Holds

[Galandil]

http://i.imgur.com/VYhOWl5.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/q3wDxGL.jpg

I have some work that needs to be done on the diffuse texture, need to make the seams and folds look more realistic, but beyond that. How does it look? Does it look okay? :smile: (My first outfit, will make more of course as well as various texture variations, belt variations, and jacket / pelt jackets / fur cloak variations :wink: All this to make each person added by this project to look like an individual and not a cropped copy paste of a character you can already find in the vanilla game! Will also look into making clothes that make each Hold feel different. Clothes will look very different on people in Solitude, then on people in Falkreath, for instance.)

Also: If you like what I've made don't hesitate with asking if you want to use it in your own modding project. I'm not opposed to handing out permissions and the files to people who ask!

Edited September 5, 2015 by Galandil

[gunslinger6792]

I hate asking this but is the shirt/tunic grey or is it supposed to be chainmail? From what I've seen of the pictures for the work on the various cities it looks fantastic.

[Galandil]

I hate asking this but is the shirt/tunic grey or is it supposed to be chainmail? From what I've seen of the pictures for the work on the various cities it looks fantastic.

Hello Gunslinger6792. Ehm! Its a shirt / Tunic and it is actually blue. I will be making many more color variations and shape/design variations as well. The reason it may sort of look grey is because the normal map isn't entirely perfect. Sort of still learning to get the hang of this. :smile:

 

As for chainmails, I have been given permission by numerous mod authors to use their work in this mod, and there will be a few chainmail wearing characters but the chainmail itself wont be made by me, perhaps that is for the best in a way.

 

Thank you for your kind words, I hope the mod will be satisfactory when it is released :smile:

Edited September 10, 2015 by Galandil

[gunslinger6792]

The shirt then looks very nice. I'm a tad color blind hence my confusion, it makes things a bit interesting. I really admire the buildings you've been working on. As someone who has a bit of an obsession with making homes my interest is certainly peeked.

[Galandil]

Small update;

I have edited every character added in this mod, adding unique faces, and voices, as well as adding classes and proper stats and levels. There are still some plot characters I want to add, but these will not move around much outside of quest plots. I have free'd up some memory in the Solitude docks, no longer does the crewmen of the Worm, a ship docked at the harbor waltz around the docks, with the exception of the captain. This has free'd up considerable memory, as well as making the whole area smoother.

I have also re-applied my ENboost, which has also even more so made everything smoother and I am now completely free of memory related crashing, hopefully the last time I run into these problems as they seem to appear when I get not-so-bright idea's and add stuff I should know by now I shouldn't, which creates a choke on the memory.

I have added details to the Falkreath caves, a small smuggling tunnel which will be involved in the Falkreath plot story-line.

 

Have removed some of the chickens and one of the dogs in Falkreath for sake of memory.

So what remains now is to add more unique outfits, properly fix the specularity on the outfits I have/will create myself, add some remaining plot characters to the game which will be mostly stuck in their original cell location, fix the remaining navmesh, I have fixed most of it, but there are still some remaining deleted navmesh, that needs to be properly overwritten, if they simply can be deleted that would be fine, but best if the ID is overwritten to avoid problems, and finally add proper navmesh. I have yet to finish the Solitude Sewers and I doubt I will before release, it is supposed to be a huge network of tunnels with various corridors and halls. I am not happy with what I have so far and will have to sit down and try to re-think the design of this area. Unsure if this will be included in the first iteration of this mod.

 

I am also considering removing entirely two settlements added by this mod as they serve no purpose, does not sit well with me, and ruin the vast-feeling of Skyrim's Pineforest.

Edited September 14, 2015 by Galandil

[Mattiewagg]

Wonderful! Awesome progress.

[Galandil]

October Update:

I have decided to remove two settlements from my mod. Granitehill and Oakwood. I've removed these two because they serve no purpose, they stick out and ruin the vast feeling of being in a forest far away from civilization. I placed them in bad locations making them visible anywhere near Lake Illinalta and having them there potentially created a choke on memory. Oakwood was also the first settlement I created in this mod and because of that I found its design flawed. However going back and repairing previous work is easier when your working on a separate cell like Falkreath, with Oakwood it would've meant creating an even larger choke on the memory. I know now also some of the lore regarding lake Illinalta and having a town there conflict with this. I have also removed Granitehill which was located near the Hunters Cabin, it just didn't feel right and like Oakwood created an unnecessary strain on the memory. I hope people will understand, and if people still want these two settlements I'll consider adding them as separate mods.

