Question about Decor

avatre21

Hi, sorry if this isn't the right place to ask. A few people have said my quest is a bit bare and so I'm trying to decorate it properly. The majority of my quest takes place in an old temple to Loviatar. I've managed to find a statue that "will do" for Loviatar though is really not ideal. The banners I've found are not appropriate, are we able to 'decorate' our own banners, at all? Crypts etc wouldn't really be appropriate. None of the paintings fit, though I could perhaps make use of the elf wizard one.

So basically, I was wondering if there's something I'm missing, is there a way to customize any of the decorations? At the minute, I'm really at a loss as to what I can use to fill the big spaces.

zbkolde

avatre21 wrote: »

Hi, sorry if this isn't the right place to ask. A few people have said my quest is a bit bare and so I'm trying to decorate it properly. The majority of my quest takes place in an old temple to Loviatar. I've managed to find a statue that "will do" for Loviatar though is really not ideal. The banners I've found are not appropriate, are we able to 'decorate' our own banners, at all? Crypts etc wouldn't really be appropriate. None of the paintings fit, though I could perhaps make use of the elf wizard one.

So basically, I was wondering if there's something I'm missing, is there a way to customize any of the decorations? At the minute, I'm really at a loss as to what I can use to fill the big spaces.

Just my two cents... i think most of the people saying "decorate more" are those who haven't experienced the limitations of the foundry assets (including other authors who had lots of things that fit into their story, assuming there should be more things that fit into yours). It's your story, your setting, don't ruin it to please someone who doesn't understand the editor. I've had people suggest i add things, and i have looked... literally every time i log in to the editor i scroll through the entire un-filtered list to see if there is something else i can add that fits. I don't want to just cram a bunch of stuff there to have stuff there, i want everything to have a meaning or purpose, or to fit. Our assets are very limited, but seeing how they added a few new things recently, it's hopeful they'll give us more toys later.

kamaliicious

avatre21 wrote: »

So basically, I was wondering if there's something I'm missing, is there a way to customize any of the decorations? At the minute, I'm really at a loss as to what I can use to fill the big spaces.

You can't tint, resize, or reskin anything, only rotate stuff around in 3d. You have to use what you see and try to be creative in using things in unexpected ways such as rotating a spiked pillar so it's flat and then hiding the pillar part in a wall so only the spike stick out (something I did for instance). If you play my second quest, you can see stuff like this in the boss room.

redneckronin

I don't think we can, which is a shame, it would be nice to have a "blank banner" to which we could an overlay.

Personally I didn't think the Temple area needed much more, (if it is Once Bitten we are talking about), but the village area could do with some additional decor I thought, especially (on reflection) the space between the building and the Mausoleum entrance, perhaps a fence or two to make it feel like a worked field.

Having played Apoc's Ravenloft Intro last night I was amazed at just how much stuff he had in there, and how "real" it made things feel. I think I am going to err on the side of "more is better" when it comes to details like that from now on, its just a matter of getting them in the right place to not make things feel cluttered.

PS: Do you get the same effect I do, where you look at your own quest and can't think what else to add without making it too busy, but then when you see a similar emptiness in someone else's quest you think "that could do with more stuff". Was just thinking about the feedback Harbingerdrum gave me regarding the sewers in mine, I thought they were stuffed to the point of being too busy and I was worried about feedback saying "too much clutter".


PPS: Lady Melisandra (sp?) was brilliantly done.

All The Best

oggbrox

Yes - the Foundry is sometimes very limited. Here and there I just use things who are looking good, even if they are not fitting into the "lore". I think I put some ruins on my map and they are from a whole other part of the Neverwinter-story. Lore-freaks will say "they are not fitting into the setting". I say, that it looks good. If the atmosphere is right... why not?

Also used dwarven architecture for a human house. They are noble... so I cheat and say that they are sooo noble... they recovered it from a lost dwarf-forge. Many horses and men needed... but no problem for the aristrocratic family.

I put hoovering lava-stones into a cave. It makes no sense in the lore... because I think the stones are from this flame-mountain with the big flame-dwarfs. But I don't care. Things are limited, so I will use anything that fits to the atmosphere.

shorlong

No, you can't create your own decorations. However, you can use banners that may not fit your story because the shield or something on the banner does not match yours, but I guarantee you no one will notice. You just have to go with what looks good. I was at a loss for a long time, and am finally starting to come around to how these things work. Take a look at a lot of the items in the details tab, and see if just one part of that item will work, use plants, rubble, something to break up the floor and the walls and the ceiling. It's a crypt, crypts are not clean. Put some random rocks and bricks all over, have some dust falling from some areas, spiderwebs in some corners, part of a root breaking through the floor, some moss on a rock or wall or sarcophagus where some sunlight is coming through, along with some flowers or something. Turn off all the lighting in each room and add your own dynamic and static lights, torches, etc. Flies and roaches will add a lot of atmosphere as well.

