SSE Deadly Shadows, a serial of mods on roofs

[Vactrol]

Deadly Shadows is an overhaul attempting to add another dimension to the game - Mordheim (figurines game) or Assassin Creed flavoured.

My intent is to roleplay a thief, disregarding the scenario and quests of the vanilla game. The thief will run on the height, trying to spy those boring and repetitive vanilla dialogues like it was primordial informations leading to an essential burglary.

 

This post is for motivation purpose.....

Trouble encountered will be marked in orange, if someone have suggestion or better ideas you're welcome.

 

Each town should have a mod allowing access to some roofs, some towns will have a hideaway/player's house (not Riften, there's the wonderful Riften Garrett for that) and an object of value for a thief (weapon or equipment).

Mods mainly finished:

• Riften
• Markarth

Mods in work: Solitude, Windhelm.

Difficulty for Windhelm: Nearly all roofs are missing or haven't collision. The big block's top in center of the Gray Quarter need to be completly redone.

Trouble with Markarth: Added an enchanted arrow burning the target like the Red Eagle sword, then spawning a torch. Only the torch spawn, but no burning of the target.

 

Solitude - vanilla, work done for now: displacement of collision planes allowing access to the external walls, a few acces on Proudspire Manor. To do: access on Bluepalace roofs, adding a player's house. A lot of roofs have missing or partial collision box, some have a collision box too large. When vanilla mod will be finished, the next step will be a patch for the mod "Better Cities Solitude" and a patch for "the Tower of the Wolf" - allowing acces to the wall from the tower balcony

 

Picture 1: example of a finished path, picture 2: collision wall displaced, view from the wall, path to be made next week.picture 3: rope uber-sized with a bunch of collision plane added to allow a not too much difficult walk

Edited October 24, 2017 by Vactrol

[Vactrol]

Riften and Markarth done, a little correction awaiting in Solitude.

 

Working now on Windhelm. Few roof path are possible, a lot of roofs are not conveniently modelled. Or with anarchic collision boxes. My main work is the top of the Grayquarter, nearly the only useable area. Actually editing a "non-player" house. Something between nightmare and psychedelic trip. But should stay lore friendly.

 

To do in this "house":

- Accoustic space, will try to obtain interesting echoes (it's a pain to do with the CK, much bug, much crash)

- Access from the Grayquarter

- Access from the river, city outside

- A little music and sound FX. Sampler and analogue synth.

- Drink a grog.

 

A few pictures: View of the Grayquarter after "renovation" and the ?? house ??.

 

 

Edited November 1, 2017 by Vactrol

[Vactrol]

After Windhelm, a new Deadly Shadows project, a too much ambitious work.

 

A complete city in a separate worldspace: Ruclonburg, should have about 50 - 70 houses.

Concept: Roof access, entering house with doors (!), balcony, and roof traps (obviously placed near chimney). Neverending town, as the city can be extended outside the walls. Made for thieves and assasins. Interiors slightly bigger than the exterior house, to allow sneaking on heights. Hidden guilds to find, merchants willing to extend their greedy activities, smugglers, thieves, cultists. Ruclonburg is thinked as the biggest villeny and scum hive of Skyrim.

 

Already made today: a first draft of the center

To do:

Complete the city center

Add occlusion plane in every building

Add collision plane on a lot of building

Add clutter and trees

Navmeshes ( I really hate navmesh, why not use the terrain and model's collision plane ?)

LOD

Interiors, a lot

NPC and guard, a lot

Quests, a lot

 

A one year or more work in perspective, it will be my first try at doing quests and NPC

 

--edited-- picture of the walled lower city

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by Vactrol

[Vactrol]

The happy city of Ruclonburg (in english: Rubbishburg) is slowly growing. External wall made with Stroti's castle walls. Main roads are made, and some sewer feature to enlight the streets. Removed annoying collision box on the Bard's theater (arrows can fly through the wall's opening, removed collision on the Riften plaza well (can now be used as a pergola).

 

The lower city have now about 80 houses. I plan to do a few generic interiors, one for each house size, then copy-paste and change a few details to give an impression of diversity.

 

Big trouble with the CK while customizing the water and CTD. I can change the water color in the edit window, but the CK crashes when I try to change the noise and current direction with the sliders.

 

All the sewers waters will have the same direction because of that. Anybody have encountered this problem or know how to do?

 

Next days: Navmesh. Why are we needing to do navmesh for NPC when the Dragonborn don't need them? I hate navmesh.

 

Picture - The little marktetplace wip. I maybe change the large bridge with a narrower.

