Lab 1 (Sept 14/15): Welcome to Neverwinter Nights

In this lab, you'll be introduced to the Neverwinter Nights game, the Aurora Toolset, and ScriptEase. The following tutorials will be used for this purpose:

Note: There was a problem with the SE tutorial (part of "Exercise 1" was missing). It should be fixed now.

• Introduction to Aurora -- mostly included for reference as it is long, sometimes confusing, and most of its key instructions are covered in our other tutorials.
• The ScriptEase Tutorial -- this is produced by the makers of ScriptEase and does a good job of covering most of its basic functionality.
• Making Your World -- the first of a series of tutorials that help you make a simple module from scratch. This one focuses on the creation of the physical world.
• Making Your World Work -- the second in the series is aimed at adding some basic functionality to the world you've created.

Lab 2 (Sept 21/22): More NWN/AT/SE

This lab will continue our work getting familiar with the tools you'll be using for your projects. The following tutorials will be used for this purpose:

• Making Your World Interesing -- the third tutorial in our series looks at adding scripts to help create a more dynamic world.
• Making Your World Leverly -- the last tutorial in the series seems to be focused on levers.

Lab 3 (Sept 27-29): Tutorial Lab Checkoff & Lab Exam Prep

The title says it all. We'd like to make sure that you are completing the in-lab tutorials (the ScriptEase tutorial and the 4 "Making Your World..." tutorials) in preparation for the lab exam and the rest of the course. As per the course outline, marks will be awarded for this exercise. If you missed the announcements on this topic (in the labs or via email), please contact one (or both) of the TA's for details.

Lab 4 (Oct 4-6): Tutorial Lab Checkoff & Lab Exam Prep Continues

Due to the lab exam pushback, you've got another week to finish the tutorials and do your checkoff with the TA's.

Lab 5 (Oct 18-20): Documentation

These tutorials will help you make screenshots and video of your games. These may be helpful in future assignments. Work through them at your own pace. Warning: you may need to work on these outside of scheduled lab hours.

(Really) Easy Screenshot Tutorial

Video Capture Tutorial

Lab 6 (Oct 25-27): Custom Content

These tutorials will help you bring sound and models into your modules. Work through them at your own pace. As a lab assignment, you will need to submit the sword you made as part of a HakPak. The due date for this submission will be announced. Warning: you may need to work on these outside of scheduled lab hours.

gMax/GIMP tutorial -- you get to make a sword!

Sound tutorial -- zipped archive containing some sample audio and Audacity plugins.

Project

For those that are curious, here is the project that was completed over the summer by our WISEST student, Emma Rapati. Remember, this project was done by one highschool student on a compressed timeline.

If you're just interested in playing her final project, it can be found here.

Advice for students: Advice.pdf -- Some very helpful information in here.

• Questions: ProjectPart2questions.pdf
• Narrative: ProjectPart2narrative.pdf

• Questions: Part31_questions.pdf
• Narrative: Part31_narrative.pdf
• Planning: Part31_planning.pdf

• Slides: StoryBoardSlides31.pdf
• Notes: StoryBoardNotes31.pd

• Slides: PitchSlides_41.pdf
• Notes: PitchNotes_41.pdf

• Final Report: FinalCheckoff_11.pdf
• Finished Module: ItaparFinal.mod

Other Downloads

The "class approved" version of ScriptEase is now available for home use: SEsetup-GamesCourseRelease.exe

gMax problems in the lab! Some of you have had issues exporting your models. There is a problem with the gMax install in the lab, and we're trying to fix it. In the mean time, install these things at home. Here is a zip with all the needed files (gMax, NWmax scripts, and Danmar's Weapons) or you can download them separately from the web:

gmax (page file) nwmax (page file) Danmar (page file)

Note: Danmar's pack is just a collection of NWN models that have been unpacked from their native NWN format so that they can be opened and edited in gMax. The tutorial assumes that you have all of these files.