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Author Topic: special creatures and toolset?  (Read 542 times)

silverblades

special creatures and toolset?
« on: August 18, 2008, 07:04:00 pm »
I was playing with the toolset and wanted to use  the Layo specific creatures. Is this part of the Hak packs or are they on the Layo server only?.
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Dorganath

Re: special creatures and toolset?
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2008, 08:03:38 pm »
While the creature appearances are in the HAK files, the creatures themselves are not.  There's several reasons for this, of course.  The specific creatures themselves are part of the modules only.
 

silverblades

Re: special creatures and toolset?
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2008, 08:57:37 pm »
So in that respect must Layo be considered a "module" if you wanted to play with specific monsters only used on layo?

and is it possible to be able to get at the creature appearance and put them in a module of my own, and apply my own settings to the creature or is some type of copyright thing Id be stepping on?
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Dorganath

Re: special creatures and toolset?
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2008, 09:29:26 pm »
Let me try to clarify.

We're not going to give out any specific creatures used within the West or Central modules. On the whole, our creatures and related things represent thousands of hours of work.  As well, having the specific creatures means having all their stats, powers and weaknesses.  For reasons that should be obvious, we just aren't handing these things out to the community.

Any resources in our HAK packs, however, are available for use.  This means tilesets, creature and item models, icons, etc.  You are free to make your own creatures with the HAK resources either by associating our HAKs directly with a new module you make in the toolset or by extracting the resources from our HAKs to new HAKs.  In honesty, you might be better off looking at the CEP rather than using our HAKs, but either way is up to you. most of our resources came from the NWN community in some way.

The only possibility for IP problems would be if you named your creatures things like "Drezneb" or "Milara"...or something else that conflicts with our official lore.
 

darkstorme

Re: special creatures and toolset?
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2008, 11:25:26 pm »
Additionally, most of the appearances come from the myriad of hakpaks available freely on the Vault.  Layonara's development team has put in tons of time sieving the wheat from the chaff, as it were, but most of the models and tilesets aren't sourced from Layonara first.

The CEP v2.0 is really rather impressive, as well, and includes a bunch of content that isn't in Layonara because... well, it'd've been a ton of work to include it at the time of its release.  Some stuff made it in, some didn't.  Having designed a few modules myself, my advice to you, Blades, would be to go to the Vault and download any haks with a rating of 9.7 or above with 10 or more votes.  Then play with the results.

The only major side effect will be that you will likely weep that some of the brilliance out there cannot (for one reason or another) be included into the world we all know and love.  (For me, that's the Bardic Music Studio, gaoeng's brilliant Summoning Circles, Windows, and Shields/Emitters, and the AI Upgrade.

If you haven't already, and are just getting into module design, check it out!  There's a TON of neat stuff out there.
 

silverblades

Re: special creatures and toolset?
« Reply #5 on: August 18, 2008, 11:33:54 pm »
alright I gotcha, I was mostly interested in the creature appearances and can understand why you dont want the specific creature to be given out. I didnt really think of it till you mentioned it. Anyways, I dont play with the toolset enough to even know how to do file association. As for creature renaming that didnt come to mind either.

Im all honesty I was trying to make a cool avatar if I ever get approved to be a DM.
 thanks Dorg.
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darkstorme

Re: special creatures and toolset?
« Reply #6 on: August 18, 2008, 11:37:47 pm »
As an FYI - if you get approved to be a DM, your avatar is made in-game.  Anything you make in the toolset can't be imported.

(Sorry if I ruined your dreams of having a giant, flame-wreathed dragon avatar. ;) )
 

Acacea

Re: special creatures and toolset?
« Reply #7 on: August 18, 2008, 11:55:30 pm »
Which is perfectly doable with the DM client, though, if a bit tacky and perhaps compensating? :D

*runs away*
 

silverblades

Re: special creatures and toolset?
« Reply #8 on: August 19, 2008, 01:03:01 am »
was just getting some ideas for soemthing I thought would be neat thanks guys for all the info.
as for the toolset yes I would like to design some stuff that I thought of back in the day in pen and paper days. so thanks for the design tips Darkstorme.
I was thinking along the lines of an undead bone golem or a undead dragon. anything with lots of BoNeS  *points to Avatar*

Muahaha!
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