One Day Workshop/Area Creation

[Cuv]

It seems that some people are interested in a workshop on area creation.   That is good, and I can arrange time to accomodate this type of training excercise.   I think the specific aspect should be decided first and those interested can give more ideas.

What kind of workshop would you like?

1.   Should the workshop encompass all areas of area creation?
2.   Should it be a simple theme?  Getting 'my' new area into the game and working?
3.   Creature Placement?
4.   Containers?
5.   Triggers (Info, Proximity and Travel)?
6.   Door Creation?
7.   Graphics Creation?   From an area render to door tile creation.
8.   Wall Polygons?
9.   Scripts to run aspects of an area?  Whether area scripts or trigger/door/animation/other scripts?
10. Ambients and Animations?
11. Etc.?

What say ye?   I know a poll would look better, but I think a general comment from anyone interested would be best with an enphasis on what they would like to learn.

Cuv

[jester]

Maybe a general intro with some preparation requirements would be in order. For example tolls and file types mentioned should which be known or something and then ..ahem.. the whole list.

[Ghreyfain]

Tolls?  Should which be known or something?  Make some sense, man.

[jester]

Damn typing I need another interface. TOOLS of course I meant tools used for area editing.

Which reminds me of my fav unrelated toll quote: Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.

[rreinier]

I agree with jester. Give us all the info you can, but start with the tools we can use to actually make use of that info 

[Cuv]

Tools eh?   alright here's a list of tools that people should have for any workshop.

IETME 
Near Infinity
Infinity Explorer
Photoshop (or something comparable)
Full Install of BG2

IETME:  Will be used to compile and edit areas.   Alot can be done with this wonderful tool, but it has its' limitations.

Near Infinity:  The best tool around.   This can be used to tweak areas where IETME reaches its limits

Infinity Explorer:    I bet you thought this was only for looking at dialogs and browsing files:D   This tool is the only one that will extract an entire area bitmap decompressed and full size.   Tweaks can then be done to existing areas when you have the entire render.

Photoshop:  This will be used to make graphical changes to an area, make search and lighting maps,  and make door bitmaps.  If you do not have Photoshop,  then you should have some graphics program that can deal with layers and transparencies.

Full install of BG2 or BG1:   We want the most out of our file browsing... who knows what we might need to find with regards to areas.   Especially in BG1,  its nice to have every area graphic close at hand.   But this is optional,  some people cannot hold a full install of both on their machines because of size limits.

[Barren]

*Notices thread*
All of these would be nice, except maybe 9. Most people who want to learn how to create areas already know how to make scripts. (This looks pretty interesting, btw, Cuv!)

[Cuv]

Glad to see you noticed, Barren

Not sure how many people I should wait for in a group before I go ahead and schedule a workshop.   Also, the medium for the workshop needs to be decided.   Something 'real-time' would be ideal, but not sure how to set that up.   I know JC mentioned some type of conferencing where the guests could see my desktop and what I was doing as I was doing it.

Cuv

[cliffette]

You could just write lots of tutorials for us. 

[igi]

I think the more information is put out about area editing/creation, the better. At the moment, it's something people rarely try.

Although, if I had to write a guide to it, it would have only 1 step:
1) Giev up now

[jcompton]

Glad to see you noticed, Barren

Not sure how many people I should wait for in a group before I go ahead and schedule a workshop.   Also, the medium for the workshop needs to be decided.   Something 'real-time' would be ideal, but not sure how to set that up.   I know JC mentioned some type of conferencing where the guests could see my desktop and what I was doing as I was doing it.

Cuv

WebEx, yep.

Free 14-day trial for signing up.

I'm not sure the trial includes audio. You could use TeamSpeak (www.teamspeak.org) for that. There's enough public servers out there that you should be able to go and create a channel that other people can listen in on while you work.

[Cuv]

WebEx looks powerful,  but it is awfully pricy.   $375/month or $995/month.   Or $0.33/minute plus toll charges for participants.  If it was a one-time software price, I might consider just buying it. 

Not sure if the trial would actually allow a real conference, doesnt look like it.    I think all the participants would have to sign up and pay the toll charges through WebEx.

I would simply write more tutorials, but that takes a tremendous amount of time, which I am short on at the moment.   

Cuv

[jcompton]

Yes, it's expensive to subscribe to, but what part of "free 14-day trial" did I not make clear?

WebEx does real-time desktop sharing. With the free trial that would make it... free. And then you can use TeamSpeak for audio.

To do desktop sharing cheaper you could go to tightvnc.com and run the VNC server and let people listen off your PC, but above more than two users I bet your upstream connection would be sorely taxed. That's the advantage of signing up for something like Webex, you only have to transmit once to Webex and then their servers shoot that out to the various participants.