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Erick D's Amazing Emitter Shields

Profile by Jay Watamaniuk

When Neverwinter Nights was released, BioWare had no idea of what to expect from the community of talented fans. And now, each week without fail, we find some creation, some fan-inspired innovation, that surprises us for its ability to improve everyone's game experience. This week, BioWare's Craig Welburn ran across some new shields created by Erick D. that impressed him so much he walked into my office and pointed them out. The elegance of his creations amazed me. We caught up with Erick D. to get his thoughts on his work.

Where can gamers download the Emitter-Based Shields HakPak?

Erick: At the Neverwinter Nights Vault

What experience and training do you have in scripting or 3D modelling?

Erick: I have been working with various graphics related software for many years now. I used to study in an architecture school, so while I was not officially trained to do programming or modeling, out of interest and necessity I had to self-teach tools like Photoshop, AutoCAD, MicroStation, Flash, and so on. These tools were extremely useful in aiding the presentation of ideas and concepts. I cannot remember how to use half of these programs now, but one never really forgets thinking skills and languages, and all these come in useful when scripting and making custom content for Neverwinter Nights.

What is your experience with Neverwinter Nights?

Erick: Neverwinter Nights is easily my best gaming investment. There has never been a game that can keep me playing for so long. Neverwinter Nights is entertaining on so many levels, and I get to experience and enjoy it as a player, as a builder, as a scripter, and as a modeller. I can still remember my excitement when I finally got a pair of doors to link correctly (those darn things!). The toolset is one great utility, and developing custom content is now my full-time passion.

The community has been great and supportive so far, and I have become close friends with a few strange but nice folks here. I certainly look forward to a long lasting relationship with this game and community.

Can you break down how you created your unique shields?

Erick: I have received several mails asking questions similar to this, which is quite surprising. I obviously thought the shields are cool, else I would not have published them, but they are not particularly complicated structurally, and I did not think people would be that baffled.

The existing shields in the toolset are solid and heavy looking, unsuitable for magi and spell-casting characters, and I needed something lighter and more ethereal for a few characters I was making. And that initiated the whole crafting process.

As a design challenge, I had two self-imposed restrictions. The first was to use emitters and emitters only, and the second to use as few custom textures as possible. For you non-modellers, there are several classes of objects in Neverwinter Nights, and emitters are the ones in charge of visual effects and all things flashy and sparkly. The first restriction of using only emitters was to keep the series of shields thematically unified. It would not be the same had I threw in a solid ice shield with dripping condensations or a charred skull with burning flame into the bunch, even if those were nice ideas to have. The second restriction was to keep the download size small, as well as to see how far I could go reusing the same texture on as many shields without having any one of them look the same. In the end, only one single custom texture was used, and the community can easily create hundreds more variations of these shields by replacing this single texture and re-colouring some of the emitters.

The first step in making these shields was to come up with the designs. The only thing needed here was i-ma-gi-na-tion. As I wanted each and every single one of these shields to be unique in shape and form, this step took the most time.

The second step was to setup the framework of these shields in 3DS Max. A little basic trigonometry was needed to calculate the angles required for the curved surfaces, the locations of the emitters, and the dimensions required for each face. That was the easy part. The hard part in modeling these shields came from the emitter components being invisible in the Max interface, and some mental modeling was required to figure out how the shields would turn out in-game. For non-modelers, emitters are represented by cone-shaped icons in max, and do not at all indicate how they will look like in-game, so it is a bit like setting up fireworks on the ground and having the explosions fall into precise patterns in the air.

Filling in information for the emitters within max is quite tedious, which I avoided. The third step was to export the skeletal framework and then externally assign the values for colours, textures, dimensions, and such, using my plain text editor.

And the last step was to make the inventory icons and get the shields into the game.

What online resources, if any, helped you?

Erick: The community has certainly accumulated a whole lot of knowledge and experience over the years, and it is undoubtedly much easier to create custom content now than before. The write-up on emitters in the Wiki CCG was particularly enlightening in this case. Several other community produced tools were also indispensable, namely Joco's NWMax and Roboius's NWN Explorer. I encourage all other aspiring content makers to check out these resources.

What are you working on now?

Erick: I arrived fairly late in the scene, and it is rather hard for newcomers to gain recognition in a community that is already full of big names and established veterans. Right now, I am working doubly hard to build up my portfolio, and hopefully, will have accumulated enough skills, experience, and reputation to dive right into Dragon Age and Neverwinter Nights 2 when they arrive, and perhaps even get myself a chance to work with the professionals.

I have been working with Dallo and friends for close to a year now in the production of the sequel to Hall of Fame module Caereena - Krakona Rising. Caereena is an epic level, story-driven, custom world with lots of roleplaying opportunities, lots of action-packed combat scenes, and lots of intricately designed areas. It features a unique blend of gaming styles that is suitable for players of all kinds, and we hope to continue this tradition in creating a sequel for players to further their adventures in the world of Caereena.

There has also been a fair amount of jabbing and poking from the community to have me implement windows, as seen in Castle Interior Windows, into other tilesets. Windows is an add-on that allows builders to perforate holes in walls and create realistic-looking windows with actual sceneries that cycle between day and night in the otherwise enclosed interiors. The good news is, City Interior Windows is almost done, and it probably should be up in the vault by the time this article gets published. A lot was learnt when making Castle Interior Windows, and City Interior Windows promises to be much more polished and much more versatile, with different window types and different sceneries to choose from.

And then, there is this "other" project I mentioned in several places. This is still very early in development stage, and the community probably will not see anything for a few more months.

So, all in all, there are works waiting to be done and the community can expect to see more of my projects in the future.

Related Links

• NWN Custom Content Forum
• Our 3DS Max files
• Custom Content Guide
• Ulef's Changing the Emitters on a Creature guide on NWVault

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