Holds

[Galandil]

If that fails just send me one of the simple models and I'll see if I can get it working. Second times the charm right :wink:

Haha true! Thanks mate, I'll send you a test nif, along with a nif that a developer over at Dark Creations has actually managed to get to work. :)

[Galandil]

Here is my seventh and eight trailer for the mod project.

 

The first trailer shows Whiterun, the exterior might seem familiar to a lot of you, it is created from the work of Drakulux who is the author of the Whiterun Outskirts Market. I was given permission to create something I'd dare say is identical to his work, and I feel it really does make Whiterun feel less like a missed opportunity to make use of space, like the walkway towards the town main gate. In the market characters from both the inn, The Tundra Rest, the Courier's Headquarters and occasionally less hospitable groups who've gone incognito may be found buying and bartering for supplies.

While it is not shown in the trailer there is also a nice feature in the mod. The first thing I did when I had started up Skyrim and escaped Helgen, was leg it towards Whiterun, and when I saw those water canals I wanted to access them. I thought this would play out sort of like in Oblivion, the Imperial City. A full canal of sewers and many enemies to fight and treasures to be found, but alas. It was not so. However now you can. You can access those tunnels and sneak in and out of the city. Very usefull for say a Werewolf, or someone with a bounty on their head? ;)

The second trailer shows Falkreath. I have previously released a trailer for Falkreath, as you can see it looks quite different now, with updated meshes and an overall dirtier terrain. The reason for this change is because it never sat well with me. I realize the polls tells another tale but I just can't properly release something that just didn't feel right to me. For those who were looking forward to a very rustic and pavement-filled medieval town; If you are like me and you intend to play Skyrim for a while more yet, then no doubt you are going to try out the Beyond Skyrim project. Now I have had a few glimpses at what they are working on, and believe me you will get your fill of castles and European medieval level design. Atleast this way Falkreath wont feel redundant and feel like a less impressive carbon copy of something you will get in a much heavier mod project like Beyond Skyrim. I would really hate to work on something that I know people would want to disable since it would feel too much alike something you would find in High Rock, or Cyrodiil, and want the diversity and cultural stamp of what you'd expect in a Nordic town. I have tried to keep some aspects of Colovian Architecture in the design, hopefully people will enjoy this change, but please do let me know what you think of it :)

 

I apologize for not updating the forums with more screenshots and updates on my work, it may seem like I've been slacking this summer but quite the contrary, I've been learning how to use Nifscope and Blender, how to create meshes and how to get them into Skyrim. I have created a full modders resource that I will be releasing for those who would want to use it for their own projects ;) And I have been adding content here and there on the mod. The Whiterun Water Canal is finished, the interiors are finished. I have begun working on the LOD implementation now, and will once thats done start looking over small issues. I have also allowed a few friends who I trust to try out the mod and report back on problems they may encounter, and whether or not this mod is actually an enjoyable experience, and if not how it can improve. I feel like a mountain of work has been done this summer, and to put it quite bluntly. There is not much that remains to be done before I'll have to see about releasing the first batch of this project :)

Hope you'll enjoy the trailers and hope you've all had a good summer!

[Mattiewagg]

Wow. Beautiful. :O Falkreath looks a lot better in my opinion, and Whiterun looks just as awesome as it did when I was giving it a runthrough.

Edited August 17, 2015 by Mattiewagg

[Imatelevision]

Looks so professionally done!

 

I'm kinda creeping up on your upcoming modders ressource, just so you know :D

[TheFirstEnD]

I think Falkreath looks a lot better too

[Galandil]

Small update. I have fixed my mods navmesh, well.. mostly. I have followed a tutorial which I'll link here;

http://afkmods.iguanadons.net/index.php?/topic/3337-skyrim-fixing-navmesh-deletion-using-tes5edit/

While I couldn't overwrite every single deleted Navmesh with my own which are added in this mod, I see much more stability, stable FPS and much much much less stutters, practically zero(for some reason), and characters actually going where they are supposed to, and not everywhere else.
Having worked on this project since November 2012, I'll admit I felt overjoyed when finally characters that have fought me tooth and nail not go where I wanted them to go, actually went there. Characters who've previously entered a vanilla interior, and been incapable of leaving until I show up are suddenly a problem whisked away.

This weekend a fellow developer here on Nexus will be testing out my mod, hopefully he will have an over all good experience and will run into minor problems. I am in the midst of testing as well and so far I've had a pleasant trek. There are still some vanilla deleted navmesh that I haven't overwritten yet, I have bumped into a few area's that I recall has them and how the characters behave is very different from in area's where it is fixed entirely. I will fix this with time, either be through making new navmesh paths and overwriting that way, or undeleting and sinking the old vanilla navmesh -into hell, where it belongs-.

Another fellow developer has agree'd to see about helping me fix the LOD for the mod, seeing as how easy it is to break your game by doing it wrong I think it is best to leave that to the expert. He will be available to do this around the end of September and hopefully he will have no problems creating proper LOD for this mod.

 

There are some other stuff I found while cleaning the mod with Tes5Edit, problems that are brought up in Holds, but are caused by Dawnguard and Hearthfire colliding with each other. I cannot clean these two, hopefully the unofficial patches have fixed this, if someone could clarify me on this that would be great :smile:

Next week, on Tuesday to be exact I will be going back to school. I've had a wonderfully productive summer, and while I don't want to slow down development now that I am so close to wrapping this project up, I fear school and real life has to come first. Hopefully this second year will not be more stressful and tough then last year, leaving me an opening of about 2 hours a day to work on the project. Hopefully I'll have enough time a day to look into adding the remaining NPC's, micromanagement and tweaking. :smile:

Edited August 22, 2015 by Galandil

[Galandil]

Minor update. I've fixed a few minor issues, added proper emittance lighting to interior windows, done some more stress testing and will be finishing up the final LOD meshes tomorrow before starting to work on the NPC's appearance in game. I don't know how important minor details as whether or not one character in Solitude has the exact same face as a character in Whiterun, but it is me, I've been testing the mod as I've been developing and it does tend to bother you after a while, I suspect editing in details might take longer then just this weekend, but hopefully people will appreciate the effort :)

[Galandil]

Small update. I am working on the new outfits for the mod. I am having some problems rigging. But over all creating various outfit designs that I feel is needed to create more diversity both in the cities between characters, and between the various Holds. I have been talking with other developers and been given a great deal of advice on design and how to go about implementing this. Rigging like I said still remains a complete mystery to me but I'll manage eventually, in the meantime I will try and create as many outfits as I can.

Here is what I have so far. Once I can get the mesh into game I can easily make color and detail variations, I have also created a version without the belt, one with a leather belt, one with short sleeves and will also be making variations with with a fur cloak and with various fur vests and coats.

http://i.imgur.com/K9YLgkO.jpg

I will be looking into texture design this weekend and try to make the texture look better, I will be following this image here created by Vaultman30 who has been giving me plenty of helpful advice :)

http://i.imgur.com/C31XmBy.png?1

If you know your way around rigging armor from Blender and wish to help guide me through the process please do let me know :)

[Mattiewagg]

That actually looks reaaaaaaaaally good. I can't help, but that looks very nice and realistic. I WANT MORE CLOTHES FROM YOU! :P

[Galandil]

Your more then welcome to use them if you want to Mattie! As is any other developer who asks :)

Thank you :laugh: