690 replies to this topic

[Ismelda]

Ok, you got me. I used some of the textures from IWR. Some were brighter and had more of the feeling I wanted to add to the Cities. I made my own windows fro Blood and Mud though. I also modified the way the windows were handled for the cathedral.

So the result is the mix of IWR, TWLS and my own creations. I guess I'm allowed to some creativity

Edited by Ismelda, 05 September 2008 - 06:30 AM.

[Omnimmotus]

Personally, I like the extra meshes and scripts that make IWR work so beautifully. (Though the performance drop is a little annoying.) The only thing that ruins it for me is incompatibility with other city mods, namely Better Cities. Because everything has to be manually placed, it doesn't work if any of the buildings have been moved or altered.

How powerful is OBSE? Would it be possible to, say, run a check through all the static meshes in the area that fall under the "Architecture" file path and then compare them against a list of models? Would it be possible then to, say, check the name of attached doors, or some similar check? Then, would it be possible to place and remove meshes in the world without savegame bloat?

If so, you could set up a dynamic version of IWR. (Without the lights. Or lights toggleable.) On entry to every city, it would find all the buildings and read window locations recorded to ini files. (Using Pluggy. That would mean someone would have to go into the CS, place the building at 0,0,0 and place IWR meshes on all the windows, then record their locations for the script to use.) After every building is found, it checks to see what cells the doors lead to, and then reads time settings set in an ini file. (Olav's Tap and Tack, 6pm to 7am) It then remembers these buildings and their accompanying lights in an array, and every hour of in game time, or something like that, it runs a script to check buildings against their light on and off times. If they need to turn on, it places meshes relative to the building based on the recorded window positions in the ini files. (This might require a little trigonometry to work on rotated buildings, and scaling should be considered too.) Probably it would be best to remember these locations in the savegame, but provide a function in the ESP that can be run in interior cells to clean out all the meshes and recorded locations from the game before removing the mod.

Well, if you didn't already have enough on your hands, I'm sure that'll take care of that quite well. Then again, that's only assuming OBSE can check static models like that, and even then I don't know if it's worth doing unless you've got plenty of time on your hands.

[hfffoman]

I am sorry but windows just don't glow yellow during the day unless the room inside is an explosives testing lab.

It's a shame because I was keen to use this mod but I can't live with that unrealistic effect so I am still stuck with the contest between IWR and Better Cities.

[Omnimmotus]

Ah, I was afraid of what I see in those new pictures. Those buildings look like their interiors are on fire. During the day, usually the sunlight is many times brighter than interior light, and that mixed with the sunlight reflecting somewhat off the glass of the windows covers any slight glow with enough shine and contrast that it just doesn't look like those pictures.

I suppose for now I stick with Better Cities, unless someone figures out a way to use different meshes or different textures at night without pre-placing them.

[Ismelda]

I used the Illumination Within windows textures and they are much brighter than the original Texian textures. This is the reason why they are so bright even during the day. In the next version of this mod you will have the choice between Texian Textures and IW textures.

There are much more information on the Official Forum Thread about what we are up to for the next release.

[Omnimmotus]

Omnimmotus, are you saying the windows aren't visible by day in game as badly as they are in the screenshot? On the basis of the screenshots I was ready to say no to this mod without downloading and testing but I would be delighted to be proved wrong.

Unfortunately no, I was saying in real life they aren't that bright. Screenshots can't be inaccurate; they're an exact copy of what you see.

[Xtudo]

Just asking, the FPS impact is lower with this?
Thanks

[Ismelda]

Lover than Illumination Within (and all its derivative) definitely.

Edited by Ismelda, 11 September 2008 - 12:52 PM.

[kalimeeri]

Sadly enough, no matter how hard I try, I can't get this mod to work; the windows stay neon yellow (in Anvil anyway) during the daytime no matter which .esp I use or where I load it ... and even after I uninstalled it, the glow-mapping on the windows remained--in fact the entire Skingrad mages guild building was glowing sickly yellow .. ugh. Not sure what's up with that, but I finally got it back by uninstalling all my texture packs and reinstalling them from the ground up (including QTP3). At this point I'll gladly pay 2-3 fps for IWR, lol. But kudos for the idea ... maybe the next time I reinstall Oblivion.

[Ismelda]

Are you launching your game with the OBSE launcher?
If no OBSE, no Animation so the windows stay lit night and day as it was in the parent of this mod (Texian's Window Lighting System).