Projekt [Mod-Projekt] Morrowind Province for TES IV: Oblivion

Entschuldigen Sie mich bitte. Ich spreche nicht deutsch.
2 unserer Verwalter, Quentin Fortune und Valderon, ist deutsch.
Wenn Sie mich nicht verstehen zu gefallen, treten Sie mit ihnen in Verbindung.

Danke Babelfish

_________________________________________________________
Morrowind is nearing it's end, and it's almost time to close the final curtain on a game whom many of us considers to be the best there ever was. In its stead waits Oblivion, whose release date is fast approaching, promising new adventures and fun for many years to come. But there are those of us out there who share an inescapable love of Dunmer culture and history, and to whom the Morrowind Province is the only place where they'll ever feel at home. We don't want to give it up, but at the same time we of course recognize the flair and potential of Oblivion to be an even better game than TES III.

What to do?? ...
The answer: Bring a part of the Morrowind Province to Oblivion!

That is what the Silgrad Tower team is all about.

We've been around the Morrowind mod community for over three and a half years now, and during that time our team created a massive landmass (intended as a part of the Morrowind Province's mainland) west of Vvardenfell. With its attention to detail, dozens of quests, and many hundreds of houses, tombs, caves and other places we created a mod that got played by tens of thousands of players. In doing so, us who modded on it fell in love with our part of Tamriel and the history and background we developed for it. There wouldn't be a team anymore if we hadn't set our minds on returning to the same place of Tamriel for the new game, so doing something else was never really an option for us.

Pre-work for the planned Oblivion mod has gone on for close to a year now, and we've made a lot of progress in that time thanks to the hard-working, devoted members on the team. At the heart of pre-work is models, because if we are to realize our vision of going back to the Morrowind Province we need to portray the culture and architecture of the Dunmer people in a believable manner.

All our models are catalogued in a model showcase, which has over 75 entries.
To name but a few, the showcase includes:
¤ Hlaalu exterior tileset*
¤ Velothi tileset
¤ Redoran buildings (work-in-progress)
¤ Special-culture tileset
¤ Emperor parasol
* Note that the screenshots of the Hlaalu Exterior Tileset shows how the set looks in TES3. Oom developed both a Morrowind and Oblivion version of the tileset simultaneously.

1. Overview

This threedimensional overview map shows at a glance which regions we plan to mod for Oblivion. We'll border Skyrim to the west and Cyrodiil to the southwest, the latter of which will be the direction the player will first enter our mod.

In our plans are four major cities, several towns and even more smaller settlements. In the far north is the grand Imperial city of Blacklight, and westward across the border you'll find the large Nord keep of Windhelm. As we go south you'll pass Reich Parkeep, which is a major Redoran city situated among densely forested hills. Silgrad Tower used to be Redoran as well, but was destroyed in a war with House Hlaalu and has since been rebuilt under Imperial supervision, using architects and masons from the latter. It's now run as an independent city-state under a Council of Elders, comprised of representatives from the factions that have a stake in the city. (expanded information)

2. Organization

The western mainland of the Morrowind Province will initially be divided up into three areas, which will be developed as stand-alone mods. This is for technical reasons, as we believe that the process of team modding for Oblivion will be similar to Morrowind in that it places a lot of work on a single administrator, who recieves plugins and maintains the base mod (with bugfixing and other factors playing a major part in the workload). By spreading the workload on several administrators in the beginning stages, we hope to avoid a bottleneck situation so that work can progress in a steady manner. As the mods grows and expands they'll meet up at the seams, and eventually merge into one when the time is right. While the areas may be separate, the administrators behind them all belong to the same team who work together towards the same goals.

- Blacklight area: administrated by Thorpe a.k.a. Rodan
- Reich Parkeep area: administrated by Razorwing
- Silgrad Tower area: administrated by Valderon

The team itself is loosely organized into members, honorary members, core members and admins (here's an overview). Core members are modders that have a long history with the team and have stuck by us during harder times, and for doing that they get to vote on internal matters. Admins are core members with expanded control over the forum, website and other areas behind the scenes. Honorary members are retired core members, whose work for the team in the past deserve praise. This organization has worked out well for us over the years.

