NWShader by pkpeachykeenI was talking with someone who was using this and they really like it. Especially in combination with the more current models, VFX and sky boxes included in packs like the CEP. Basically it applies newer 3D OpenGL graphics to the standard NWN game. What's interesting is that it doesn't overwrite any files or require you to run a shell. You just unpack the .rar into your \NWN directory which adds a few .dll files and a \nwshader folder then run the NWShader GUI.exe file in the new folder.
I tried it out and liked some of the aspects, but I didn't like others. It seems to be configurable so I'm going to play around with it a bit and see if I can get it where I like it.
Liked- Fog Effect - The area fog has a much more rounded look instead of just a line cutting off at some set point. There is some kind of adjustment to you can make in the GUI that I need to play with.
- Smoke\Steam\Mist - Looks MUCH better, softer and with a much more realistic transparency.
Disliked- Bloom - Seriously, the author has already cranked this way down at the request of the community but if there isn't a way to adjust or disable this then it's enough to make me not use it. I mean, it's perfectly fine at night or indoors but looking at any part of the daytime skyboxes will burn out your retinas.
- Distance Blur - This nauseates me because my eyes are constantly trying to focus on something being rendered as intentionally blurry. Basically the effect is supposed to provide a sense of depth and it did for the first 5 minutes before it just became distracting. I have very good vision and I'm not used to far off objects being blurry.
There are a lot of other options that are turned off by default and apparently there are ways to further tweak it to your personal preference but I found it so easy to implement (and remove) that I wanted to let people know that it's a pretty cool way to update NWN without fucking with the actual game files.
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