Dragon Age: Origins Toolset Released

Bioware has officially launched the toolset for its new RPG, Dragon Age: Origins.

The Dragon Age Toolset, which comes in a 472mb-sized package, provides everything you need to create your own adventures in Dragon Age. The toolset is equipped with the same utilities and features that were used by the designers at Bioware to create all of the game’s content, including the main campaign. Additionally, the toolset includes several enhancements and is polished specifically for the benefit of end users.

Among creating your own add-ons to extend the length and life of the game’s official campaign, the Dragon Age Toolset will also allow you to tell stand-alone stories in the Dragon Age setting or a setting of your own creating. Users will be able to share resources with other modders or work on collaborative efforts via the Bioware Social Network.

The application also allows you to view how existing content in Dragon Age was designed and scripted, so the more ambitious modders among you may well be able to create a full game with the toolset.

The official description for the toolset is as follows:

The level editor supports both indoor and outdoor terrain, with complete control over the placement of structures and props. You can create a dungeon by piecing together large prefabricated tunnel pieces, or stack wooden mugs one by one on a tavern counter. Visual effects and lighting conditions can be combined to produce any mood.

Conversations, plots and scripting are tightly integrated; you can use simple plots and pre-defined triggers to handle most common aspects of adventuring or delve deeply into the game's inner workings to produce more specialized effects. Much of the functionality that in previous games would be hard-coded into the engine is instead handled by scripts that an experienced modder can easily override.

Also included is a dedicated cutscene editor with a wide variety of powerful cinematic capabilities. The cutscene editor is a movie-making toolset in its own right; it is quite capable of producing stand-alone works of machinima if one so desired. All of the in-game footage in Dragon Age was produced using it. Lip-syncing and facial animation is fully automated, making lifelike performances easy to accomplish.

Grab it here. 

Update: If you are having problems installing the Toolset with your Steam version of Dragon Age: Origins, simply head over to the following thread.