This tutorial will cover adding custom content to a module in the form of new 2da files, models, textures etc.

It assumes you know the basics of making a module such as what a placeable is.

Introduction - What custom content can be added?

Your basic module will include lots of different base game content, such as tilesets to create areas, creatures with models, soundsets, and portraits, placeables, sounds, music, visual effects, classes, spells, and feats. Most if not all of this can be either replaced, tweaked or added to.

To do this there are two main things to do:

• Update a relevant 2da file if needed
• Add the 2da file(s) and the associated files to a hakpack

Curating only what you use is a very good skill to learn and can help you fix issues and keep your module hakpack files lean and mean.

There are big content packs such as CEP which include a wide array of content; with the caveat that not all of it might suit your own module, and that adding to the CEP files is much more laborious and error prone with the changes CEP has made to base 2da files and included models.

NWN Custom Contents Basics

Some helpful tips on NWN Custom Content:

• Custom content files the game loads can be a maximum of 16 characters long. Using all lowercase is preferred (helps OS compatibility and stops you adding 2 files of the same name to a hakpack). You can use the same name with 2 different file names as you will see in the example below.
• Hakpack files can be up to 2GB in size (but can contain millions of files in each hakpack)
• Module content can be added to a hakpack (eg scripts could be) but is no longer necessary since modules can store up to millions of files (scripts, blueprints, areas, etc.)
• You can add new TLK files which contain user readable text (eg; spell descriptions), but only one per module, thus if you find custom content that needs a TLK file these needs merging

How to add a new placeable

Before other content is covered, one of the easiest things to add is a new placeable. Placeables simply consist of a model and texture and a single 2da line.

2da Files

First of all you want to get the source 2da files the game uses. The best way to do this which maintains getting the latest version of the files from the game data itself, and is good practice in case you want to edit some existing thing the game has and want the source (eg; an icon file, or to find a model to edit).

Use the latest nwnexplorer to search base game files for the 2da you want.

In this case we want placeables.2da - so press CTRL + S to search and type placeables.2da in the search box. Once found extract it somewhere useful like a working directory for your custom content.

Model File

If you want to add a placeable you first need a model to use - for instance a new statue. You first of all need to figure out the statue you want - in our example we'll use the Torm statue. In a general pack of files most people will include an already modified 2da file with lines you can copy to your 2da, but in this example we'll be doing this from scratch to show what you need to do.

The model files are:

• sh_stattorm.tga - The texture in TGA format
• sh_stattorm100.mdl - The model file (MDL)
• sh_stattorm100.pwk - The placeable walkmesh file (PWK)

Once all the files are in one location you can then open placeables.2da. This is a text file, and for simple edits an editor like Notepad++ or similar is recommended - this will preserve the lines properly and display the text correctly. If you edit 2das a lot then using Excel can be a good idea (a basic tutorial on that may follow at some point).

You only need a few columns for it to work in the toolset. The reference for all the columns is on the placeables.2da reference page, we specifically need:

• ID column - the left most numbered column
• Label - this is used for the name in the toolset, we'll use "CC: Statue of Torm" - The CC: part identifies it as custom content, but feel free to use your own identifier or not have one (and remember what it is later)
• ModelName - set to the mdl file name, ie sh_stattorm100 (without the file extension)
• SoundAppType - the noise when hit. This is a reference to placeableobjsnds.2da, we want a stone one so 26 should be fine here
• ShadowSize - this is set to 1 to have a medium sized shadow in fast shadow mode
• BodyBag - set to 0 for a default bodybag option
• Static - set to 1 to allow this model to be made static in the toolset

Basically apart from the Label and SoundAppType the other options tend to be defaults. All other columns are stars (ie; not filled in).

The line would look something like this assuming we use line 1000, a line past the default placeables/reserved lines. In NWN:EE the placeables.2da is extended quite significantly. The columns do not need to match the others in width but there must be one whitespace character between columns (thus the quotes around the label column entry).

1000  "CC: Statue of Torm"                      ****   sh_stattorm100   ****       ****         ****         ****         26           1          0       ****    ****        1      

Save the placeables.2da file with the same extension (again Notepad++ is good at this).

Testing your Edits

To test this in your module, or in a new blank module preferably (and remember to keep backups before adding any custom content in case it is hard to remove later) you don't need to add the files to a hakpack yet. Instead you can use either the override or development folders which are in your documents, eg: C:\Users\NAME\Documents\Neverwinter Nights\override

We'll use the override folder in this example. This will, by it's name, override the base game placeables.2da file and load instead your edited one. Place the files in the folder:

Then start a new module, open the initial area and start the placeable wizard on the right hand pane when you select the Placeable tab and the Custom option:

Name the placeable Statue of Torm or something else to your liking and select Launch Properties Dialog for easier access to edit it:

In the open properties of the placeable blueprint you want to select Appearance Type and go down to your statue. In this case the CC: part helps identify it clearly. On the left hand side you should see the model load - if it doesn't something has gone wrong, double check the placeables.2da line. If nothing named CC: appears then it hasn't even loaded the placeables.2da file, and it is worth checking it.

Since this is usually a non-selectable static placeable (if that check box is ticked the placeable acts as part of the terrain when placed). The portrait doesn't matter but you can change it to a statue if you so wished.

Place it in the area:

You can save and quickly press F9 to load in and make sure it doesn't crash in-game and looks fine:

Now you should put the files in a hakpack (HAK file) and attach it to your module.

If you need the final files used in this tutorial download them here: Statue of Torm.7z

This is covered here.

Notes:

• Changing the placeables.2da file is now more difficult since we have a placed model and blueprint.
  • If you changed it to be on line 1001 for instance this placeable would just not load anything.
  • If you're aware of what you're doing you can safely move lines and update your module, or remove old lines.
  • However it is much easier to assume anything you do is the final production line used; just be careful about adding lines en masse.
• If you remove the files from your override the same stuff happens as if you removed it, ie the model won't load. Add them to a hakpack for a more reliable and safe way to edit the module.

Summary

Congratulations on adding your first bit of custom content! There will be a Hackpack (HAK file) creation tutorial written in the future and linked here.

To add other types it is a similar process. Some key ones:

• Creature appearances - put in appearance.2da - although a lot more columns, most creature appearances will come with an example line
• Item appearances - usually just need renaming to be in a contiguous block of numbers, and even then sometimes numbers can be skipped, and they'll appear automatically if named correctly.
• New item types - put in baseitems.2da and will likely need TLK additions
• Portraits - put in portraits.2da
• Load screens - put in loadscreens.2da
• Soundsets - put in soundsets.2da
• Visual effects - put in visualeffects.2da
• Music soundtracks - put in ambientmusic.2da
• Ambient background soundtracks - ambientsound.2da
• Sound effects - name appropriately as per Sounds and Music or if not found directly

Some of these will be covered in future tutorials but find information on the lines information you need to add in the links above.

Some which are different to the above:

• Tilesets - These are usually self-contained and have their own unique 2da file and SET file, but may need a doortypes.2da entry added.
• Races, Classes, Feats, Domains, Spells, Skills - These add significant amount of 2da file entries, sometimes new ones need creating entirely from scratch, and require extensive TLK editing and cross-referencing of ID numbers (so changing things later is harder).
• New poisons, diseases, polymorphs, weather types, loadhints, item properties.

These require much more complex tutorials for all the various advanced options.

Remember though: Save often, keep backups of older versions of hakpacks and content as you add new ones, and always test, test, test!