We don't confine ourselves to specific tasks such as concept artists or modellers; rather, members are free to pursue whichever facet of modding appeals to them. Having said that, several members have special responsibilities. Joining is as easy as signing up on the forum - and there isn't any strings attached. As a member you're as active as you want, and you do as much work as you want; which isn't to say that ambition won't be recognized. Naturally the amount of effort a member puts into the project affects the weight of his word. But there's no threshold to gain our respect and kindness.

3. We need you

Modders
Modders are always welcome to Silgrad Tower, but since Oblivion hasn't been released the options for a modder is limited right now. But if you're interested, that shouldn't stop you from swinging by our forum and getting to know the team. Maybe you'd like to tell us a bit about what type of work you'd like to do on the mod once the game is out. Perhaps you have an interesting story you'd like to write, which can later be added as an in-game book? Or maybe you have a great idea for a quest - or perhaps you're a graphical artist and would like to share your concept art? Whatever the case may be, we're looking forward to hearing from you.

Modellers
As much as we've modelled already, there's still a number of important model types we need.
Most importantly, plants. As good as the plants from Oblivion are, it just won't *feel* like the Morrowind Province if there isn't heather and stoneflower around. Some plants have been modelled, but most remain. Dunmer furniture and lights are other types which are needed to get a sense of Dunmer culture.

If you're not into modelling but would still like to lend us a hand then it'd really help us out if you could research Morrowind mods and see if you find stuff we can use for Oblivion. Please zip the meshes and textures and attach the archive(s) to a post on our forum along with screenshot(s). If you're able to import NIFs and export them to .3ds that would be grrreat, but if not then no sweat, NIF meshes would work too.

Fan Fiction
Are you up for writing a book? Or maybe you'd like to share one you've written previously? Please check in on our Literature Development board.

Quest writers
If you have a good quest idea, please present it in a new thread on the Quest Development board.

Sound/Music
We have an Acoustic Development board too, where music and sound effects can be submitted and discussed.


4. News roundup as of March 4th


Some news from us.

¤ We figured out a middle-way between making forum boards look totally different (different color scheme, buttons, top-banners) while still retaining the handy Silgrad shortcut links at the top. So now, browsing Silgrad boards, Blacklight boards and Vvardenfell boards (among others) is a very different experience that I hope will make those boards feel less tied to us. It's been a problem for a long time, and something that turned off several hosted sites from having forum boards with us... quite naturally I might add, because I totally understand why they wouldn't want our Silgrad banner on their forum.

¤ Theatrus made a collection of Dunmer candles the other day, which I think turned out great. The textures haven't been finalized yet and ultimately we might very well use textures from Oblivion on them instead - his call.

¤ Vvardenfell has got a new website, with a cool domain name (both courtesy of our core member Rodan):
http://www.vvardenfell.org/

¤ Our old members Danath_in & Galrina have come back, and with them, their concept of modding the Skyrim Province for Oblivion in affiliation with the other mods in our network. They might be getting a hand by Zarkis, who's "Scepter of the Wolf Queen" quest draft revolves around Riften.

¤ Personally I've had fun discussing concept ideas for Reich Parkeep, one of the cities from the old mod we plan to bring back. If you'd like some info on the backdrop of the town there's an article about it on our "Silgrad Lore" board. The lore board - a new addition to our forum - is a handy place for us to put articles about finalized concepts of our planned mod.
Hope to see you around our forum

5. In closing

I could easily fill a dozen pages with information... but I doubt anyone would want that. If you happen to have any questions I'm happy to answer them, whether here in this thread or on Silgrad Tower's Forum.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post, and whether as a player or modder I hope this isn't the last you choose to hear about Silgrad Tower

The Silgrad Tower team is working to create an Oblivion mod inspired by The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, set in the Redoran heartlands of the Province's mainland. Feel free to check out our current release or watch the video to see our work.

