Aralon

And now for something completely different...

The last few days I have been playing with the Ipad I got my wife for Christmas. Went searching the App store for RPG games and came up with - Aralon! I must say i was very pleasantly surprised. While not as detailed or comprehensive as NWNII, it is very playable and entertaining. It has multiple classes and even a few tricks NWNII doesn't have - including ridable horses and beasts! Very cool. I can't wait to see what Ossian comes up wth for "Shadow Sun". The screen shots look fantastic, and after seeing what Aralon could accomplish, I know we are in for a real treat. I have included a simple screenshot from the app store.

On the "Winter Promises" front, I have been spending time in the village of "Lakton" - a town on Mirror lake, where significant developments will take place. Have linked up the location to the world map, and am currently finishing the interiors and townfolk. Spent a wonderful crash-free afternoon. I am home from work with my wife who just underwent "minor" surgery (personally I don't think there is such a thing). She is recovering well so I had a few hours while she was napping.

Back on Track

No pics this time - just sharing the good news that I have now fully recovered from the last crash back in October. I did a little work over the Christmas holidays, but kept running into things that had worked previously, but now weren't. I had almost resigned myself to recreating a lot of stuff when I discovered I had been working on a back-up file that wasn't the most recent. Swapped files and I was good to go. Thank god I have been pretty well disciplined about back-ups.

Had no idea how quickly you can forget some of the everyday stuff in the toolset when you don't use it. The good news is that with the long weekend for King's b'day, I had a chance to spend some quality time with the mod. It was very frustrating at first - but it was mostly just stupid little things I forgot - i.e. "oh you have to import companion scripts. No wonder my new companion would seem to join the party but then refuse to follow me"! It is actually kind of funny now looking back.

This morning I did a play through of what I have so far, taking notes as I went. The Mod plays at about 2 hours currently - assuming you do everything possible (which is not necessary to complete the Mod). Then managed to forge ahead a little. I have almost all of the critical plot elements at least sketched out. All of the external areas are now functioning with the world map though I still have to create about 50% of the custom load screens. Now there is a lot of conversation writing to do, not to mention a few key areas yet to be developed. It feels great to be back on track. Forgot how addicting this stuff can be!

God bless us everyone!

Wanted to say "Merry Christmas" to everyone! Here in Genoa Illinois it is certainly a white Christmas. A gentle snow fell all day yesterday, and the weather folks are saying more on the way for today.

I drew the illustration above over 30 years ago! It is based on "A Christmas Carol" - I did it after seeing the movie "Scrooge" which is the musical version of the Dickens story. Time certainly does fly. I hope you all are safe, warm, and with the ones you love. Those are the only gifts anyone really needs.

Seasonal Screens

There is a line from one of my favorite holiday movies, "The Bishop's Wife", where a bind man says to Cary Grant "I have hopes". That is how I feel - I have hopes that some day this mod will actually be finished! In that spirit, and facing the reality that it probably will not be until this time next year (at the rate I'm going), that I decided to experiment with a new look for my screen shots. Make them a bit more festive and seasonal. It is, after all, called "Winter Promises. Hope you like the look.

Some folks have asked which one I am in the photo in the previous post. FYI - I am the bearded "old fart" on the right.

Road to the Heart (shameless plug)

Quite a few of you have expressed interest in my nusic, so I thought i would share the good news. My singer songwriting partner (David Van Delinder) and I have finally released our second CD - "Road to the Heart". It is available now on CDbaby. Should arrive at Itunes soon. We issued a pre-release signed version a few years back, but were never happy with it. This was the first album we recorded entirely in our basement studios, and between the time we started, and the time we "finished", much had changed. We had new equipment, new software, and of course, new knowledge. So we revisted the tracks, redoing vocals, in some cases redoing whole songs, and changed out one song for another. I think it was worth the time and effort. You can hear the sample tracks on CDbaby here. The full version of "Winter Promises" is on the CD.

