Tirick

I have no objection to you using the landmass/progress thus far for any personal exploration/use. I cannot honestly say when I will swing back into the gist of this. I have a multitude of other projects I am working on, RL demands, and two Beta test games I'm playing, both of which have 'imminent' releases I'm eagerly awaiting. The last time I delved into this project I spent far too much time fighting with the CK just to position town/houses (Raven Rock) and I more or less gave up struggling. The recent update may have fixed some of those things, so I might poke around a bit soon. That said, be prepared that there will eventually be changes to the mod. If you want to add/modify things, it will essentially create a design branch for you, which may not be repairable. Thank you, Tirick

I've not abandoned the project, no, I've just been working on other (non-sykrym) projects for the last few months. I have at most a few hours a day to work on things like this, and my priority of late was on some paper modeling. I do intend to make more progress soon. The windmill may need adjustment, it works fine for my testing character, although she is a short human. I'll take a look at it. Tirick

I got it to work; the trick is to include the Skyrim.esm file when generating. That said: here we go. I have rough texture sets created now for the entire island. These will get cleaned up as I complete cells, but are good for basic LOD views at the moment. Looking north (south of Fort Frostmoth) Looking north (above Fort Frostmoth) More LOD: Raven Rock (roughed in house positions) Thank you again godmademedoit for recommending the Oscape 3rd party tool! I'll be working now on the area around Raven rock in earnest. I hope to have another release late this week, although it will be hard to tell. Tirick

Damn, that looks awesome! Sorry I've not been working on this, been working instead on a paper modeling project for my site. I've only put the LOD settings on a handful of objects. There is zero official word on what amount of LOD is 'right', or what objects should or should not have the setting so I did not play too much with it. I'll have to have a look at that program though, it certainly looks like a viable alternate to the stock version of the landmass LOD. There is a separate 'Tree' LOD generation in the Creation Kit. Might have to run it after that external one. Thank you for sharing it! I hope to get on to Raven Rock in the next few days, then filling the remainder of the Hirstaang Forest. Tirick

Seglheim begins to take shape. I still have a lot to 'fill' and correct, but the layout is (I think) good, and large enough to warrant a town by TES standards. CK View CK View CK View In game In game The next release, 0.13, will be a bit yet, I want to complete the Hirstaang Forest to the west and east of Seglheim (the forest goes as far east as the river). I did 'waste' about 3 hours making basic object-generation navmeshes for the parts of the map already completed. This appears to be the 'best' first-pass navmesh for exterior areas, although the wiki is sparse on info in this area. Anywhere an object can actually be climbed or passed over unfortunately will need correction, but its a good base. Enjoy, Tirick

Alright, I think I've picked a name: Seglheim. It means Sail-home in old Norse (more than fitting for a Nordic-style town), which I think is appropriate given that I see this as a primarily fishing village. I'll probably add a boardwalk leading along the western edge of the bay to a small fishing dock. Of course this means having to change the Navmesh on the Docks, but that the price of WIP design.

Thank you! Forging ahead, I've roughed in a new settlement directly north of the Fort. For now I'm calling it Frostheim, for lack of a better name. I am imagining this to be the refuge of the few humans who fled the disaster in Vvardenfell. It is really hard to understand the scaling factors for the Skyrim (and other TES titles) population. A small village might just have a few houses, but represent several dozen individuals. I am (roughly) planning for Raven Rock, and new 'ghetto' surrounds to be the resting place of the Dunmer who fled, as well as vague plans for another settlement on the southeastern edge of the island. The southern parts, of which is mostly comprised of the Hirstaang Forest, seems to be the most viable for settlement. The greater northern parts is mostly icy wastes, although there is (historically) another few Nord (Skaal) settlements there, Thirsk and an unnamed Skaal Village. Frostheim Frostheim Bay (looking West) Enjoy, Tirick