It goes without saying that we need a ton of models to do what is essentially a Total Conversion mod, and we have quite a few of them already - but there's still a lot of work left to be done. Partly because it's illegal to use assets from TES3 but mostly because even if we could those assets are heavily optimized to run on computers of yesteryear.

That's why I thought it could be a good idea to repost the open jobs we have here, in the hopes of catching the attention of fellow Morrowind-loving modellers. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you need reference material, as I'm happy to supply it. I've created hundreds of Morrowind-related models myself, and I know it can sometimes be a chore to create stuff that already exists -- but there's a lot of fun to be had in adding additional details to a Morrowindy object that feels like they should be there but Bethesda couldn't add it due to facecount restrictions. Going beyond the detail level of the original model is not only fun, but it also helps to imbue the feeling that it's your model while at the same time of course making it look better.

It's not for everyone, of course. One can say we're a mod for nostalgics, by nostalgics. Exploring our Redoran towns is likely to have an additional layor of coolness if it stirs feelings of deja vu in a player with hundreds of hours of playing Morrowind under his belt. If one haven't played Morrowind it'll "just" be an awesome mod built with ~1000 custom models.

Welcome to the team, sera!





Expanded info
Main forum

~~~~~~~~
1. Hlaalu Interior Tileset
~~~~~~~~

Download nif collection

This is what's needed to mod locations in Silgrad 'City'. The exteriors exist and are in the mod, but there isn't any Hlaalu interior tile set. If you played TES3, think of Balmora and you'll get the jist of it (screenshot). Note that we already have custom Hlaalu textures in the mod, which are in the latest Reich Parkeep release.

Hlaalu is a Dunmer subculture, noted for being the subculture most open towards the Empire and for it's shrewd business sense. They're the strongest of all Dunmer Houses in terms of power, influence and wealth. Their architecture is a mixture of clay and wood, where the latter is mostly ornatory. It has a distinctive cubic feel to it, which can be traced back to the ancient Velothi culture. As you may know, Velothi featured both cubic and circular design elements, which developed into the more advanced cubic and circular design elements seen in Hlaalu and Redoran cultures.


~~~~~~~~
2. Dwemer
~~~~~~~~

Download nif collection

The Dwemer were an elven race that used to live in Morrowind, but went extinct under mysterious circumstances long ago. Ruins of their civilization are strewn across the Province, and attract many adventurers in search of antiques and artefacts. The Dwemer civilization was far more advanced than any other on Tamriel, past or present, and can be likened to a mixture of semi-industrial and futuristic. Many of their devices and machines run on steam power, while robots protect their installations. Think of early 1800's society with crude robots, populated by pointy-eared Hammurabi look-alikes.

The linked nif collection contains most everything from the Dwemer culture, from tileset to furniture to misc items, except for limeware (a kind of pottery made by the Dwemer).

2a. Dwemer Interior Tileset.
Facecount suggestion: 2000 per tile.

Before we can mod Dwemer ruins, we need a tileset. There's a folder in the linked nif file archive called 'tribunal', which holds the Dwemer nifs from that expansion pack. They are purely extras, as it's the traditional (or Vvardenfell) style we're primarily looking for.

Screenshot of Dwemer architecture, Mournhold-style: -link-

Screenshot of Dwemer architecture, Vvardenfell-style: -link-

2b. Dwemer Exterior Architecture.
In the nif archive, these are the ones starting with "ex_...". Basically, the exterior architecture makes up the location of a ruin in our main game world. Most importantly are the entrance pieces that leads into the structure modded with the tileset, while the rest just look cool - which isn't a bad thing either.

2c. Dwemer Furniture, Items and other objects.
These are found all over the place in the archive. "contain_..." are barrels and other containers, "furn_..." are furniture, "in_..." has architectural details (beyond the tileset), and "misc_..." are trinkets, antiques and artefacts for adventurers to thieve.


