SSE Deadly Shadows, a serial of mods on roofs

[Vactrol]

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.

Hi,

I really appreciate your criticism, :happy: You are fully right: I haven't planned this city and have a hard time trying to doing it. I'm overly jealous at people doing marvelous things and maybe should I buy a good stock of imagination :laugh: . I wasn't aware of the amount of work needed when I started this mod.

 

I only had some ideas for it: a farm part (but submerged when the sewers where made), a harbour, the daedalic low town with multiple places and a dead alley for Skooma traders, the forum place with shops, the poor quarter, kind of a shanty town (to be made) a high quarter, not chaotic (to be made) with a castle (to be made too) surrounded by fields and forests (to be made). I'm stuck with the Skyrim's houses architecture, my idea was to model convenient building for this town. But don't have the skill and time. Oh, and I hate making navmesh.

 

If you look carefully at the video, the market stall don't block the entrance: it's the house owner's stall, made to protect his precious goods and allow him to stay home until a customer come. The low quarter shown on the video is occupied by harbour merchants, middle classes wanting their own property (and destroying the neighbor's view when building it). Not a place for the poors, nor for the riches.

 

And yes, I want a BIG city, with each building having it's interior and NPC. Each Skyrim hold should have been the size of Skyrim (minimum).

 

The chaotic impression come from the medieval cities where I lived/traveled, small passages everywhere - sometime leading to a dead end. You can look on google earth at the city of Estavayer-le-Lac (Switzerland). The medieval city is easy to spot: red roofs. Neat streets from the sky, but a lot of different heights when you're in, and a lot of small places not visible from the sky. The street are straights and well defined, but boring. By the way, I've made over 1 giga of pictures past years: Castles of Chillon (near Montreux) and Grandson, and the town of Estavayer. If somebody is interested......just ask.

 

Cheers

[Vactrol]

Been busy on the CK this week! I began to work on the interiors cells. As there's a lot of houses in Ruclonburg, creating a cell for each interior isn't an option. The interiors are planned by blocks of five to ten houses, allowing passage between apartments or basements. The debut of this too much ambitious project is four small houses and a luxury mansion. I made a huge mistake in the small houses: the windowed walls are placed on the wrong side of the houses. All the interior have been edited with the snap grid then pivoted according their real position. Moving the walls now will be a pain.

 

One of the humble house is linked by a cave to a crypt under the mansion, then the crypt lead to the mansion basement. I was planning to edit a basement full of crates and stuff, with a small bathtub. No room for crates/stuff after making the "small" bathtub. Next week: complete the mansion and work on the next cell: a bigger house with secret cave leading to the fisher's houses, harbor side.

 

A 4 minutes video presenting the interiors, before any corrections

Music credit: Xhapur, courtesy of Gotsorg

 

Edited December 22, 2017 by Vactrol

[Vactrol]

Real assassins and thieves don't use the main doors. The idea behind the mods of Deadly Shadows was to allow roof climbing, and accessing Skyrim's interiors by use of windows/balcony. Editing each city interiors without screwing the game quests was too much of a challenge for me, so I went for a city worldspace made for a thief gameplay. And Ruclonburg was born.

 

This time, a test for entering a house from the roof, using a dummy Riften interior. The player can walk on the beams, observe his prey, then jump down to his loot. No door in this dummy room, I placed a ladder to access the beams. But big trouble. Easy to walk when entering, but going out is too difficult due to the narrow collision box of the beams. Two possibilities:

1 - Access from the roof but escape from another path. Pro: easy/lazy editing method. Con: can break the immersion/roleplay.

2 - manually placing collision plane on every beam, so the player can escape the same way he came. Pro: roleplay/immersion. Con: the added collision plane will partially block arrows for a stealth archer.

 

Small video presenting the skooma open market, and the first test of roof acces. I made a window access, but too much bugs to be presented at this time

 

[yian]

I think it might be more immersive if you avoid using ladders on the rooftop, simply because it looks like someone went out of hie/her way to construct a set of ladders on the roof to make thieves' lives easier - which wouldn't make sense. Instead maybe they should just be planks, which don't look as conspicuous.

Edited December 25, 2017 by yian

[Vactrol]

 

 

I think it might be more immersive if you avoid using ladders on the rooftop, simply because it looks like someone went out of hie/her way to construct a set of ladders on the roof to make thieves' lives easier - which wouldn't make sense. Instead maybe they should just be planks, which don't look as conspicuous.

 

You're right :smile: , but things aren't obvious on the video: the ladder placed all leads to houses doors on the roofs. Only three house block use them and they make sense, most of the roofs will be accessible only by jumping from another roof (risk of fall), or by climbing on clutter. Very few planks are planned, the street are very narrow and acrobatic jumps give a little thrill.

 

Worked hard and slow inside, not finished yet the first set of interiors and took a break outside. The exteriors have gained a castle: the Lair of the Lord Homlet of Du Fromage. Externall walls completed today. It have a simple drawbridge over water, secret access planned. A platform facing the town allow Lord Homlet to see in disgust the poor citizen beneath His grandeur. Fus Ro Dah tested on a poor guard waiting on the platform. High jump in water below not allowed for now: I must dig a little more the terrain under the water to avoid a lethal dive.