Starting the village exterior overhaul: a market stall, a gate guard, an NPC by a house, and the guild board

The interior overhaul was mostly done, so this time it was the village exterior's turn. I narrowed it down to four things to fix.

Move Luka under the awning, take away the props lined up in front and put them on tables instead, so it looks like a market
A guard in front of the streetlight at the entrance
An NPC in front of the green building straight ahead of the entrance. The dialogue just says the owner is out
Turn the backward board in front of the guild around, and move Kail the adventurer in front of it

The catch was that the village was already using all 8 of the original NPC prefabs.

Screens I built

I removed the grocery crates, barrels and pumpkins that were in front of the stall in the northeast of the plaza, and put two tables side by side under the awning (3.5 m wide inside). The west table has produce (apple and carrot baskets, small pumpkins, tomatoes), and the east table has groceries (cheese, meat, jars, bottles, a grocery crate). The barrels and sacks moved to the east side of the awning.

Luka moved from outside the awning to behind the tables, looking out at the plaza. Since Luka is a shop NPC, I gave the stall a separate talk spot in front of the tables (the same way the guild receptionist works).

Bruno, guard (new): Next to the streetlight in front of the south bridge, watching the bridge. Right next to where the opening stops (z −57). Bruno asks if you've seen anyone suspicious and tells you about the wolves in the northern forest and the way to the guild and tavern.
Pia, a kid watching the house (new): In front of the door steps of the green-roofed house straight ahead on the entrance road, looking at the road. As planned, the dialogue is just two lines saying the owner, Mr. Herman, is out.

The front of the board by the guild was facing the guild wall. I turned it 180° so the front faces the road (south), and fixed the generator too. I moved Kail in front of the board, facing it. The original lines (news from around the guild, talk about the forest) fit the spot well, so I kept them.

Paths connect from the end of the bridge (0, −57) to the talk spots of all 10 NPCs, and conversations work all the way through to Luka's shop options. Rebuilding the plaza also rebaked the NavMesh, and the east entrance of the plaza that Luka left empty got a potted bush, following the generator's rules. Locked in with the fixes from 157-1 through 157-4 included.

Things I thought about

Same original models, different materials. There are no new prefabs, so I swapped the outfit and hair materials on the original models to make them look like different people (same approach as Sera in 155-1). The guard uses the twin-dagger adventurer model, and Pia has purple hair.
The guard's hair color. The navy hair I used first looked too much like Karin, the main character. I lined up five candidates (F4, B2, black, orange, blond) side by side and went with black.
Same layout on regeneration. Full generation places the NPCs again right after scaling up their coordinates. The plaza bushes need to avoid the NPC spots, so this happens before the plaza is generated. I also made a new menu that applies only the outdoor NPCs to the open scene.

Next up

Walk around with the actual third-person camera and look around
The guard uses the twin-dagger adventurer model, so there's no armor. The pack doesn't have an armored model

Screens I built

The market stall with tables under the awning

Bruno, guard (new): Next to the streetlight in front of the south bridge, watching the bridge. Right next to where the opening stops (z −57). Bruno asks if you've seen anyone suspicious and tells you about the wolves in the northern forest and the way to the guild and tavern.

Pia, a kid watching the house (new): In front of the door steps of the green-roofed house straight ahead on the entrance road, looking at the road. As planned, the dialogue is just two lines saying the owner, Mr. Herman, is out.

Things I thought about

Same original models, different materials. There are no new prefabs, so I swapped the outfit and hair materials on the original models to make them look like different people (same approach as Sera in 155-1). The guard uses the twin-dagger adventurer model, and Pia has purple hair.

The guard's hair color. The navy hair I used first looked too much like Karin, the main character. I lined up five candidates (F4, B2, black, orange, blond) side by side and went with black.

Same layout on regeneration. Full generation places the NPCs again right after scaling up their coordinates. The plaza bushes need to avoid the NPC spots, so this happens before the plaza is generated. I also made a new menu that applies only the outdoor NPCs to the open scene.