Level Design - Skywind #1

This is a big call out for all those that have any Level Design experience. Anybody that has played around with the landscapes, town or interiors in the Creation Kit is going to be of much help.

Our problem is that we have an environment that was created with an automated converter tool. Although it has set up the game world with the original models, the translation has not faired well with both the land texture tiling and also the general look of the sparse object placements. A huge percentage of the Morrowind world is the height map with little in the way to break it up.

Please download the latest release 0.6.0 that has dirt-cliffs, mountains and rocks taken from Skyrim but altered with appropriate textures for every given area (region).

This will be the base models in which all landscape level design will be done from.
I have also added ztrees rock resources, which has 13 new rocks.

You will be able to find all these new models under "static\morrowind\landscape\dirtcliffs", "static\morrowind\landscape\mountains" and "static\morrowind\landscape\rocks". Each is prefixed according to area; 0AI, 0AL, 0AC, 0BC, 0GL, 0RM, 0WG.

The spreadsheet below is used to record what cells are being edited and if a person wants to book a number of cells so that they can work on them. These are the grayed cells. Light grayed cells are blanket changed cells; meaning they are open to further editing. Darker grey cells are areas that are being specifically edited by a person or team. Please post on this thread which area you are likely to work on.

CLAIMS ON AREAS WORKED ON - BE IN QUICK!!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Alvwmz6hbHGPdGZib2ZTLXh1S195WWRSaE1XZUtfTGc#gid=0

Also specify if you are going to do blanket type changes, that are open for other people to come and add more detail to, or you would rather just do the entire start to finish of level design. For example somebody might do lots of rocks changes to areas, but leave flora, clutter, animals open for somebody else add.

So far the team for Level Design includes:

Anthelius : selected cells in Bitter Coast/Ascadian Isles and Grazelands/Red Mountain

Eloth : Balmora, (shulk egg mine and up to caldera), moving up the southern end of West Gash

Mireneye : Sadrith Mora, Wolverine Hall (not been present for a while)

SqallyDaBeanz : Moglar Amur

Sheo : Khuul

JDT001 : Gnisis

Happychappy: Seyda Neen to Vivec

Brent333: Southeastern Azura Coast

Ravanna : Environment Artist and Moddler

Veltoss : Pelegraid (not been present for a while)

Because of the vast vista differences of Morrowind it would be better to talk about improvements also for regions:
Ascadian Isles — A fertile agricultural region of islands and peninsulas in southernmost Vvardenfell.
Ashlands — A forsaken ash desert in the areas surrounding Red Mountain.
Azura's Coast — A mostly uninhabited region of rocky islands and peninsulas on Vvardenfell's eastern coast.
Bitter Coast — A swampy and poor region along Vvardenfell's west coast.
Grazelands — The pastures in northeastern Vvardenfell.
Molag Amur — A region of volcanic rock and lava pools in the southeastern interior of Vvardenfell.
Red Mountain — The volcanic mountain dominating central Vvardenfell which is encircled by the Ghostfence.
Sheogorad — A wild region of islands and peninsulas surrounding Sheogorad Island off Vvardenfell's northern coast.
West Gash — A rocky, highland region in western Vvardenfell that is rich in minerals.

Last edited by grumpycat on 15 Mar 2014 - 04:03.

Only using objects originally

Only using objects originally designed for this area, the best I can do in terms of color is a white vase that has colorful designs on it (can be seen by going in the main entrance of Balmora and looking to your left). Otherwise, there aren't many colorful objects that fit in with the area.

Tomorrow I will probably be looking at Skyrim and Resource Pack objects and handpicking some to bring in specifically for Balmora and I will keep an eye out for colorful objects.

I think in that big empty area right inside town I will be putting a tree or two with some rocks and grass, and maybe some colorful flowers from the area. A well would be too small to make much difference and will stand out, and a small market looking area would be strange without NPCs working it, so I think this would be the most natural way to deal with it.

I'll put my vote in for a

I'll put my vote in for a market place and some generic NPCs.

I've seen comments before that people are always looking for cities and towns to feel livelier. The thing with this project is that you don't have to have a massive consensus on how things "should" be.

It more or less comes down to who is actually working on the project and I don't think you'll get any resistance with any ideas that you come up with :) We know you have got a vision for the cities, so go with what will be best for your vision.

Cool. It was high time

Cool. It was high time someone mowed the lawn ! A few stands in the middle of the square would make sense for me as well.

