[wip/recruitment] The Changing Seasons of Skyrim

[vfxninjaeditor]

Yes, I agree with your above idea. It may take a lot of texture work (obviously) but we want it to look good and be immersive/realistic as possible. i do however feel that in a game such as Skyrim we don't need to be afraid of gradual change. Changing things everyday between seasons will take a lot of work. Maybe every 2-3 days? The player will still see it and we have less work.

 

btw, I have a ton of ideas for grass, trees, and landscape. I am very busy with my job so I am compiling a huge post for when I am ready. :D

 

EDIT: I want to clarify. I assume the only changes for seasons will take place every 3 months correct? Or are we making this faster (I also assume we will be giving the player an MCM with timing variables)?

[snapmoderator]

The plan is to have many transitions between the seasons :) That's what we are trying to do. Some will be daily like grass and snow changes. Other will be less frequent like ground textures and trees.

 

Just a random Idea..... this is a fantasy world.. why should we be limited to 4 seasons? :wink:

Actually my first thought when doing this was to actually check lore to see if Tamriel might have other seasons, but didn't turn up much on it. The calendar months of Skyrim give away the seasons. I mean to be realistic we should probably look at Scandinavia seasons for best looks?

 

I was thinking about the weather, and obviously what we want to do is change the chances of certain weathers frequencies depending on the time of year. But also the switches between them tend to happen rather quickly, especially if you run from one end of the world to the other. So I was wondering if we should tone down the rate of change by a lot? Snow storms that actually last a couple of days. Need to check out Climates of Tamriel and see if they have built in much logic as far as frequencies and even how weathers transition.

[vfxninjaeditor]

Those transitions you are talking about are stuff like grass density, height, etc. These are easy to do because they are simple number values. I am saying we should limit texture transitions. Plus, in real life the landscape doesn't change quickly. Plants, grass, and trees can change fast.

[Soolie]

Those transitions you are talking about are stuff like grass density, height, etc. These are easy to do because they are simple number values. I am saying we should limit texture transitions. Plus, in real life the landscape doesn't change quickly. Plants, grass, and trees can change fast.

Agreed. We can probably get away with making a decent amount of landscape textures. Also, if we can gain access to the alpha cut-offs (unlikely) We could change them to alter the amount of visible of leaves on branches.

[vfxninjaeditor]

Agreed. We can probably get away with making a decent amount of landscape textures. Also, if we can gain access to the alpha cut-offs (unlikely) We could change them to alter the amount of visible of leaves on branches.

So, essentially we could make leaves grow on trees? Sweet. Forgive me for being daft, how exactly does this work?

[snapmoderator]

Changing things everyday between seasons will take a lot of work. Maybe every 2-3 days? The player will still see it and we have less work.

 

I think snow and grass will change daily. I can even change the snow into subtle moss/grass shaders for a bit of growth on rocks during spring and summer.

 

Grass values like density, colour and height changing daily means we can make it grow/die gradually, before we transition to potentially another texture or even model.

 

It not that much work to make it daily as opposed to every 2-3 days.

 

EDIT: I want to clarify. I assume the only changes for seasons will take place every 3 months correct? Or are we making this faster (I also assume we will be giving the player an MCM with timing variables)?

 

My post here has specifics to periods of tranistions and yes we will have MCM so user can change timing :smile:

http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/1210819-wiprecruitment-the-changing-seasons-of-skyrim/?p=10123792

Edited November 15, 2013 by snapmoderator

[snapmoderator]

So, essentially we could make leaves grow on trees?

There are 2 variables "leaf amplitude" and "leaf frequency" that we could change on the tree group. I don't think its that dramatic a change, but a little experimenting tonight will hopefully prove how useful this will be altering these.

[vfxninjaeditor]

Okay, I understand everything now.

 

I have some thoughts on the grass off the top of my head. The density values are self explanatory and we can change them to whatever feels right. The color range option doesn't always produce very nice results. Turning it up past .4 can result in some grasses appearing super dark and almost black (these were my results when experimenting with my Unique Grasses mod). Better to alter color directly in the texture and not go above .3-.4 in the CK. The color range value also influences the grass color depending on what texture it has been placed on. This means that grass on a dark brown dirt texture will be darker than grass on a grass landscape texture. Very good for slight variations in color. It just has to stay at around .4 or lower.

 

Also, the height range is more of a percentage value that determines how much variation each grass mesh will have. 100 will produce grass of all heights varying within 100% of each other (some really small, some really big). It's not the best option for making the grass grow. We can still use it to provide nice variation during certain seasons. To make the grass grow most effectively it's better to make a copy of the mesh and scale it down in NifSkope. I have experimented with this and it produces very nice results if the density is high enough. These smaller grasses can also have smaller textures to save fps (256x256 and 512x512 depending on the size of the grass. 1024x1024 for the full size grasses that will be present during summer and fall). The height range value just won't cut it if we truly want to make the grass grow.

 

All this talk makes me really excited. :D

[vfxninjaeditor]

There are 2 variables "leaf amplitude" and "leaf frequency" that we could change on the tree group. I don't think its that dramatic a change, but a little experimenting tonight will hopefully prove how useful this will be altering these.

Don't those just change the wind effect though? Would be cool if we could control that based on the type of weather. I.E. Heavy snow storm makes the branches on trees shake wildly. Grass also a Wave Period value to control wind strength.

[snapmoderator]

Don't those just change the wind effect though? Would be cool if we could control that based on the type of weather. I.E. Heavy snow storm makes the branches on trees shake wildly. Grass also a Wave Period value to control wind strength.

Right, silly me. Yeah it would be cool, but unfortunately changes won't kick in until a load happens, so unless they walk outside into stormy weather, they wouldn't notice any changes running around outside.

 

Its possible to have an MCM option that forces game reloads (like cut to loading screen) to happen so that people who want these types of things to happen like heavier snow fall settling on surfaces during snow storms and trees grass blowing more wildly can happen. But that is a bit immersion breaking so probably won't be that popular.

 

Understand about the colour and height variations and limits we have with using these too much. We should be able to change the colour of grasses using SKSE shader functionality as one tool, but this is a global change to the entire texture. So we can make the whole model greener, browner, etc. But of course we will have grasses that have multiple colours, but still will help with having to create less textures.

 

Also a we might be able to manipulate sizes of grasses, bushes and trees using SKSE (NiTriShape.Scale) so that we can do this via programming rather than physically creating multiple models with different sizes. The power of Papyrus and SKSE is actually pretty amazing once you look at it more. But this is just me speculating at the moment. At this stage assume that we have to make multiple models for sizes.

Edited November 15, 2013 by snapmoderator