3. Traditional Flora from TES3: Morrowind: Tribunal and TES3: Morrowind: Bloodmoon.
Most of the plants from the main game have been made, but none from either expansion pack.
- Old reference post, which might have useful info.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4. Morrowindy Trees
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can use between 10,000 and 20,000 faces for a tree, 10,000 for a log or a knee/stump, and 2,000 for a small plant such as a fern.

4a. Bitter Coast trees & flora.
Download reference files

The Bitter Coast is a salty, hostile swampland where none but the most hardy of plants can survive. The soil is useless for agriculture, and the few people who live here eek out a living as fishermen or hunters. If you played TES3 you'll remember it, since you started playing the game in a village on Vvardenfell's Bitter Coast. There's a Bitter Coast on the mainland as well, on our area's eastern coast, and these models will be seen a lot by players.

If you look in the archive you'll see that the trees are divided into three components; tree, moss and vine. We can't do it the same way Bethesda did in TES3 though, because this time trees are generated rather than handplaced and handmodded. So, when modelling the trees you would need to set up the moss and vines components on the tree models in 3D Studio Max and export them as singular models so they'll work with the generator function.

The reference archive contain all the models and textures we'd could use, but you're not required to do all of them. The less necessary ones are Flora_BC_Grass_01+02 and Flora_BC_Lilypad_01+02+03. Also, note that the archive probably contains more textures than is used on the models, as I thought it best to play on the safe side. In case you're wondering, the mushrooms have already been modelled and are in the mod, which is why they're not included in the archive. The slough fern (Flora_BC_Fern_01) hasn't been modelled, so it's included.

4b. Additional trees.
Download reference files

The other five tree-yielding regions on Vvardenfell were: Ascadian Isles, Ashlands, Azura's Coast, Grazelands, and West Gash. Each one can be said to be a separate job; I just gathered them in one reference archive (and entry). For the Vvardenfell team they're of course equally important; for Silgrad Tower I think the important ones from the additional trees are Ascadian Isles and Grazelands.


5. Ingredient placement meshes
Some have been made already, and are in the latest version of the Reich Parkeep Alpha. We also need icons for all of them, current and future.


6. Traditional TES3 ore containers
The ones that were in TES3 but didn't come with Oblivion. Ebony and glass deposits, for instance.


7. Traditional Dunmer beverage bottles
--Hoss have claimed these--
To hold our people's Sujamma, Shein, Flin, et cetera.


8. Dunmer containers
Like chests, cupboards, armoires, desks, and others.
The ones we have are: barrel, basket, crate, covered pot, sack, and urn.


9. Miscellanous Dunmer objects
--Treebiter is making a collection of redware items!--
As good as everything from the "Misc" tab in the old CS, like muck shovels for instance. But don't forget that the old game kept many misc objects in the static tab, since nothing was havok'd. Often the latter type are found in "Bethesda Softworks\Morrowind\Data Files\Meshes\f".

These are especially needed, as they stand for the bulk of Dunmer clutter (of the stuff that hasn't been recreated yet).
A) The "Misc_bowl_xxx" collection, including "Misc_De_Bowl_01" [strike]as well as "Misc_Redware_Bowl" and "Misc_Redware_Bowl_01".[/strike]
[strike]B) The rest of the "Misc_Redware_XX" models.[/strike]
C) The "Misc_De_Goblet_##" collection.
D) "Misc_De_Basket_01"
E) "Misc_pot_XX" collection.

10. Dunmer Lights
So far we have 3 paper lanterns, 3 candles, two streetlights, one floorlamp, and a Velothi brazier, which are all in the latest Reich Parkeep release. There were many more light sources in TES3 however, and many remain to be done.
- Old reference post, which might have useful info.


