Giving the elves a place of their own

Wood Elf Village

 

 

Poor elves, they never seem to get a place to call home.  I have finally got around to doing something I have promised to do for a while, a elven village deep into the woods.

 

The is only the first part of it though as I want to have half of it in the trees, a home any tree hugger would be glad to call home.  I'll make no bones about it though, I was heavily influenced  by the work of "Ash Darkwwod" who did a lot of the building on Necrosis and Sundren many moons ago.  She really inspired and helped me when I was taking my first steps in the toolset.

 

Looking down over the firepit towards the portal.

 

 

A shot back into the camp, both of the watch towers can be climbed

 



 

Looking up the trail from the gates.

 

 

A shot from inside the gates towards the trail.

 

The campfire seen from the other direction

 

 

 







Woodland Trail

I added a set of three wooded areas to the Neverwinter Nexus tonight.  The idea behind them originally was to do a small part of the Moonwood of the Silver Marches.  I have always struggled with evergreen types of trees in woods as it takes so many of them to make the woods look dense.

The module can be downloaded here:
The Woodland Trail

I think I have managed to pull of a decent looking wooded trail though I am still not sure its exactly what I wanted to do.

Textures

Textures

Textures and colours are really what makes and breaks a area. Good use of either can really change how a area will look and give it a completly different feel. I am going to use as an example a demo I did for the Greenwood in the Gray Isles Server.

 For the Greenwood I am aiming for a overgrown forest that makes you feel you are deep into the woods.

I changed the default grass to dirt_05 and then cover it over with grass_37 at 30% pressure. I then use a large brush and randomly brush over the area at 40% pressure with grass_37 so the whole thing looks patchy. I then select grass_14 and using a medium brush size again set to 30% pressure I repeat the process. Once that is done I go to a medium brush size and up the pressure to 40% and again randomly move over the area leaving patches of grass till I have an effect like this:

I then break out grass_37 again this time setting the pressure to around 60% and randomly move over the area again creating a more patchwork apperance. While all this takes time is does allow you to build a very well broken up set of textures without the repeating patten you get from using just one texture.

Next I move onto blight_06 again starting with a low pressure and building the pressure with each pass. I usually start as low as 20% pressure and finsh around 50% in small patches. Eventually ending up with something like this:

After that I introduce grass_38 at around 40% pressure in a few places to provide a even more broken surface. Sometimes I will go back and use one of the other grass textures over places I think the blight is showning through too much. In reality its all about personal taste in how much time you invest in this part of the area. Having done quite a few Greeenwood areas I can do this pretty quickly now as I am wotking from a standard pallet. If I was doing a "new" type of area like a mountian etc there would be a lot of trial and error in the process.

Well I now have a nice look textured ground, the next step is to vary it a little more with some use of the colour options found under terrain. Its very easy to overdo the part and its default pressure of 50% is too high for the effect I am after. I usually go with 10% and a very light touch of the brush. Sweeping moves over the ground and not lingering in any one spot for too long as the colour will rapidly overwhelm the effect we are looking for.

This is how the area looks after a brush over with a wash of brown and green. Again patchwork is the effect we are looking for.

Hobson's Landing on the Nexus

I finished the interiors of Hobson's landing a few days ago and uploaded it onto the Neverwinter Nexus, I used to use the nwvault for my stuff but I think the Nexus is a far better place at the moment for people to upload their content.  The big plus is you don't have to wait while the upload is approved.

 

If you want to download the area and look around then head to the nexus:
Hobson's Landing at the Nexus

The Grey Isles

I was the head builder on this project for quite a while, its a good solid server with a dedicated staff who look as if they are ready to take it on to the next level after the recent changes that have been made.

After a discussion with Silverling last week I came up with this area for them to use as a new start area, seems Silver wanted something that grabbed peoples attention from the off!

Hobson's Landing

The focal point for my new project, the hamlet of Hobson's Landing.  A small frontier outpost serving those making their way into the wilds.


The jetty onto which most traveller's arrive.

The temple:

A view down the main road towards the river:

I will be adding the usual stores to area next as every adventurer needs his equipment.  Ill also be building a inn, the Golden Goblet so our heros can get a good nights sleep before going out into the wilds to his stuff!

 

 

 

First Post

 

Hey my first ever blog!

This blog will chart my continuing building projects within the game NWN2.  Most of the areas I show on here will be released for download for players and other builders to use.

Over the last 2-3 years I have built for a number of PWs, all of which I have enjoyed and learnt many new ideas to help improve my area building skills.