Dwemmer Race Mod

[jedimembrain]

Its been awhile since Ive been active in the forums but Ive been active in the CK for months and have come up with a lot of ideas and mods for my personal game. Ive decided to make a mod for the community to show my support and use some of what Ive learned.

 

Misspelled Dwemer in Title ~_~... Woops

 

So with my first uploaded mod I wanted to make something I felt the game was missing .. We have three elves .. Four Humans "Boring" .. an Orc "Yes I know its an mer too" and Two Beast Races .. But I wanted this to be lore friendly of course. So I decided to look into the Dwemers "Dwarven Race" as a new unique race for the game .. But sadly .. I found myself face to face with another freaking elf :I But wait! They are called Dwarfs right? <_< and lets look at other races and creatures that have changed over the series development The argonians and Khajiits have changed more than most .. Not just graphically but physically have been updated as the series moved forward. I think if Bethesda added the Dwemer back tomorrow we wouldn't see ANOTHER elf .. We would see something unique in the series. Maybe not what Ive come up with but certainly not what was shown in glimpses of morrowind .. a dunmer looking ghost and a fat guy on a mechanical spider :/

 

Ive Made the race .. Custom Skeletons for males and female .. Set up custom Skin Material sets for more detailed tweaks as I go.. I'm nearly ready for release and looking for opinions :U and not about the bloody stature! I'm making them short ~_~ Not just releasing ANOTHER elf race.

 

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu322/UberNiz/Capture-1.png

 

Update: Females are just about done.. Males Still need more work

 

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu322/UberNiz/Capturedsd.png

 

For the custom Normal maps and Texture Maps should I add Mechanical aspects to the bodies? Ive seen some interesting fan art of Mechanical elven ears on them. How about body paint? or maybe oil on their arms and hands? Throw some ideas at me ^-^

 

 

And if you really REALLY think making them small is a bad idea and have multiple pieces of lore to prove it then please let me know .. Keeping in mind small bits mean nothing since the race has been gone from nirn for such a long time the stories have mostly become fairy tails.

Edited August 14, 2012 by jedimembrain

[Urwy]

I suppose someone could post a rant about their size such as this one:

 

 

 

UESP - Dwemer Appearance

Contrary to many legends, archaeological evidence of known Dwemer ruins leads one to believe that they were about the same size as the typical human or elf, evidenced by the fact that all existing Dwarven armor is average sized (although some claim that "dwarven armor" is either the outer shells of machines or mismatched pieces from various devices).[31] It's speculated that the moniker "dwarf" may have been given long ago by the Giants of the Velothi Mountains, who would have perceived them to be unusually small and thus deemed them to be "Dwarves".

 

TES Wiki - Dwemer biology

The Dwemer are often referred to as "Dwarves" in western cultures, although they were no shorter than a human and the name seems to have been derived from a supposed encounter with giants who saw the Dwemer as short.

 

 

 

But im just gonna spoiler it for those who do not wish to read it :P

I'm not gonna judge a mod on a single image. I suppose it wouldn't be lore-friendly... But the lore be damned. We'd have a lot less cool mods if everything has to be lore friendly :turned:

So i'd say you're doing a fine job so far. Nothing wrong with releasing a personal interpretation of the lore.

Besides, what if those giants from the Velothi Mountains werent really giants when compared to the other Man and Mer? :rolleyes:

 

Edit:

Why can i only choose 1 option in the poll!? O.o

I'd like a quest explaining their reappearance. But another lore race would be sweet as well! (moarmer anyone? ^^ Get bonuses while its raining? penalties/weakness to frost?)

Edited August 14, 2012 by Urwy

[tetradite]

Yeah lore says they are not short, but lore be damned if it makes you happy. Introducing them to the game AT ALL (in anything other than some kind of time travel/dream style mission) breaks lore if people want to be anal about it. Because in lore they are gone.

 

I'd just be careful with the scaling relative to things in the vanilla Dwemer ruins - e.g levers on walls, the controls for the repository etc. If they end up too short to reach the controls for their own technology then that will look pretty silly.

[jedimembrain]

Hoping to explain it somehow .. They were probably sent to a deadric relm right? Its not exactly impossible to come and go from deadric worlds as any traveler in nirn can tell you xD

 

As far as lore of them being tall .. Lore is constantly wrong and conflicted .. Bethesda says this themselves .. the word of mouth in tamriel is horrible x3. add to that the fact no one has seen them since glimpses in morrowind I would say its not a stretch at all to have them be short.

