Tirick Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 Let's start with: I don't know yet where I'm going to take this. I'm not 'new' to modeling, or texturing; I know my way around Blender and GIMP (I design paper models in my spare time), and I've played with every CS / GECK without every committing to making anything. I started making a mod for Skyrim, had a great idea too, but realized that without really knowing what I was doing I could very quickly break things in the main map, and I did not want to do that. So, I got to thinking, What if I started with a blank slate and an already designed concept to work towards. Thus is born: Solstheim. I know, this is not original. I know, this is very likely going to be an official DLC eventually. But this is a personal project, and one with reasonable scope that I think I can tackle. So, I loaded up my GOTY Morrowind, found (through some google-fu) TESAnnwyn (awesome program BTM!), and managed to, through some trial and curses, load through TESNip a height-mapped Worldspace of Solstheim. I (perhaps prematurely) made and finalized a navmesh for the basic terrain (what pain in the a$$ that was!) and am on my way to starting to texture and lay out the area around Fort Frostmoth. Before anyone starts on it, yes I know I'll have to redo nearly every Navmesh... I just wanted to be certain there were no inter-cell errors. Some pics: The greyscale heightmap http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/SolstheimGS16.jpg I'm pretty certain I don't want this in the north eastern corner, but its there now... http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/SolstheimHeightmap.jpg Morrowind Fort Frostmoth (CS view) http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/FortFrostmoth-MorrowindCS.jpg The empty plot of land... http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/FortFrostmoth-JustTerrain.jpg If anyone has some friendly advice, or words of encouragement, that would be greatly appreciated! I intend to post progress here, although I will not be uploading it as a mod until I have something concretely built. Tirick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALittleBird Posted February 15, 2012 Share Posted February 15, 2012 That looks great! Really looking forward to this. But what time are you putting it in? The Third Era or the Fourth Era, i.e. Morriwind's or Skyrim's time? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tirick Posted February 15, 2012 Author Share Posted February 15, 2012 Thank you! For now I want to focus on getting it into the state it was in during the 3rd era. I have (vague) plans to update it to 4th era however, perhaps expanding the fort and maybe adding a trade town there (as well as expanding Raven Rock). Good opportunity to put some rebellion based-quests as well as maybe something in related to the recent Falmer trouble. For now, I just want to see if I can figure the toolkit out well enough to make a playable area that doesn't look like utter rubbish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tirick Posted February 16, 2012 Author Share Posted February 16, 2012 I've roughed in Fort Frostmoth using Skyrim resources, which are quite different (unsurprisingly) from the Morrowind ones. I had to play with some scaling to get the small turrets for use as a 'corner'. There appears to be no suitable proper wall corner piece in the set. As an aside, filed under things I never noticed in game, none of the exterior imperial wall/tower parts are designed to mate perfectly (and most of the Imperial forts in Skyrim deviate from the harsh 90 deg sets in Morrowind). There is a divider element (and other various tricks) used to seam the parts, often in overlapping ways, with platforms and other elements covering the odd bits. At any rate, I want to build up the dock area and maybe put some more major detail into the fort before I start to texture the four cells that make up the fort. Obviously there is a lot yet to do to make the fort more full. I want to try and make the roofed sections seen in the West part of the Fort as well. Bloodmoon's Fort - Top view http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/FortFrostmoth-MorrowindTop.jpg Roughed in Fort - Top view http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/FortFrostmoth-RoughedIn-Top.jpg At an angle: http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/FortFrostmoth-RoughedIn.jpg Tirick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
