sinfar-haks/hak/sf_tls_core2

CTP_Babylon, Build Notes - Documentation / ReadMe.txt
Name: CTP Babylon
Designer: Original work by Pasilli (R.I.P), extensive adjustments and additions by CTP.

Primary Classification: City Exterior / Rural Exterior
Subclassification(s): Desert

Filename: ctp_babylon.hak

Contains Additional Content? [Yes/No]: YES - LOTS!

Dedication:

This set, in it's entirety is dedicated to one specific individual (and his overlord).  Known in the community as Old Mans Beard (OMB), this person has contributed many useful tools to the community at large, and to CTP in specifics. If you have not checked out the OldMansBeard Henchman system then you really should take a look, you can find a link for it at the bottom of this document.  OMB created the first Generic Door hak released by the CTP, some really amazing work on those doors.  They can be used in almost any tileset out in the Neverwinter community. OMB also created the Clean Models program (also known as his supreme overlord), current version is 3.x (link at end of document.)  CM3 is one amazing tool.  It really cleans up about 95% of the bugs in a given mdl file.  Bugs generated by human error or by import/export utility errors. If a mdl has an error that CM3 can't handle, CM3 typically tells you about it in such a way as to make the human intervention easy to accomplish.  OMB has kept the team alive in many other ways, and never ceases to give everything he has to help the team along.  He created many tools that we use behind the scenes to test all of our tilesets, up to and including macros for ensuring that every tile has been painted and seen at least once in any test module.  We have individual tools that are given to each team member when they log into a test module that enable us to report bugs in an efficient manner and with a unified set of descriptions and problem types.  In Babylon, we had a problem with a specific set of terrain tiles.  They needed special attention.  OMB took those tiles and with his amazing Wizardry has created something that will totally blow your mind.  Be sure to check out the 'Rooftops' terrain tiles.  They have depth, they change between night and day, they have a sense of style that is totally unique in the NWN community.  OMB has this saying <20>Miracles are accomplished daily, the impossible takes a bit longer.<2E> (I know that quote is wrong OMB, forgive me!)  and OMB is THE Miracle Worker on this team.  When we run into a problem that we just can't seem to solve... OMB passes his wand over it and if fixing is possible, it happens.  OMB, the CTP team really appreciates all the work you have done and will continue to do for us and for the community at large.  May God bless you and keep you.

Description:

CTP's Babylon tileset is designed to give a builder a wide variety of choices when building a desert area in NWN.  Everything from flat desert terrain, or cliffs, or chasms, and several types of water terrains/features. For those looking for wide open desert environments to a very large selection of building types and groups for the desert city enthusiast it is all possible with this tileset.  Attention to detail was and remains our goal.  These tiles, features, and groups have all been radically changed from their original incarnations OR they were created completely new from scratch by the CTP team for this project.  We took over two years to get this set 'done'.  We sincerely hope you enjoy it.


Credited Contributions:

Babylon Gates textures by Lisa.
Desert Oasis tiles by Helvene along with some other building wall terrain tiles.
Desert Stream(s) and connectors by s030363l.
DOA (stairs and city gate)
Evil and Good Castle 2, heavily modified tiles based off of original work by PC_Maniac.
Floating Island by Yumi Chan
Palace, and several Gazebos based off of work by mohamed fakhry, modified by PC_Maniac, and modified again by the CTP team.
Marketplace terrain by Gavin.
OMB Oasis dedication tile by Gavin, modified by CTP.
Runemaker's Kelp forest reskinned to match then animated by CTP.
Schazzwozzer (Galleons)
Some_ux (Caravels and Airships)
Thallion Stellani's Hills and Homes (the Halfling stuff and Alleys)
TNO shipping by DLA.
Waterfalls originally based on tiles by Lucifer Church.

Numerous textures in this tileset were created by Simon O'Callaghan (www.simonoc.com) and by David Guerra (www.davegh.com). Although these textures were modified from their originals by CTP staff, it is only right to give credit where credit is due to these excellent texture artists who gave us the originals to work with. In both cases, it is permitted to use their work in games for non-commercial purposes only, so projects like the CTP seem to be exactly where they intended/hoped to see their work being utilised. Numerous free photo sites were also used; of all of these, www.cgtextures.com in particular deserves an honourable mention.

CTP Team contributions:
Evil Castle, Good Castle 2 and Poor buidting terrains were largely handled by Estelindis, along with some truly amazing texture work throughout the set.
General headaches added by Mask, free of charge.
Hanging Gardens group by Bannor Bloodfist by special request from and for Estelindis.
Loadscreens by Estelindis.
Pyramid groups by Bannor Bloodfist, along with various other connection terrain/crosser bits throughout the set.
Rich building terrain by Dragonessa. Along with some amazing texture work throughout the set.
Although many bugs were provided by  Bioware and various members of the community free of charge, we decided we didn't like them, so we squashed them wherever we saw them... Please excuse any bug juice you find remaining in the tileset.  If you DO find a bug that we missed, please contact the CTP so that we can kill it as quickly as possible... they tend to multiply without regard for humans.