11. 6th House paraphernalia
claimed by mmmpld
The Sixth House was destroyed in TES3, but their bases and equipment didn't vanish just because the followers ceased. One would still find Sixth House bases around our area, but they would be abandoned or occupied by other enemies. Mostly for pragmatic reasons since I think it would be very hard to create those enemies, but if we find ourselves able to rig and animate creatures later on I'm definitely not opposed to the idea of a full-blown Sixth House presence. They wouldn't be the revolutionary force they once was, but they could still be alive.


12. Shacks (exteriors + interiors)
Poor Dunmer usually live in shacks, particularly in fishing villages. Anyone who's played TES3 would be familiar with them as half of Seyda Neen uses this style. It would be most useful to have three or four shacks in this design, and they only need one fixed interior model each. Plus a load-door.
Discussion thread

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
13. Dunmer Strongholds
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Download reference files
Screenshots: Kogoruhn | Marandus | Falasmaryon | Telasero | Interior

The term stronghold might make you think of the kind of strongholds the player could construct by pursuing quests for a Great House in TES3, but that's not what's being referred to here. Rather, it's referring to the kind of ancient Dunmer strongholds that were strewn across Vvardenfell. They were always great action romps and provided loads of fun, intense combat.

There's both an exterior and interior tileset. The exterior tileset is straightforward from a technical viewpoint, as it simply allows for different lengths, widths and on the upper levels, corners. It's meant to be ancient, so the simplicity is most likely intentional to give a sturdy, primitive, almost tribal impression. As interesting and distinctive as the exterior is, the interior tileset isn't anything special, really. It didn't look very good. You're free to use your discretion in creating it, as long as it comes out looking like an ancient fortress made of stone and rusted metal.


14. Traditional Dunmer Armor and Weapons
Bonemold, netch leather and chitin are the armor types we need the most. As far as weapons go there is really just chitin, which on the other hand is really important since the Dunmer use these kinds of weapons a lot. There is reference material available for those weapons:
-> Chitin Weapon Collection; a modeller's reference


15. Cheydinhal-ified Chorrol House + Dunmer Temple Robe
Please see TheImperialDragon's post further down in this thread for more information on these two modelling jobs.


16. Daedric shrines.
The Daedric shrines in the Morrowind Province were built long ago, possibly by the Chimer (ancestors of the Dunmer). With the game "Oblivion" in mind you wouldn't think we'd need them, but the shrines seen in Morrowind are very different than anything seen in TES4 and would need to be custom-made. We need both exterior pieces as well as an interior tileset.


17. Morrowind book models.
-We're allowed to use the ones phoenixamon plans to make. Thanks!
We now have a full collection of the books featured in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, courtesy of Axen. They use placeholder models and textures at the moment, so it would be really cool to have special models and textures for them that allures to the original design. Appropriate textures can be found in retexture packs like Morrowind Visual Pack or Vibrant Morrowind or others, or created from scratch.

18. Dunmer bar counter.
When modding a Dunmer tavern for a TES3 mod, you'd use a small tileset to construct the counter. The original set consisted of six pieces, but that doesn't matter much. The important thing is that it looks reminiscant of Bethesda's Dunmer bar counters, and that it can be modded as long as the modder needs it to be. There should be a corner piece so it can be made into an L-shape and similar. Anything beyond that is gravy.

Download reference files here: mirror #1 | mirror #2.

The archive contains the Morrowind nifs, the original textures, and a texture alternative from Vibrant Morrowind you can use on your models if you want.
- If you use 3D Studio Max you can import the nifs using the latest plugin release from the NifTools group.
- If you use Blender, open the nifs in NifSkope, and from there extract the .obj files, and import them in your program.

19. Ebbedin Models

See this thread for details.

20. Silgrad Tower

See this thread for a concept art drawing of the Tower. The base area should either fit into one cell, or the model be cut up. The former is the better idea. You can use 100,000 faces in total. Please use the existing Velothi door models as template for your doorjambs, i.e. make it so the existing doors fit into the holes you make.