A Smoking Red Mountain

[MsJames]

It was a relatively clear day today. The ash had settled just enough to see across the Sea of Ghost's from Solstheim to the rest of Morrowind. Feeling the warm gentle ashfall against my cheeks, and the slight breeze in my hair -- I looked out towards Morrowind. Towards my homeland. I saw the Red Mountain towering above the island of Vvardenfell, ash continuously chugging from it's crater... I felt a sense of longing at the sight. A longing to return home. To see the sights again after a long exile to Skyrim for the past 200 years. It was the 4th era by now, and the Days as the Nerevarine back in the 3rd era seemed like nothing more than a dream. I thought back, trying to remember another day like this. Watching the Red Mountain spew ash... Then I realized, I couldn't!

 

In Morrowind the Draw distance was so close that we never got to see the Red Mountain. So it was never necessary to actually make a visible ashflow from it's crater. Today, with MGE (Morrowind Graphics Extender), We can extend the Draw distance and see all the way to the top of the volcano from anywhere in the province. But it's never smoking. you can hardly even tell it's a volcano.

 

In Skyrim we saw the Red Mountain from Solstheim, and we watched the ash flow from it's crater with longing. Since Skyrim's Draw distance was just about infinite, the Developers realized it was necessary to let us see the ashflow from the volcano. So that we'd know it was a volcano, so that we'd Know it was the great Red Mountain.

 

In The Elder Scrolls Online, we don't actually get to go to Vvardenfell; nor do we get to see the Red Mountain... (Yet) But we do get to see the Ash Mountain of the Velothi Mountains. And we watch ash pour from it's crater. Even this puny little volcano wannabe of a mountain has ash coming from it's crater? But the original instance of the Great Red Mountain does not.

 

I can't stand to see Red Mountain without it's ash column anymore. Am I really the only one? Why has no body endeavored to make Red Mountain smoke? even a little? Surely it's not impossible? We've seen, that with MGE, Distant LOD Terrain Textures can be generated for Morrowind. Surely we can attach an Animated smoke column texture to Red Mountain? I Know that the height we can reach in Morrowind is not very high, but surely the smoke could be attached to the side of the mountain? Like in This image but even more so? Surely that cannot be impossible? I'm not sure how MGE distant LOD textures work, but maybe animated distant textures are more than it can handle? Even a static smoke texture would be better than nothing? We could simply have it disappear once you went inside the Ghost-Gate? If that doesn't work, is it possible to add it as a weather effect to every weather variant in game? because that could work as well, and it would be animated too. (I'm not familiar with the weather system or image spacing in Morrowind, so this might be a bit far fetched.)

 

I just thought I'd put this out there. I'm really surprised no one has tried this before. I am quite desperate to see this happen, and would do it myself, but textures, meshes, and that jazz are not where my strengths lie. I will definitely try it anyway, but some pointers or assistance from the veterans in our community would be very welcome, and very appreciated.

Edited February 23, 2015 by MsJames

[Dragon32]

Dunno if this is possible. The Ghost Fence textures are animated when you're nearby but when MGE / MGE XE take over rendering the textures are static. So, I guess a static ash plume could be added but that'd probably look a bit rubbish.

 

Another one to add to the OpenMW post-1.0 wish list.

[MsJames]

When OpenMW reaches 1.0, I will definitely make this happen with their engine. That much was never even in question. :teehee:

Edited February 23, 2015 by MsJames