Medieval Cyrodiil

[AjaxSt]

Alright, first, an introduction. I'm Ajax, nobody here knows me, as I am relatively new. In fact, I have never released a mod. I have only ever tweaked mods in my own load order for my own purposes. I want that to change.

 

Basically, I came up with an idea. It's not completely original, but nothing I have seen even comes close to giving me what I want, so I'm wanting to start making it myself. A complete, medieval Europe-themed overhaul for Oblivion.

 

Unlike other medieval-themed total conversions out there, I'm not intended on replacing Cyrodiil with France, or any real-world locations. What I'm wanting is to make Cyrodiil look, feel, and play like a true medieval world. What does that mean? Complete overhaul of pretty much everything. But I'm not going to start there. That would be me getting WAY over my head. What I want to do is complete this mod in stages.

 

Stage 1 = Carriables.

Replace/tetexture/rework anything and everything in the game world that the player can carry in his/her inventory. This is where I start. I plan on making these changes in this order:

Clothing

Armor/Weapons

Potions/ingredients

Scrolls and Books

Keys/Gold

Clutter

Anything I missed

 

Stage 2 = World Models and Textures

This is one of the biggest parts to the mod, and one of the most noticable. The idea is to recreate every single hand-crafted item in the world, moulding them in the style of historically-accurate versions of themselves. Again, this would be done in a simple order.

Paintings and Tapestries

Tables and Chairs

Barrels, Boxes, Crates, adn Chests

Torches and Signs

Fences and Walls

Misc.

Houses and Buildings

 

Stage 3 = Cities

This would be another big and noticable change, and the last of the major overhauls. This would be recreating every single city to be larger, based on a historical style of archetecture, and eventually pave the way for modifications to be done to the wilderness around the cities.

Anvil

Kvatch

Skingrad

Chorrol

Bruma

Cheydinhal

Imperial City

Bravil

Layawiin

 

Stage 4 = Gameplay

This would be another huge series of changes, but ones done without as much of a visual impact (if one at all). They would be tweaked and balanced with realism to be placed foremost, but with an important desire to still be fun.

Combat (Using the Duke Patricks mods as inspiration)

Stealth (Providing a challenging rebalance, to make thievery and assassination viable, but tricky)

Magic (High-level magic users should be powerful and feared)

Economy/Speechcraft (There should almost always be a way to get out of a combat situation without violence. Of course, goblins and bandits would be more interested in your corpse than you tounge)

Other Skills (Acrobatics and Athletics should allow your character to move with grater speed and fluidity in the environment, and not just be something to pad your skill sets)

Classes/Birthsigns (Rebalances them all to be useful, both early and late-game)

 

Stage 5 = World

These would be the bulk of the game-changing mechanics. From adding new factions, to completely reorganising the political system of Cyrodiil. These would be hardest to work out, but the most rewarding to complete. This is the core of the mod. There is no particular order of completion, because I, frankly, don't know where to start on this stage.

Base Factions (Rework the Guilds to contain multiple types of advancement, and several new/expanded questlines)

Legion/Guards (Create a Legion faction, each with it's own campaign of war against Oblivion. Crafts new ranks, new characters, and completely overhauls the military of Cyrodiil)

Nobility (Now the nobles squabble amongst themselves, and each holds a different rank. The Baron of Bravil is in a dispute with the Duke of Skingrad, and, without the Emperor's intervention, wages war on his fellow noble...etc.)

Imperial Infrastructure (Farms produce the food, mines collect the Iron and Silver, Forts support the Legions and watch the roads, The roads are actually paved and semi-level)

Towns (Each City controls at least two towns in it's fiefdom, each town is lorded over by a Knight, the highest-ranking soldier in the local legion, save for the noble's Knight Marshall)

Religeon (There are now multiple Priories, Monastaries, and Shrines throughout the land. Reworks the priests and Nuns, and makes religeon have an impact on the world)

 

Stage 6 = People

This would go hand-in-hand with the previous stage, though the previous stage would be more focused on creating the places for these new characters to interact, rather than the characters themselves.

