm sure we don't have that high standards, we've been using 1h spears for a while now which cause silly combat animations, not to mention horses.

From Irongron himself:

If we wish to maintain Arelith's professionalism we must go item by item here and not introduce anything that causes performance drops or crashing for players.

So, yes. There is a high standard to what we put in. We do not need clipping outfits, hats going through heads, lack of phenotypes and so forth. And, it has to thematically fit the vision that Irongron has for the server.

[Sockss]

My point was that we already have that!

Cloaks and some base clothing already clip, spears clip, horses clip, there's even the skinny chain top! There's a significant downgrade in playability (things not fading, walkmesh issues), visual oddities (flickering textures, tearing and odd mixes of styles) and fps decreases with the newest haks (I've 12-15 in Cordor!). Regardless whether or not you find them attractive.

This isn't a complaint, I just don't think anyone here wants, or expects perfection in a coming up to 20 year old game, developed by volunteers - I'm sure the vast majority of people would live with the small graphical bugs, or lack of phenotypes. Again, not a criticism, but we're a long way off perfect and professional as things are now, but I don't think anyone minds that at all.

[Brandon Steel]

I mean to be fair there’s already a lot of clipping issues with a lot of combinations, especially with capes.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I think it's smart to wait a week before posting feedback that's not of a technical nature.

[Vrass]

How exactly do the trees cause issue?... im not having any problems with them at all, FPS is still high and running smoothly. I like the trees far better then the new indoor ceilings, had to turn on the hide ceiling option to get rid of them as they were blocking my view.

[Peppermint]

I'm so confused, because I've genuinely seen plenty of models that don't clip (anymore than the base models), are high quality, do fit in with the base game, do work with every phenotype, and don't cause any performance issues. I feel like I'm in this weird sort of Twilight Zone where I'm being told, "No, you're wrong, everything you've ever seen has been a lie", despite having worked in the custom content community pretty extensively over the years, and having played on plenty of servers with this kind of content to boot. I'm certain plenty of other players are in the same boat right now when reading this. It's bizarre.

So.

I'm just trying to figure out where the disconnect lies. Sure, the major hak compilations (e.g. CEP) also do tend to have a lot of poor quality material. But just to clarify: you guys do know you don't have to use all of a hak, right? It's possible, even easy to extract only the contents that you want to use.

[Imperatrix]

I'm in the same confused boat as Peppermint. There is a lot of incredibly high quality content available in the NWN modding community. Sure, a large amount of it is trash but a significant portion is still absolutely great, and the idea that you're going to custom make all your cosmetic clothing additions is absolutely baffling. That said, it's not my server so I'm hardly going to argue the matter overmuch.

Taste is obviously a subjective matter, as evidenced by the fact that I find the majority of the new tile sets significantly less aesthetically pleasing than what was previously being used. The Mines tileset in particular makes my eyes ache because it's now difficult to actually see what's going on against the vast backdrop of uniformly dark grey.

[Archnon]

Taste is obviously a subjective matter, as evidenced by the fact that I find the majority of the new tile sets significantly less aesthetically pleasing than what was previously being used. The Mines tileset in particular makes my eyes ache because it's now difficult to actually see what's going on against the vast backdrop of uniformly dark grey.

I think this is the key. It strikes me that in critiquing these tile sets is that we have people with different goals, or at least different perspectives on what a video-game world should look like. One perspective sees beauty in high contrasts, bright and vibrant colors, and striking backdrops. The new stone set does not accomplish this.

I do not have a character that has a reason to go to Cordor right now, but I predominantly play in the Grotto and you will have trouble convincing me that it is not the most changed place on the server thanks to this shift. Are the new stone walls beautiful and eye catching with nice contrasts? Absolutely not. But they accomplish something completely different. They turn an area like the Grotto into what it is actually meant to be, a dark, damp stony cavern hewn from rock. Caves and mines are dark places where it is hard to see and danger blends into this darkness. Shifts in the color of stone within a cave is subtle at best, or not at all. It does not usually refract the light but draw it in and the creatures that live in those caves prefer it that way. While the new stone tile-sets may not be beautiful, they are strikingly realistic. The same goes for the ceilings and yes even the floating dock at the Crows Nest (if your dock is fixed to the posts and not allowed to move, you will be in big trouble when the tide comes in and out ) I for one appreciate the realism and I believe the features that are getting the stone tileset that shouldn't (like the couches) will likely be corrected before too long.