Mod Anticipation

[thebic4]

A mod that enables flying a dragon a skilled modder would just use the animations it already has and script them for player control

[TheMysteriousTraveler]

I dunno what mods I want, but as long as there are as much male outfits as there are with female, more lore-friendly/non anime mods etc. etc. etc.

 

I could go on forever ;)

[PaladinRider]

A mod that enables flying a dragon a skilled modder would just use the animations it already has and script them for player control

 

Its a little bit more difficult than that... How do you turn player controls into a gliding motion? Plus pitch yaw etc. To do that you're probably going to have to redo the animations - you can't just simply stick the player on top of the dragon and makw WASD move them both.

[lapinkarhu]

I joined the forums just to say this:

 

Skyrim looks awesome. With the stupid scaling system of Oblivion gone, this might not even need mods to be a great game. But one thing really bugs me:

 

Skyrim is obviously supposed to be in the North. Where as mid-Cyrodiil was representative of the lush Middle-Europe and South-Cyrodiil was more Mediterranean (And swampy parts of south-USA), Skyrim is clearly supposed to be more like Northern Europe (Or Northern America), taking influence from the volcanic rock and tundra of Iceland, the grand mountains of Norway and Alaska, the forests of northern Sweden and Canada, etc.

 

But there is one thing that is wrong in all the footage we have seen so far: The sun.

 

Northern sun follows a different trajectory than a southern sun. Bethesda studios are in Maryland, USA, which is roughly on the same level with North-California and South-Spain. They clearly have a Maryland sun in their game.

 

In almost every video and every still, if it's not cloudy, the sun is blazing almost directly from above. But this is not how it goes in the north - Even in midsummer, you get toplight only a couple of hours in the midday, at max. After that it's different degrees of sidelight. Outside of the summer, you get no toplight AT ALL, and it's all sidelight.

 

As someone who has lived in Finland all his life, it's really jarring for me. The sun seems to behave exactly like it behaved in California, where I have lived. It's toplight most of the day, and the sun gets quickly up and down in the morning/evening. In the North you should get much shorter midday, and much longer mornings and evenings.

 

Disregarding the climate conditions in the north, there are other reasons why this would be better:

 

Sidelight/backlight is a lot more attractive and atmospheric to look at. For example Witcher 2 used a lower trajectory of sun to great effect - One of the reasons why the game looked so great. It had excellent use of "natural" light. Toplight tends to look kinda ugly and flat - movies avoid it for a reason.

 

Also, emulating the northern sun would create more variety to lighting conditions - Instead of having 2 hours of morning, 12 hours of top-heavy midday and 2 hours of evening (Which is roughly how it was in Oblivion and Fallout 3), the sun would rise and fall slower. Each lighting condition would be prolonged - With the exception of midday, which looks the ugliest anyway, and which looks way too emphasized in Skyrim.

 

I want a more attractive and atmospheric game with more variety in natural light. A game that would also feels more "northern".

 

So a question is: Do you think it would be possible to some day get a "Northern Sun" mod?

 

This would simply mean lowering the trajectory of the sun. I don't how complicated such task would be - Would it simply mean changing some values for the sun, or would that screw up the textures, light maps, etc? This might even be impossible to do within the limitations of the graphics engine, I have no idea really.

Edited September 19, 2011 by lapinkarhu

[hector530]

why should nirn's sun have the same trajectory as earth's sun?

[lapinkarhu]

why should nirn's sun have the same trajectory as earth's sun?

 

Well, according to the ES lore, the sun is a "hole" in the fabric of reality punched by some God. So any scientific plausibility can be ignored. If we would assume that Nirn were a real planet in real space, then it would actually matter. Northern parts of Earth are cold EXACTLY because of the trajectory of the sun.

 

But like I explained, this mod would be good for different reasons:

 

1. It would make the northern region of Skyrim feel more northern. This would increase immersion and the illusion of realism. since we gamers are all living on Earth, emulating Earth's conditions will make the world of Skyrim feel more real to most of us. The nature/climate/weather/ etc in the games tries to emulate Earth anyway, why not make it even better?

 

2. It would bring more variety to lighting conditions. A lot of gamers would probably see this as a good thing, as visual variety makes a game more pleasing to play.

 

3. It would make the game more attractive and atmospheric to look at. Look at Witcher 2. Look at almost any visually handsome and atmospheric movie ever made, and you will see a distinct lack of toplight. Even on films that were shot in California.

 

...I think that's 3 pretty good reasons for a Northern Sun mod. But obviously nobody is going to do some massive overhaul mod to achieve this. However, if it would be possible to do this simply by tweaking some attributes in the game, it might even be a very easy mod to make. Maybe someone would even like to have it as an option in their weather mod.

Edited September 19, 2011 by lapinkarhu

[Lord J]

Personally Skyrim looks like all the great mods thrown into one game. Deadly reflexes, new UI, increased customisation, duel wielding, advanced magic. I honestly can't think of anything that the game may need!

[TheMysteriousTraveler]

Personally Skyrim looks like all the great mods thrown into one game. Deadly reflexes, new UI, increased customisation, duel wielding, advanced magic. I honestly can't think of anything that the game may need!

 

Yeah, more outfits to make you look epics :D

[Alcrin]

Well, according to the ES lore, the sun is a "hole" in the fabric of reality punched by some God. So any scientific plausibility can be ignored. If we would assume that Nirn were a real planet in real space, then it would actually matter. Northern parts of Earth are cold EXACTLY because of the trajectory of the sun.

 

Well, Nirn is technically a planet that rotates on its axis, so the sun there SHOULD have different trajectories through the sky at different latitudes.

 

One concern though is they seem to have double-retconned Cyrodiil; The northern parts of Cyrodiil were in perpetual snow and ice in Oblivion but now the south of Skyrim is grassy all year round. Possibly, this means they turned Cyrodiil back into a rainforest and thus moved Skyrim closer to the equator.

 

Still, I agree that environment lighting that's nearly always a sunrise or a sunset would be f***ing badass.

[chikawowwow]

 

One concern though is they seem to have double-retconned Cyrodiil; The northern parts of Cyrodiil were in perpetual snow and ice in Oblivion but now the south of Skyrim is grassy all year round. Possibly, this means they turned Cyrodiil back into a rainforest and thus moved Skyrim closer to the equator.

 

 

Perhaps the dragons melted the snow? and they then felt guilty and planted the trees?

 

Enviromentalist Dragons........ stranger mods have been made.