Perhaps you guys could tie in

Perhaps you guys could tie in the 'easter egg/credit to ourselves' idea and place some of 'us' in the Balmora marketplace?

I'm french and I always found

I'm french and I always found Breton names are the closest to french names, from all the playable races ;)

Alright, I will see what I

Alright, I will see what I can do with a marketplace. I guess the NPC people for the project can just make the NPCs more interesting whenever they get around to it. As far as the river goes, for now I'm just adding a couple small docks and a rowboat, some fishing supplies, etc. I can always add more later if people think it's alright to ignore the bridge size flaw in the lore.

So, about adding objects, if I copy the mesh and texture(s) to the morrowind folders and make new objects in my plugin, is there someone else who will make sure the appropriate textures/meshes get added to the mesh/texture downloads at a later date? Or should I also upload any meshes and textures along with my plugin whenever it's ready to be merged?

There is a Morrowind mod

There is a Morrowind mod called Balmora Expanded, maybe you can draw some inspiration from it.

As for adding stuff, HappyChappy tends to take care of directory stuff, just tell him about it.

Don't forget

Don't forget Morrowind Rebirth. The Balmora markets there are excellent in my opinion :)

Speaking of mods, I have a

Speaking of mods, I have a question: How come we don't simply use mods like Morrowind Rebirth for Skywind and work from there? Wouldn't this speed up the process by quite a bit? Surely we could get permission for at least some of the level design mods.

Well I'll be damned...I've

Well I'll be damned...I've never seen the Morrowind Rebirth overhaul before! I downloaded and only got through a few places, but some quite sweeping changes. Balmora looked pretty impressive imo.

It seems the problem that it has run into is that it struggles with compatibility with other Morrowind mods, but of course we don't have this problem.

I think you are probably right on this one Veltoss. Its a pretty major change to the world, but we can always strip out that what we don't like. Well have to have a big group discussion on how much we use, but it certainly the biggest gains we could get. I'll ask the author if he/she wants onboard with our project.

Its will be a big process to convert however. We have to make sure that we have the models converted or at least our equivalents. The scripts for exporting/importing the placed objects. I'll start making it happen.

[EDIT] I've contacted the author and looks like Mehh is taking up the challenge of porting this one over :) I'll look at the models and what needs to be ported there.

I have yet to see someone

I have yet to see someone successfully convert a Morrowind mod. I'm not sure that you'll be able to succeed with that, but if you do, more power to you! :)

I meant taking inspiration

I meant taking inspiration from Morrowind Rebirth - not porting it over.

But good luck anyways ;)

well if you never seen the

well if you never seen the morrowind-rebirth mod, then you perhaps don´t know the overhaul 3.0 from the group ornitocopters as well.

http://www.ornitocopter.net/morrowind-overhaul/

maybe this could help/inspire us, too.

well if you never seen the

sorry doublepost

Already reviewed the

Already reviewed the Morrowind Overhaul 3.0 and there is certainly a lot of elements to be gained from it. But its just a case of wading through it all to find out what is best for Skywind.

There is actually a pretty big cross over in what has been used model wise between the Rebirth mod and what has been packaged with Morrowind Overhaul.

While waiting on Rebirth to

While waiting on Rebirth to be ported, I've decided to spend my time hunting down possible resources as well as making a list of Skyrim objects to be added as well. Not only for Balmora but for anywhere ingame, both interior and exterior.

From what I understand we can also use Oblivion resources right? So I took a look at modders resource packs on the Oblivion nexus and was pleasently surprised at the number of great resources. I don't know how many of these are up to the quality level of Skywind, but if they aren't then perhaps our modelers could work with them to make minor improvements? Here's a list of the ones I think we could use:

Oblivion:

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/20641

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/34669

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/40548

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/20643 (There is also an Open Book resource for Skyrim, but it has fewer books that we could use as it's very skyrim-focused. I will link it below)

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/32947

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/38411

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/35445

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/36629

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/37103

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/39274

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/40406

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/36576 (Someone who knows how to could get Morrowind concept art and artistic screenshots with some kind of painting-looking filter and add them to these frames for Morrowind-specific paintings)

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/26783 (only a few things from this one could be useful)

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/37765 (particularly good for Balmora!)

