Ernie Noa's RPG Blog

BouncyRock.com has a forum! Check out there home page and follow the link . I haven't had too much time to play around their forums yet, but they've got a few threads going and I plan to post their shortly!

I've got some screen shots from Hythum to share. The first three are from Castle Boyden, which you might remember if you played the original. The others are from a crypt somewhere in Hythum. I'm making progress slowly but surely. I'd also recommend hoping over to Neverwinter Podcast today. Michele/Liso landed a great interview with Adam Miller . They are also going back to weekly rather than bi-weekly podcasts. Double kudos to the podcast team.

I posted about Hythum on the NWN2 forums . It's not particularly long but I may duplicate some posts there and occasional put up some information about my progress. I've noticed other modders are doing this and thought I would follow suit.

I decided to defrag my primary and secondary hard drives on Easter Sunday. The primary went fine, the secondary threw a weird error which I failed to write down or find in the app or sys logs. The error indicated a problem reading a .bmp files that started with a ~ It seemed like it was having trouble reading an open file, but there was nothing open. It suggested the problem was a failed network connection. My computer could be off my local lan and I should still scan a local drive without any trouble. I the defrag shut down and the secondary drive didn't show up on my drive list. (CRAP). I restarted, and the machine locked on reboot (CRAP CRAP) I restarted again and it ran checkdisk on my secondary drive automatically. (Whew) It said, "The volume is dirty." (I work in IT but I am not familiar with that but could deduce the meaning). Then slowly lots of messages like this: Read failure with status 0xc0000185 at offset 0xc0250000 for 0x10000 bytes. Read failure w...

I had Good Friday off and split the day between my kids and when they were entertaining themselves I modded. I worked on Sciforth, the last civilized village in Hythum. It's very small, and sprung up along the port road to Boyden Castle. It needs polish, but it's come along very nicely in a short time.

From Times Online March 18, 2008 Science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died aged 90 in his adopted home of Sri Lanka, it was confirmed tonight. Clarke, who had battled debilitating post-polio syndrome since the 1960s and sometimes used a wheelchair, died at 1:30 a.m. after suffering breathing problems, aide Rohan De Silva said. The visionary author of over 100 books, who predicted the existence of satellites, was most famous for his short story "The Sentinel," on which filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" was based. He was also credited with inventing the concept of communications satellites in 1945, decades before they became a reality. Clarke was the last surviving member of what was sometimes known as the "Big Three" of science fiction alongside Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. The son of an English farming family, Clarke was born in the seaside town of Minehead, Somerset, England on December 16, 1917. After attending sch...

I finished up the sub-module I was working on. The last area was not hard to build thanks to airships from Amraphael . I need an 'in transit' area. Dropped the ground to -95 with noise, and put the airship at about +80 with lots of white fog below and around the ship. It looks pretty cool. Tomorrow looks like no modding work. Too many other commitments.

I've finished about half of a new exterior, the last area I need for the Port Leaton Area. The other half of this area is flat and empty, but what's done looks quite nice. At least I'm happy with it. The trees in the background are two uniform. I try to keep an area down to two or three trees/tree seeds, but will need some variance. Need grass... or something.

I'm going to have some time off my feet in the near future for foot surgery. As a result my wife suggested I get a comfortable recliner to recover in. Here are some pictures of the recliner. It came today. Aahhh... Do I look relaxed?

Quick screen shots of a caves I'm working on for Hythum. I'm happy with the look thus far.

I've got a couple of screen shots from Darmok, who is also working on Hythum. This is a small prototype for a swamp that he is building. I think they are fantastic. Darmok is becoming an excellent exterior builder and he'll be working on some of the key exteriors for Hythum. Way to go Darmok! Finally a screen shot from an area Darmok built that is not intended for Hythum. It was an experiment he did using the toolset. This is a 2x2 area, where the grass was actually maxed out. It was impossible to add more. Looks pretty cool!

This is a recap of the miniseries and first three seasons. It's all 100% spoilers. If you have watched the show, it's absolutely hysterical. I'm a BG junkie, had to post this.

I've got most of the work done on the Port Leaton sewers. The layout, water, lighting, fog, effects, and sound are done. Still need some placeables, but it's close. Take a look and see what I got done yesterday...

I'm trying to upload screen shots but I've been getting a server error both today and yesterday. Very odd...

I know a fair number of NWN2 players are not old school D&D players. If you'd like to know more about Gary Gygax, who passed earlier this week, or if you just want to see a nice tribute check out the following video presentation on the Wizards of the Coast web site. There is also an MP3 of an interview done on a talk radio station . Hilliary Clinton wins Ohio breaking in for a few minutes in the middle during the record, so make sure you can pass a saving throw versus politics or just fast forward a bit. ;-) If you don't mind other talk radio odds and ends it's a nice bit of audio about Mr. Gygax and D&D.

More screenshots. I really like this area, but have an odd bug that's showing up in game only. The lower area on either side of the walkway should be filled with water, it is but the water appears and disappears from one tile to the next. Very odd. I suppose I could replace the water with placeable water item. The water is on in this view and shows what I want the area to look like. The water is gone again. Weird... This shows the water on in one tile and off in the next. Look toward the top of the picture to see the missing water. Very weird.

More screenshots from Hythum interiors. This will be from a 'dungeon' area. Looks like the guy on the coffin is trying to look up the pants of the statue behind him, I may have to re-arrange this room.

Today we have screen shots from a variety of interiors I've been working on over the past few weeks. A dinning room in the Port Leaton palace. A walkway deep within a chasm. It needs some work, particularly if you look up. Magic shop (spooky looking I hope) I'm not tellin' where this one is. Once again, it's a secret.