There are also 2 "fantastic" (IMHO) Christmas songs, "A place where I belong", as well as "Midwestern Christmas". So give it a listen. If you like what you hear, whether you purchase or not, please leave a review - we would really appreciate it.

Have actually started working on the mod some - its taking a while to get back into the swing of things, but with the season's first real snow hitting today, its definately putting me in the mood. Hope everyone has a fantastic Holiday season!

Hiatus

Figured I should update since its been a while. Had a minor setback with a crash - however all is well and most of the work was recovered successfully. Have not has much time to work on the Mod. Hope to get back to it this winter. Being a social service provider in the State of Illinois means funding is short, and when payments from the state are late, things get tense rapidly. What little free time I have has been spent on the music side of things. Its great therapy, and in times like these it keeps me going.

Wanted to also share my new web site. It focuses mostly on the music, so if you liked "Winter Promises", and would like to hear more, give me a visit here. I have posted some finished songs, as well as a few "works in progress". David and I (David Van Delinder - mu partner in "crime") are just about to release our second cd, "Road to the heart". It should be on Cdbaby in a few weeks, and Itunes shortly thereafter. Hope you like what you hear!

Messing with Custom Load Screens

Managed to pull myself away from the olympics for a while. Ran into a mental block while wrestling with one of the plot twists, so I decided to tackle something I have been meaning to get to for a while - custom load screens. Came up with a few very basic designs and then dashed off into the toolset to set them up, and test. Many thanks to those of you who have "gone before". I would have never figured this out on my own! While there is still a lot of experimenting to do before I get just the feel I am after, it is always a gas to see things functioning "in game" as they are supposed to. Initially, I had the screens loading properly the first time, but then failing when I returned to an area. Turned out to be an error in the way I was saving them (24 bit vs 16 bit tga files). Once I sorted that out (16 is the way to go), all was smooth sailing. Have included 2 variant of the screens captured "in game".

Thought I would post an update just to let everyone know that Winter Promises is still alive and well! Everything slowed down considerably just before Thanksgiving when my desktop machine had a major crash. The good news was that I had just backed up to a zip drive, and didn't lose a thing (I would have lost everything without that back-up). That meant, however, that I was limited to my laptop for a while, and everything slowed down considerably. Then came the holidays with visits from the family, and also helping out with the beta testing of Trinity. And I must admit to being a "little" distracted with Dragon Age.

However - the work goes on. The Desktop machine has NWNII, MOYB, And SOZ reinstalled, and all is good to go. I have been working on updating the world map to integrate the newest content, as well as re-visiting conversations and quests with the same purpose. Only one screenie this time. Those of you who played Price of Honor will remember the good mayor Deeds (Christine's father). This shot is the interior of the Deeds household, where our hero is about to speak with the hired help.

Hope everyone had a great Holiday! And hey - if you aren't one of the more than 500 players who have already checked out Trinity by E.C. Patterson - give it a try. You will be glad that you did - it is fantastic!

New Areas - The Plot Thickens

Time to check in and summarize the latest progress. Been very busy in the yard trying to get ready for summer. Major landscaping this year with a new retaining wall. Also had a family reunion and saw some cousins I hadn't seen since we played together as kids. Lots of fun, in spite of overwhelming heat and humidity. We had over 70 people in attendance - all camping out for the weekend at a site in Wisconsin. 

I have been busy on the Mod trying to finish up the needed area's - though it seems that just about the time I think I have them all, I find the need for yet another. Above are scenes from the "Inn of the Twelve Travelers"(inside and out). as well as a shaman's cave (internal) and some Dwarf halls - both outside and in (thanks to RWS). Lots of set decorating to do on the dwarf halls, but the other areas are close to "good to go". Besides "decorating", I still have at least two more internal areas to complete. Hope to get back to plotting soon - the main outline is done, but lots of details remain to be completed.

Hope everyone (in the U.S.) had a great and safe Holiday.

