Heavenly Oblivion

[Reiacta]

Hey guys, first of all i have to admit i'm pretty new to modding oblivion. I'm learning how to mod by following the "A beginner's guide Oblivion Modding for Beginners" on the main website of the elder scrolls. And i'm really getting the hang of it (at least it's fun hehe).

 

But why i started this is because i wanted to set myself a goal. First of all, i've always dreamed of oblivion being HUGE. I mean... it's big now, but i mean huge. Let's say: everything 3 times bigger then now. So instead of a 5 minute walk from imperial city to Chorrol, i would like to make it a 15 minute walk.

 

I think that would add so much flavour to the game, because in the 'vanilla oblivion' you only feel a big world. There's nothing immense about it, you will not be swept away by the magnituted of Cyrodiil (at least i don't). That's a shame right?

 

Therefore i would like to know if it would be possible for me on my own to create this immense Cyrodiil. Or are there any factors i don't yet know of that would make it impossible to create this world. I think by just adding extra cells, and altering the bordering cells of each cell it would be possible to create a lot bigger Cyrodiil world, or am i mistaken?

 

And next to that (only after i've reached my first goal), i would like to alter the main quest line into having a 'heaven' but that would be a little secret like now.

 

Just wondering, is this possible? Is this possible on my own, or do i certainly need help? Or isn't it possible at all. I still have to learn some modding, so if it just isn't possible, i will stop modding and enjoy the mods of others.

 

Please give me some answers :thanks:

[alex2avs]

I'll be short :biggrin:

 

You'll need to learn hoq to create landscapes ,

Then you'll have to place lots of houses , city walls and stuff like that.

Creating caverns will take a lot too ...

Building a Heaven might require lots of new meshes and textures...

Then you'll need to create lots of new NPCs , their AI and their voice....

lots of side quests...

I think it would also require new architecture for each city and a background story for each one of them.

Maybe some new creatures ...that would probably require new animations , skeletons ,textures ,weight painting and so on

 

 

I also think that new weapons and armors would be necessary too

 

Just wondering, is this possible? Is this possible on my own, or do i certainly need help?

 

Well...you could do it on your own ,yes, but it would take a lot...and by "lot" i'd say more than a few months... I'd suggest you to find some potential team members that are sharing the same vision as you do ;).

 

I personally like Oblivion the way it is , expanding it 3 times requiring way too much time:biggrin:

Well...that's my opinion

 

 

----

Alex

[bben46]

I read this as wanting to stretch the continent of Cyrodiil. But leave the places the same size and in the same relative location with the new land between them.

 

The way you propose would involve a lot of work. Matching terrain, roads, rivers, ecology and other factors. Plus, adding cells which are square to fill in would be awkward in some places and would totally wreck the grid numbering system.

 

Instead, I think I would start with a new map, the size you want. Then use the grid method to divide it up into cells the same size as the current game cells. Then replace the cells that have something in them with those from the game. This would allow keeping some features the same size, such as the Imperial Island.

 

Finish by filling the new cells with terrain, trees, geology, roads, rivers etc. You will still have to do a lot of matching. Especially in those areas where it transitions from one ecology/climate/geology to another

 

I don't know how this will work with the original grid numbering system, or how it will affect things like fast travel, npc travel & mods. It would allow a lot more new places to locate mods though.

 

Plan on devoting a lot of your spare time for the next year or so if you do it alone. If you could put together a team and divide it up into regions, similar to unique landscapes it would go faster.

 

The heaven part would be easier, make a separate world space and locate it there.

 

I haven't looked into what changing the grid coordinates of places will do. I'm sure someone else will have some ideas as well.

[dezdimona]

if you need an angel for your heaven...I'm available.

Start out small,work your way up.Alex's advice is very good,he knows of what he speaks!

[Reiacta]

Well thank you all for the quick advices, i obviously have a lot of work to do. Not that it's a problem, but a small 'glitch' in my plan is that i haven't even finished the modding guide. I'll have to work my way through that entirely, i don't think i have the skill to realize what i want before i complete that guide. That will at least take a week or two because i need to practice first of course.

 

To Alex: it isn't really my plan to make 'new' areas in the game, just as ben calls it 'stretch'. So the map would in a sense stay the same size. Only the area it covers will be much larger ingame.