Nobility (Rework the nobles and their retinue so they are squabbling amonst each other, allows the player to become the Count of Kvatch once it's rebuilt, and lengthens the quests to get them to support the Prince of Bruma)

Legion/Guard (Creates several subfactions within the Legion, creates questlines for joining and fighting with them, and allows the player to command entire armies at the highest rank)

Upper Class (Reworks the Wealthy landowners who rule the guilds and towns, and the few who are unlucky enough to be rish enough to be upper class, but too poor to escape the cities.)

Clergy (Reworks the Mages, Monks, Priests, and Cultists to make them all unique, useful, and influential.)

Middle Class (Reworks the shopkeepers, farmers, and guild members to place them in the small, but emerging, middle-class. Usually, they're the richest people in the cities who are not part of the noble court or in the upper class)

Lower Class (Reworks the Lower class to be nothing more than simple peasants, who are forced to do whatever the lords of their towns and cities tell them to do. Don't have much say in what goes on. Most people are of this class)

Adventurers (Financially in the lower and middle classes, and treated with suspicion. These are characters of the player classes that are independant and fee-wandering. Only storytellers, song-singers, tradesmen, and healers are welcome. Player gets these reactions, too)

Thieves (Complete rework of Thief factions, you now have different types of theves, with different behaviors based on location, and there are multiple "gangs" of Thieves. The biggest is the Thieves' guild, but there are others)

 

Stage 7 = Quests

This part modifies the quests that have not already been modified, and adds in new quests where needed.

Main Quest (New quests, subplots, and options get added, to allow an evil character to play an evil character, and to add more depth and length to the story)

Faction Quests (New stories based on the different subsets within the factions. A Fighter's Guild archer is not going to follow the same story as a Fighter's Guild Swordsman. Also, the Mages Guild now requires magic use to progress. Makes the main factions much more realistic)

City Quests (Quests divided by cities and towns, each one getting a minor update. Adjusts all quests recieved within city walls, adds new twists, new plots, and adds many new questlines to be completed)

Region Quests (Quests recieved outside the walls of the cities, with each fiefdom getting it's own minor update. Does the same for these quests as the City Quests did within city walls)

New Quests (Creates dozens of new questlines and single-instance quests, based on all the new joinable factions, and many that are completely new factionless questlines and single-instance)

Hidden Quests (Creates a solid number of "hidden" quests with no map markers or journal entries...where the only way to complete them and get your reward is to discover them, and make your own way to completion)

 

Stage 8 = Misc.

This would be the stage where anything that hasn't gotten modified gets checked out, and if it still needs to be tweaked, tweaked it shall be. This is also the point where balancing issues will be worked on in earnest, and the point where once all base-game modifications have been done, new content will get added.

 

This is my basic battle plan. At the moment, I don't have any real idea what I'm doing, or how I'm doing it. That is where you guys come in.

 

I'm looking to find people that are willing and able to help me with the mod, or at least help me learn how to do it. I will be using this thread to ask questions to the general community as I go along, and I am hoping this will generate enough interest to keep going.

 

As shown in my mod outline, I am starting to work on clothing. What I am looking for is models and textures. My current question is how and where do I go to begin modeling for Oblivion, and how can I do it WELL? I have need a numberous new meshes and textures, and I have no idea where to start. If I could find someone willing to answer my questions, and able to help me bugfix and test, I can start working on this in earnest, rather than just trying to figure out what I'm doing, I can actually do it.

 

Basically:

 

1. What free modelling software is best for beginners wanting to make quality work?

2. Where can I go to learn how to use it, and who can help answer questions I need?

3. Where is a good place to get free textures (Because I can color, but I can't texture to save my life)?

4. How do I put it all into Oblivion?

 

P.S. - I couldn't figure out if I should put this thread in this section, as I am asking for help, or the Mod Announcements section, as I am announcing the mod and my intentions for it. If a moderator feels the need to move it, I won't mind...just please go easy on me...this is my first post.

