[wip/recruitment] The Changing Seasons of Skyrim

[gokuGX]

Guys i've found something. This mod released today and already got about 3000 downloads. It will gonna be one of the popular mod may be. So please take it in compatibility list. Just look at those textures, Awesome :D
Tamriel Reloaded - Textures and Parallax by 32cm http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/46925/?tab=2&navtag=%2Fajax%2Fmodfiles%2F%3Fid%3D46925&pUp=1

[snapmoderator]

Those are really encouraging soolie.

 

We should totally aim to have a complete white out for part of the year. Snow covers everything. We can even set up a predetermined set number of days where it snows continuously to set up for the event.

 

I like the idea of doing something like this for the trees, but means that we will probably need somebody to make new models of each of the trees for a given area, or perhaps even all of them.

 

[EDIT] Interestingly I found this 3ds max tutorial on applying blobs of snow to models : http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3d-studio-max/cg_3d_vfx_3dsmax_particle_flow_snow/

 

http://i.imgur.com/OZU7hBu.jpg

Edited November 18, 2013 by snapmoderator

[vfxninjaeditor]

Guys i've found something. This mod released today and already got about 3000 downloads. It will gonna be one of the popular mod may be. So please take it in compatibility list. Just look at those textures, Awesome :D

Tamriel Reloaded - Textures and Parallax by 32cm http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/46925/?tab=2&navtag=%2Fajax%2Fmodfiles%2F%3Fid%3D46925&pUp=1

I like some of the concept that he implemented in his. Overall, it's a bit much. Besides, many of his ideas for grass and such I have already implement similarly in my update for Unique Grasses. Everything I have in my mods is free to be used in what we are developing here.

 

Compatibility for texture overhauls will be a bit subjective. Users will have to find and replace files on their own. Otherwise, they will just be using whatever comes with our mod. If we are going to change the seasons in Skyrim, we essentially have to make a huge texture overhaul.

[vfxninjaeditor]

I managed to add it as grass to the game. Actually it conforms to slopes better than I expected. The only real times you noticed planes not being parallel is when it fixed to a slope and it runs off the end. But in general its pretty good. I'm thinking that we can give 2d planes a go as well (or flattish) and maybe we can use grass snow after all.

 

[EDIT]

Yeah in fact I'm convinced if we do small meshes and up the density to compensate that this will work :smile: Now it just comes down to looks and whether it's going to be as realistic as we want it. Will still need to do transitional textures I think, but still this will go a long way to our gradual changes. We can do a daily change to the value of the alphas of the snow grass for melting and snow fall.

Could you post some screens of it in snowy areas? Also, could you send me the mesh? The idea in general is pretty awesome. It gives snow some depth rather than a flat landscape texture everywhere.

[snapmoderator]

Yeah the Tamriel Reloaded textures are a bit too saturated in parts and they are 1024. I think if we choose our textures between ALL the mods (with permission) then of course we can deliver the absolute best of the best. Compatibility wise, yeah overhauls are subjective, we have to really control the elements (does that make as Elementalists!?) so people will use only what we have packaged up for them.

 

The snow grass mesh is getting distorted in game for me. I'll pm you the link for the mesh, and see if you can get it to behave properly. But I suspect it might get distorted because the engine itself is trying to patch it to the ground. I'm guessing however.

Edited November 18, 2013 by snapmoderator

[vfxninjaeditor]

The snow grass mesh is getting distorted in game for me. I'll pm you the link for the mesh, and see if you can get it to behave properly. But I suspect it might get distorted because the engine itself is trying to patch it to the ground. I'm guessing however.

Okay, I know the problem. Just tested the mesh you sent. Problem is, there is no fix that I know of.

 

Basically, the distortion is coming from the grass 'wave period'. Even with that value set to 0.0001 the mesh stays distorted. Setting to 1.0000 made the mesh look less so, but now the snow is moving back and forth slightly which is unrealistic. The only mesh setup correctly or this is Bethesda's rock grass. It doesn't wave no matter what wave period is set to. I have a feeling it's something in the .nif itself that makes it work. Your best bet would be to compare the rock grass mesh with the snow one.

 

As for the alpha, I have no idea what to do with it. I know when I tried doing a semi-transparent alpha for some grass I made - it didn't work. You might to enable some .nig flags for a smoother alpha. You guys are more qualified in doing that. I have no idea were to look.

[snapmoderator]

Thanks for heads up on that! Its got me absolutely bamboozled. I tried using the rockgrass mesh, keeping all the settings the same, in fact, I've actually just put the new snow mesh into the actual rockgrass mesh itself, but still it sways. It's like there is some hard coded value in the nif itself which tell the engine not to use grass physics. But you cant see this value in NifSkope.

[Matth85]

I'm heading to bed now, so I can't really check anything now:

But if it is within a .nif, it is not hardcoded. We got all the values we need there. Of course, half the values are "Unknown" or horribly complicated to work with, but it's there.

If nothing else, make a new .nif and replace the old one. That way you are certain the .nif is not the problem.

 

Again, I will not be able to do any research myself at the moment. If nothing comes out in between, I'll check it out tomorrow.

I've always enjoyed fighting with nifskope. Been doing it since Oblivion. It's actually quite interesting how complicated it makes easy things.

[vfxninjaeditor]

If nothing else, make a new .nif and replace the old one. That way you are certain the .nif is not the problem.

Sadly, this won't work either. SparrowPrince and I were working together for a little on my mod and he said that none of the custom grass meshes he made by hand worked. They all swayed in the wind and got distorted.

 

The reason he told me this was because I asked him if he could model a low poly pine cone mesh (which would be very cool to add as grass objects to this seasons mod).

[snapmoderator]

Well there does seem to be something magical with the rock mesh. What I did is import it into 3ds max and then flattened one of the meshes. This worked, its not elegant, I don't know why, but it works.

 

However the results are not very good. I could be wrong but it looks like "grass" gets handled in a way that texture is either on or off, rather than offer any transparency. This is fine for leaves say, but for snow it looks horrible. Also it is what it is, an overlay that offers no relationship to the texture underneath. So although it has slight rises and falls, it ends up flat looking.

 

So back to the original concept which is transitions will be handled in the ground textures. There is no substitute for being able to blur and contour the snow overlays so that they better suit each stage of the transition. We can use some snow mounds for added effect, but these are 3d solid meshes.

 

As joshezzell has already shown us his concept for 3d leaves, I think if we head down that track with using transitional grass leaves, for the gradually increase/decrease with leaves on the ground. Question, for your new Unique Grasses with the 3d leaves, do you replace the ground textures so that they dont' have painted on leaves?

 

http://i.imgur.com/KyTFoTM.jpg

Edited November 18, 2013 by snapmoderator