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/37221

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/37192

Skyrim:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/16525 (Already talked about this one before)

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/14134 (Open books, some of these are not skyrim-specific and could be used)

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/17303

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/30599 (A few of these could be used without being too skyrim-specific)

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/30602 (Some of these are not skyrim-specific)

Nice finds; the modlers Momo,

Nice finds; the modlers Momo, Meo and Strotis have been nicely prolific over the years. FTW. I'll convert them over.

We kind of have two streams of requirements. One is to actually replace all our current models with modders resource or our own custom built assets. So if we can find within the resource packs an appropriate replacer then we step closer to our goal of legal assets. We also want to have a nice game world with suitable items populating the world. So the more items available for a level designers the better. This is also going to help with the Skyblivion project.

Another thing I was thinking

Another thing I was thinking was that, assuming Rebirth is successfully ported over and has at least a decent landscape in all exterior cells, something exterior level designers will need to focus on before long is things that Skyrim has but Morrowind, and therefore Rebirth, did not. And that we should put together a list of things that need done along these lines in case someone forgets something.

What I mean is:

Changing textures that spawn 3D grass where Morrowind did not have grass before. There is a lot of grass growing over pathways, roads, towns, etc now.

Adding critter markers (fish, bugs, birds, ants)

Adding NPC critters (rabbits, deer, etc) assuming the critters can be found on Morrowind (we don't want to fuck the lore too badly)

Adding effects (water splashing, currents, rapids, better waterfalls, etc)

Adding sounds (ambience, wind, interior sounds, etc)

I'm sure I'm missing something, but that's a start. For the critters and bugs, I'd like to suggest contacting the following modders to possibly use their assets for an even better/diverse Morrowind:

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/17424

This guy let me use his pets in Saviik City and was very nice, I'm sure we could use hits cats and/or dogs in Skywind. I'm not sure if there are cats or dogs in Morrowind or what species they are, but the cats at least should be fine without standing out. The dog's species is another story, I doubt it would feel right.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/4955

I've never talked to this guy before, but he has tons of new bugs, which would make it much easier to find the right ones that fit in with the landscape.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/17723

This is the same guy as Pets of Skyrim, and also let me use the birds in Saviik City, so I'm sure we could probably get permission for Skywind easily. He has tons of new birds that are actual NPCs. They can be made to follow paths, stay in a small area, and with a navmesh trick even have them sitting on top of roofs, fences, etc.

How is rebirth going to be

How is rebirth going to be converted? There were so many problems with porting over TR...

From my time with our lovely

From my time with our lovely lovely morrowind converter, I've found that the converter can convert TR map one over just fine. But map 2 and 3, I can convert them over, but the heightmap won't convert over. I think the heightmap might be hard coded, because the creator of the converter was able to convert up to map one, so never bothered fixing heightmap on map 2 and 3 because TR map 2 and 3 weren't released yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9oAV-TuAqI
I do wonder though, what if I tried using Under the Sign of the Dragon with it. I don't know how that would work, since I doubt TR and Under the Sign of the Dragon have the same Morrowind heightmaps in mind.

As for Morrowind rebirth, a stripped Morrowind/Bloodmoon/Tribunal should do the trick. If not, well in the future we'll probably have something better than that piece of shit Morrowind converter.

As far as critters go,

As far as critters go, perhaps scribs could be critters? They're not much of fighters.

Yes I was hoping somebody

Yes I was hoping somebody would come along with some ideas about adding effects like water.

Although the rebirth will add a lot of stuff, Skywind still needs to be landscaped majorly. We still need the level designers to do all the work. Sure it adds a rock here and a tree there, but its still in the same vain as Morrowind placement of objects. Not the clever seem-less nature of Skyrims rocks, flora, and trees.

The towns and cities however are drastically expanded. New buildings, docks, NPCs, everything! There are even some new villages, forts, etc.

It really is going to be a case of probably making sure that we are not moving too far away from the original, but on the same token it makes for a much more immersive world.

I like all the idea Veltoss about adding stuff, except the NPC critters. I think deer and rabbits would be eaten upon birth in Morrowind! Its just not a good place for prey to be wondering, i think they would have all migrated to Skyrim :-P

Pet wise, probably the same deal, unless your animals were locked up safe, they would be chow before you know it. Maybe a pet Guar instead?

Good point. I just started up

Good point. I just started up Morrowind for the first time and after the first ten minutes I got the vibe that Vvardenfell is not a very peaceful place, even for the wildlife..

