Entry 20: Final Realization

Entry 19: Post-Mortem

The only thing I have left to do now is render out the final video.  There were MASSIVE technical hold-backs with getting the video done, all due to converting issues.  It took about 3 hours to Fraps the perfect shots I needed to cut together a sort of machinima piece to summarize the narrative in my mod.  Then came the awesome part.  I wanted to make the video in iMovie, because, hey, it's for stupid people so it's easy.  Oops, I mean user-friendly.  Anyway, iMovie refuses to recognize .avi format, one of the most common movie formats out there.  So I spent an additional 3 hours trying to find a converter that wouldn't cost me money, leave a watermark, compress the video to look like shit, make my videos green, etc.  Yes, I experienced all of the above.  Except the costing money part.  I finally found one and then I spent a considerable amount of time figuring out the proper settings for exporting the movies.  Blech.

Moving on... here's a condensed post-mortem.

Goals I Set at the Beginning of the Project
1. Build a mod that includes a narrative from exposition to resolution with motivating conflict
2. Build a world in the mod that looks finished and believable
3. Record and implement custom voice acting
4. Add balanced combat to make gameplay more interesting than just running around talking to NPCs
5. Convey the concepts that non-magic users depend on magic-users in this world, and that the conflict presented in the mod is a world-wide issue
6. Make the mod playable all the way through and bug-free

Goals I Met
1. All of the above except #5
2. "Cheating"' the NWN conversation editor to mimic the Mass Effect dialogue structure, thereby solving the issue of the "silent protagonist"
3.  Setting up variable quest lines in the mod
4. Learning a considerable amount more about the tool set than I thought I would
5. Set dressed all environments, both interior and exterior

Goals I Did Not Meet (But didn't set for myself at the beginning unless noted)
1.  #5
2. Professional quality sound recordings of the voice acting
3. Custom battle sounds and perhaps custom music
4. Longer investigatory quest line
5. MORE combat!
6. Better level design

Entry 18: The End of Days...

It's the last couple of days.  The mod is almost completely finished.  The sounds still need to be added, but other than that, it's done.

What I have to worry about now is making the video, and doing all of the post-mortem stuff.  My stomach feels really tight.  Agh.  Stress time.  But I know I'll get it all done.  For now, though, I'd like to thank all of the people that have offered their invaluable help on this project:

Andrew Cogswell
Harald Hagen
Blake Harris
Andy Hernandez

Kay Johnson

TJ Liedel

Rachel Marshall

Matt Williams

I plan to do much more with this mod once the quarter is over.  I've actually considered re-doing all of it (I'm fucking crazy) in either NWN 2 or the Dragon Age tool set.  We'll see...

Entry 17: Act III of the Script

Act III, Scene I – Valon’s House

VALON

Back again so soon?

DECLAN

I have confronted my wife about her betrayal.

VALON

And?

DECLAN

That is between myself and Maya.  I have questions for you.

VALON

Then I may oblige you with an answer.  What was it you’d like to know?

DECLAN

(a) Is it possible I have this disease?

(b) Is there a way to determine if I have the disease?

VALON (IF PLAYER CHOOSES A OR B)

Oh, you’ve nothing to worry about.

DECLAN

What do you mean?

VALON

You don’t have it.

DECLAN

How could you know that?

VALON

Were you not apart from dear Maya in recent months, fighting the war?  If you became ill, you would begin showing symptoms almost immediately.

DECLAN

(a) Yes, I was in the war.  But how would you know that?

(b) Again you know too much.  And I don’t believe you receive information from any townspeople.  Hardly anyone leaves the valley.

VALON

As I’ve said before, many people visit me, and they are more than happy to tell me about their lives, whether I ask them to or not!  In fact, I believe one of them dropped this ring the last time they were here.  Do you know to whom it might belong?

DECLAN

(a) That is my ring.  How did you get that?

(b) Maya wears that ring.  I gave it to her as a gift when we were courting.

VALON

Oh.  I—uh… well, this is quite unexpected, isn’t it?

DECLAN

(suspicious)

(a) Answer me.  How did you get that?!

(b) What was my wife doing here?!

VALON

She—I… she was simply coming to see me… because of her—uh, illness.

DECLAN

(a) You lie you dog!  Tell the truth!  Do not cross me!

(b) I grow tired of this.  Either you will tell me of your own free will or I will loosen your tongue for you.

VALON

Oh, Declan, I did it to keep your sanity.

DECLAN

Damn it man, I’m tired of your riddles!  No more!

VALON

Alright, alright. (chuckles) Such a nasty temper you have, I don’t know how Maya tolerates it.  Your wife, has indeed been here.  In fact, that very bed is where she indulged herself in your betrayal.

DECLAN

(a) What!?  You?! You bastard!  But why?  Why would she choose you?

(b) You sick man.  You prey on other men’s wives.  You’re weak and callous.  How is it that she came to you?

VALON (IF PLAYER CHOOSES A OR B)

It’s quite simple, really.  I made the choice for her.  You see, while you were away, your sweet, succulent wife took frequent walks in the forest just south of here, with that oafish friend of hers, Richard.  And when I saw her, I knew I wanted her for mine.  So I came to her, and gave her a choice: give herself to me, or sentence her dear beloved Declan to death.  And we know she could never do anything to harm you, poor devoted Declan.

DECLAN

You have been using me.  As you have been using her.

VALON

Oh, Declan, don’t be so melodramatic.  After all, she wasn’t the first.  Really, I expected much more when I first saw her, but what a disappointment.

