Building an interior area:

1. To start building a new interior area, select File New Area, and choose
interior.
2. Select the Tiles tab (bottom right) to bring up a list of tilesets that you can
build your area from. In some cases you can mix and match, though this is not
always possible. Lets use the caves tileset.

3. In the top right there is a little pin. If you click this it will keep this panel
pinned out. If you also have the properties window showing on the right
hand of the screen, you can use the same pin to store it on the right side to
make more space (as shown). You can do the same to all of the panels on the
left, giving yourself more building area.
4. Go to the View Options menu, and either turn off your autosave, or set it to
a longer duration. Autosave occasionally causes issues, so you will want to
manually back up your module from time to time using the save asoption. If
you do not, you will regret it later. Really.
5. Making exterior areas works quite differently from exteriors (or indeed from
NWN1 unless you have a plug-in). You need to select tiles and fit them
together like a jigsaw. You will see in front of you a grid, and you place down
tiles on this. To get the hang of it, select any tile from the menu and place it
down on the grid. If you find clicking on a tile doesnt seem to work when you
try to place it, look at the menu bar at the top and select Tiles.

6. Each tile in the menu has a little graphic icon that shows you where the walls
are (blue lines) and the door openings are (red bars). You will find a large
selection of tiles in the toolset, but it will soon become clear you are missing
some variations. You can rotate a tile by selecting it, then using Ctrl + a left or
right cursor key to rotate it BEFORE you place it. (you can do it after you
place it, but its very labourious select the tile, right click it, then use left and
right arrows).
7. Some of the tiles also have variations (the right hand column next to the icon).
This means that you can get the same layout with a different look. To do this,
select the tile as before, place your mouse over the position on the grid so you
can see the tile, and before you place it, use the up or down cursor keys to
cycle through the variations to see which you want before placing it.

8. Youll soon find you need to move around the map. To do this, hold down the
Ctrl key and using the left mouse button, drag the grid in the direction you
want to go. You can rotate the grid by holding down your mouse wheel/middle
button and moving the mouse.
9. Now build up your area by fitting the pieces together. If you want to join your
tiles to tiles from another tileset, you can do this easily by picking another
tileset and painting that down. Not all tilesets match well though it is better
to place two tiles containing doors backing onto each other to get a meaningful
changeover. Make sure they match height some tilesets (like the Shadow
Fortress) have a different base height.
10. There are larger tile groupings called meta-tiles, that add some variation. For
the caves for example there are some premade diagonal sections. To access
these, click on the Meta-tile tab at the top of the right-hand panel. Here you
will find a list of meta-tiles set out as the tiles were. They dont have very
meaningful names, nor icons, so the best way to look at them is to select one

and run your mouse over the grid to see what it looks like. You can manipulate
the meta-tiles in the same way as you did with the tiles.

11. If you wish to de-select a tile, press the escape key.

12. If you wish to delete a tile, select a tile on the map (use escape if you have a
tile stuck to your mouse pointer). Then press the delete key.
13. Before you start dressing your area, you might now want to take a break to set
up some of its properties. To do this, reveal the area tab on the left of your
screen by mousing over it, and right click on your area in the list, then select
properties (new window).
14. You will be presented with a pretty lengthy list, most of which is self
explanatory. Lets leave Day/Night stages for now thats where you do your
lighting settings for each time of day and is best covered in the exterior tutorial
when I expand it. Since were indoors, well likely only be using one lighting
setting, the default one. You will likely want to come back and do this last,
when you have completed your area, because at the moment, you want to be
able to see properly. You can change the time of day you are viewing in the
main window from the Day/Night menu on the top toolbar.

15. For my caves area, I am going to set everything in the Environment section to
false it is a never changing environment, where the sun or moon do not
pierce.
16. Underneath General you will see a lot of important properties. Here, set
underground, natural and interior to TRUE, as we are building some natural
caves. I also gave the area a name this is the name that will appear in game
for the player. Notice that on the left in the area panel, the area has not
renamed itself. If you want to change the name you see in the toolset, you
must right click on the area in that panel, and select rename.
17. Also underneath General is the Tag every area MUST have a unique tag. It
doesnt matter what system you use, as long as its one that you wont get
confused on.
18. I wont get into detail on the rest of the properties as most of them are selfexplanatory, but here you also set whether you can rest, what ambient sound
you want playing in the area, and what scripted events will fire (were not
covering scripting here).
19. Now you are most likely to start pacing doors, objects, sounds and lighting in
your areas. This can be done from the blueprints panel. This is the tab at the
bottom right next to Tiles you selected earlier.
20. Lets place a few doors first. Select Doors from the options at the top of the
blueprints panel, and then pick a door and place it in a doorframe. Most doors
have two facings, and you can change them around by moving your mouse
over the door frame, and only clicking it when you have the door the way
round that you want it. Be careful, it is quite possible to place multiple doors
in the same doorframe (which is nuts, but there you go!).

21. To open the door properties, you can right click on it (again, escape deselects
any object on your mouse pointer). Here you are faced with multiple options
that you can edit. Lets concentrate on a few of the important ones.
Tinting: Most doors cant be tinted, but secret doors can and should be tinted
to match the tints you used for the tiles. (Secret doors arent very secret
though, as the Z key will reveal them)
Static: whether your door is static (part of the scenery),
Locked: Set whether the door is locked. If so, set whether it uses a key, what is
the keys name and have the key removed. Most doors should really have keys
somewhere, which you need to create, unless they are plot essential methods
of blocking progress, in which case, make sure you set them to:
Plot: TRUE if you do not want this door accidentally/deliberately destroyed.
Faction: Hostile. Really. Dont change it unless you want weird bugs where
creatures go hostile on you.
Linked to/Linked object type: If this door is a transition, place the TAG of the
target door in the Linked to field, and select linked to door. Dont forget the
target door needs to be set up to transition back to this door.
Difficulty Class: Self explanatory set here how hard it is to do each action
listed.
Tag: Give the door a unique TAG if it will be doing anything more than just
opening and closing (transitions, scripts attached etc),
Localised name: Give the door a name if desired.
Classification: Tells you where to find it int eh blueprints menus. You can
change this for your own blueprints to put them somewhere else. Use the |
delimiter to set submenus: 01_INTERIOR_DOORS | Mydoors would place

it in a new menu subtree called Mydoors within the standard interior doors
section of the palette.
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All the rest of the properties are self explanatory (except scripts, which
we wont cover here).
For more on objects and lighting, see the appropriate tutorials.