This is a rather interesting

This is a rather interesting point... Yes, there are hostile creatures everywhere in Vvardenfell, but they have to eat something to survive. Surely they do not feed from trama roots :P So I think some critters would make sense, but then we would have to invent and make them ourselves, since Morrowind did not really have them.

And a pet guar would be plain awesome.

"See that Ordinator over there? F**k him up. He called me scum."

Mehh wrote: From my time with

Mehh
From my time with our lovely lovely morrowind converter, I've found that the converter can convert TR map one over just fine. But map 2 and 3, I can convert them over, but the heightmap won't convert over. I think the heightmap might be hard coded, because the creator of the converter was able to convert up to map one, so never bothered fixing heightmap on map 2 and 3 because TR map 2 and 3 weren't released yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9oAV-TuAqI
I do wonder though, what if I tried using Under the Sign of the Dragon with it. I don't know how that would work, since I doubt TR and Under the Sign of the Dragon have the same Morrowind heightmaps in mind.

As for Morrowind rebirth, a stripped Morrowind/Bloodmoon/Tribunal should do the trick. If not, well in the future we'll probably have something better than that piece of shit Morrowind converter.

I managed to get the heightmap in a raw file for sacred east but the oblivion CS crashes when importing it.

also the changes in rebirth would unfortunately be in a seperate worldspace. We need a new converter for MR and TR to be in Skyrim.

How did you get a heightmap

How did you get a heightmap for sacred east? Everytime I convert past the Telvanni isles I get floating doors.

So Rebirth is a no-go? Looks

So Rebirth is a no-go? Looks like we're back to no shortcuts! We can still at least use it for inspiration, especially in towns. Thanks for trying Envy.

About the critters like cats and birds and rabbits, I'm going to take a look at Morrowind environment lore (if there is any to be found) and see if I can't find something useful to add to the discussion. I think it's something that should be discussed a bit before being decided upon as it will make a fairly big difference to the world, and we don't want something that makes Morrowind not feel like Morrowind.

At the very least I think adding the fish, bug, and ant markers should be fine. What do you guys think?

I think we are still good for

I think we are still good for Rebirth, it should be in the same worldspace. As long as objects sit in an x,y,z position correctly on same heightmap from Morrowind and Skywind, then would should be ok.

There no reason that our heights are different between conversion is there?

At the very least I think adding the fish, bug, and ant markers should be fine. What do you guys think?

Yes, will be good to add these. Check out Morrowind lore about creatures, but I think as far as prey they probably eat each other for food - lol.

I used Tesanwynn to make a

I used Tesanwynn to make a raw file and a bmp file for the Sacred East but I can't import it without the Oblivion CS crashing.

I will try with a new PC and import it again.

http://www.sendspace.com/file

http://www.sendspace.com/file/uuky0k update of the rocks, the grazelands are now finished (you still need the previous meshes on the first page, just replace the esp).

@Envy Kewl, I never even

@Envy

Kewl, I never even heard of that program, I'll give it a shot later on.

@Anthelius

I'll try out your Unique Grazeland plugin in a bit too.

If the port of Rebirth works,

If the port of Rebirth works, will any additions such as bug markers or water effects, etc, still show up in the correct place? Or should we wait until afterwards to add anything like that? I'm not entirely sure how this kind of thing works so I figured I should ask..

It looks like without some

It looks like without some effort converting any Morrowind mod is going to require more thought and solutions.

So I don't want to hold up development, because we may or may not be able to convert anything.

Anything level designing that has already been done will take priority. By that I mean if a cell has been modified then the Rebirth stuff will not be used.

The fact is that things like the Rebirth mods are still designed with older concepts, models, effects, etc, and so don't reflect what is achievable. The mods are a step in the right direction, and provide inspiration, but still no substitute for those that know what can be done with the Skyrim engine and resources now available.

@Anthelius Okay, I tried

@Anthelius

Okay, I tried out your file, and wow, did you fix the landscape textures of the ground? I went to Ahemmusa camp, and it looks way better. A few rocks are buggy, like you can see under them, but it might be due to me using Eloth's new rocks. I like the rock formations you've added, I also I like your transition from the Grazelands to the Ashlands, very nice. It was quite neat to see my self going from the Grazelands, and climb the cliffs you've added, only to begin to hear an ash storm begin, and then not be able to see 5 inches in front of my face. =p

Thanks, yes there must be

Thanks, yes there must be some glitches remaining because it's very hard to fix them all, the ahemussa camp and the north coast are the last part I've worked on so it should be the worst (don't hesitate to tell me where they are located). For the transitions it would be even better to have special rock textures for this, burned only at one side for example ;) .

