Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 - The Modding Dungeon Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Modding General They haven't learned :(

[quote=Celludriel]For me it's simple what makes a good editor.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSo56yAlA8SXRk9sIp6OarNnsoVjR5_dkr9rgoxUG_571bVUfOQfw

If I can't make this simple layout in less then a day. I mean layout not making it look pretty with props and atmosphere lightning, sounds etc ... Then the editor has failed. I realize NWN1 was tile based and so was NWN2 dungeon editor, but that shouldn't be an excuse.

The wall building in D:OS is arguably also tile based, since one section of a wall is a tile. Yet making a nice enclosed square wall is an effort in frustration. Having to figure out you have to hold down CTRL and then scroll up and down to change the texture of a wall piece is not very UIX either.

In terminology of scrum if your least amount of effort task to produce something deploy able to production takes longer then two days, you are in trouble, that's how I feel currently in the editor. I'll play around with it after work during the week, but for now I feel disappointed, I had expected more from it. They should have given kickstarters access to the editor way earlier so we could give constructive feedback, and not just the elite few they had for testing. [/quote]

They made the game in this editor. So I think you just need to get used to it.

Aka. Git gud.

You're basically asking the editor to do something it's not designed for with that layout. The hallways are too narrow, the round sections are extremely difficult to pull off with the existing root templates, and there's no clean way to fork off a wall in a 3way hall like the left side of the image. You have to adjust what you're trying to do to fit what the D:OS editor does, not try to make the D:OS editor do what it's not good at.

Hi there, first of all I own a gog version so I don't have the editor yet but I can share my experience with the NWN2 toolset which I've been using 6 years now.

When I first opened it it was chaotic. I had no clue how to create an area, what a script looked like and how to create a module that is playable. The good thing was, that the community was very active. This is what we need, aside from a wiki page that is on its way. Whenever we have a problem or encounter something we don't know how to tackle... ask around here. Someone might have already solved it.

In the NWN2 community, rjshae created the toolset notes, which is some documents of personal notes about how to achieve various things. He did it as he built and kept notes to reference in case he needed to do the same thing and forgot how it works. Then he published them. I aim to do the same for divinity once I start modding.

Furthermore, one of the best things in the NWN2 forums was that we have a different section for different aspects. I would love if this was the case here too. Section scripting for scripting questions, section toolset for building questions and so on. Just modding section is too abstract.

Well as a d&d enthusiast, my aspirations where that it would be easy to make a dungeon like this in about a days time, as preparation for a GM session. It doesn't have to be perfect and have tons of detail, but the layout should be easy to make. If the editor can't pull this of fairly easy, and you need a months prep for one GM session (and I'm not talking in reusing the same prefabs there are now) then I don't feel like it's up to par. A tool should not hold back your creativity.

Anyhow that being said, if I take that picture I posted here earlier, transform it with a paint editor to black and white, and get my terrain import running in D:OS2, I could relatively fast generate this layout. Sad part is I have to write my own tools again, instead of using the default editor.

So I can get around with it, I'm just still disappointed that once more there isn't a game that can put out a NWN1 experience toolset.

Yeah, I agree, that would be nice to have. Especially because it would enable to limit the search function of the forum to a specific category (e.g. scripting).

Currently that's not really important as there are not that many questions yet, but if the toolkit hopefully takes off and is maintained further into the future by the dedicated mod support team, and there are many questions already asked, then it would certainly be useful.

The Editor is shit. It takes 34095867340598674359086743905687340958674395086743509 hours to make a simple level. KEEP.IT.SIMPLE.STUPID.

Whatever happened with the KISS principle, people !?!?!

-Drakkanis

Again, I would rather have the massive variety and allowance of creativity the current editor offers than the cookie cutter repetition that you were limited to with NWN, as much as I love that game.

I've been making some pretty sweet level layouts that wouldn't have been even remotely possible in NWN.

It shoudln't take you more than a few hours to do the layout for a HUGE level. If it takes you longer, you just need more practice.

I have mixed thoughts here. I don't have the game, considering buying it for the editor. However, I made that mistake in D:OS, and feel very shy about doing it again.
Pros:
- There is probably a learning curve here, Celludriel, that might be worth it.
- Editor seems very powerfull
- there is a wiki, with some stuff already, that didn't exist with the D:OS engine

Cons
- As for the Aurora engine not being good, what is the point of having a great editor, if only the devs can use it properly ? I mean, just give NWN2 toolset with up to date graphics, plug ins, and enjoy the show the community is going to give...
- from what I can read here and there, it is complicated to do basic things, as it was in the D:OS editor.

