kevinwrandolph

Hello, I am going through the buildings and trying to come up with look and feel that makes sense. Prior to actually looking at the building exteriors, I didn't realize that they were just facades that you put together to make the buildings. It makes perfect sense after I thought about it, but it makes it take a bit longer. I was trying to think of places where I saw some good looking buildings that are already put together that I could just copy/paste. At the moment, I'm still inclined towards the Dwemer buildings since most of the others just look to darn primitive. If someone had the power and inclination to cut the top off of a mountain, flip it upside down way up in the air to form the base of your city, I doubt that they would build a bunch of crude buildings. There are a bunch of buildings that might work that are underground. I just haven't taken the time to go look at them again. If you have any suggestions, feel free to let me know. Thanks for the interest!

Hello, Thanks for the replies! It is MountainPeak02.

Hello, I'm working on a home mod that is not on a traditional surface. I placed a mountain peak up in the air, turned it upside down and intend to build everything on top of it. Since the moutain peak is sort of like an empty cone shape, the area I want to build doesn't have a collision surface. So, before I get to adding buildings and such, I want to create a solid, consistent looking surface. Do any of you have any suggestions? I see in the Creation Kit that there is a 'collision plane' button. That sounds like it might be useful, but I can't quite seem to figure out how it works. I was imagining/hoping that I would click it and then click in the render window and get some sort of bounding box that I could stretch over all or most of the empty area, and then somehow 'paint it with dirt' or something. For the area I am working on, to manually put in rocks and so forth in a way that doesn't look silly and over repetitive, it is looking like a huge time sink. As such, any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Links to a tutorial that covers it would be great! So far, the tutorials I have gone through on Youtube have been pretty good, but none of the ones I have watched cover doing things on a larger scale. I figure if I can get the bulk area done, I can then place some stuff to break up the look a bit so it doesn't look too bad. I'm hoping for a 'mostly level surface to build from. I can add some hills or so forth after I get the main surface done. Thanks for any help you can give!

Thanks! I looked for just that command in my list of them, but didn't see it until now. I will give it a shot. Thanks again!

Hello, I am working on a mod where I have MountainPeak02 inverted (upside down) up in the air inside my cell. Sometimes, for no obvious reason, it vanishes and I can't figure out how to force it to render. Even the bounding box goes away. I have tried different camera angles since you can't properly see it from the top since I haven't put the surface on it yet. In short, how to I force the Creation Kit to always render? I have lots of system and video memory and never get over 20-30% utilization. CPU is great too. Around the same numbers. So there shouldn't be any performance reason for it to not render. I wasn't moving it on the X,Y axis, so it should not have nor does it appear to have 'slipped into another cell'. Any ideas of what to do would be greatly appreciated. The base idea is to use that mountain peak upside down with a 'city' or castle on it as a player home way up in the sky. There is an existing incomplete mod already, so I know that it 'can be done'. I'm sure that the issue is something I am probably doing wrong, but I have only just started working with the Creation Kit, so that probably isn't very surprising :-) Thanks for any help that can be provided.

This thread is complete. Primary issue is resolved. Now to open a new thread for my new issue. My MountainPeak02 keeps vanishing on me. . .

Great! Thanks for the help! Edit: It worked and I was able to find the area I want. I placed the mountain, scaled it down to a more manageable size. Rotated it upside down. Moved it up a bit, but not really all that high. But then Poof! I accidentally deselected it and it was gone. I looked down below and couldn't find it. I panned the camera around and couldn't find it. I'm guessing that it is there, but perhaps I accidentally pushed it into another cell or something? Not sure. I will play with it more in the morning.

Hello, Thanks for the reply! That gets me started, but does the individual cell extend way up into the sky or is it a fixed cube? That is something I wasn't sure of.

Hello, I want to do a 'player home' mod that is on a floating area up in the sky. I can't figure out how to do the initial part. A thread where I started talking about the idea can be found here http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2003179-flying-citadel-castle/ The basic idea is to work in a exterior cell up in the sky somewhere. Place a mountain top up there, but upside down. Then create a collision surface on which to build that actual home and so forth. I have learned hot to place buildings and such in cells on the ground, but I can't figure out how to do such things 'up in the sky'. I'm hoping that it isn't too tough. There is an existing mod ( abandoned in progress) that did it. But I'm sort of stuck. If someone would be so kind as to tell me how to track down a cell reference up in the sky, I would be very grateful! I had one idea, but couldn't find a console command to do it. I was going to place a item up there in game, select it and hopefully run a console command that would return it's cell location info. It seemed like a simple idea, but I couldn't find a console command that returns the info. Thanks in advance for any help! edit: the existing mod can be found here I have no desire to 'copy' what they did, but the basic idea is the same.

I don't plan on creating any original art as of yet. I want to start with standard objects first. As such, I would initially be using regular towers. The ones in the game currently are not really all that tall. If I extend their size very much, it would change all of the proportions and start looking 'less than ideal'. I'm fine with adding shrines and so forth, but I would want it to make sense. So the ones to the gods could be obvious and such, but the others would be placed in a more 'personal' or subtle manner appropriate to the nature of the Daedra in question. Some of the mods just sort of put stuff in random places without much reason. Heck for that matter, some of the original content does as well. For the stuff that I place, I want the layout to make some amount of sense. After thinking it through a little bit more, after I get the base part done, it would be really easy to just post the mod with the upside down mountain top way up in the sky with a basic ground cover. I might even put a small lake or pond with trees or such. I think it will be plenty large enough for it. I could put a single tower of the largest type I can find. Then I could leave that base version so people can change it however they want, while working on another version that has more stuff on it. No reason to require someone to download the fully loaded version with lots of buildings and such if they just want the base version. It also means less scripting that could have potential issues. I definitely want portals, but there needs to be a theme to rationalize 'why' they are there and connecting to the places that they do. If this were Dwemer themed, then the portals would likely connect to 'old Dwemer places'. Perhaps the four cities from the Atherium quest line? If it is nordic themed, then the portals would likely connect to old Nordic places, but may or not connect to newer cities. I don't have any huge plans as of yet in regards to the theme. Just ideas. But the back story for the place will need to be consistent with the general premise of the game era the place is tied to. Based on feedback from people in this thread, we can determine the theme and where the portals connect to. My main focus is that it be 'clean' and thus fully navmeshed with little chance of the npcs falling off. No dirty writes. I would prefer not to require any other mods so as to keep this as simple and stable as possible. Proper dragon interaction (landing spots for their scripted attacks), but I figure they don't fly up that high ( was thinking that the surface level would be comparable to High Hrothgar) very often so I'm not sure how much of an issue that could be. After the basics, the look and feel will follow some sort of story line and go from there. I have also been toying with the idea of having some sort of walk way that goes around the 'peak' of the mountain which would be at the bottom and provide a grand view with some sort of 'decor'. I'm not sure what that might be until we have a theme, but it would be interesting to have a nice view. I wouldn't want some walkway going all the way down there along the outside. I would probably have a 'portal' that lets you go back and forth. In the future, quest lines might be open for discussion if people are interested.

