The Artisan

Okay, new process seems to work without issue. Shadows are transparent, the sprite is has much more defined colors and detail without transparent colors filling the palette, and I can even externalize a custom palette and apply it without any problems. The purple is just testing, it looks horrible but theoretically I could directly recolor off the GIMP image and export the palette. I'm still not sure I'd recommend actually using this method as is since it takes forever just for one sprite (granted, this is a relatively old machine and more up-to-date hardware might make a difference), but this is the closest to a perfect final result so far.

Update: Running all the frames through GIMP works. Getting rid of any pure black colors outside of the shadow took a couple extra steps on Blender, but this cycle seems to work without issues. I'll try to build together the entire sprite and see if it all holds up.

Totally forgot GIMP exists and is open source. I'll give it a go (although I fear it's going to be another step that adds hours to the overall process). Exporting is extremely easy when you know how. All you need is NWNExplorer and all the models can be found in the NWN Main Data section under any models.bif folder. If you're having issues finding the specific model you want the appearance.2da file can tell you what it's named as. Importing it into Blender requires the Neverblender plugin, after which you can import .mdl files.

I think I'm about to give up. Seems it's impossible to get Blender to render with a 256-color index or maintain a single palette which means it's nigh-impossible to get working shadows. I'm at a loss of where to go from here.

Edit: Nevermind, still have issues to work out

Cycles is hard to work with. I’ve been trying to remove noise from the shadows for a while now without upping the render time to extremely slow levels but to no avail. To be honest I really have no idea what I’m doing and am just doing things by trial and error.

@argent77 Aaah, that makes so much sense. Thank you, now that's made things so much faster. I have no understanding of the coding, don't suppose it'd be possible to add some kind of ability to 'drag and drop' to add files into BAMConverter?

The main thing holding me back is that I still have several inefficient processes that I feel could be solved but I lack the knowledge how. For starters, there's basically no point without having a machine with a decent GPU. I have rendering settings as low as I can allow and with my GPU I can get a speed of 2-4s per frame of animation. Without my GPU it can take up to 12-15s. When you have 3000+ frames to render, the latter just takes too long. Then, after that, actually importing the frames into a .bam is annoying because NearInfinity's BAMConverter seems to struggle accepting up to a certain filesize's worth of images, and will freeze horribly if too many are added. Each frame of rendered animation is ~100kb in size and adding up to around 200 at once seems to be around its limit. I have to add a reasonable number of .pngs first, roughly 150, save the bam, which compresses the size, then add the rest gradually. Rinse, repeat. It takes a huge amount of time and attention. To avoid this, I have to use a third-party tool to compress the images to 1/10 of their filesize without hurting quality, but this makes it take even more time than the above in exchange for being automated. But all this in total means it can take up to 5-6 hours just for one animation. I can imagine someone out there knows how to make it faster, so trying to write a guide for such a slow method feels like sharing misinformation. Edit: by the way, I have tried alternatives like using bammer instead of NearInfinity, but I have no idea how to use it efficiently even just to compile my .pngs into one .bam file.

*sigh* So after taking the whole day just reading all sorts of guides and Q/As and fiddling with things to see what works, not to mention wasting an absolute ton of time out of ignorance (like not realizing I had not been using my GPU to render frames the entire time) I think I've finally made the most efficient setup I can manage in terms of balancing render time and quality. I'm completely mentally drained at this point, but I'll be done soon. Assuming I don't find some major issue or learn something else, I might be ready to put together a step-by-step guide like I've been asked to.

Well, that’s definitely helpful. And yeah, I’ve been zigzagging between whether I’d prefer the shadows to be more defined or more translucent, but those shadows definitely do not look good in game. I’ll produce some kind of tutorial and a starter kit when I’ve made this method as efficient and simple as possible.

Uploading a .zip with another updated .blend file with a much more efficient setup, with multiple cameras set up to render animations for all eight angles at once. Also an empty animation folder for sorting things because my god I kept forgetting to keep one around to copy and rename for each sprite I'm doing. blendanim.zip

Weapons were a pain, and yes, finding the files was the first headache, but there's a trick - if you check the baseitems.2da file the ItemClass section shows the prefixes of each item's model name, which you can then find in data\models_02.bif and extract. Weapons have three different segments so each needs to be extracted, as well as the w_metal_tex.tga for textures. In Blender, I imported the models (each section individually, importing them at once seems to do nothing) and added a 'Child Of' object constraint linking it to the golem's right hand. Then I simply align it to the right hand on golem's model as accurately as I can.

And all the work's done. Unfortunately I can't seem to get a decent gif attached, but everything looks good in-game. It's tedious enough that I don't think I'd be up for doing that many more, but I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.

Ahahaha I figured out weapons

I'm going to share my .blend file to let other people have access to the (probably inefficient) setup I'm using. Just in case anyone else is crazy enough to try to attempt this with me. I assume you could insert any .mdl file you want for the model you're looking for and it should work with a bit of tweaking of the camera. Edit: added an updated version iron golem.blend

Attempt with shadows.

