There are 21 new screenshots in the sidebar today, including 14 of the new areas I’ve been working on, the , and seven of the Gauntlet Plains. In particular, I want to draw the reader’s attention to the lovely forest canopies that the CEP provides for use by builders — unfortunately, such nice-looking areas come at something of a price, as placing the forest canopies one-by-one is quite time-consuming. Forest areas take me about twice as long to make as do regular areas.

But yes, they do look nice.

I also would like to draw the reader’s attention to the screenshots below, which illustrate just how nicely the transition between the grassy fields of the Gauntlet Plains and the dirt-and-leaf-covered floor of the Death’s Veil Forest takes place:

The Gauntlet Plains:

Transition to Forest:

Death’s Veil Forest:

Development continues to proceed apace, and the aforementioned computer problems seem to have cleared up in the wake of an OS reinstall. Hopefully things will continue to function properly this time.

Tags: CEP, Death's Veil Forest, Gauntlet Plains

Ugh…I swear, the ol’ desktop PC is just hidebound and determined to choke and die. I’m going to make one last attempt to get Windows running somewhat stably on it.

If that fails (as I expect it eventually will), I am going to save up and get me one of these…and then dual-boot the damn thing.

Update: well, Windows XP Professional SP2 installed last night, and so did all the peripheral software. If the damn thing goes downhill again, I’ll be almost 100% certain that either the motherboard or the processor is to blame, and act accordingly. If it’s the motherboard, there’s very little I can do…although a processor failure would be a decent excuse to at least go and grab myself a Pentium D. My board won’t support Core Duo or Core 2, but it’s rated for pretty much all the Pentium D chips, which are still satisfactory.

It’s not like NWN needs a heck of a lot of horsepower, anyhow. Although, given the way I build areas…

Okay, I’m settled back in after the big move, and I’ve finished making the necessary changes to the four areas affected by my switching between mountain tilesets. The expanded Rocky Mountains v11 tileset looks pretty great overall, although it’s a bit limited in what it can do as yet — hopefully, the developer will continue to expand its capabilities as the months roll on.

I’ve got no new screenshots for you, O Reader, but I’m going to be able to post some new ones shortly as I resume development on new areas.