[Vactrol]

The glorious and smelly city of Ruclonburg is growing in an anarchic manner. Like medieval towns. Most of the roofs are accessible and as the streets are so narrow, the artifices for the serie Deadly Shadows is nearly useless.

Today's work: a mountain (Wasteberg) with a small quarter glued on the side, like barnacles. Used the Ravenrock houses, only three different, but the result is quite nice. Vegetation will be added later, some corrections to make.

The town has now one hundred houses.

 

Things planned in Ruclonburg:

 

Guilds and factions:

Thieves (2 or 3 guilds)

Assassins (2 or 3 guilds)

disHonest Merchants

Blue blooded aristocrats

Peaceful Assassins (refuse to kill their targets)

Skooma Traders

Beggars

Temple of the EGO (Easily Getting Offended) full of screaming and whining people crying about meat and vegetable/water and alcohol/gods and dwemer technology.....

....etc.

 

A screenshot of Wasteberg in game, but without LOD

 

https://rd.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/images/16919

[yian]

I had exactly the same problem with the water: opening the property dialog => CK instant crash. In the end I resorted to using static water mesh instead. The good thing is if you are only doing it for the visual, I think static water meshes can look just as good as real water.

Edited November 15, 2017 by yian

[yian]

Rubbishburg looks great but I was wondering if it is really necessary to be so huge - it is lore-breaking (right now it is bigger than Solitude - the capital of Skyrim) as well as potentially being a performance nightmare on lower-end machines. I think even just a dozen houses will make it great and I think it will be much easier to plan and polish its details if it has less houses and people.

Edited November 15, 2017 by yian

[Vactrol]

Rubbishburg looks great but I was wondering if it is really necessary to be so huge - it is lore-breaking (right now it is bigger than Solitude - the capital of Skyrim) as well as potentially being a performance nightmare on lower-end machines. I think even just a dozen houses will make it great and I think it will be much easier to plan and polish its details if it has less houses and people.

Thank you for the feedback!

 

Ruclonburg will totally be not very lore friendly: Bethesda has made Skyrim waaaay too small. It's a frustration to go in Windhelm (the multi-centenary town) to find only a dozen of houses. I dreamed of being lost in the narrow streets of a medieval town and began this mod for that. Discovered after that the "One More Fork" town on the Oldrim forum - with about 300 houses - wonderful. Tested on Special Edition, a blast! This is what Bethesda should have done.

 

The performance is a great concern, and the tests made for now runs at 57fps on a mid range PC - occlusion boxes to be added in most of the houses. In game test after each day of work, trying to catch potential troubles.

The interiors will be made by packs: contiguous houses would share an interior cell, allowing secret passage between houses. And shame to me, the town will not be carefully polished (I'm on the lazy/tired side of life).

 

By the way, as a noob in modding, I welcome all kind of comments, critics, (frost)trolling and ideas.

 

Cheers

[Vactrol]

Sloooow work, tried to make a quick LOD and failed: CK CTD. But made a small video to give a taste of this beautiful city. Began to place trees, plants and clutter.

 

https://youtu.be/4K8u3RmLccw

[yian]

It is certainly big, but the architectural style is a a bit too mixed. While I liked the narrow streets, I feel that the building placements are a bit too random - some are placed at odd angles, while some are facing obstacles that seem illogical (the market stall blocking the entrance of a building, for example.) The cobblestone pavement is always placed too randomly, thus not conveying the idea of streets very effectively.

 

To be perfectly honest, I feel that the emphasis of the town is "big" and maybe too much emphasis on "getting lost." but the layout of the city doesn't feel organic. Take White run, for example - there are two levels, each with some sort of a town square area. For the lower district, the crowd-gathering place is the well with shops and market stalls center around it. For the Cloud district, the civic function buildings center around the tree. There is staircase connecting the civic area of all three - the well/market/commerce area, the tree/Jovaskirr/temple area, and the top of it is the Dragonsreach and the Jarls' palace. There is a sense of planning and it is possible because the idea is that the city grew slowly from one area. A city that you could "get lost in" is purely from a visitor's perspective due to its sheer size - it is very difficult to get lost in a video game city unless you take the Dragon's Dogma approach - tons of buildings in Gran Soren but 90% of them are just props. But even Gran Soren has some sort of a plan. I think that is what your city need - some sort of plan that is gonna make sense to its inhabitants, instead of chaotic for the sake of being chaotic. I hope you find some of my opinion useful to your mod.

 

Once again, I know it is a WIP so perhaps I am being too critical on something with huge potential. If what you said isn't in line with your philosophy then don't worry about it. Just want to let you know how I felt.

Edited December 4, 2017 by yian