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Builder Profile - Brother Roth

Profile by Jay Watamaniuk,
April 16, 2003

In our continuing look at some of the finest community made hakpaks we sit down with Brother Roth who has created a fine assortment of placeables to breathe life into your campaign.

 

Elander Fizzletwit pitches a tent.

Rustic Shelters He modeled a wide assortment of shelter from tents to shacks that come in different shapes, sizes and colors. The larger tents can be entered and filled with placeable objects to add to the realism for your military base, orcish campsite or a small stopover as you travel between cities. For fun in the shack: Download Rustic Shelters Here

 

Captain Rummhed surveys the wreckage of his ex-ship, The Lady Valdez.

Shipwrecks For those dark and stormy nights when that crazy old sailor is telling chilling tales of ships that were dashed across the harsh rocks sending good men to the watery doom Brother Roth has created an excellent collection of both recently destroyed ships and weathered ship parts to scatter across the shoreline. For beat up booms: Download Fine Weathered Shipwrecks Here For fresh wrecks: Download Newly Shipwrecked Parts Here

 

Brother Roth Speaks!

1. The idea to create a shipwreck as a placeable object seems very specific- did you have a particular use in mind for such a placeable?

The first thing I tried to create with the tool set was a recreation of a PnP adventure I ran that involved rescuing the crew of a shipwreck. At that moment the seeds of my shipwrecks were planted.

2. You have also done some great work on modeling some placeable objects tents that can be used to create a much more vivid camp area. Did you have something specific in mind when you were working on the tents?

Out of the three hakpaks I've done (rustic shelters/tents, misc debris #1, and shipwrecks), the tents/shelters appear to be the most popular on the vault. I think I know why...

In all my years of PnP D&D, when we got away from the city, eventually we have to sleep and tents, shacks and shelters always came into play.

I had started to work on a module that began with refugees camped outside a town beset with foul beasts - well the camp was difficult to reproduce with out an array of tents, shelters and shacks.

When Rob requested the tents for WWII, it was a chance to add some cool features like dangly mesh, so the tents billow in the wind. I get lots of good comments on the way the tent tops fade out when you step inside them. It's kind of cool to walk into a military camp and meet with the general inside his personal tent.

The miscellaneous debris hakpak was born from the same need. Once in the town beset with foul beasts, I need the place to look trashed. Rooms full of pristine furniture did not convey the effect I wanted - and so was born what is my personal favorite hakpak - broken chairs, tables, barrels - what fun.

3. What experience do you have in 3D modeling?

A fair amount actually. One of the things I do in my day job is build 3D models of manufacturing equipment and build interactive lessons on how to maintain them. I also do web development and frequently find ways to incorporate artwork from 3D models and I do product concept renderings on occasion. Switching to low polygon modeling and figuring out how to get models into NWN was a challenge - thank goodness for the user community heroes who paved the way.

I'm probably one of the few NWN user community modelers who works in Lightwave rather than Max. I use Max to create the final output - but 90% of my work is done in Lightwave.

4. Have you received any requests for special placeable objects from fans?

Honestly, only a few. Which is a good thing really because I don't think I could meet the demand! It's easier to honor requests that are tweaks to my existing hakpaks or challenging requests that interest me. If my hearts not in it, I usually pass.

5. Can we expect more great additions from you in the future?

Yes. Personally I wanted to learn how to do placeables, monsters and tilesets. Have released the three placeable hakpaks, I'm now doing my first monster pak of 3-4 creatures. I don't want to reveal too much yet, but fans can look for something soon.