DECLAN

(a) Scum.  How is it you came to hold such a highly regarded position in life?  No matter, I will take it away as easily as it seems to have been handed to you.

(b) You are evil incarnate, and I hope the gods see fit to leave your soul to rot.  I however, will see to it that your body in this life is eviscerated for this crime.

VALON

I had hoped it wouldn’t come to blows, but you are such an intemperate man.  Well, you’ll have to kill me to get to the cure.  Let’s get to it, then! (attacks player)

Declan kills Valon and takes the cure.

INSERT A VOICEOVER IN FOREST

Act III, Scene III – Declan’s House

MAYA

Declan, you’re back!  What happened?  What did you find out?

DECLAN

(a)    Maya, I’m so sorry for how I acted. But you shouldn’t have hidden it.  Why didn’t you tell me he threatened you?

(b)   I understand now why you did it.  But, I still cannot forgive you.  Our love is permanently scarred.

MAYA (IF PLAYER CHOOSES A)

I would have felt the same, were I you.  And I was afraid for you, you must understand he threatened to kill you if I refused.

MAYA (IF PLAYER CHOOSES B)

Please, I only did it for you.  You must believe, I hated every moment.

DECLAN

(a)    Here is the cure.  Take it and your powers will be restored.

(b)   I don’t want you to take the cure.  I don’t think what you did is right, regardless of your reasons.  You could have done more to stop this.

MAYA (IF PLAYER CHOOSES A)

Declan, thank you so much.  I hope you can forgive me.  I love you. (end conversation)

MAYA (IF PLAYER CHOOSES B)

I hoped you could forgive me.  It will never be the same between us now, will it? (ends conversation)

Entry 16: Whittling DOWN

It's screaming time now.  Week 9.  Things are getting crazy, of course, and I've already watched all of the extended LOTR movies while working.  I'm moving onto the Harry Potter series now, and as soon as I get the second and third POTC, I'll be watching those.  Trilogy bonanza!  Except Harry Potter.  That's like a, like a, like a septology.  Thing.  Punch drunk?  Cabin fever?  Yeah.

Progress:  I've figured out the actual code for changing the rep of an NPC from "commoner" to "hostile", so that when Declan walks in, wavin' his sword around and being rude, someone can step up and try to put him in his place.  Of course, that won't happen, unless the player is a crappy gamer.  At the moment, still trying to figure out how to attach sound events based on variables to different locations, so that Declan's internal monologues can be heard as the player is running through the game.  Hammered out all the location to location transitions, with the exception of a transition initiated by dialogue (ie. "You wanna go?" "Yeah, let's go" *player loads into new area*).  Cookson already said don't dick around for hours trying to figure out that one thing, so I'm going to need to go back into the Warfield enviro and build a path for the player to exit the area.


The big thing still left is sound.  I spent an inordinate amount of time and my sound designer's house going over what needed to be done, so hopefully that will
all turn out well.  I need to go into ProTools and rename lines, fix levels and combine everything.  Grrr.  Work work work.  On the upside, here's Richard, the sassy gay friend of Maya.

 

Entry 15: The Hot Box

So, it's week 8, things are due week 10, and it's starting to feel like I'm in the hot box.  I was, quite literally, sitting in a hot box all weekend.  I recorded 25 hours worth of dialogue this weekend.  Unfortunately, the sound booth was completely unventilated, so we were all sweating in there.

Honestly, it was a small price to pay.  I got premium voice acting out of people.  I thought possibly I might need to change the voice actor for Richard, but Harald ended up doing it and really came through.  He was absolutely perfect for the role and embodied the character perfectly.  I'm really happy with how it all came out because I'm relying quite heavily on the voice acting to convey emotion.  The writing, of course, does as well, but there are players who just don't want to read that much.  I'm not sure what they would be doing playing a NWN mod anyway, but I have to account for them.

So, I have ahead of me, a lot of .wav editing to do.  I'm going to cheat the NWN system and try to mimic the Mass Effect system.  I'll condense Declan's (the MC) lines and have his complete lines voice acted, and then have the NPC respond.  The NWN dialogue system doesn't actually work this way, so I'll have to merge Declan's responses with the NPC's.  I'll have to merge the .wav files, specifically.  Soooo, there's that.  I also need to just polish the mod, and then also make a video of it.  Yay!  I'm hoping things will get done pretty quickly but we'll see... 

Entry 14: Friends to the Rescue!

I finally got into the sound booth today and recorded all of Maya's dialogue.  Kay Johnson, a current sophomore and Performing Arts major here at SCAD, did the voice over work.  She was really amazing and very eager to do her best, which was really helpful.

I had a bit of a fiasco at first because the people at the Cage (where all of the technological equipment is kept) weren't very helpful at all.  I was told they were supposed to tell me how to set up the sound booth, but when I got there they told me it wasn't their job to be giving me tutorials.  I wish I had just gotten a straight story, but whatever.  I ended up calling my friend TJ because he's a graduate student in the Sound Design major, so he helped me set up the equipment and ProTools session so I could record.  ProTools is actually totally badass and cool, so I'm looking forward to learning even more about it when I use it in my Intro to Sound class next quarter.

Kay had some trouble with stiffness in her dialogue at first, but then Andrew (my brother and the voice of Declan, the main character) got in the sound booth with her so they could actually say lines to each other like they were having a real conversation.  This helped Kay immensely, and she became much more natural almost immediately.  It was a really long day, but I got a lot accomplished.