Home For Builders Builder Profile: Lisa

Builder Profile: Lisa

Profile by Jay Watamaniuk,
May 14, 2003

You've at least taken a peek at her scandalous module (c'mon now you know you did), you've seen her fine clothing haks just about everywhere and now you just can't seem to avoid her name when it comes to fine modifications to NWN. Lisa (or her screen name of Tiamiat) is a great example of a beginner who started with no technical knowledge at all and now is the top of the game. We caught up with Lisa to ask her about some of her creations… Where can I find Lisa's numerous creations? Download from Neverwinter Vault You can also get more information at NWN Builders

What was the first thing you created for the NWN community? Why did you have a desire to contribute?

My very first creation was my mod, which I started making a few days after NWN hit the stores; I got my copy the first day. I was curious about playing with the toolset. I had never attempted anything remotely like this - it was a huge challenge for me to figure out even a little scripting (the closest I had to that was "Intro to BASIC" back in high school). Heck, I think it took me half an hour just to figure out how to do a simple triggered area transition. (I didn't have the World Builder book - still don't - and there was not much help online back then. First, I built a castle then, I needed a story to go with it and through a confluence of silly events outlined in a few earlier articles (some at NWNBuilders and one on NWNvault, I ended up with a mod that got released on a dare and became an off the wall hit of sorts.

Editor's Note- The module that Lisa has very carefully avoided mentioning to attempt to spare our delicate sensibilities is 'Sex and the Single Adventuress' which has been downloaded a staggering 144, 000 times and has a rich, full-bodied texture with a saucy hint of impertinence . Warning- Very silly humorous yet mature themes throughout.

The first serious custom content pieces that I released were my miniskirts, wizard skirts, and long skirt prototypes. The NWN community, on the whole, has been extremely nice to me so a lot of my haks contain items that I created for other NWN fans by special request, while others were just inspirations from my own mind, or ostensibly something I needed for my own serious 2nd mod.

What are some of your favorite Haks you have created and why?

Well, I love my Clothes haks because I believe that dressing your NPC's correctly lends tons of atmosphere to a mod. Also, because I learned a lot while making them. Most of my first creations were done by studying and altering pre-existing models and textures from the game. Some were just sliced right off monsters then tailored and plt'd to suit player character races. As the year has gone on, I've gotten to making models from scratch and even some textures from scratch. I've had a great time probably because I don't consider myself artistic at all but it is amazing what you can do with freebee 2D and 3D art software.

I was pretty pleased with my rotated vertically held staves for mages and druids, even if I couldn't get them to lay flat when on the ground or do new walking stick animations. I nearly always play a wizard PC. I wanted something daintier, more effete if you will, than the game models, which are burly enough for an Orc Friar Tuck.

I also really like my parasols, dragon tapestries, and Babylon walls just because they are beautiful. The holy symbols turned out better than I expected and were a cool idea that I did totally by request. The bathroom was done to "tweak" my cousin who is a SIMS fanatic. Not to say I don't also like my Mirrors, Crystal balls, Old Women, Canopics, Celtic Crosses… the list is getting long but each hak has something special that I liked. You can get to my list of haks on NWNvault by clicking here. It's like asking me to pick between my cats Cy and Rox or my horse Jinn or my dog Ike - can't be done I love 'em all.

You have created some of the best clothing choices for NWN gamers- why the interest in creating clothing?

Well, I joke a lot that it is because I played too much Barbie's as a kid. What actually got me started was my second mod that has the working title "Probably-Never-Gonna-Be-Finished". I had started this "serious" mod and found it needed lots of NPC women: ladies, girls, servants, nannies, gypsies, hags… and pants on everybody just didn't work for me. Pants looked all wrong and totally spoiled the atmosphere. Plus the main PC would need to be a wizard and there were elder wizard NPC's to be hanging about and they just didn't look right in pants either (sorry).

So anyway, my "serious" mod got bogged down while I started learning to make models. I saw Kinarr's cloaks come out and it seemed that others were interested in robes and dresses so I put mine out to test reactions. I think I was the first one to include PC wearable invisible leg parts to cut down the vertical movement clipping. People seemed to like them enough to encourage me to continue to make improvements such as some dangly mesh motion and new textures. I know they still clip into the ground during sitting animations but I think they can add a lot of atmosphere, especially on NPC's. Now I am working a queen's dress that will only look good when she is sitting. If I want her to stand, I'll have to script a quick clothing change I guess.