And btw how do you trigger the ash storm? I haven't seen a single one yet (or maybe it's not in the public release yet?).

Oh, I forgot it wasn't

Oh, I forgot it wasn't released yet, I was tired when I typed that lol. It's still wip, and being worked on by Eloth. You can pm him for the link if you wanna try it.

Yep and I'd like the new

Yep and I'd like the new rocks also to see if it conflicts with my mod ; )

Maybe this old tool can still

Maybe this old tool can still be used, a Oblivion modding tool.

Attachments

GenerateFar - VWD Generator v0.4.zip

Tesanwynn has managed to get

Tesanwynn has managed to get a (so far) blank heightmap for Sacred East. If I do the textured option and merge the worldspaces together - then it's possible to at least have the landscape with refs.

Same with Morrowind Rebirth. But an obvious problem is that when the mod updates, we have to update it too via conversion tools. I don't mind with TR as updates come out once every year or so (I want at least Maps 1 to 4 in Skywind - it will be a dream come true). But Rebirth has an update around every two months. And what are we going to do with the add-ons? I'm writing quests for Rebirth and some guy named fulgore is making a dwemer ruin - would those get ported over too?

It's best to take inspiration from it if we're talking about making Vvardenfell fit in to today's standards.

The Rebirth mod is to simply

The Rebirth mod is to simply get the initial inspiration, once its converted, we would never use an update again. Our level designers will have completely changed the landscapes by then.

That's good but there is the

That's good but there is the problem of converting it over to overcome and merging worldspaces together.

Well after much wailing and

Well after much wailing and nashing of teeth (by me) I have a "mod" for Skywind that is a conversion of Morrowind Rebirth 2.02. I have purely focused on the exterior world so this come with absolutely no interiors. In fact the game will crash if you try to go indoors anywhere.

At this point in time it cannot be used for our master for that reason, and also I have no idea how to correctly convert EVERY aspect of what we have already done for our master and make sure we don't lose any work. Not to say that with some direction that this isn't possible, but at this stage we need to decide whether we actually like the changes enough to warrant further investigation.

It converted with display problems, things like objects replacements (ours) that don't "fit" together, designed with other models in mind. Converting new models over that have been added by Rebirth have also only be partially done, due to Nif Conversion problems. No textures have been applied, so all new models are purple. Clippings in places, floating objects, ugly trees, effects incorrect, all the stuff that came with our first conversion of Skywind. This is the whole world imported again, so nuff said.

But it does come with a very nice new world, so please download and view for yourself.
I converted the latest version of Rebirth 2.1 but it converted with a lot of problems, but now that I have a bit of experience with converting from Morrowind to Oblivion to Skyrim, that I might have more success next time.

There are two main new files; a new Skywind.esm master that has world objects stripped from it. I have kept the NPC in this. Also all interiors have been removed because of ID problems, and I haven't put any focus on this. Another file needs to be added to your plugins which is the "morrowindrebirth.esp".

My recommendation is to turn off collision via the command console to stop as much crashing as possible. Use the command TCL to do this.

But trust me its worth a try :)

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1vwmz6hbHGPbEF1U2I3MzZwMjA/edit?usp=sharing

Would it be possible to raise

Would it be possible to raise red mountain? I mean it's supposed to be the tallest mountain in the world. Now that you can see the distant land, if you remove all the big rocks, vvardenfell looks a little......flat. I prepose that if it's possible that we should work on making the island gradually slope up higher and higher until it culminates at the valcano itself. Now we'd have to do this smart obviously as to not ruin anything.

At any rate im not sure this could even be done and im just putting the idea out there. But if possible I think it would add a lot to the world visually.

I think it'd be possible, but

I think it'd be possible, but a lot of work. If you raise the land, it'll be enough work trying to get it all naturally rising up, but there's also all of the objects that would have to be raised to the new level. For stuff like trees it might not be too hard, but due to how the creationkit sees the "bottom" of objects a lot of stuff would have to be manually placed again.

It might be easy-ish to do if you changed the whole heightmap at once and then only had the objects to deal with manually, that would make it a lot easier to get the heights correct for everything while looking natural.

However, if we are going to do something like this, the sooner it's decided upon the better, as anything else landscapers do now will have to be re-adjusted.