Also, make sure to put in some fog in the distance. For a crypt, something like the purple or black fog, the lower end ones, would work fine to kind of cover up the stuff in the distance if you don't have a lot of things populating areas up high.

Also, don't be afraid to get stuff out of other area types, not just crypts.

It just takes a lot of creativity and patience. Good luck!

anrix2

This thread is pretty useful, I don't think it ever made it to sticky status

http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?308021-MAKING-BETTER-ENVIRONMENTS-A-how-to-post&highlight=environment

avatre21

Thanks, I'll have to have another play around and see what I can find. I will try your quest kamaliicious and see what you've done. Redneckronin, it's the Lonely Dagger Inn I'm looking at, at the minute. The village area should be pretty much straightforward for my other quest, there's a lot of things I could put in there.

adjuchasbrokk

avatre21 wrote: »

Hi, sorry if this isn't the right place to ask. A few people have said my quest is a bit bare and so I'm trying to decorate it properly. The majority of my quest takes place in an old temple to Loviatar. I've managed to find a statue that "will do" for Loviatar though is really not ideal. The banners I've found are not appropriate, are we able to 'decorate' our own banners, at all? Crypts etc wouldn't really be appropriate. None of the paintings fit, though I could perhaps make use of the elf wizard one.

So basically, I was wondering if there's something I'm missing, is there a way to customize any of the decorations? At the minute, I'm really at a loss as to what I can use to fill the big spaces.

The assets you can use to decorate your maps are limited to what is currently available in the toolset, so my advice would be to avoid highly specific themes until more assets are available to us.

As for decorations, take a look around some existing content, don't be afraid to over-decorate.

ovaltine74

Something I was guilty of in my first quest was jumping right into adding objectives, NPCs, and encounters, before the environment was ready. The one map I didn't do that on is the one people like the most. Now I make it a personal rule to get the environment completely decked out before I do anything else. I make it the single focus of my effort. I resist the urge to move on in the project until the environment is perfect.

Like I said, that is my own personal rule. It works for me, maybe it can work for you.

redneckronin

avatre21 wrote: »

Thanks, I'll have to have another play around and see what I can find. I will try your quest kamaliicious and see what you've done. Redneckronin, it's the Lonely Dagger Inn I'm looking at, at the minute. The village area should be pretty much straightforward for my other quest, there's a lot of things I could put in there.

Yeah, just got back from making a coffee and had that "Ah, I got the wrong quest" moment, my apologies.

I think Shorlong pretty much nailed it to be honest.

The final part of my three-part chain is in a crypt, and I'm already thinking of things to throw in there, especially some of the bigger rooms, in fact I think part of the problem in the Crypt room-set is perhaps too grand, and I may switch to using a "tarted up" Dungeon room-set instead.

It would be nice if there was a statue and banner/flag set for every deity, so we could really customise things, and to be honest given that the Foundry was such a major element of the "hard sell" for the game I am a bit bemused why they aren't there already.

All The Best

redneckronin

ovaltine74 wrote: »

Something I was guilty of in my first quest was jumping right into adding objectives, NPCs, and encounters, before the environment was ready. The one map I didn't do that on is the one people like the most. Now I make it a personal rule to get the environment completely decked out before I do anything else. I make it a the single focus of my effort. I resist the urge to move on in the project until the environment is perfect.

Like I said, that is my own personal rule. It works for me, maybe it can work for you.

Can I ask, are your objectives/NPCs so independent of the environment that you can do that?

For me my NPCs especially are part of the environment, in some cases quite integral to it, so I have the NPC in quite early to see how things "look" and feel around them, what you see over their shoulder when talking to them etc.

Like you say, we all work in different ways, but its very interesting to get a glimpse of how others do it.

All The Best

ovaltine74

redneckronin wrote: »

Can I ask, are your objectives/NPCs so independent of the environment that you can do that?

For me my NPCs especially are part of the environment, in some cases quite integral to it, so I have the NPC in quite early to see how things "look" and feel around them, what you see over their shoulder when talking to them etc.

Like you say, we all work in different ways, but its very interesting to get a glimpse of how others do it.

All The Best

I am aware of where I am going to place NPCs while I am crafting the environment. You can't help but think of other things you are going to be doing while trying to focus on one thing. But I resist going to the NPC editor and sticking the NPC in there, because that would send me off on a whole other tangent when I mean to work on just the environment. I keep ideas in the back of my mind while working but resist actually jumping on them.