[Albazo]

You should add another option to the poll:

 

- Don't make them short!

 

:biggrin:

[jedimembrain]

You should add another option to the poll:

 

- Don't make them short!

 

:biggrin:

 

Seriously not going to waste my time on a dunmer with different stats .. Seriously.. how boring would that be? I wouldnt bother

[DanTR]

You should add another option to the poll:

 

- Don't make them short!

 

:biggrin:

 

Seriously not going to waste my time on a dunmer with different stats .. Seriously.. how boring would that be? I wouldnt bother

 

Well, with some alterations here and there, you can make a Dwemer look different from a Dark Elf.

 

For example, making the ears a little bigger (So they don't look like a dark elf, I don't know if this is lore-friendly or not, but, damn it), and making the Dwemer short but not TOO short (A size equal to Breton would be enough), different hairstyles, different beard, different looking eyes, and you're done.

 

Dwarven Spectre from Morrowind:

http://images.uesp.net/c/c0/TR_Creature_RadacStungnthumz.jpg

[jedimembrain]

So .. Ive been working on some more original details to add to the race..

 

Starting with Skin Tone and some new metal ear clamps..

 

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu322/UberNiz/Capture4.png

 

Here is a full shot of the females btw..

 

http://i660.photobucket.com/albums/uu322/UberNiz/Captured-1.png

 

Custom Skeleton for wider hips and thicker thighs than the males too.

[Albazo]

I would prefer it as lore friendly as informations make it possible. What i can see on your the screenshots are rather LotR dwarfs than Elder Scrolls dwemer. They belong to the family of elves and they dont look much different compared to dunmer (except for their beards and size). If you think that this is boring, then its okay. But thats the way they are in the Elder Scrolls lore. Well, what you do in the end, is your affair anyway. ;)

 

 

Just my 2 cents.

[jedimembrain]

Ive said to many times before.. there is no solid evidence that the "dwarven" race isn't dwarven .. Todd howard has said himself that unless they put it in a quest and explain it in detail its not exactly lore. Many of the books found in the world and stories of lore are thrown out in the next game. Snow elves for example have changed a lot from what was shown in glimpses of previous games. So all this evidence of their name "dwarven" being due to giants thinking they were small just isnt enough proof .. This is a simple explination for why they are average hight in morrowind but a better explination for all of it is that they were not going to build a new skeleton rig for a race that only appear as a half man and a ghost xD I mean really .. its just a time consuming process so they wrote it off. Look at modern argonians and khajiit .. they didnt want to make new meshes for the feet or restrict them like they did in morrowind so they changes the look of them drastically. Its part of game design. And theres a good chance the next title might bring the digigrade legs back. Its not about breaking or rewriting lore its about making a character in a game with as little stress as possible so you can move on and work on bigger details. Even the facegen limitations of using the same mesh for every head shows in oblivion from the other two games.. a LOT of what we see is due to game design and not lore design.

 

 

Bethesda makes physical changes constantly and update every race in the game as they go .. I truly believe the dwarven race was originally intended to be dwarven but they were not going to waste time on a minor aspect of a huge game.

 

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/images/15073-2-1202044166.jpg http://images.wikia.com/elderscrolls/images/e/e8/Spriggan_detail.jpg

 

Next .. Lets look at the skyrim art book "which I own" they say right in the pages that the look of the faces on the mechs are based on what the dwarves would look like "oddly toklen like if you ask me" its why I went with the woodelf head shape and not the dark elf. its closer to a human head and the head of the statues and machines in skyrim than what we see in morrowind.

 

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb57886/elderscrolls/images/a/a9/Dwemer_mask.jpg

 

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb57088/elderscrolls/images/b/b5/Dwemer_centurion.jpg

 

Notice the stubby legs and long arms/torso .. vary much a dwarf shape.

 

Even their designs around the ruins look very close to classic dwarven design in lotr

 

http://images.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/20101110//300.gimli.lr.121010.jpg

 

You guys are looking at this from a "known lore" perspective and not a Bethesda and game design perspective .. Todd has made it clear the books mean nothing and carry no weight in the real lore of the game.. and Bethesda has made it clear with their own updates that physical looks are mostly a tech/time constraint and not a true example of what the final picture of the races are.