@veltoss: you can move an

@veltoss:

you can move an unlimited number of objects in the same direction at the same time in the ck :)

Veltoss wrote: I think it'd

Veltoss
I think it'd be possible, but a lot of work. If you raise the land, it'll be enough work trying to get it all naturally rising up, but there's also all of the objects that would have to be raised to the new level. For stuff like trees it might not be too hard, but due to how the creationkit sees the "bottom" of objects a lot of stuff would have to be manually placed again.

It might be easy-ish to do if you changed the whole heightmap at once and then only had the objects to deal with manually, that would make it a lot easier to get the heights correct for everything while looking natural.

However, if we are going to do something like this, the sooner it's decided upon the better, as anything else landscapers do now will have to be re-adjusted.

http://forums.bethsoft.com/topic/1443268-relz-tes5edit/page__st__90__p__22282578#entry22282578

eloth wrote:@veltoss:you

eloth@veltoss:
you can move an unlimited number of objects in the same direction at the same time in the ck :)

Sweet ^.^ That would surely make it a lot easier. Since almost everything needs redone anyway his volcano-height-changing-idea has my vote. :p

Also I have some resources for everyone. These are mostly from Modders Resources for Skyrim, as well as new bugs from Willow's bug mod which he/she gave me permission to use for Skywind. It should all fit in with the Morrowind world. At most a couple objects may need new Skywind textures (like the skeletons or wood). There are over 20 new bugs we can use, dragonflies and moths mostly. I already got it so that they should work right from the start, dropping the correct ingredients, etc.

The download should have everything that's needed, in the proper file paths, but it is late and I do tend to make at least 10 mistakes when working on something at night. So if anyone finds something wrong let me know and I'll fix it.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_gpJ9x1RV9HaENnbGVISHYzaWs/edit?usp=sharing

If there is any kind of credits page being made for Skywind, assets in this .esp are from:

Bugs - 83Willow

Moths in Cages - Blary

Ingredients Wall Art - Blary

Open Books and Notes - Blary

Misc. Modders Resources - Oaristys

Nice work Veltoss, the file

Nice work Veltoss, the file structure looks perfect to me :) Hopefully I'll have a Balmora expanded for you to work on a bit later...I got distracted by Volcanoes :-P

Which by the way is a very interesting concept. I didn't know until now that the Red Mountain was/is the highest in all of Tamriel!

The topography around the red mountain area is very desolate and void of anything interesting, so this idea sounds like a very good one. If you look around the surrounding cells the two main towns that you are "limited" by starting the base of the mountain are Maar-Gan and Ald-Rhun. This essentially gives a two cell in each direction potential extension to the base of the mountain.

I think the easiest way to do it is to take the locations of Tureynulal, Odrosal, Dagoth Ur, Vemynal and place them in appropriate positions on a new height map, that is something like 2 times higher than it is currently. The highest point on the Skywind version at the moment is 18445. The Throat of the World in Skyrim has a height of about 36000, with the Dargonborn red mountain being 50,600! However this is covering a base of something like 26 cells (probably more, the whole island is sloping upwards) to get this effect and height, which is not realistic in the maximum of 20 cells for Skywind. But something in between would be nice. Getting it to be higher than the Throat of the World could be achievable, considering that it has a base of about 15 cells.

The Dragonborn Red Mountain is depicted much more as a steep Volcanic shape, so there is no reason not to run with this idea, to get our height.

The biggest difference is that the paths leading up will start on big slopes immediately as you get to the base of the mountain. Current the topology has a flat(ish) areas around parts of the Gate. The Ghost Gate itself will start further up the mountain as well. Sorry this will probably have to be hand crafted again, to fit the new height map.

Red Mountain from Gnisis (Dragonborn pics)

from Maar-Gan...its a requires a bit of tilting your head :-P

From the top over looking Azura Coast towards Tel Branora (I think!).

After Skywind is completed

After Skywind is completed I'd like to start or inspire people to make a mod called "The Red Year", which has a few quests that lead up to the mountain erupting. A big excuse to try some massive lava flows down the mountain with lava rain, followed by ash rain, with shaking cameras effects and booming sounds to match!!! Imagine seeing the Moon in Vivec tumble from its stasis to go crashing into the High Fane!? "Can you prevent it, or will you escape?". That will be the first chapter. The second chapter will be when you will emerge into the new world of Vvardenfell, one of total destruction.

Hell, after getting a project

Hell, after getting a project like Skywind done that probably wouldn't be much of an issue.