Painting notes for builders:

   1. Paint water BEFORE painting shallows. (Not always necessary, but some combinations will NOT paint unless done this way.)
   2. Paint docks BEFORE painting docked ships.
   3. Water (city), Deep (Desert) along with Shallows are all water types of terrains that CAN be painted in various combinations. The Oasis water type, can only be connected via stream to the other water types as it is at a different height and needs a small waterfall to connect up to proper water level. A lot of effort went into getting these different water types to work together, however there are some limitations. The City water uses a different 'bottom' than the Deep/Desert AND Shallows water uses. Think of it as the city water is more a dirty color from years of sediments piling up. To get these three main water types to match, you have to jump through a hoop or two. Paint City OR Deep/Desert first, at least 2x3 tiles wide. You can now add the OTHER type(s)to a center edge section and continue building outwards in whatever direction with whatever version of the water you wish to use. Sometimes, you will have 'random' empty water tiles that do not match the color of the area you are painting. City / Desert Simply using erase, you can get the other water type (bottom) to match for a specific water type. Note that the edges all match up correctly, but the color of the bottom may not.
   4. Waterfalls - Raise desert terrain and create desertwater on that raise terrain (you need at least a 3 x 3 raise terain for that). Then place desertwater at the base of the raise terrain. After that you will be able to place desertwater right along the edge of the raise terrain, connecting the desertwater on top of the raise terrain with the desertwater at its base, forming the waterfalls.
   5. Buildings, and Buildings - Poor, can be painted on both raised city wall style tiles or flat terrain, however, Buildings Rich and Rock/Mud can NOT be painted against raised terrain at all. Sorry.
   6. Castles, Evil and Good Castle 2:  Both of these terrains have walkable balconies (2nd floor) and porches (1st floor).  Due to engine limitations, if you place a 1st floor tile next to a 2nd floor tile, it is possible to walk from 1st floor to 2nd floor without using a doorway/stairway.  This was the only choice we had.  If we block the access from 1st to 2nd floor, we also end up blocking continuous access at same level.  IE, you would not be able to have two 1st floor tiles next to each other or two 2nd floor tiles next to each other and be able to walk between them.  To BLOCK access between tiles of different levels in this environment, you, the builder, MUST paint a placeable that will block that edge.
   7. Many tiles have animesh and/or animations enabled. This includes all water tiles, and many of the desert terrain tiles that have animated plants. If you run into severe lag when creating an area, be sure to check if you really want those animations enabled on a tile-by-tile basis. These animations were added to make this tileset appear more alive.
   8. Cacti - a few, very few, tiles in the desert terrain have small cacti. While these are not appropriate in an Arabian desert environment, some folks like them. They are only paintable as features. Small, Medium and Large.
   9. Walls;  There are 4 basic types of walls in this set.  Wall 1 and 2 will paint up to and against 99% of the building terrains, all except the Rock/Mud and Rooftops.  Wall 3 will paint against almost ALL terrains and building types, including Rock/Mud (excluding rooftops).  Wall 4 will paint against most of the building terrains, but is more limited than the other 3.  Wall 1 and 2 are 'complete' in that they will interconnection in any combination you can paint, Walls 3 and 4 will ONLY connect with wall 1, 2 and 3 in a straight line OR as the base of a 'T' type connection where wall 1, 2 or 3 is the top of the 'T'.
   10. Raised terrain, the basic raised desert will auto paint one of two 'styles'.  When raising terrain, the engine autopaints from the various raised tiles, these include both a Bricked Wall type and a dirt cliff type.  This means that you MUST pay attention when raising terrain while building.  If the raised section has bricked walls and you do NOT want that, simply 'erase' until you get a plain section.  Vice/Versa if you start with plain and want the bricked sections.  Due to enging limitations, you can only have 1 raised terrain type, but we saw a need to have 2.  City and Rural types.  By having both paint automatically, you can accomplish raised sections in a city environment, or have raised cliff edges in a desert environment.  While this requires a bit of attention when building an area we feel this gives you much more power than just having a bricked in wall only.

Notes on the Rooftops terrain by OMB:

   1. Rooftops tiles are modified buildings with flat roofs that connect together seamlessly with their neighbours to create a continously-walkable upper level overlooking the normal street level, effectively doubling the useful space in an area.  
   2. Rooftops tiles can be painted over sand or 'city' water but not immediately next to elevations or any other terrain.
   3. A few tiles have doors out onto rooftop level, otherwise there are two stairway tiles to link down to the streets. To get the stairways, paint a straight rooftops tile and use the usual shift-right-click to cycle through the six available. Two of those six are stairways.
   4. All of the doorways in these tiles are standard-sized for generic doors.
   5. The tiles are liberally supplied with sourcelights set in flambeau cressets attached to the walls. It is not generally a good idea to turn them all on when building in the toolset because that many sourcelights can cause a significant performance hit if the player has shadows enabled. It is better just to turn on ones that illuminate important places.
   6. The masonry on these tiles has a subtle '3D' effect and under appropriate lighting conditions the bricks will seem to stand out in relief. This is a purely static feature so you can't turn it off.
   7. All of the windows in the Rooftops tiles have day/night animations. At dusk, orange glows turn on inside the buildings and shutters close, returning to normal at dawn. This is automatic and you can't turn them off but because there are no actual lights involved, there is no significant performance hit. Different tiles have slightly different timings to try to avoid the "clockwork city" effect.
   8. As with other city water tiles in this tileset, the water is animated to rise and fall slowly on a 10-second cycle. The amount of movement is relatively small and intended to be unobtrusive but sufficient to give "life" to the water. If you prefer a "dead" water effect, you can disable it by turning off the "Animation Loop 3" flag in the tile properties.


Links:

Original Textures can be located at these various sites, of course these are NOT the exact textures as they exist in this set, but this where we started from:  www.simonoc.com, www.davegh.com and www.cgtextures.com.

OHS (Old Man's Beard Henchman system)  http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Scripts.Detail&id=2568&comment_page=14
CM3 (Old Man's Bear Clean Models Program) http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=other.Detail&id=1151
CTP Generic Doors (By OMB) http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Hakpaks.Detail&id=59539&id=6376
CTP Home page http://www.rpgmodding.com/index.php?categoryid=1