This tutorial is adapted from this post http://nwn.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?forum=64&topic=147553
(This tutorial focuses on using Microsoft PowerPoint, Camtasia, and the RAD Video Tools to make the movie. There are other ways to make an avi such as using Macromedia Flash and other Mac applications. They might be easier, but for now, here is this one)
First, you need Microsoft PowerPoint. This is where you'll spend most of your time creating your movie.
Your movie in PowerPoint will be cut into different Slides. Think of these Slides at different camera angles or different scenes.
For example, think of the movies that Bioware did. Their movies are simply text at the bottom, a voice over with sound effects and music, and a single static picture with the "camera" moving about it giving it the illusion of animation.
So, first you need to create your first Slide. This can be just a simple black background with some text that names your module. Example: The Sunless Citadel
The next slide can be the first sentence detailing the introduction of the module. Example: "A long time ago..."
The following slides can be the next sentences in the introduction. Example: "...in a land far away."
And so on...
Each new slide tells the story of your movie.
As you become more experienced with PowerPoint, you can start adding animations, images, and movement to your individual slides.
Once you have all your Slides in the order you want them to be played, next is to make the PowerPoint Slide Show move automatically.
In the menu of PowerPoint, go to Slide Show -> Slide Transition. Here you will set the properties of the transitions between your slides. You can use a custom effect, such as Fade From Black, or that Lucas style swipe. The one area you want to focus on is the Advance section near the bottom of the window. Click in the box next to "Automatically after", and set how many seconds you want PowerPoint to wait on each slide before moving onto the next one.
Once this is set, your ready to view your presentation. Click on View and then Slide Show to view your movie/presentation.
This PowerPoint presentation is basically your negative for the movie.
Now that the PowerPoint presentation is done, we need to convert it to an avi file. The way we do this is by using a screen capture application. One that will be able to create avi files. If you do a Google search for "avi screen capture" youll find a number of applications that will do this. I'm personally using Camtasia by Techsmith. There might be more powerful apps out there, but this one works for me so far.
Basically, the way this will all work is you play your PowerPoint presentation and while it plays you use the screen capture application to record it into an avi file.
With Camtasia its pretty simple, all you do is hit F9 while the presentation starts, at the end hit F10, and then save the file as an avi.
I also used DubIt also from Techsmith to place music over the movie. Camtasia wants to work with a microphone as you screen capture, so you could talk over what you capture. However, if you want a clean music sound, you need to dub it over the movie. DubIt does this.
Again, there might be more powerful software out there that is able to record clean sound from PowerPoint. When I find it. Ill post about it here.
Once you have your avi file with sound all ready, we now have to convert it to the BIK format so it will work with Neverwinter Nights.
To do this, you need the RAD Video Tools (Bink and Smacker) which are available to download for free at http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm.
Once you installed the RAD Tools, you will be asked to select a file type. Select the avi file you created and then hit the Bink It! button. This will open up the options for the Bink Video conversion. Everything should be ok, but there are two key sections you want to pay attention to.
The first is the Output file info name. Make sure its named what you want the movie to be called.
The second is in the Input video settings. At the far right of the Force to and Adjust to settings, make sure the Width is 800 and the Height is 600 for all fields. This will make sure your movie resolution is the correct size so it will work in Neverwinter Nights.
Once everything is set, hit the Bink button on the right side. It will take several minutes for it to convert the avi file into a bik.
After that, place to *.bik movie file into your movies folder of Neverwinter Nights.
Open your module in the Toolset. Go to Edit -> Module Properties -> Advanced tab and choose your movie in the Starting Movie field. Save the module.
If everything was done right, the next time you start your module you should see your movie play.
Good luck!
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There are two BUGs regardng movies and Neverwinter Nights.
1. Movies do not work in HAK PAKs.
Im not sure if this is as designed. If you place a movie in a HAK PAK and use the HAK PAK in a module, you are able to select the movie as a BIK resource as well as in the Starting Movie field. Yet, the movie will not play when you start the game. I hope Bioware will fix this, some movies are only a couples megs and would be great to add into a HAK PAK. Sure people could download them separately and place them into the movies folder, but I really think this defeats the entire purpose of the HAK PAK as one easy extra download.
2. Custom movies do not work at the end of a module.
The function...
EndGame(string sEndMovie)
...does not currently work with anything other than the credits.bik movie. So, there isn't any way to play a custom movie at the end of a module. I tested this trying to get it to play the prelude and other default movies by Bioware in the EndGame string, but no matter what you put in as the string, it ALWAYS plays the credits. You could make something up such as: EndGame(madeupname.bik) and it will still play the credits.bik. Hopefully this will be fixed as well so we can add custom endings.