Written by Spectator

This tutorial will show you how to use custom images for your customized items.

To add transparency effects around your item you will need to have some knowledge about masks and alpha channels. If someone wants to add a tutorial about that please contact Spectator.

Determining the item information

The first thing you need to do is determine what the file size and file name the new image will need. The NWN Viewer is the easist way to do this. You can get a modified NWN Viewer that will allow you view the Neverwinter Nights files at http://www.nwnguide.com/downloads/tools/nwnviewer.php.

Start the NWN Viewer and open textures_01.bif. This file is where all of the custom item pictures are stored and it will allow you to determine what size your final image must be.

In our example, we will create some iron ore. Its size is medium (2x2 slots in inventory).

Start the Toolset and create a new item. Open the Item Wizard (Wizards --> Item Wizard or CTRL+ALT+I). (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1.

Choose the item type you want to create (in this case Miscellaneous Medium) and select "Next."(See Figure 2.)

Figure 2.

Fill in the Name field for the item (iron_ore in this case) and select Next. (See Figure 3.)

Figure 3.

Now chose the category you wish to place the item in. In this case use Special --> Custom 1 and hit Next. (See Figure 4.)

Figure 4.

Select "Launch Item Properties" and then select "Finish." (See Figure 5.)

Figure 5.

Now click on the "Appearance" tab and find out how many pictures are there by default in the selected category. (See Figure 6.)

Figure 6.

As you can see above, there are 90 pictures by default. Your custom image's file name must use the form: iit_itemtype_xxx.tga where xxx is the total number of items image in that category incremented by 1. The iron ore image would have the following file name: iit_midmisc_091.tga as there are 90 images in that section and our image will be the 91^st. After you've determined how many images there are you can delete the item from that list as this version does not include your custom image. Follow these steps after completing the image importation below to complete the creation of your customized item with its new image.

Importing the custom image

After you have finished creating your custom image, start nwhak.exe. This is located in the /utils sub-directory of your Neverwinter Nights install directory. Add your image as a new resource (Resource --> Add or ALT+A). After the image has been added it should look like Figure 7.

Figure 7.

Save your Hak file with the required name, return to the Toolset and load the Hak file into your module (Toolset: Edit --> Module Properties --> Advanced -> Hak File). (See Figure 8.)

Figure 8.

Now the new image should appear as midmisc_91 in the "Miscellaneous Medium" item image list and will now be able to create/update the iron ore or new item as outlined above.