[Matth85]

What free modelling software is best for beginners wanting to make quality work

As far as I know, Blender is the only free, decent, modeling tool you can get your hands on. If you are a student, or know of anyone, within digital art, chances are you can get a free copy of 3ds max 2010, or Maya. These are more comlplex, but also the softwares used by every game/movie studio out there.

For texturing GIMP is the best free. Photoshop is my prefference though, but costs.

 

2. Where can I go to learn how to use it, and who can help answer questions I need?

Most would say TESAlliance. I'd agree partly, it is good for a few things. However, google and more 3d oriented, and less Oblivion oriented, tutorials will help you a lot more! I spent over a year on google, buying Ebooks and watching things on youtube before I grasped 3d.

If it is more 3d oriented, and less blender oriented, you can ask me.

Game-Artist.net and NextGenHardSurface.com for more proffesional forums. They use Maya and 3ds max mostly. But you'll find people that's worked at AAA titles on these forums.

 

 

3. Where is a good place to get free textures (Because I can color, but I can't texture to save my life)?

1) Take photos. Any texture artist should.

2) Photoshop filters are awesome :) If you got that.

3) Cgtextures.com - royaltry free texture library. Make an account and you can download 15mb of pictures per day/week ( I am not sure). So take what you need.

4. How do I put it all into Oblivion?

Lots of tutorials on that. In short:

 

- Scale the model after another model from Bethesda. This way you know that the scales are right.

- Export it as a.nif, and save your textures as texturename.dds.

- Fix any errors within nifsope.

- Open the Construction Set, go to what you want changed and change the model, or make a new one.

- Place it in game and save the plugin as a .esp.

- Playtest.

 

You should read some blender-specific tutorials on that point. As I got no idea how you apply textures or anything within blender :)

 

Now, let me quote stuff within your post:

 

 

My current question is how and where do I go to begin modeling for Oblivion, and how can I do it WELL

Start by learning to model. LEarn to understand 3d, learn to get nice topology and learn to keep it low poly. Then move toward UVW-unwrapping and texturing. After that you should consider getting it into Oblivion.

Why not make stuff for Oblivion at start, you ask? Well, you'd spend too much time sitting in nifskope and debugging, and use less time learning. It would also kill your motivation.

 

Because, trust me on this, motivation is one thing you really want to keep up. If you get stuck o something for just a tad too long, you'll scratch it. I got over 20 unfinished projects in my folders, because I hit some kind of problem and lost all motivation. If you do not finish a model, you do not learn all you could learn.

 

 

Also, this is a huge project. Break it up into smaller pieces and work on. Re-making every piece will take you, alone, over a year to do. A few years if you want to do it well.

If you take a too big chunk of work, you'll get frustrated and bored after a while. Start small, and build up :)

 

Cheers,

Matth

[AjaxSt]

Thanks for the help, and yeah, I plan on making it small at first. The step I'm working on right now is the clothing. Right now I'm finding reference pictures so I know WHAT I'm modeling before I start working on them. Usually a good step (And where I failed before, the first time I wanted to start modelling)

 

I already have Photoshop, so that's part of the equasion solved. :P

Edited October 15, 2011 by AjaxSt

[Matth85]

Usually a good step

Eh.. It's not a "good step" it is a rule! :P

It's what every decent modeller does. They collect reference, or draw their own. Freemodelling is never as good as anything with reference.

 

I'd advice against starting on clothings and armor at start. I'd start on smaller things like, say, the barrels, crates, a house, etc. Then move towards more organic things like armor and clothes. This is because clothing/armor is very complicated. You both ned a good topology for the model itself, but it also needs to folow the anatomy of the human/creature under it. It must also not stretch when animated or clip. A lot of uneccessary problems for a new 3d artist :)

 

Good luck though!