huntsman2310 Posted February 16, 2012 Share Posted February 16, 2012 Looking good man, keep up with this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tirick Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 (edited) So texturing landscape is much, much easier and intuitive than I feared. There is are a few navigable irritants, but nothing overly frustrating. I spent a few hours last night 'colouring in' the ocean-space (to about 2 full cells past the height-adjustment areas) and all the rivers/lakes. While this sounds a little boring (it was), it is an easily segregated task and once that would have been tedious in small segments. I'll likely still tweak some (especially the rivers/lakes), but for now they are good. I also have essentially finished the main texture plan for the cells around Fort Frostmoth. This is a fairly small area (6 cells), and only took about 40 minutes to texture. 6 textures per quad sounds on the surface like a lot, but really forces you to focus on a look for a cell. For now I've not really played with using a mix of grass/no grass textures, so the generated grass is quick thick in places. I will have to adjust that, where I can, most of the cells you see are at the 6-tex limit. Over the weekend I intend to focus on static clutter around the fort, as well as roughing in the docks and planning for a small collection of houses making up a 'town' around the fort. Obviously that deviates from 3E, but in 200 years I can see even a small settlement arising, despite the near proximity of Raven Rock. Textured Fort (CK view) http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/Frostmoth-TerrainPainted.jpg The Ocean bed (sample, the whole island has a good border now) http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/Ocean-TerrainPainted.jpg In game (High settings, without the HD texture pack) http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/InGame-001.jpg In game (High settings, without the HD texture pack) http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/InGame-002.jpg In game (High settings, without the HD texture pack) http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/InGame-003.jpg Tirick Edited February 17, 2012 by Tirick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Undoer Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 This looks awesome! No quest I've seen in any of the Elder Scrolls Games has been able to rival the Raven Rock quest line, in my opinion of course, so I really look forward to seeing more of this! How difficult was it to make the terrain? As a new modder who's so far only done tiny tweaks this type of thing looks daunting to say the least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tirick Posted February 17, 2012 Author Share Posted February 17, 2012 Do you mean the landscape? I didn't make it so much as export a heightmap from Morrowind and import into Oblivion format. I then used TESnip to merge the Oblivion format into a Skyrim format one that had an empty worldspace. I can't remember the exact thread that got me there (I certainly didn't figure that part out), but it was on the Bethesda modding forum. I was looking for why the CK was crashing when trying to import a .RAW file, and found that it was a common bug. One of the members proposed that workaround. If you mean the painting of the landscape... easy enough. The hardest part was remembering not to left-click (which raises/lowers the landscape) while in landscape mode. Selecting textures and painting (right-click) is easy, although it takes a bit to decide which textures to limit yourself to. Tirick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALittleBird Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 That looks really great, gets me psyched for some modding myself (haven't got the Creation Kit yet). Really looking forward to this, I like the idea of a village by the fort. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tirick Posted February 19, 2012 Author Share Posted February 19, 2012 I've now finished adding architecture and static elements to the docks, and I'm quite happy with the results. I may edit/ finish the navmesh for this cell before starting on the castle, just so I can add/test a few npcs. I have not added non-static elements, which I suspect will be a massive time-sink. I want to get the non-static parts for this and the fort complete before I do 'finishing' work. I do intend to make interiors as well, athough the exteriors are my main concern right now. You may notice that I've started to deviate from the canon a little. The blocky stone docks have been replaced with a more organic looking wooden set (partially because there are few suitable stand in elements that match). I've also added a small house that will stand as the local offices of the East Empire Trading Company. The rocky structures around the little bay/dock area in Morrowind have no real matches in Skyrim (that I can find) so I suspect that aside from the shape of landscape much of the detailing bits cannot (and maybe should not) match exactly. The options in Skyrim are a lot better at any rate, I am just not going to stress over matching precisely. At any rate, enjoy: CK View Docks: http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/Docks-CK.jpg CK View Docks: http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/Docks-CK-02.jpg In Game (this will be the location of the teleport (it is currently the coc marker view) http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/InGame-Docks-001.jpg In Game http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/InGame-Docks-002.jpg In Game, from the deck in front of the EETC office http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/InGame-Docks-003.jpg In Game http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/InGame-Docks-004.jpg In Game (from the Fort wall) http://i296.photobucket.com/albums/mm191/Aelfric_Pics/Solstheim/InGame-Docks-005.jpg Tirick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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