Tasheni Followers - Isles of Teia

[Tasheni]

This is just an announcement about what I'm working on. Since 2015 I'm working on my followers mod Tasheni Followers. I started out with no experience and no concept, I never did voice acting or modding in any way before. I just wanted to have some cool personalities around while exploring Skyrim. Over time it became a passion and I have learned incredible much things. I work alone on this.

So here is an excerpt of my diary you can follow on the mod site under the section articles, if you like. After all those years, maybe it's time to share thoughts about it. Your comments are welcome. But please notice: I'm no professional. I never played to fight anything, I played because of nature, medieval fantasy, landscapes, freedom. Fighting is essential here, but my mod will always state that humans like peace.

Here it is:

 

"Isles of Teia and other thoughts

 

After spending twenty hours of navmeshing I need a break. Isles of Teia, this was an idea because I need room for my planned quests to take place. There are so, so incredible much mods today that alter Skyrim's landscapes, places, houses, cells - I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing patches, lol! The first thought of creating an own worldspace was when I played Beyond Skyrim Bruma. No offense here, a lot of people did a great job with this. But I was not satisfied with the look of Cyrodiil, of course they used a lot of Skyrim assets and when I crossed the border I had the feeling of Skyrim, but not of Cyrodiil I knew from the game Oblivion. It simply doesn't look like Cyrodiil - with the exception of the city. Great experience though.

 

But at this time I never thought to create a worldspace on my own. When this happend, it was completley clear to me that I wanted to create a different look, a different feel. I was fond of a ship mod for Oblivion that allowed me to sail. I sailed a whole night and tried to reach the borders of Oblivion - but there are none. Land and water are rendered as far as you want to sail - forever, if you choose. I managed to crush into the levies of Anvil with this big ship and it felt like I've destroyed the pier - great mod, really! For Skyrim, I discovered the wonderful mod Sailable Ships. I used the rowboat in Shumer, to rush down the creeks and waterfalls - so relaxing, really!

So I decided to create a world for my quests and this would be a waterworld. I wanted water as far as the horizen shows and I wanted isles in all directions with the appropriate climate. So there's ice, grassland, tropical, forests, rocky, volcanic... I tested with the mod Sailable Ships with the rowboat and it is fun to simply spend time on the water, surrounding rockies, headlands, isles and experience the unique climate of every region. I started to create underwaterworld. I have tropical fish and I shrinked the mudcrabs to small species no less dangerous than their big brothers. I have Orcas and Blue Whales, Sea Lions and other seals, thanks a lot to great modders I will of course credit and link their work. For the isles I retextured a lot of vanilla assets and I used own textures for terrain you will never find anywhere else.

My great paragon here is Elinen. I wish I could create some things to please her just to say thank you.

But I have to thank a lot of great creative modders without their work I could do nothing at all. Mihail, Jokerine, Tamira, Mr Siika, AlienSlof, gg77, DeviantKaled, ztree, xgf, Stroti, SuLpHidE, and many more, not to mention the always helpful people at the forums.

 

There's still a lot to do with landscaping, my fantastic crystal cave is not finished and I need to connect this unexplored world to Tamriel lore, but that's the easy task. I never thought it would be so terrible difficult to create unique things and make them game ready. Really, last week I worked twenty hours one day for just doing navmesh for two cells and get the AI for the musk oxes to work. It drives me crazy when I think of it: I need to do navmesh for at least eighty cells...

My dear voice actors, if you read this, you will hopefully understand why it takes so long for me to write dialogue and send it over - I have some surprises in mind that needs a lot of thinking first. I never know what the engine allows, so it's always trial and error.

 

And why, you may ask, am I doing this painful job? First comes the fun, then the feeling of nature, then the subtle feeling I'm a goddes of creation.... don't take me too serious :wink:. It's simply the huge amout of talents I have and can implement here: writing, texturing, implementing, creating, voice acting, singing, creating music - all is in my followers mod and all of these personalities are part of me. Nobody needs this in real life - sadly enough. I don't mind, this simply makes me happy! Hope you all will stay healthy in times of that nasty corona virus thing. Fear is a bad companion. We need to have fun to stand against this. I love you all. :smile: " Thanks for reading and your comments are welcome.

Edited March 16, 2020 by Tasheni