Neverwinter Nights 2 Forum News (Jun. 03, 05)

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Here are today's Neverwinter Nights 2 forum highlights, collected by NWVault. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context. Bear in mind also that the posts presented here are copied as-is, and that any bad spelling and grammar does not get corrected on our end.

Brian D. Lawson, Programmer

Animated textures?

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Okay it's taken a while but i've finally found water that doesn't use a flat plane. I'm not sure how many of you know about a game called Alan Wake, but if you don't then i suggest you check it out, espically if you like David Lynch.In Alan Wake the water is effected by wind, things that are on the water (barrels) rain creates ripples etc. It also is the first ever water to use shaders, and tbh it looks so realistic.'phew' that was a mission and a half.

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Actually, from what I could tell in the trailer, the water was indeed still a flat plane. It's also not the first water to ever use shaders. I think many people make the mistake of confusing "shaders" with some secret magical graphics technology. They're nothing of the sort. Shaders have been around for several years now...dating back to early GeForce days. All they are are little micro programs that can be run at the vertex and pixel levels and simply "replace" the DirectX/OpenGL "fixed function" pipeline. Essentally, they give the programmer the power to take over the rendering of the geometry and do the things that he/she wants rather than being limited to what the "fixed function" pipeline can provide.With that being said, HalfLife 2's water uses shaders as does their entire rendering engine. But, that's beside the point.Ripples in the water can be faked...i.e. dynamic/scrolling normal maps etc. Again, from the Alan Wake trailer that I saw on the net a few weeks back, that was what it looked like they were doing to me.Oh yeah, and whoever the wise guy was that threw out the Sub Hunter game...that doesn't count. I would expect a game that literally takes place in the ocean to have decent looking water. Although, from some of the replies in this thread, it sounds as though even its water was "okay" at best.

Straight rivers and 90 degree bends.
I guess the best way to think of the water(s) at this point is as a "placeable" just like everything else.

More:

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But i still want to know how your doing streams, rivers. As the placeable water is 'static', whereas streams/rivers is 'flowing'.

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It's a secret for now. But I can assure you that they're one and the same. You'll be quite pleased with the outcome.

Day/Night Cycling

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Okay again i've found a far better day/night cycle. This is a game called Alan Wake, which is incredible. I advise you to goto their website and find the teaser.

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Been there, done that, already saw it...Definitely looks great. How long has that game been in development???

Frank Kowalkowski, Lead Programmer

Bump map, texture resolution and weapons …
We are using specular maps on all of our weapons. The objects themselves have their shape defined by their model, thus reducing the need/effect of normal mapping. You can't make a scimitar from a longsword with a normal map, but you can make a cracked/rusty scimitar or a golden-shiny scimitar from a generic scimitar with a good spec map and some material settings and have them look profoundly different.

Support for voip? (searched)
WoW does not support VoIP in any way. We will not support this feature either. I do use Teamspeak while playing WoW and while it's nice, it has never made me say 'its a good thing we had Teamspeak or we'd have wiped on <insert mob X>'. It's more of a convenience than a necessity.Teamspeak and Ventrilo do the job very well. That's not to say we won't begin doing this in future products, but there are enough fish to fry right now without introducing a VoIP system.

Enviroments
Brian just rerwrote the rain effect yesterday. I assure you it will be in more than a few screenshots or movies when they are released =)Edit: there is little chance the weather effects will affect gameplay drastically. The environment already responds to wind dynamically, so you can make it windier or rainier if you would like or just let the engine take care of it.