Long Holiday weekend

Took a few extra days over the Memorial Day weekend and when not doing yard work managed to spend some time with the toolset. Finished a new swamp exterior which ended up with the exact feel I was going for - and that doesn't happen all that often! After reading a post at the community site, I spent considerable time experimenting with ambiance - the end result being that I began populating my Oasis area with folks doing various things besides just standing around. Ended up using 3 different methods, but all are "playing nice in the sandbox". And I'm learning - which is half the fun. Still have a considerable way to go, but the more I do, the quicker it goes, so when I tackle the next area, it should only take about half the time. 

Began work on a new external area for a side-quest tentatively called "The Inn of the Twelve Travelers". Perhaps next post I will have some screens of that ready for viewing. In the mean time, I have included some shots of the new Swamp.

Map up and "running" in Game

Sorry about the long delay between posts. Have been busy at a steady (if somewhat slow) pace. I finally finished working through Sunjammer's tutorial on World Maps. What a great tutorial. It is well written, clear, and went without a hitch. I started with the Map I had used in the intro movie of Price of Honor. Dumped it into Photshop, and cropped the area I needed - then sized to 647X647 pixels. Next got rid of all the roads which wouldn't have been there at the early setting of the mod. Removed all the text, as I wanted a different font. Finally I added some color tinting to the mountains, forest, and lakes. Dumped it into Illustrator for the background, site locations and titles. Finally added a background and compass arrow. Then exported as a TGA file. From there I just followed the tutorial substituting my file for Sunjammer's. The great thing I discovered was that if you forget something on the map (which I did), you can just go back to the Illustrator file, make the change and export the file with the same name and answer yes when asked if you want to replace the previous file. Game doesn't seem to know the difference. Which means I can work on the map as I go - adjusting to plot changes as they come up. I have included a early screenshot of the map "in-game". Its fairly close to what I was after - especially considering my limited computer graphics skills.

Other than the map, I have been busy editing the sites from POH that will be re-visited in Winter Promises. I'm just about finished with that part. Then I will begin work on at least two more new exterior areas that I need. I have already started work on the conversations, and quite a few rough drafts are in place.

Been a while since my last post! Life has a way of intruding every once in a while. Go figure. Spent several weeks ripping apart my home studio and putting it back together. Got a new studio desk with lots of built in rack storage - so things are much better organized now. It was well worth the time and bother.

On the Mod front have been making slow but steady progress. Putting the final touches (are they ever really final?) on a new exterior area. For now I am calling it "Oasis", and it will be a key site, representing one of the few water sites in the Wastelands. I have included two screenshots - one of a campfire, and the second of a moonrise. Have been experimenting with exterior color settings and finally have some I can live with. Many thanks to Anduraga for his great work and notes. 

Finally - I managed to get around to Sunjammers World Map guide. What a great tutorial. I decided to use this in Winter Promises, rather than the Overland Map system. Baby steps you know. 

New Theme Music and Screens

The main theme music for Winter Promises is now available as a MP3 download from the link at the right. It is still a work in progress. The first verse, chorus and bridge will be used for the intro movie - while the last verse and a chorus will be used for the closing movie/credits. I'm singing the lead and playing one of the guitars. David VanDelinder (the same who created the new logo drawing) is singing backing vocal, playing the other guitar, as well as bass and the synth intro. The actual song is much longer - I have cut out one verse and a chorus so far, and may do more trimming.

Have made some progress on the Mod. I used Hellfire's "High Pass" prefab area, and the re-worked it for Winter. I am still changing out trees, grass etc, but it is going well, so I am including a screenshot. Have also included two interior screens - the first floor, and wine cellar of a monastery that I am working on. I will do a few more areas, then jump into the writing for a spell. Most of the main plot, and 2 quests are outlined. Let me know if you like the music!

New Beginnings...

It has been a while since I last posted anything, so I thought it was high time for some changes. First off - as you have probably noticed, there is a new blog header/logo to announce the commencement of "Winter Promises" - the next installment in P.O.H.. Many thanks to my good friend David Van Delinder for the pencil sketch. David is my musical writing partner and a fine artist as well. Before to long I hope to be able to post a sample of the main soundtrack theme( for the opening and closing movies) which is called - "Winter Promises" (funny how that works). I am going to try something different, and use both lyrics and music. We shall see how it works. Obviously nothing is written in stone at this point. 

Have begun work on one of the outdoor sites, and feel good about what the results look like so far. I am experimenting with a prefab - and am redoing much of the detail and seasonality. Have also started creating some NPC's and the initial convo (for the intro cutscene). 

Have also been having a ton of fun playing SOZ as well as a few other. All in all I enjoyed SOZ. I am still debating whether to use the overland map system or not. I may toy with it a bit - but I a still not 100% convinced that it is worth all the bother. 

Posts will probably be a little on the slow side till I get some momentum going. 

Thanks for dropping by - let me know what you think of the new "logo".

Santa comes through!

Just a brief note to say I hope everyone is having a great holiday season! The merry old soul came through and dropped a copy of SoZ in my stocking, so I am off to load up and see what all the excitement is about! Looking forward to some quality time just playing for a change! Have a good one!

Location of the Mod - Price of Honor

Just a quick note - for those looking for the mod it is located here: Price of Honor

Released!

Just visited the Vault - and Price of Honor is up! Not without a few comedy of errors in the process. When I finally got the instructions, and passwords from Beyond the Pale, I realized I didn't have FTP software. Thankfully BTP had suggested a couple. After downloading te software, and reorganizing things as recommended, I got 95% through the upload only to have my wireless network go down. After about 15 minutes of trouble shooting all was good, and this time the upload went as planned. I'm sure some of you old hands have been through this enough that its lost some of its thrill - but what a gas to see it actually up there! Thanks again to everyone. I hope it resonates with a few folks.

Finished

Today was Jon's birthday. I felt it was the perfect time to release the finished mod. So I tested, organized everything and compressed the files. Then dashed off to the vault to upload everything only to find that if the file is larger than 25mb, you have to contact the site manager to get access to FTP. I have contacted them, and am now waiting for the keys to the kingdom. Its been a fun ride, and I want to thank all of you who have offered so much support, testing time, and encouragement. I couldn't have done it without you! I have included one final screen shot from the opening sequence. In the final version of the "Players Guide" pdf, (which will be included with the mod files) I am including the complete text of Jon's original story

I am looking forward to taking a break, and actually playing some of the new mods that have been released. Then, once I have refueled, I plan to start anew, hopefully learning from the many mistakes, and embark on the sequel - at this time tentatively titled "Winter Promises". Keep an eye on the blog, as I will be posting a new title page, and some of the music planned for the next adventure. 

a different perspective

Time has been in short supply due to demands of my day job, and an unexpected shoping trip for a new car which took all of last weekend so progress has been slow. However, progress has been made, and after wrestling with a mod corruption, this weekend holds some promise for finishing up. Then all that will remain is the credits movie and the finished players guide. 

Thought that I would share a few screens from one of the testers - just to show someone else's perspective. Meeting and getting to know new folks through this process has been a great "fringe" benefit. Shown here are shots from Walt Lubecki. His character , Justicar, is shown - also some of the gear he brought into the mod. 

SO CLOSE...

Its been a while since the last update. Testers have completed their play throughs, and I have been busy correcting, fixing, and in some cases changing various aspects of the mod. Have also changed some of the area flow and added map pins to make things clearer. Very close now to completion - one pesky problem left that is giving me fits. It resulted from a change in the Maerond battle, and one thing leads to another to another - well you get the idea. I am off to Florida to help my brother celebrate his 50th bday - so hopefully, when I return, I can approach it with a fresh eye. If all else fails, I can always revert to the original concept - but the new version is far better so we shall see. No new screens this time - I will throw up a few after my "final" play - through. 

Looking forward to getting this done so I can get back to some actual playing. Looking forward to the Subtlety of Thay sequel! Congrats to Dirtywick on what will surely be a fantastic mod.