Shirtless Saga Tutorial Series: Making armor for you and your companions with the toolset (Patch 1.06)

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1 Shirtless Saga Tutorial Series: Making armor for you and your companions with the toolset (Patch 1.06) by Barrel of Monkeys In this tutorial we ll go through the step by step process of creating new armor, assigning stats to it and turning it into a prefab so it can be added to any module you play. The number bubble of each instruction will have a matching number bubble in the sample image to show you where to look in the toolset. First things first, let s get your toolset set up for armor building. When you first start the toolset, your window will look something like this: We need to go into the toolset options to shut off the auto-save. (It tends to crash the toolset.) To get to the option menu, click on the View menu bar then select Options. Under the general options category set autosave to false. Now we need to pin our blueprint and properties tabs so they always stay open. Click on the blueprints tab on the right side of the toolset. In the upper right hand corner of the blueprint window is an icon that looks like a thumb tack. Click on that to lock the window in place. Now, do the same thing for the properties tab.

2 Your toolset window should now look something like this: You can adjust the size of each frame by moving the walls at and with a leftclick-drag. (Your mouse pointer will turn into a icon when it hits a frame boundary.) Resize the frames to take up most of the toolset, and make the blueprint frame big enough to at least see the name and tag columns. Currently, the item editor doesn t allow us to switch between male and female models. Patch 1.06 has it stuck on female models. (This will be fixed with 1.07 though.) So if we want to see what our armor looks like for men as we build it, we ll have to dress up an NPC male model first and then copy the values over to our item. In the blueprints frame, click on creatures. You should now see a list of different creature categories in the name column now, each with a plus box next to it. Click on the plus box beside the companions category. It s time to choose your model! (Sand has graciously come out of modeling retirement to demonstrate the finer points of armor composition for our tutorial, but you can choose someone else as long as it isn t Construct or Zhjaeve.) Right click on your model s name, and select Copy Blueprint > Module. This creates a local copy of the NPC that we can alter. Select the copy (the one with the bold name) by clicking on it.

3 In the properties frame, on the far right of a bunch of different tabs, are 2 arrows. Click the right arrow until you see a tab with the words Armor Set. Click on the Armor Set tab. Your Armor Set tab will look something like this: If you don t see a model in the blue window smiling back at you, or the big wall of text and buttons on the right hand side is mostly grayed out, go back to step 4 and select the bold version of your model. OK now, take a deep breath, and don t worry about what you see before you. This is where the fun starts

4 First we ll cover the controls for the 3D window. Click on the model to set the mouse focus to the 3D window. The mouse scroll wheel zooms the model in and out. Right-button drag will move the model up, down, left, and right. CTRL-Right-button drag rotates the model left and right and pitches the model forward and back. When you re comfortable with using the controls, move on to the next step. There are 6 primary body parts and 22 secondary armor attachment parts. Each primary part has a category type and a variation number. To change the chest and pants that our model is wearing to the Neverwinter 9 uniform, for example, set the main type drop list to Default (Cloth) and the main variation drop list to 14. Take your time looking through all the different main body armors in the game before we move on to the other primary body parts. To the right of each drop list for helm, boot, glove, belt and cloak is a checkbox. This checkbox marks if the armor will show a specific part or just the default part. The has part checkbox needs to be checked before any changes you make to its associated body part will appear. Go ahead and check all the boxes and go through the parts lists to see what s available. (Please note that even though you can see helms displayed on your companion model, these helms will not appear in the game when your in-game companion equips that item.) To the right of the checkbox, are the 3 buttons that control that part s tint. From left to right, they are color 1 (c1), color 2 (c2), and color 3 (c3). Let s use an example to illustrate how to set the color on an item. Let s first give Sand a quiver of arrows to go along with his spiffy NW9 tunic (Did he borrow that from Nevalle, or the KC?...Hmm ) Set the belt type to leather and the belt variation to 3. If you don t see a quiver of arrows on his back, make sure the belt s has part checkbox is checked. Click on your model and rotate him until his back is facing you. Now, to apply some color - Click the button for belt c1. You ll notice another window has appeared full of rainbow hues: If you re not sure what parts of a model a color button is supposed to tint, it can help to set the color to red or green first and see what gets colored. Set the color to red by clicking on the only red square in the third row of the quick color list. Each color in the quick list has a name that pops up when you hover the mouse over it long enough. Now that we know that c1 colors the main part of the quiver let s set it to color pastel cyan blue (Hint: it s one

5 of the colors in the 10 th row). Hit the OK button in the color form to return to the armor set tab. You can use the large color square on the left side of the color form for fine tuning and getting the exact color you want. Click the button for c2 and test to see what gets colored with it by selecting the red color again. We find that c2 colors the straps on the quiver. Let s start with the color pastel cyan blue again, but this time we ll use the color block to make it darker and more grey. Hit the OK button when you find a color that you like. You might have noticed that every time you changed the color, the little numbers in the center of the form changed value as well. Each color in the game can be represented by a series of 3 numbers their RGB value. When you choose a color that s not part of the quick color list, jot the RGB numbers down somewhere. When you want to duplicate that exact color again on a different color button (or when you copy your colors over to your actual item) you can type the numbers directly into the RGB fields. The final button - c3, for the quiver, controls the color of the fletching. Let s make it a muted gold color RGB(189,167,94). Click the c3 button for the belt to bring up the color form again. In the text field next to the R, type the value 189. Type the value 167 for the G text field, and finally, type the value 94 for the B text field. Hit OK, and we re now done coloring the belt. Setting up and coloring the secondary armor attachments is very similar to picking the primary body parts. Pick the part number you want from the drop down list and then color the part. Setting the part number to 0 removes the part from the armor. OK! Shake out those fingers! It s time to match up what out models are wearing, before we move on to the second part and start transferring that visual data to an actual item Here s what all trendy-fashion-conscious wizards will be wearing around Blacklake this season: Format Body part: type variant, color(r,g,b) Main: cloth 4, c2(133,96,168), c3(89,2,2) Boots: costume barrel 3, c2(96,57,19) -aka SSAP2 sandals, the type shows up as bad strref in the drop list Gloves: naked 0 L + R Shoulders 20, c1(133,96,168), c2(250,225,142) Fill in the listed parts and colors in your model s Armor Set tab **Bug alert: if your main body isn t accepting tints from the Armor Set tab, switch to the Properties tab. Click the left arrow from until you see a tab called Properties. In this tab, close every branch except for the appearance branch at the very top. (No need to get blinded by all that text ) Under the appearance branch are 2 color values - tint(armor 1) and tint(armor 2). Set the RGB value of tint(armor 1) to be the same as c2, and the value of tint(armor 2) to be the same as c3.