I downloaded the NeverBlender plugin which had instructions on importing - the mdl needs to be exported with NWNExplorer in ASCII form and then I removed the .txt from the c_goliron.mdl.txt file. I swear I had shadows working at a certain point but then I did something that got rid of them and can't bring them back. I'm still trying to figure it out. As for camera, I have it set up like this but I'm still fiddling with the settings:

So uh, yeah, this is a thing I've learned to do using Blender. I'm no expert on 3D modelling so this took me the better half of Saturday to figure out through trial and error. Because of this I don't know if I could provide a step-by-step guide on what to do, and I've only done a couple of animations for the NWN iron golem so far and I don't know if I can even learn how to handle the animation cycles when I get to it, but fingers crossed I guess. This is a bit of a stretch since I don't know if anyone with this kind of experience is still around, but the only thing I desperately want but haven't a clue on how to do is attach a weapon to the 3D model. In any case figured getting this to work was something I felt good enough about to share.

Just a minor alert - I had to go back and fix a typo on the second set that auto-completed into the wrong term. 受術者 is 'the spell's target'. 手術者 means 'surgeon'.

I got experience in finding voiceacting talent for my mods this year. To put things plainly, before I paid for a subscription at a site it was basically a hopeless cause for me. Voice acting is one of the most scrutinized and risky things aspects of modding. No voice is probably better than a voice that people hate. A voice that isn't up to standards will instantly turn people off a mod before they've even tried anything else. And finding that talent that people are satisfied with basically is like ten times harder without paying for exposure. Literally. I went from ~10 auditions to 100+ on Casting Call Club after subscribing, giving me a much greater variety of people to find exactly what I'm looking for instead of a setting for 'good enough'. Is it worth it? That's up to the modder. Most modders would rather not pay a penny and it's entirely reasonable since it's a passion project with no physical returns. In Breagar's case it's probably even harder.

@35 = ~黃鼠狼的黑爪~ @36 = ~黃鼠狼的黑爪 （附魔/魅惑系） 等级：1 有效距离：碰触 持续时间：3輪 施法时间：3 影响范围：1個生物 豁免检定：無 施法者可用這個法術增加目標人的盜賊技能。收到接觸後，目標并可在3輪之内增加5%隨便選擇的盜賊技能。施法者每升兩級并可增加額外5%技能，在七級最高可達共計20%。 然而，受術者必在法術的期間承受所有豁免检定-1的不利影響。 謠言說此法術創造在某個坏名聲的藝術家，一名莎爾的弟子的手中。因爲法術的本質，只有吟游诗人許可學習與使用它。~ @37 = ~增加阴影躲藏~ @38 = ~增加技能：陰影躲藏~ @39 = ~增加寻找陷阱~ @40 = ~增加技能：寻找陷阱~ @41 = ~增加装设陷阱~ @42 = ~增加技能：装设陷阱~ @43 = ~增加侦测幻象~ @44 = ~增加技能：侦测幻象~ @45 = ~增加偷盗技巧~ @46 = ~增加技能：偷盗技巧~ @47 = ~增加开锁技术~ @48 = ~增加技能：开锁技术~ @49 = ~增加无声行动~ @50 = ~增加技能：无声行动~ Done - added a line that I missed to the previous set too, regarding the spell only being usable by bards.

@0 = ~呀！嗯， 哪兒來的麝香味呢。你不是在走私黃鼠狼或野獺吧？~ @1 = ~哦!這不是黃鼠狼之神的服裝嗎？確實是件有趣的東西。唔，我確實可以把它加强，沒錯。~ @2 = ~給塞斯潘纳一瓶無敵藥水，和5，000金幣。唔，然後就可以穿上一件舒服的衣服了！~ @3 = ~好啊。就把這個加强吧。~ @4 = ~抱歉，我沒這個興趣。~ @5 = ~嗯，再看看吧。這裏還有什麽寶貝呢？~ @33 = ~麝香領域~ @34 = ~麝香領域（附魔/魅惑系） 等级：1 有效距离：0 持续时间：1回合 施法时间：1 影响范围：10尺見方 豁免检定：通过则无效 此法術將施法者與合夥人圖上麝香的氣味，將獸類的敵人感到不利影響。法術範圍内的同夥對動物類的敵人的防禦等級+2有利。施法者召喚出的活力也將受術者的信心增加，將他們的魅力與命中值+2有利。可是，强烈的氣味使人更難隱藏。受術者的阴影躲藏與无声行动-50%不利 只有吟游诗人許可使用此法術。~ Chinese translation. Not too familiar as to how BG terminology translates, but tried my best.

Does that invulnerability line even work? I see it's there in the .ini and yet (yes, I'm a horrible person)