I've updated the mod to v0.11, which adds a detail to most of the area West of Fort Frostmoth. I do not have experience enough to know if I've overdone the trees in the forest or not. It seems to run fine on my PC, but feedback would be greatly appreciated. There is an outstanding LOD issue. I do not want to play with the LOD yet, as frankly I've found little info on what objects should have the LOD flag on and which should not (and if they should, why do they not, by default?). Also, about 60% of the time I tested LOD generation it wrecked sections of the landscape, so, I'm avoiding it for now. Thank you, Tirick

Is it just me, or is the CK movement and rotation Gizmo really twitchy? Sometimes it locks to an axis, sometimes does not work at all; really really irritating times the axis selected does not rotate/move along that axis, but another one altogether! I can sometimes sortof fix it by toggling it on/off, or switching between rotate/move or hitting 'G' to switch between world/object orientation, but even that is not 100%. Sometimes dropping another object seems to release the locked axis, but not always. Ugh. Please tell me I am doing something wrong, because I can fix that. If not, well... damn.

Thank you! For now I want to tackle what I can on my own, but I am not adverse to assistance, especially when it comes to the dozens of interior worldspaces that will be required. As I start to segregate off parts of the island as 'complete' I will also need to start populating NPC's/Quests etc. But all of that requires a degree of project management/distraction that I fear will take from my progress on the basic elements and layout. Tirick

This is a new worldspace, not directly tied to the global map. I intend eventually to add LOD terrain matching the Morrowind and Skyrim coastline, but that is low priority for me. Travel between places is currently via door-teleport, but will be eventually replaced with a conversation/travel.

Let's call this some perspective: A colour-coded map of the island, marking my current progress. It seems I have a LOT to work on. Tirick

I've begun work on the Hirstaang Forest, west of the Fort, and have detailed the rocky ridge that resides about halfway between Fort Frostmoth and Raven Rock. I've tentatively slated the around north of the Fort for the expanded settlement, but I've left off detailing that area for the moment. I aim to complete the eastern shoreline up to the docks of Raven Rock, as well as the 'fill' in between with forest and better texture blending on the landscape. I've not rolled out a new version yet, I want to get the shoreline completed first. I made the exteriors to both of the barrows found here in Bloodmoon, although I may yet change the model I used for Kolbjorn. Looking at the fort through the foliage Stompfund Barrow Rocky Outcropping Tirick

Absolutely! I've not read the two Greg Keyes books, which apparently at least mention Solstheim, if not actually goes there, but do I have intentions of adding at least one settlement (around the Fort) and expanding Raven Rock, which I imagine would have had the mine reopened and expanded. I don't doubt there is a bit of a three-way struggle for power between the settled Dunmer, the Imperials (who have to face waning support with Skyrim in conflict) and the East Empire Trading Company, which if they are anything like the East India Company they were modeled after are likely complete jerks. There is also the Hircine/Werewolf problems, rising Falmer (maybe looking for the armour that was 'stolen' from their prince's tomb), and stirring hordes of Draugr. None of that will get touched on though until I have the landscape completed. I have to write up a project model for the intended story/questlines; I have a lot of ideas (and I'm not adverse to suggestions) and really need to write them down.

I spent several hours last night trying to get the distant terrain to work, to no avail. I am certain this is a setting, rather than an LOD issue (although I won't rule that out). I created and recreated the LOD about 5 times (3 of them deleted whole sections of the map) and this had 0 effect. If anyone has any idea why the land just truncates past a certain view distance, please let me know. That said, I've added a bit to Fort Frostmoth, and a cheater teleport door in Solitude (I added a new boat) to allow for easier access to Solstheim. I also painted the landscape (roughly) for the southern half of the island. I suspect this will change a great deal in the detailing, but at least its not brown. Courtyard: Oh, and I added the WIP file to the download section. Thank you, Tirick

Thank you all. I am busy working on this, but I am curious, I've never released a mod before. Is it bad form to release a WIP / Testing version of a mod, here or in the Steam Workshop? This will be months (or more) of effort, and I certainly do not want to irritate people possibly interested in using it with constant updates, but at the same time, extra eyes on any mistakes I've made, or suggestions on improvement would be awesome. Thank you, Tirick