The monk outfit and plain pants were special requests by other community members. Many of my more recent items have been special request items.

You also have a wide selection of very unusual items such as parasols, bathroom fixtures and cat-o-nine tails to name a few. Were some of these created with a specific purpose or module in mind?

About 2/3 of the items were made for use in my own 2nd mod, the others were requests that caught my fancy and were fun or a challenge to do. Actually, challenge and fun are the same things to me. That's probably why I became a math professor, that or else there is a Lawful-Evil Vizier lurking in me.

Unusual requests get me going too; someone posted a request for a "torch" to be made to look like a black umbrella on the BioWare NWN Custom Content board. I whipped it up as a staff instead because it looked better when held in the game and you can use it as a weapon! I liked it so much I made a couple pretty yet deadly ladies parasols to go with it.

Then of course, there is my motto "Dragons make everything even better", so I try to incorporate dragons whenever possible. The "Probably-Never-Gonna-Be-Finished" mod story revolves around four dragon sisters who also morph into witches.

What would you like to see more of being created in the NWN community?

There are so many things being created it boggles my mind.

I see my part as sweating some of the small stuff - atmosphere items - so I guess I like these the best. My favorite overall creation was Brandon's camera hak, I hope he gets it back to where you can do close in zooms again (I miss that). Also, I would like to see more tilesets based on ancient cultures like say Babylon; Martin E tells me he is working on some Celtic tilesets that I look forward to seeing. In addition, more clothes, especially Asian and Egyptian. A girl can never have too many clothes to choose from.

Actually, being a huge Fallout fan, I love some of the D20 modern items too. I am writing a future time travel sub-quest into the "Probably-Never-Gonna-Be-Finished" mod just so I can use some of it.

What is your own experience in modeling and textures?

Before NWN, the sum total of my computer modeling & computer art experience was ZILCH. Of course there were a few art classes as a kid in school like everyone else though (crayons and papier-mâché).

This art aspect of NWN has really hooked me. This is the first time a "game" has ever given me a sense of my own creativity. I have learned how to use some basic 3D graphics programs (Milkshape 3D and GMax fit my budget) and some 2D graphics programs (I had Paintshop Pro, which I'd never before used, and GIMP I picked up for use with Sam Jones' plt layer separation program). I figured out color channel editing and plt's and think my textures are progressing all the time The day I stumbled on alpha channel masks for my TGA's was unforgettably fun.

Any advice for builders out there who have great ideas but do not know where to start?

Read some of the tutorials, mine are at NWNBuilders, and pull items you admire from the game or other haks and investigate them (just open 'em up - be it in notepad, GMax, or GIMP).

Study the file naming and other file conventions so you know where things are and where they go. Get the raw tools like a viewer, hak packer, mdl to ASCII translator, plt converter, 3D art program, 2D art program… If you're rich, you might even get some of the pricey programs but believe me you can do quite a bit even with the freebees.

Most importantly: Just Dive In and Try It!

The best that could happen is you impress yourself and have fun!

What's the worst that can happen?

Hmmm…
Innumerable scripts that bomb but you learn a lot by trying anyway.
Forget to change a node reference in a model that makes the toolset lock up. No biggie.
Put a tattoo on an inventory plt - hmmm… crashes every time - so dump the tattoo in the inventory plt and leave it only on the actual model plt.
You accidentally make a translucent crystal ball or some such just by dinking about in a model file using notepad - oops, no that was good!
Add one of your haks and find it somehow corrupted the mod. Well, of course you rotate your saves so not much loss.
OK, once something totally cracked up the game and it would not restart, so I had to reinstall NWN from scratch and re-download the patches. Just keep backups of your important stuff. Actually, I keep a backup of my entire NWN directory so I'll never have to reinstall from scratch again.

Lastly, if you are really stumped, post a coherent question on the BioWare NWN Toolset or Custom Content board. There are bunches of really nice people who will try to help you through the tricky spots.

Can we expect more excellent material from you in the future?

Oh probably, I do think my stuff is getting better all the time and I try to only put out things I think are decent and someone may appreciate or find a use for in their mod. I like doing interesting little request items, but some requests I get frankly are beyond my skill - like skirts that don't clip the ground when the character sits. I suspect it might take some changes in the way the game program works and/or new animations; all that is way past me. Danglymesh is very tough for me to do, as mostly I have to do it in notepad by guessing - similarly with emitters. I go through phases, but messing about and making stuff has become addicting. Even more fun than actually playing the game (go figure!) I'm always keeping an eye out for my next idea.