 

So 1 centimeter on the map is 1 minute walking, but mod it so that 1 centimeter will be 3 minutes walking without changing the map. That way the world won't be 'changed' but 'enlarged'. Which i think would be cool. That way i don't have to make new architectures and background stories or in fact entire cities =P. And as you say: i like oblivion the way it is, but if it would be even bigger, i would LOVE it. Okay i'm starting to get mushy, but i'm serious about this.

 

 

Now to Ben: could you explain why making something like a 'heaven' would be easier than magnifying entire Cyrodiil? Because i would think that in that case i would indeed have to make textures, and that's something i have never done. I have some experience in scripting (very limited indeed). And i have some skill in well 'altering what is there' in morrowind CS and other games which i have modded. But i don't have experience in creating whole new textures, i don't even know where to start regarding this. I figured i first wanted to really change Cyrodiil in being huge, and then maybe forming a team to make this heaven, and alter the main quest line. But not right now due to my own lack of skill :(.

 

But maybe i'm totally wrong about this, so please correct me then. And i haven't even thought about the voice acting that would be necessary. (The voices ingame won't come out of themselves Duh! xD) So how do other modders do this? Do they hire professionals to do it for them? Or do they do it themselves?

 

I'll say again, i have never thought of starting such a project before, so i am really feeling embarassed for asking all kinds of stuff, but i just hope you guys can give me even more advice =D. Everyone has to start somewhere right?

 

Oh, and dezdimona, of course you can be an angel... As long as you've got a 'sexy angel voice', you could be the elven singer in the highest peaks of the heavenly snow mountains :whistling: That would be cool right? :P

[bben46]

In your original explanation you mentioned adding extra cells, That is what gave me the impression you were going to make it physically bigger. Now it looks like you are planning on changing the time scale rather than the physical scale. Just make movement slower so it takes longer to get somewhere. Should be a simple change involving a very short timeframe and not requiring a team at all.

 

As to the heaven, now that becomes the more difficult mod. You will still need a separate world space, but that is actually easier than trying to find an unoccupied piece of land to put it on. The plane of Oblivion is a separate space - actually if I remember right seven separate worldspaces with the same basic meshes and different layouts. Each entered by way of the Oblivion gates.

 

Your heaven could be similar, but just one worldspace, however big you want it to be. It can be entered in several possible ways - a gate, a door, a portal, a spell. Or even by dying. See the Umarill sequence in KOTN for something similar to dying. You really don't need a physical representation of a door, just a trigger that causes your character to be relocated to the new worldspace. Like fast travel or mages guild portals relocate you to another location.

[dolalmoth]

well I only skimmed this article but you should google TESAnnwyn. I believe it would be invaluable in this quest. It allows you to export and import heightmaps into oblivion and is much faster than using the construction kit (for heightmapping).

Only thing is its a command line program and a bit hard to use.

[Germandeathkittiez]

Just so you know about the Heaven thing, if you have Knights of the Nine... there is a heaven... it's a bunch of clouds in the sky that you can walk on if you download a dragon mod (search saiden storm u should find one) or some kind of mod that lets your character fly (Demon Race search: Chingari or Ismelda in authors) you should be able to get up there. it isn't much, (the battle scene where you kill Umaril or maybe not idk) But it would be a good place for you to get started XD

It lies hundreds of feet above the Imperial City, I think above the Market District if you would like to go there.

[Reiacta]

Dolalmoth, thanks there's some helpful advice! =D

 

And black ninja, it's the idea of creating my own world that appeals me. I could go check out how they did it, but i won't stick by it.

 

Ben, it's not like that. It's hard to explain for me because English isn't my native tongue. What i would want in the game is make 1 meter into 3 meters. So that everything would be larger, but not the houses or cities, just 'open space'. So we have the imperial city, run from the prison to

the west gate of the city. Now everything you see will be the same as in vanilla Oblivion. But as soon as you exit the west gate, the bridge covering the lake will be 3 times longer. The village at the end will stay the same size, but instead of it being 30 meters apart from the bridge, it will be about 100 meters.

 

Thinking of this, it will need an altered map.

 

I think now that this isn't going to be as easy as it first seemed. But still going to do it ;)

[bben46]

So we are back to the stretched map concept. Not really stretched, just enlarged with the cities and other man made features the same size, but with more open space between.

 

Sounds good. Keep us posted on how it's going. When you get stuck, there are many people here who are glad to help out.

 

Your English is much better than my Dutch. And better than some of the native English speakers we see here.