Import NWN creatures to NWN2 Table of contents 1. Preparation ........................................................................................................................................... 2 1.1. Naming conventions ..................................................................................................................... 2 1.2. Import the model .......................................................................................................................... 3 1.3. Clean the model ............................................................................................................................ 4 2. Creating the NWN2 model .................................................................................................................... 7 2.1. Clone ............................................................................................................................................. 7 2.2. In two steps ................................................................................................................................... 8 2.3. Upgrade for NWN2 ....................................................................................................................... 9 3. Adding the skeleton ............................................................................................................................ 12 3.1. Collision spheres ......................................................................................................................... 12 3.2. Attachment Points ...................................................................................................................... 14 3.3. « skin » modifier .......................................................................................................................... 16 4. Save the skeleton ................................................................................................................................ 20 4.1. Expotron settings ........................................................................................................................ 20 4.2. Export the skeleton ..................................................................................................................... 20 5. Save the model ................................................................................................................................... 21 6. Save the animations. ........................................................................................................................... 22 6.1. Stances ........................................................................................................................................ 22 6.2. Matching NWN / NWN2.............................................................................................................. 22 6.3. Animations NWN missing? .......................................................................................................... 27 6.4. Expotron settings ........................................................................................................................ 27 7. Addition into Neverwinter Nights 2. ................................................................................................... 29 Thierry Petitjean (4760) 27th February 2015 Page 1 of 30 1. Preparation To be able to convert NWN creatures for use with NWN2, the following is required : • 3ds max 6, 7 or 8 • Expotron • Plug-in to import MDL files (format used by NWN 1) You will also need to extract the .mdl and the texture files (.tga ou .dds) from the NWN files (which obviously means you’ll also need to own NWN!). I personally use NWN Explorer for this. Then, the normal map has to be created (xNormal is the software I use). Without giving details, the normal map is what tells the game where the bumps and holes in the diffuse map are located: 1.1. Naming conventions Creatures in NWN2 comprise two kinds of elements : a skeleton, which deals with animations, and a model (mesh) which gives them their appearances. Skeleton and mesh are linked through Appearance.2da (there’s consequently no need for them to bear the same name). For instance, all the spiders in NWN2 (c_spiddire, c_spidgiant, c_spidwrai, etc.) use the same skeleton c_spid_skel, and therefore the same animations. However, the skeleton name has to end by _skel and defined in the Expotron settings (see section 5. Save the model for details), and the name of the mesh in 3ds max and the name of the NWN2 model must be identical and end with _**_Bodynn where ** is an armor type existing in armorvisualdata.2da and nn a number between 01 and 255 (or 512 ? Plus ? I admit I didn’t check what the limit actually is). In any case, the CL version must exist by default (in other words, before creating an armored spider c_spid_PF_Body12, a c_spid_CL_Body01 has to exist first). Page 2 of 30 Finally, conventionally the prefix c_ is added to show that the model is a creature. For this tutorial, we’ll convert the adamantine golem (named c_golada in NWN), so our model for NWN2 will be named c_golada_cl_body01 and its skeleton will be c_golada_skel. 1.2. Import the model With the preliminary information now given, let’s start the real conversion. To import the .mdl, File then Import…, and Neverwinter Nights Model (*.MDL) : This option will of course only be available if the corresponding plug-in has been installed priorly! As we decided to go with the adamantine golem, let’s select c_golada.mdl : Page 3 of 30 We’ll keep the default settings (make sure that « Don’t import animations » is not ticked!): 1.3. Clean the model Electron (NWN2) and Aurora (NWN) using different configurations, we need to remove the Aurora references for Electron to be able to use the model. But, first, let’s select the Aurora base (the large hexagon under the creature) and write down the list of animations: Page 4 of 30 For instance, the animation for the death mort (ckdbckdie in NWN, c_golada_UNA_death01 in NWN2) is located between frames 1032 and 1062. Once all animations (or rather, the ones we want to keep) are written down, delete the base (normally it has the same name as the .mdl : here, it’s indeed c_golada). We now need to rename the NWN root (usually dummyroot ou rootdummy, in the present case however it’s stone_root): Page 5 of 30 The name cannot be chosen randomly1 : it must be the same as the creature’s, followed by « _skel ». In our case, let’s stick to c_golada (c_ to show it’s a creature, golada because it’s what NWN used to show it’s a golem made of adamantine we’re working on, but we could have opted to golem_nwn). Therefore, stone__root now becomes c_golada_skel (or golem_nwn_skel if we prefer the other version, but it is not recommended not to follow the conventions…) Let’s continuons the cleaning : remove all attachment points, we’ll recreate them (otherwise, in NWN2 the objects in hand will be subject to scaling2 and orientation issues). In this case, there are only two : impact et head. Tip : save your work right now, or even just before the renaming of the root (in general, 3ds max crashes at the following step). 1 See the reminders in 1.1. Naming conventions. 2 As a matter of fact, importing NWN model at 100% scale gives in 3ds max a mesh at 10 000% scale. And if we reduce the Scaling Factor (cf. MDL Import settings) to 1%, the creature will be one hundred times too small in NWN2. Page 6 of 30 2. Creating the NWN2 model Contrary to NWN, NWN2 only uses single-mesh models (well, this is oversimplified. Actually, it can be made of several parts: head, body, wings, tail, but this is out of the scope of this tutorial3). Let’s then join all the NWN parts into a single NWN2 object. There are two ways of achieving this: 2.1. Clone Select all the parts and clone them as a copy: Pick any part of the cloned NWN model, rename it according to the naming conventions4 NWN2, namely c_xxxx_cl_body01 where xxxx is the name of the creature. Surprisingly, we’ll use c_golada_cl_body01. Attach all the other cloned parts to it (simple to recognize, they are the ones with the names ending with 01) : 3 Nevertheless, this article provides the necessary information to create new creatures for NWN2. 4 See 1.1. Naming conventions. Page 7 of 30 click on this button 2.2. In two steps It sometimes happens (and that’s actually the case in our example) that some parts of the model already have a number. We thus see stone__Ltoe2 or Object01 which have become stone__Ltoe03 and Object02 after the clone operation. The simplest way is then to not clone the model and convert it right away into a single mesh: select the highest ranking part in the hierarchy, rename it as it should (here, c_golada_cl_body01), the select everything. After that, click on the "collapse" then “collapse selected” buttons: Page 8 of 30 In this case however, the initial .mdl will have to be imported once again, and cleaned another time, as explained previously in 1.1. Import the model and 1.2. Clean the model. 2.3. Upgrade for NWN2 Now that our NWN2 compatible mesh is created, let’s relocate its pivot point to the origin: Page 9 of 30 Here for example, the pivot point is at the center of the golem, however NWN2 expects it at (0 ; 0 ; 0). To relocate it, that’s easy: Don’t forget to click on « Align to world » too: Page 10 of 30 Otherwise, we have the pivot (the 3D axis) and the model (x,y,z axis) unaligned, that may create issues for the animations. When everything is realigned and recentered, we should get a screen similar to the one below: