Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Mods Divinity Toolkit vs. NWN2 Toolset - A Comparison

First of all, although i didnt back the kickstarter campaign (somehow missed it) i followed develepment of this game for some time with great interest, especially triggered by the powerful editor which comes with the game.

Couple of years ago (6-8) I messed around a lot with the NWN2 toolset aswell including importing assets into the game and retextured models.

As I am still waiting to find shared time for the coop campaign ( i can't wait to play this formidable game finally, so far just did some fast beta runs and loved it so far). Thereofore in the meanwhile I started to have an initial look at the editor and I couldn't resist to compare everything to NWN2 toolset (although the games are different and so the editors), and raising question about the possibilities and limits of the divinity engine (which is far more than just the editor).
I really see the potential of this game and the engine, just curious where are the limits (which can be pushed once again;)

What is the good, the bad and the ugly? I am sharing my first impression, please feel free to complete as my list will be rather uncomplete.

• Very first impression was, the Divinity Toolkit is less intuitive, but after some videos and guides, i doesnt make a difference so much.
• the whole pathfinding, AiGrid / Walkmesh seems to be far better than NWN2: This was a huge issue and one of the main failures of NWN2 and I remember creating unplayable areas. (also resources seem to be handled more effectively)
• Rotating on all 3 axes. Rihaa! I was selling my soul for that back in the days with NWN.
• So far I couldnt find any tint-function based on RGB-tint-maps. This was rather genius with NWN2. Especially for retexturing work. I found in the textures DM (diffuse maps), NM (Normalmaps) SM (specular maps?) and some werid MSK. Though some of the SM and MSK look like RGB tint maps (with one color). Well Skin and hair is tinted. My question if that's possible for armor/bodyparts, placeables and items.
• Regarding the tinting of placeables, i remember seeing a kickstarter video where they introduced the powerful material editor and applied all kind of material on a statue. I shouted out loud for happiness when i saw that. How much hours I spend to retexture models just because we needed a different material.
  This partly could make the tint function obsolete, though didnt find out how to do that so far.
• The wall function for houses looks like a really good solution (instead of tilesets), though seems to be rather limited so far what you can do.
• I love to play in isometric view, though also would like to have a look around option. As far as i could see, is that the out of the box assets are not made for different viewing ankles. The skyboxes are also limited. My question is, if this is rather a limit of assets or the engine aswell?
• Plugins could help a lot, as they also really pimped up the NWN2 toolset to its p
• Overall handling is fine, though would like to be able to do more with Shift, Ctrl, Alt Keys plus mouse R+L

Questions raised in my head:

• How will be the whole file handling and import export of assets?
• What amount of resources (placeables in the came) the game can handle to stay playable. ( I saw the Cyseal area is actually one huge area)
• what are legal and technical restrictions to import (custom) assets from NWN2 (OMG nwvault.ign.com is down since some days)
• What functions of NWN definately will never be possible with the divinity engine (more than 8 players, skydome with actual moving sun moon stars, ...)?

That's it for now, I certainly will find more things and would be very interested to hear your (to you ol' NWN people now messing around again with the editor) opinion as would be flattered by any answers to my questionsby larian or insiders.

cheers