 

Cheers,

Matth

[firefly97]

im interested in helping as ive always had the same feeling about oblivion.but currently me and another person are working on a mod that is almost finished except for a few things. when we finish ill gladly help you do this. im also fairly good at modeling and creating meshes and textures. Edited October 15, 2011 by firefly97

[CounterPoint391]

Hey there,

 

I'm a modder for another game called M&B Warband. I have several sword models that you may be able to use for your mod. I need to texture them, but if it looks like something you need, I can probably find enough motivation to work on texturing them. I'd even be willing to do other weapons for this mod as well. Send me a PM if interested.

 

Some previous work

 

 

 

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/5664/screenshot7212010113653.png

 

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/5419/screenshot7222010102028.png

 

http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/5871/typexiiconcept.png

 

http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/7950/typexiiiconcept.png

 

http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/7479/typexiiibconcept.png

 

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/8126/mb88.png

 

http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/4489/mb4u.jpg

 

 

[Cryogenius333]

Alright, first, an introduction. I'm Ajax, nobody here knows me, as I am relatively new. In fact, I have never released a mod. I have only ever tweaked mods in my own load order for my own purposes. I want that to change.

 

Basically, I came up with an idea. It's not completely original, but nothing I have seen even comes close to giving me what I want, so I'm wanting to start making it myself. A complete, medieval Europe-themed overhaul for Oblivion.

 

Unlike other medieval-themed total conversions out there, I'm not intended on replacing Cyrodiil with France, or any real-world locations. What I'm wanting is to make Cyrodiil look, feel, and play like a true medieval world. What does that mean? Complete overhaul of pretty much everything. But I'm not going to start there. That would be me getting WAY over my head. What I want to do is complete this mod in stages.

 

Stage 1 = Carriables.

Replace/tetexture/rework anything and everything in the game world that the player can carry in his/her inventory. This is where I start. I plan on making these changes in this order:

Clothing

Armor/Weapons

Potions/ingredients

Scrolls and Books

Keys/Gold

Clutter

Anything I missed

 

Stage 2 = World Models and Textures

This is one of the biggest parts to the mod, and one of the most noticable. The idea is to recreate every single hand-crafted item in the world, moulding them in the style of historically-accurate versions of themselves. Again, this would be done in a simple order.

Paintings and Tapestries

Tables and Chairs

Barrels, Boxes, Crates, adn Chests

Torches and Signs

Fences and Walls

Misc.

Houses and Buildings

 

Stage 3 = Cities

This would be another big and noticable change, and the last of the major overhauls. This would be recreating every single city to be larger, based on a historical style of archetecture, and eventually pave the way for modifications to be done to the wilderness around the cities.

Anvil

Kvatch

Skingrad

Chorrol

Bruma

Cheydinhal

Imperial City

Bravil

Layawiin

 

Stage 4 = Gameplay

This would be another huge series of changes, but ones done without as much of a visual impact (if one at all). They would be tweaked and balanced with realism to be placed foremost, but with an important desire to still be fun.

Combat (Using the Duke Patricks mods as inspiration)

Stealth (Providing a challenging rebalance, to make thievery and assassination viable, but tricky)

Magic (High-level magic users should be powerful and feared)

Economy/Speechcraft (There should almost always be a way to get out of a combat situation without violence. Of course, goblins and bandits would be more interested in your corpse than you tounge)

Other Skills (Acrobatics and Athletics should allow your character to move with grater speed and fluidity in the environment, and not just be something to pad your skill sets)

Classes/Birthsigns (Rebalances them all to be useful, both early and late-game)

 

Stage 5 = World

These would be the bulk of the game-changing mechanics. From adding new factions, to completely reorganising the political system of Cyrodiil. These would be hardest to work out, but the most rewarding to complete. This is the core of the mod. There is no particular order of completion, because I, frankly, don't know where to start on this stage.

Base Factions (Rework the Guilds to contain multiple types of advancement, and several new/expanded questlines)

Legion/Guards (Create a Legion faction, each with it's own campaign of war against Oblivion. Crafts new ranks, new characters, and completely overhauls the military of Cyrodiil)

Nobility (Now the nobles squabble amongst themselves, and each holds a different rank. The Baron of Bravil is in a dispute with the Duke of Skingrad, and, without the Emperor's intervention, wages war on his fellow noble...etc.)

