NWShader

NWShader is a framework for using modern Cg shaders and effects within NWN. 

In simple terms, NWShader lets NWN do fancy modern graphics. As everyone has noticed, NWN's graphics are a bit old. There are a few projects to help with this, especially chico400's awesome NWNCQ and Project Q, but those only go so far. NWShader picks up with going under the game and turning on a bunch more features. 
Things like depth of field, bloom, and even Crysis-style SSAO are possible. 

NWShader supports fullscreen and material shaders. Fullscreen shaders are special effects added to the whole scene after the game draws it, and are used for color changes and lens effects. Materials apply to a particular texture and change how an object is drawn. Special effects such as skin, velvet, edge glow, normal maps, parallax and glow mapping are all possible. 

NWShader gives artists an unprecedented level of control over how their work is shown in the game. Using a simple, but powerful, XML-based material framework, artists can add material without ever touching shader code. Shader authors can control every step of the drawing process, from vertex location to texturing to lighting, and add custom methods for any object. 

An experimental plugin system is also available. With a little bit of programming know-how, PW admins and anyone else interested can write new script commands for their world and interface with NWShader, Windows/Linux, the internet, or even other programs. 

Need your elemental planes to use a shader? Need to log each player who enters your area? Want to "tweet" from in-game? Want your module to automatically check for, download, and notify the player of updates? Plugins are capable of anything code can do, and can be written in a variety of languages (they are just DLLs). 

NWShader is under rapid development, and any effort to help test and report bugs would be greatly appreciated. All comments, questions, complaints, or anything else is welcome, just post, PM, or email. 

07.13.2010: "Chronepsis" released! 
More script functions, dynamic shaders and material system, HDR, soft focus, optimizations, partial localization support and 5 packaged languages: English, Francais, Espanol, Deutsch and Italiano.

Sourceforge Page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/nwshader/

VAULT NOTE - How to install NWShader:

Warning: If you have installed a version of NWShader previously, you should remove all DLL files before updating to a new version. If you have installed NWShader Asgorath, you will need to run the hook remover included with Bahamut before updating.

To install NWShader, you'll need to download a release from the SourceForge project page or below. Make sure you have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 runtimes and .Net framework (2.0 or better) installed.

Once you have an archive downloaded, extract it into temporary folder.

Make sure the following files exist and are in the correct places:

1. dinput.dll
2. cg.dll
3. cgGL.dll
4. glew32.dll
5. DevIL.dll
6. EasyHook32.dll
7. NWShader\nwshader.xml
8. NWShader\NWShader GUI.exe

If all these files exist, copy the whole lot into your Neverwinter Nights directory. The DLLs should go in the same directory as NWMain.exe, and the folders inside the NWN folder.

NWShader is extract-and-play. A default settings file and shaders come with the package, so you should be able to play as soon as you've installed it. You will most likely want to change the settings, though. A GUI is included in the NWShader folder to help with this.

Many additional shaders, from a variety of authors, are available on the NWShader forums. Other downloads, such as example modules and information for artists, authors and developers, can be found on the NWShader SourceForge project pages. The wiki and forums have large amounts of information.