@Edit; Actually. I feel like I need to press the point that the mod became a lot smoother after removing these two settlements. It had an impact on area's that isn't even in Falkreath either which tells me there may have been problems in these area's. Oakwood was after all my first settlement. And Granite Hill was the third. I did not have the sort of know-how I do now and removing these area's was definitely the right thing to do.

I have also moved three families out of Whiterun, freeing the place up making it look less huddled together in certain places and thereby preserving the Open Scandinavian design that the town is supposed to have. I have not removed these families completely, they now reside outside the city walls by the Pelagia farmstead and I feel like this works better. The AI is intact though and they will on more then a few occasions venture into Whiterun.

We now have proper AI in the Arena Lobby for Windhelm along with proper lighting.

I have added the remaining plot characters to the mod along with their necessary AI. I have also added the FaceGen textures and the mod feels so much better, despite the ... two and a half hours it tok for the Creation Kit to process these.

I have some busy work left to do, I have to add proper factions to the many warehouses and guild locations as well as replace the guardsmen in this mod with proper faction related guardsmen which will switch between Imperial and Stormcloak whether the hold has been conquered or not. I will also have to make more use of the permissions I have been given to better diversify the characters added in this mod. I have started this process already where it feels natural to do so. I also have some LOD resources I need to create before I can set up proper LOD for the mod.

I feel like I also need to take some time to flesh out the world a bit. What I mean by this is to add unique names where I can, add some more Easter-eggs (can never have too many of these :smile: ) as well as add more books and letters. I also have the large bundle of work ahead of me concerning finishing the Solitude Sewer System.... Absolutely hate working on this and as I've mentioned in previous updates I am considering dropping the sewer system from the first release all together.

I have a pretty tough November ahead of me. School sadly comes first. I will try to get time when I can. :smile:

Edited October 23, 2015 by Galandil

[Galandil]

Minor update;

 

.. Alright. It has taken the better half of my weekend but I've made sure that every character added by this mod gets a coffin or an urn in a hall of the dead in the Hold that they live in if they are killed. On one hand this means that every characters inventory can be collected later if they de-spawn, it means that they will de-spawn which they wouldn't do earlier, and that every character added by this mod is kill-able. I do intend to add quests in the second iteration but I don't want to limit a players freedom while playing. If you make the decision to kill a quest target before the quest then the quest should react to that in a natural way, instead of artificially keeping that character alive until all of its quest involvements are resolved.

[Boombro]

Nice work so far!

[Galandil]

Minor Update;

I've started working on the Solitude Sewer system. Essentially I've had a week with modding spark and been working non-stop. I'd say I am about halfway done with what parts I want to include in the first iteration. What will be included will be a maze of tunnels, something reminiscent of the Imperial City sewer system. I doubt however that I will create an opening for the sewer system outside of the city walls, so unlike the Whiterun Water canals this is not meant as a sneaky way to get into Solitude. If people feel strongly about it I will of course create that sort of entrance as well though I did some testing and it just felt very out of place. As far as story development for the sewer system I have done some brainstorming and come up with what I think might put some depth into an otherwise rather bland and hollow city.

Once the sewer system is finished I'll need to make the guards dynamic in the civil war and I believe I will create two more outfits for the mod. One with a vest, variate belts, variate type of vest and how thick it is as well as clothing and color, and one with a jacket with the same variations. Then its all about distributing this outfits to the characters in the mod along with permission armors and clothing I have been granted by the community here on the Nexus. I will also need to create LOD for the new buildings though I think I could use the original meshes that I worked out from, reduce the polygon count and use vanilla LOD textures instead, and then I'll need to create the LOD for the world map. I have tried this as practice on a test esp and it constantly crashes. I did contact a fellow on the Dark Creations forums who said he could help me out, but I sort of eluded to that I would contact him at the end of September to do this, however at that time I hadn't gotten to that point. Hopefully he will be will still be willing to help me out. I also have a slight problem with dragon flight path. As I understand it you need to generate a maximum and minimum height for your world-space but this does also crash. I will see about contacting someone who've worked with this previously and see if he or she will be able to help me out, as users like myself of the Deadly Dragon mod will find it rather strange seeing Dragons behaving like Gophers.

I can make no promises of having this ready before Christmas, like I've said in a previous update, November will be a fairly busy month for me. I have two hand-in assignments due next Sunday and I have two weeks of group project afterwords. Then there's my exams. However after the 14th December I should be free for about 2-3 weeks which I intend to devote to hopefully finishing this project's first iteration completely. Hope people will still want to play with this despite Fallout 4 coming out ;)