I looked at the Skycastle mod and thought about it, but I am just starting to learn how modding works. What is described for that mod is way beyond anything I want to commit to at the moment. It sounds like it might be somewhat the same. Also, I don't have a clue of how easy/hard it is to import a mod (IF I was able to get permission from the original mods author). Also, even if I were able to import all of the graphic objects, I would then have the issue of possibly importing in graphic components that Bethesda didn't license for Skyrim. Oddly enough, not all of the objects in their games are actually owned by them. Some are licensed for a given version and that is it. If you have screen shots of things about the mod that you liked, I would seriously entertain recreating those aspects based on the graphic objects available in Skyrim. I don't have any intent to deal with quests or complex scripting for the project I am considering. I want to focus on getting a clean, functional area. Then, after the base work is done, put on the structures that seem appropriate based on my thoughts and feedback from others. Then, after that is done, add scripting that lets you decide when installing the mod, if you want the structures I implemented on your flying citadel or if you want it somewhat plain so that you can build your own place using one of the other mods that lets you place houses and so forth. The base citadel seems pretty doable with what I have figured out so far. I have the basics down for object placement and such. My biggest issue at the moment is trying to figure out where the graphics for the mountains are so I can put one in my cell space and how to pick the right cell that is way up in the air. I think I have another 5-10 hours of playing with the creation kit before I will bother any other modders with questions though. I want to make sure that when I do ask questions, that I ask the correct questions so as to not waste their time. Thanks for the info on the other mod! But like I said, I don't expect to be importing it, but if you have screen shots and could list a few of the features of the mod that you really liked, I will do what I can. edit: I think I just figured out how to get the location of the cell I want to use to place the upside down mountain top way up in the sky. I can use the 'Pocket Empire Builder' mod to place an object way up in the sky where I want and then run the command that returns the items location cell. I don't know for sure that it will work, but if I can remember or find that command, I will give it a shot.

Hello, I had provided a link to a 'house mod' that is sort of along the lines of what I want to do. Here is the link again for reference. Dovahska - The town of peace between dragons and humans As near as I can tell, the mod was never finished and the architecture didn't make a lot of sense to me. After all, if you were able to cut off the top of a mountain and float it upside down way up in the air, would you just put really basic buildings on it? Here are links to a couple images that might help to give you an idea of what I am thinking of. http://dragonlancenexus.com/lexicon/images/b/b0/Flying_Citadel.jpg It could have a sort of castle/fortress theme or it could have a Dwemer theme. I am fine with either. Also, I am thinking about making the mod. I have only just started learning how the Creation Kit works, but if the mod was kept simple, it might not be too difficult. After a few hours of watching the videos, I have a lot of the basic knowledge I need to get started. My post here was mostly to see if there was any real interest in what I am thinking of doing. The other mod I referenced, The Airship Dev Aveza, is sort of a combination of two other peoples mods and then made even better! Dev Aveza rocks! http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/24234/? If you want a great looking ship that is a really well equipped flying house with cannons, this is it. The cannons are still in development and not fully functional as of yet. You can fire them, but they don't seem to do damage as of yet. At least they don't seem to in my playing with them. Their range is also rather limited for cannons of their size. Anyway, if you have some thoughts in regards to the mod I am thinking of doing, please let me know what they are.

Hello, I am considering taking up modding and have some ideas in regards to what I might like to do, but I was wondering if anyone else would be interested in it or perhaps even willing to help out. In essence, I would like to build a player home that is up in the sky. If you were using a dragon mod, you could fly up that way and if you were using an airship mod, you could get there that way. Another possibility would be a few portals in key places around the continents. What I envision is somewhat reminicent of the flying Citadels in Dragon Lance. Someone had started a mod along these lines a while back. It can be found here http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/9953/? When you get right down to it, it is a mountain rotated on it's axis until it is upside down way up in the sky. Initially, it would have a small city or castle on it. When you setup the mod, you might have the option of it just being 'mostly empty on top' such that others could either build their own stuff on it via direct object placement mods, or it could put a given layout on it. I wasn't sure what 'look' it should have, but I would tend towards a Dwemor look. If you think of it as a 3 dimensional space, the building wouldn't be limited to just what is on top. You could have building in the bottom with ramps and walk ways that go all over. It could be an interesting view if nothing else. There could eventually stuff added 'inside' the mountain as well. Sort of like dungeons. Again, if it were a Dwemor based theme, there could be lots of clockwork critters in there tending the furnaces and such. Perhaps the whole thing slowly drifts around somehow? No clue if that is possible, reasonable or even desireable, but it might be interesting to consider. I wasn't envisioning it being 'flown' or such. I was figuring that it would be nice to have a 'docking tower' for air ships (such as the awesome one in the mod Dev Aveza) as well as an ornate landing area for a character in dragon form (I have heard about mods of that sort, but I haven't played with them or looked into them at all). These are some of the ideas that I have and I would welcome others.