Overhaul Visual Effects

Visual Effects are models and their related textures we reference in visualeffects.2da, progfx.2da, vfx_persistent.2da or spells.2da

We might do some more advanced stuff with shaders but a lot of the basic visual overhaul will be texture upscales/upgrades since VFX in NWN are already nice and pretty.

There are some limits to this as noted below around TXI stuff.

New VFXs

Most new VFX will be tied to a specific spell etc. and might not be listed here. Instead check the github: https://github.com/Finaldeath/overhaul

More ideas for new VFX here.

Things we could add based on current ones:

• Law and Chaos versions of the Protection and other spells
  • What colours?
    • Evil based ones is usually red
    • Good based ones are usually yellow/white
    • Law - white?
    • Chaos - purple? (can't really do black)
  • Hammer of the Gods usually was made up of 4 variants for different alignments. Might not bother with these since...meh it's fine.
• Upgraded VFX based off current ones for Greater Mage Armor etc.
• More varieties of impact effects with their own colour themes;
  • Damage VFX for new damage types

We'll also make use of the unused sounds and VFX models below.

Texture Limits

Textures with TXI files referencing "proceduretype arturo" require TGA, for some reason. DDS simply don't load even if the only texture of that name. DDS can work for all other textures it seems (even other "proceduretype" calls).

The other limit is any proceduretype has a maximum texture size of 256x256.

New Models Naming Convention

New pure VFX models should likely come with a prefix, and reference "op" somewhere.

The prefixes the game uses are as follows. Bioware in the original release tended to be good at this. Expansions tended towards generic "vfx" and "fx".

• fx - Generic "effects" (usually added in expansions).
• var - VFX: Area (Cones, breath attacks etc.)
• vca - VFX: Casting
• vce - VFX: Cessation
• vcm - VFX: Combat Hit
• vco - VFX: Conjuration
• vdr - VFX: Duration (anything that lasts more than a few seconds)
• vff - VFX: Fire and Forget (generally ground based instant VFX)
• vfx - VFX: General (tends to be a lot of eyes!)
• vim - VFX: Impact (and also Beams) (generally target based instant VFX)
• vpm - VFX: Permanent? (Used for various auras)
• vpr - VFX: Projectile (MIRVs, fireballs, etc.)
• vwp - VFX: Weapon or Weapon Impact

There's also an odd "vrd" one - which is, really, just a misspelt "vdr" (only occurs on vrd_eleshield04 (Acid Shield) and nothing else).

Caching Models

The VFX models are perfect models to have in cachedmodels.2da which loads all the models always. It should stop hiccups when lots of VFX are going on (they get unloaded quickly).

Compiling Models

We should be able to have these models better optimised by compiling them. Not sure if we want to or need to enable tangent compilation on them but we could do at the same time.

VFX Sounds

Sounds are closely tied to VFX, some Overhaul work can improve some of the sound interactions the game has. In particular:

• Some looping sounds don't loop properly. Miqail has fixed Acid Sheath for instance to loop correctly. Need to check all looping sound FX and see if they can be fixed (possibly need changing to proper WAV instead of MP3? need to check how both types loop).
• Some single-shot sounds are annoying when it's a buff spell that constantly "appears" when henchmen/enemies appear from around corners. It may be good to have these separated out, ie:
  • One new VFX line for the soundless duration effect
  • One new VFX line for just the impact sound itself - we can fire this once
  • New behaviour: We apply the sound once on the spell being fired and the soundless VFX just gets applied as the duration VFX.
  • We could support a options toggle for this (which defaults to "on") to allow the old behaviour (this is safer than replacing all the old VFX lines with soundless versions then fixing EVERY script in EVERY module which ever calls a VFX outside of a spell script!)

There are also some unused sound effects in the game we could certainly implement:

• sco_positive - Unused "Spell Conjuration" effect see Conjuration and Casting Visual Effects for notes. A few other unused ones (or easily reused ones) there too.

Unused VFX

Unused in progfx, spells.2da, visualeffects.2da, vfx_persistent.2da and so probably entirely unsed VFX MDLs (ie files beginning with v)

VFX Model List

Not all VFX models are solely used for VFX. These are at the bottom in their own section when primarily something else (Eg a placeable, tile).

Chunks - defined as chunkName in other MDL files - are separate below as well.