6 So Does your Sand now look like my Sand? If so, Congratulations! You re well on your way to a complete fashion armor overhaul

7 Now it s time to make a real item and load it with stats. For Sand s robe, we ll start with a completely new item so we can cover every aspect of making an armor item. However, often you ll just want to change the look of an existing item, or maybe you already like the look of an armor and just want to change its stats. In those cases, you can make a copy of the item blueprint and edit just the portion you want to change. Here we go Click on the item button in the blueprint frame (located next to the creatures button from part. Right click anywhere in the item list and select Create Blueprint > Module. This will create an item called item1. Select item1. Then, select the properties tab if you still have the armor set tab selected. We ll start with the stuff grouped under the Basics category: In the Classification field enter: my custom armor. This creates another item category in the blueprints frame and moves your item into it. Make your own classifications when you want to separate your work from the stuff that already exists. Change the Template Resref, Resource Name, and Tag to: mca_robe. The engine uses these values to track, manipulate and create the items in the game, so the word you put in these fields should be descriptive of the item, yet unique from every other item in the game. The Localized Name is the in-game name of the item. Let s call it: Robe of Unremitting Sarcasm. Set your Base Item to: Armor. What some of the other fields do: Additional Cost let s you increase or decrease the gold value of the item shown in Base Cost. A positive number increases the value and a negative number decreases the value. Localized Description and Localized Description (when ID d) are where you put the detailed paragraphs that the players see when they examine an item.

8 In the blueprint frame, click on your item s name again to update its properties. Notice that an Armor category has appeared in our property list. This is the area that contains the armor s visual information. We just need to take Sand s armor part and color information from before and add it to the item. Our robe uses specific glove and boot parts so we need to set both HasBoots and HasGloves to True. Hit the plus sign next to the gloves to open up its details: Set the ArmorVisualType to Naked, and leave the ArmorVariation at 0. These 2 fields correspond to the type and variation lists in the Armor Set tab. Now, hit the plus sign next to the boots to open up its details. Also, hit the plus sign next to the boot s base tint to get access to its color data: Set the boot s ArmorVisualType to Costume Barrel from the pull down list, and set its ArmorVariation to 3.

9 The value of c2 (96, 57, 19) can be typed directly into Color2, with each number separated by a comma. Finally, we set the main body by adding information in the chest details. The chest has a LOT more fields in it, but don t panic. Most of those fields hold the data for the secondary attachments. Set the chest s ArmorVisualType to Cloth, and set the ArmorVariation to 4. Open up the details for AccessoryLeftShoulder. Set its Accessory field to 20. Set its Tint Color1 to (133, 96, 168), and its Color2 to (250, 225, 142). Fill in the same values for the details of AccessoryRightShoulder. The next area we ll look at is the Appearance category: First we set the tint colors. This is the tint that colors the main body armor, not the one listed inside the armor chest category. (Strange, I know.) Set Tint Color2 to (133, 96, 168) and Color3 to (89, 2, 2). The Icon is the image that shows up in the player s inventory. Scroll to the top of the icon list and select the robe icon it_ac_robe01. And our armor s appearance is now set! Time to give our robe some flair with item properties worthy of sarcasm All of the item s functional nuts and bolts can be found under the Behavior category: The Armor type determines the base AC and which classes are able to equip the armor. Our Robe is made of Cloth, so no need to change it this time. Material and Damage reductions are used when our armor is made of a special material like dragon skin, or darksteel.

10 Clicking on the Item Properties field will bring up another window: To add a property to your item, select it from the list, then hit the add property button. Go ahead and add an AC Bonus to the robe. If you want to increase a property s bonus or remove the property from the armor, first click on the property in the current properties list. Select the AC Bonus property we just added. Increase the AC Bonus to +2. Now let s round out the armor with a few more properties. The Robe of Unremitting Sarcasm gifts its wearer with rapier-like wit and the ability to easily heap subtle verbal abuse upon the deserving. Add an ability bonus to Intelligence +2.

11 Our robe also makes its wearer slightly more appealing, to help prevent retaliatory smiting or arrows in the back from parties that shall remain unnamed. Add an ability bonus to Charisma +1. If the unthinkable should occur, and some unenlightened schlub takes offense and decides to confront our wearer with a 30 pound dwarven waraxe, the suit provides the ready means for a strategic withdrawal. Add a cast spell: expeditious retreat property, and set it useable once a day. Hit OK to close the item property window Our armor is now finished, and there s only one step left before we can use it in our games. Making a prefab: In the blueprint frame, right click our item s name and select the save to file option. Save Sand s new robe to your nwn2 override directory with the name mca_robesarcasm. You can now use the console debug command giveitem mca_robesarcasm to add the robe to any nwn2 module you play. You now know everything necessary to modify or create your own custom armors in the toolset. Have fun, and dress your PC and Companions with style!