Conclusion:
Hopefully the learning curve make it worth it. However, it seems that we, NWN2 modders, are still orphans...
(btw, I am EAGERLY waiting for the Mount and Blade 2 "engine"...)
Cheers and love, modders

Yes, this toolset is less simple than a starcraft 2 editor.
But I got there 2 days ago, and today I managed to make a small islands in 5h and I start using triggers and scripts. And as you can read it I'm very bad in English ...
I think in one day we understand how it works. Once logic is in front, it's very simple.
In addition here, there are many who help and it begins to be of tutorial written and video.

I think if you really want to get there. you can learn it much faster than you think.

Being an artist myself and worked with several games editors, I could not agree more with you on this.

We have great tools here and this is just the beginning.



If you need those hours to make something decent, you need get through a needed process, the learning curve. If you are not ready for that, I would recommend you to not touch any game development software.

You are wrong in some points.

First of all, the differences with dos2, and improvements from DOS1 are massively huge.

And second, I would not expect to see the tools we have here for M&M2. DOS2 is more complex in his behaviur itself, and the things you can change and mod in a rpg like dos2 or nwn1 can't be compare with a game like M&M (we not talking about which one is better, just the complexity and the possibilities of creation).

You could buy the game and discover the potential of these tools, and the game is awesome!

/wave

[q]First of all, the differences with dos2, and improvements from DOS1 are massively huge.[/q]
So it seems, great news.
As for M&B:W, the modding potential is huge. I mean, star wars mods...

I am really considering buying D:OS2 more and more, indeed.

Cheers.

Don't let how user friendly the editor is dictate your decision to buy the game or not. D:OS2 is pretty decent game.

I'll chime in since I've built large and small zones.

I acknowledge that I have prior experience with a lot of editing tools, so this sort of thing can be a bit easier for me.

Is the tool bad or unusable? Not at all.
If you have been watching my videos, you can see how quickly you can get into the flow of creating levels.

If you want to design places to use in the GM mode, things like terrain editing, npc creation, building creation, decorating and all that are very simple. It shouldn't take you more than a day or two to make a medium-sized zone with proper decorations.

Does the UI need work? Definitely. Right now I think the best word for it without being too harsh is 'clunky'. It can be tricky to get acquainted without tutorials, and even then finding things can be a bit of an issue.
Jumping between the resource manager, and the actual side-bar is a bit of a pain.

It is definitely more complicated than tools like the Neverwinter Nights toolset and Warcraft 3. Someone just looking to churn out mediocre content without putting the effort in will get frustrated at the learning curve.

Now for constructive feedback!
- Work on streamlining your windows for what the user currently needs.
A good example: When I click on a Wall object, I can click the root template to change it to a roof, or another type of wall. No other object types show because they aren't compatible. This is good. You aren't overloading the user with useless information.

A bad example: When I choose the material for my floor or roof, it gives no prompt on what to look for. Only when you press the arrow to assign a material it says 'Choose a material resource'.
So I go to the resource manager and choose TR_Woodpanels.. but it doesn't work but TR isn't a valid type. TR is exclusive to Terrain painting. Why let me choose it?

- Terrain tools are almost perfect. Only things I want are new brush shapes, like square, and a more visual brush size changing. I only figured out to use [ and ] by looking at the hotkeys. Visual feedback is good.

- AI pathing painting is a little odd. Tooltips can clear this up. Tell people what it means when they hover their mouse of Full Generate or similar.

- Object movement, placement, and resizing are wonderful. I actually like your system of doing this more than Neverwinter Nights and Starcraft 2. Well done.

I have to get ready for a meeting, so I'll add more later. Overall, I love the editor! But I can definitely see why people find it a bit daunting or frustrating.

Thank you for sharing your experience @Caiden.

I have to disagree. For the wooden worker house there is a one tilesized door with a little roof over it. But it is ALWAYS pointing in the wrong direction. The little roof is inside of the house. There is NO FUCKING WAY to flip that door around. Because A) somehow you canÄt flip doors and B) even if you flip the wall before you create the door it is STILL POINTING INWARDS!!

So I think building creation is horrible and shit!!!

Saving houses as prefabs turns them into a single wall tile. So you can't actually reuse a house you finished. This is crap.