I am slowly (very slowly) working on recreating Solstheim. You can follow the thread here: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/566416-wip-solstheim/ I hope to have a playable WIP/Testing release for the area around Fort Frostmoth this week. Tirick

Thank you all for the encouragement! I do have a few questions buried in the text here. Not pressing issues, but things I want to be certain I understand before I get too deep. I've added crew now to the decks of Azura's Grace and they seem to be wandering about with idle animations and the like, but I am not 100% certain how to make certain of this, or how to enforce certain idle activities. I found reference to the Sandbox procedure, but I have no idea how to apply it to an actor, or if indeed it is applied. Any advice here would be awesome. I would like some of them to wander around the docks a bit, but for now they seem content to stay aboard. For some reason they congregate at the mead barrel. Before I release this, even as a WIP/Testing mod, I will be adding an NPC to Solitude or maybe even Dawnstar that will take you there. This will be the starting view: The crew of Azura's Grace. I intend to add a captain NPC, as well as an EETC official. I have finalized the Fort walls, adding navigable elements and generally just ensuring that it does not look like crap in game. I had to make some concessions with the sections fits that causes a few layering issues, but most of those are concealed unless you go out of your way to find them. I will be adding interiors, at least to the four main buildings (I'm not certain if it is best to make them all one interior, or to go with separate interior cells for the one that are not connected). Before I start on the navmesh for these four cells I will be adding quite a lot yet to the courtyard; a small market and a blacksmith to start, as well as archery butts and training dummies. I had hopes of putting proper roads in, rather than the painted dirt path, but the roads sections are large and the ground surrounding the fort is quite uneven. For now I will avoid that, I really don't feel like fidgeting with the rotations on large panelly sections. CK View 1 CK View 2 On the approach from the docks Various views: You may notice the ladders scattered about; I can see that they are openable, I assume so they can be linked to a teleport. I'd love to see them usable in the sense of transporting up/down depending on how they are activated, but I have no idea where to start with that. For now they are just window dressing. Enjoy! Tirick

I've now finished adding architecture and static elements to the docks, and I'm quite happy with the results. I may edit/ finish the navmesh for this cell before starting on the castle, just so I can add/test a few npcs. I have not added non-static elements, which I suspect will be a massive time-sink. I want to get the non-static parts for this and the fort complete before I do 'finishing' work. I do intend to make interiors as well, athough the exteriors are my main concern right now. You may notice that I've started to deviate from the canon a little. The blocky stone docks have been replaced with a more organic looking wooden set (partially because there are few suitable stand in elements that match). I've also added a small house that will stand as the local offices of the East Empire Trading Company. The rocky structures around the little bay/dock area in Morrowind have no real matches in Skyrim (that I can find) so I suspect that aside from the shape of landscape much of the detailing bits cannot (and maybe should not) match exactly. The options in Skyrim are a lot better at any rate, I am just not going to stress over matching precisely. At any rate, enjoy: CK View Docks: CK View Docks: In Game (this will be the location of the teleport (it is currently the coc marker view) In Game In Game, from the deck in front of the EETC office In Game In Game (from the Fort wall) Tirick

Do you mean the landscape? I didn't make it so much as export a heightmap from Morrowind and import into Oblivion format. I then used TESnip to merge the Oblivion format into a Skyrim format one that had an empty worldspace. I can't remember the exact thread that got me there (I certainly didn't figure that part out), but it was on the Bethesda modding forum. I was looking for why the CK was crashing when trying to import a .RAW file, and found that it was a common bug. One of the members proposed that workaround. If you mean the painting of the landscape... easy enough. The hardest part was remembering not to left-click (which raises/lowers the landscape) while in landscape mode. Selecting textures and painting (right-click) is easy, although it takes a bit to decide which textures to limit yourself to. Tirick