Imperial Infrastructure (Farms produce the food, mines collect the Iron and Silver, Forts support the Legions and watch the roads, The roads are actually paved and semi-level)

Towns (Each City controls at least two towns in it's fiefdom, each town is lorded over by a Knight, the highest-ranking soldier in the local legion, save for the noble's Knight Marshall)

Religeon (There are now multiple Priories, Monastaries, and Shrines throughout the land. Reworks the priests and Nuns, and makes religeon have an impact on the world)

 

Stage 6 = People

This would go hand-in-hand with the previous stage, though the previous stage would be more focused on creating the places for these new characters to interact, rather than the characters themselves.

Nobility (Rework the nobles and their retinue so they are squabbling amonst each other, allows the player to become the Count of Kvatch once it's rebuilt, and lengthens the quests to get them to support the Prince of Bruma)

Legion/Guard (Creates several subfactions within the Legion, creates questlines for joining and fighting with them, and allows the player to command entire armies at the highest rank)

Upper Class (Reworks the Wealthy landowners who rule the guilds and towns, and the few who are unlucky enough to be rish enough to be upper class, but too poor to escape the cities.)

Clergy (Reworks the Mages, Monks, Priests, and Cultists to make them all unique, useful, and influential.)

Middle Class (Reworks the shopkeepers, farmers, and guild members to place them in the small, but emerging, middle-class. Usually, they're the richest people in the cities who are not part of the noble court or in the upper class)

Lower Class (Reworks the Lower class to be nothing more than simple peasants, who are forced to do whatever the lords of their towns and cities tell them to do. Don't have much say in what goes on. Most people are of this class)

Adventurers (Financially in the lower and middle classes, and treated with suspicion. These are characters of the player classes that are independant and fee-wandering. Only storytellers, song-singers, tradesmen, and healers are welcome. Player gets these reactions, too)

Thieves (Complete rework of Thief factions, you now have different types of theves, with different behaviors based on location, and there are multiple "gangs" of Thieves. The biggest is the Thieves' guild, but there are others)

 

Stage 7 = Quests

This part modifies the quests that have not already been modified, and adds in new quests where needed.

Main Quest (New quests, subplots, and options get added, to allow an evil character to play an evil character, and to add more depth and length to the story)

Faction Quests (New stories based on the different subsets within the factions. A Fighter's Guild archer is not going to follow the same story as a Fighter's Guild Swordsman. Also, the Mages Guild now requires magic use to progress. Makes the main factions much more realistic)

City Quests (Quests divided by cities and towns, each one getting a minor update. Adjusts all quests recieved within city walls, adds new twists, new plots, and adds many new questlines to be completed)

Region Quests (Quests recieved outside the walls of the cities, with each fiefdom getting it's own minor update. Does the same for these quests as the City Quests did within city walls)

New Quests (Creates dozens of new questlines and single-instance quests, based on all the new joinable factions, and many that are completely new factionless questlines and single-instance)

Hidden Quests (Creates a solid number of "hidden" quests with no map markers or journal entries...where the only way to complete them and get your reward is to discover them, and make your own way to completion)

 

Stage 8 = Misc.

This would be the stage where anything that hasn't gotten modified gets checked out, and if it still needs to be tweaked, tweaked it shall be. This is also the point where balancing issues will be worked on in earnest, and the point where once all base-game modifications have been done, new content will get added.

 

This is my basic battle plan. At the moment, I don't have any real idea what I'm doing, or how I'm doing it. That is where you guys come in.

 

I'm looking to find people that are willing and able to help me with the mod, or at least help me learn how to do it. I will be using this thread to ask questions to the general community as I go along, and I am hoping this will generate enough interest to keep going.