So texturing landscape is much, much easier and intuitive than I feared. There is are a few navigable irritants, but nothing overly frustrating. I spent a few hours last night 'colouring in' the ocean-space (to about 2 full cells past the height-adjustment areas) and all the rivers/lakes. While this sounds a little boring (it was), it is an easily segregated task and once that would have been tedious in small segments. I'll likely still tweak some (especially the rivers/lakes), but for now they are good. I also have essentially finished the main texture plan for the cells around Fort Frostmoth. This is a fairly small area (6 cells), and only took about 40 minutes to texture. 6 textures per quad sounds on the surface like a lot, but really forces you to focus on a look for a cell. For now I've not really played with using a mix of grass/no grass textures, so the generated grass is quick thick in places. I will have to adjust that, where I can, most of the cells you see are at the 6-tex limit. Over the weekend I intend to focus on static clutter around the fort, as well as roughing in the docks and planning for a small collection of houses making up a 'town' around the fort. Obviously that deviates from 3E, but in 200 years I can see even a small settlement arising, despite the near proximity of Raven Rock. Textured Fort (CK view) The Ocean bed (sample, the whole island has a good border now) In game (High settings, without the HD texture pack) In game (High settings, without the HD texture pack) In game (High settings, without the HD texture pack) Tirick

I've roughed in Fort Frostmoth using Skyrim resources, which are quite different (unsurprisingly) from the Morrowind ones. I had to play with some scaling to get the small turrets for use as a 'corner'. There appears to be no suitable proper wall corner piece in the set. As an aside, filed under things I never noticed in game, none of the exterior imperial wall/tower parts are designed to mate perfectly (and most of the Imperial forts in Skyrim deviate from the harsh 90 deg sets in Morrowind). There is a divider element (and other various tricks) used to seam the parts, often in overlapping ways, with platforms and other elements covering the odd bits. At any rate, I want to build up the dock area and maybe put some more major detail into the fort before I start to texture the four cells that make up the fort. Obviously there is a lot yet to do to make the fort more full. I want to try and make the roofed sections seen in the West part of the Fort as well. Bloodmoon's Fort - Top view Roughed in Fort - Top view At an angle: Tirick

Thank you! For now I want to focus on getting it into the state it was in during the 3rd era. I have (vague) plans to update it to 4th era however, perhaps expanding the fort and maybe adding a trade town there (as well as expanding Raven Rock). Good opportunity to put some rebellion based-quests as well as maybe something in related to the recent Falmer trouble. For now, I just want to see if I can figure the toolkit out well enough to make a playable area that doesn't look like utter rubbish.

Let's start with: I don't know yet where I'm going to take this. I'm not 'new' to modeling, or texturing; I know my way around Blender and GIMP (I design paper models in my spare time), and I've played with every CS / GECK without every committing to making anything. I started making a mod for Skyrim, had a great idea too, but realized that without really knowing what I was doing I could very quickly break things in the main map, and I did not want to do that. So, I got to thinking, What if I started with a blank slate and an already designed concept to work towards. Thus is born: Solstheim. I know, this is not original. I know, this is very likely going to be an official DLC eventually. But this is a personal project, and one with reasonable scope that I think I can tackle. So, I loaded up my GOTY Morrowind, found (through some google-fu) TESAnnwyn (awesome program BTM!), and managed to, through some trial and curses, load through TESNip a height-mapped Worldspace of Solstheim. I (perhaps prematurely) made and finalized a navmesh for the basic terrain (what pain in the a$$ that was!) and am on my way to starting to texture and lay out the area around Fort Frostmoth. Before anyone starts on it, yes I know I'll have to redo nearly every Navmesh... I just wanted to be certain there were no inter-cell errors. Some pics: The greyscale heightmap I'm pretty certain I don't want this in the north eastern corner, but its there now... Morrowind Fort Frostmoth (CS view) The empty plot of land... If anyone has some friendly advice, or words of encouragement, that would be greatly appreciated! I intend to post progress here, although I will not be uploading it as a mod until I have something concretely built. Tirick

Thank you, sounds like good advice. It also sounds like making a more global replacer needs to wait for the CK.