 

As shown in my mod outline, I am starting to work on clothing. What I am looking for is models and textures. My current question is how and where do I go to begin modeling for Oblivion, and how can I do it WELL? I have need a numberous new meshes and textures, and I have no idea where to start. If I could find someone willing to answer my questions, and able to help me bugfix and test, I can start working on this in earnest, rather than just trying to figure out what I'm doing, I can actually do it.

 

Basically:

 

1. What free modelling software is best for beginners wanting to make quality work?

2. Where can I go to learn how to use it, and who can help answer questions I need?

3. Where is a good place to get free textures (Because I can color, but I can't texture to save my life)?

4. How do I put it all into Oblivion?

 

P.S. - I couldn't figure out if I should put this thread in this section, as I am asking for help, or the Mod Announcements section, as I am announcing the mod and my intentions for it. If a moderator feels the need to move it, I won't mind...just please go easy on me...this is my first post.

 

 

My friend, I must say this is an incredible idea, if a somewhat lofty one. I approve. Lofty ideas define the future.

Although, I must also say, with Skyrim nearing it's release, It might be better to hold off and save these ideas for that game.

Of course, not many people likely know what Skyrim is going to be like, so keep working on it, and keep learning. There are people here who will help you.

More to the point, I might be able to help you, in a way. Well, maybe.

I have absolutely no experience modding or meshing, or animating, and am probably no the person to turn to for that.

But if you need a realistic idea of how weapons are used, or how melee combat works, I can help you out. I happen to be a melee combat enthusiast and an amateur practitioner of melee combat with swords and various weapons, specializing in polearms and have a fairly realistic idea of how to use them. Several of my friends collect weapons, and have a reasonable amount of skill with them. If you ever need help visualizing how these work, give me a hail, maybe we can work something out.

Of course, I'm probably preaching to a a high choir, but I see your ambition, and just felt I should offer.

Keep up the good work.

[AjaxSt]

I've already got someone working on collecting reference images for the weaponry. I might go ahead and PM you every once in a while to double check some elements, and I'll definately keep you on the list of possible testers, but I got a pretty good idea of where I'm wanting to go with this idea.

 

Polearms would be a very difficult, and possibly impossible, element that I would LOVE to incorporate. Until I can figure out how to do it, I'm not going to worry about incorporating polearms and spears. Would also love to include flails, but those would need new animations to work right.

 

As for why I'm working on this rather than waiting for Skyrim, Skyrim has a different look and feel. Is there a possibility that I might do something similar for Skyrim? Maybe. Skyrim is more of a Nordic/Viking world, whereas Oblivion is much more classic European in look, feel, and style. If I do something for Skyrim, the era would be based around 600-1000 AD, whereas this mod is focusing on the 900-1300 AD range.

 

Right now, I just need to gather reference images and see if I can find someone that knows how to make clothing and armor meshes that can help out until I can learn to do it myself.

Edited October 18, 2011 by AjaxSt

[Keirgarth]

In the past people have tried to make whips. The nature of the reason they were unsuccessfully is that the whip must be able to have it's own animation in order to look right. The flail will fall into this category as well due to the chain or chains involved in the weapon design. It would be nice to have them in game, but unfortunately, I don't think that is going to happen.

[AjaxSt]

I have pretty much given up on the idea of doing flails, simply for that reason. Right now I'm working on the logistics of the world, figuring out how the world works and such, and gathering references for the armor and weapons.

 

I have my weapon selections made, though reference material has yet to be compiled, and armor listings are being worked on.

 

Another, ambitious element to this mod is the expanding of the world, both with NPCs and physically. The square footage of the province of Cyrodiil is being doubled, to make room for the thousands of new NPCs, improved military system, and visable economic infrastructure.

 

I have a modder confidant in coding and using TES4Edit and the Construction Set working on these elements, but I still have no new model content to add.

 

Would probably be a good idea to make a "New Mod" page for this, to place updates.

 

Current question...are there any suggestions for something that they would like to see in this mod? Anything is considered, as long as it is European and was seen/used/etc. from circa 900 AD to circa 1300 AD.