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.

Agree looks a bit too

Agree looks a bit too "rocky", but still magnitudes better than before.

i agree and its called like

i agree and its called like the trade plaza or somthing like that so some market stalls would be nice to take some space up

Yeah I agree the rocks are a

Yeah I agree the rocks are a bit over done. It looks like it's the same rock, only resized and used over and over. Try to make it look natural. Besides, that region isn't really rocky like that. I say give it some work. But please don't mistake this for being mean, I think it's great someone is stepping up and doing this, it helps a lot :D so mess around with it a little and keep up the great work!

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN (LANDSCAPERS - DESIGNERS)

First of all consider this as an advice to those that will put the "second hand" on the landscape design etc (Just as I am doing with the work of Anthelius on the Grazelands).

Filling an entire region with correct landscape, spaces, shrubs, trees, rocks, cliffs etc is something that takes time (weeks if done correctly, the way it should be done). With this considered the first hand of the level-designers had put more effort into making Morrowind more beautiful to the landscape level by adding mountains, rocks, cliffs etc.

Possibly because of the time that took the landscapers, possibly for simple "not knowing" I noticed how the terrain transictions were left behind.

No worried, it is but a matter of minutes and good eye!

When you find yourself retexturing the lands (Just as I am doing right now, because I am not only adding stuff) remember to use that thing called OPACITY.

[External image]

Using opacity from 40 to 100% makes the terrain FULL, certain. When you use such an opacity level you are sure you want to use that because it will cover completly the other textures that were set on that piece of terrain.

Using opacity from 20 to 40 makes the terrain ALMOST-FULL, meaning that it will mostly show the landscape texture you have chosen but on the background the other landscape-texture will be noticeable.

Using opacity from 10 to 20 makes the terrain MISC, meaning that you will be using this when you want the first landscape texture to be MORE visible than the one you are gonna put (example : rock texture above greengrass texture).

Using opacity from 0 to 10% makes the terrain SOFTLY MODIFIED, meaning that you ought to use that kind of opacity mostly as you would use a brush in PHOTOSHOP. This particular kind of opacity % is so much soft. This makes 5% opacity level perfect for terrain transictions and perfect for seamless areas. (Example : From sandbeach to brownish land to greengrass, like on the grazelands coastal area).

Thanks for reading!

TL;DR are not accepted <3

Bittercoast mild fog and

Bittercoast mild fog and humidity

Clear weather (vanilla)

You've created green murky

You've created green murky water? Looks great ; )

The humid environment looks

The humid environment looks really good... although I couldn't say the same about the tree models, they're very jagged, but of course they haven't been redone yet :P

how come heaps of objects

how come heaps of objects have a blue glow under them now?

You've created green murky

You've created green murky water? Looks great ; )

Yeah I've made a new green murky water type and I've only applied it to a few cells in the Bitter coast, but will extend it to the whole BC region. The ponds have a new texture and fog. Before you could easily see grid lines where the fog sat...it annoyed the crap out of me. Now the ponds have an aplha layer you can see the water so you now get reflections.

We have a few people

We have a few people beavering away here and there on landscaping the world. I've done a bit between Seyda Neen and Pelegarid, and it dawned on me just how much work is required to get the world up to a standard that we want.

Honestly we need hundreds of people helping here. Even if you do just one cell, but take your time then that is one day closer to getting this project completed.

I took some aerial screen shots just to put it into perspective how much real estate there is and how much work needs to be done.

We are doing things in layers

We are doing things in layers as well, so you dont have to get things "perfect" from the start.

For example Anthelius was the first person to give us a base around Grazelands, Bittercoast up to the West Gash, with some rock foundations and flora placements.

Now Eloth and I have taken up the mantle of doing further work with that foundation. Even further after that we might get specific flora and clutter placements.

The darkprince is doing further work around the grazelands, building on what has been already done.

If you are interested, make sure that you included as part of the development team by PMing a moderator and we will get you in on our development releases, which means you'll have the latest on what has been landscaped.

I'll add that this is the best project going for Skyrim, probably Elder Scrolls period at the moment. Big statement, but I tell you why. Its got the most content of anything going, but more importantly its one of the few that will actually get finished within a year. Now that is not to put down any other project that is going on, its just that we have the advantage of having such a solid base to work off. So if you want to add your creativity to the world hear is a great chance to help us out for what is the best thing going for Elder Scrolls single player period for the next at least couple of years! (eso looks rubbish btw, saw a 20min play through of hammerfell, looks like WOW through and through...the online panning screen shots demos are made for trailer quality, don't expect that in game)

I love how you took the time

I love how you took the time to randomly bash on ESO at the end of that post. :) Just don't get too harsh. You won't really know how good or bad it is until it's been released and people actually commentate and review it. And that is a long way from now. Any number of things can change during that period.

lol, I couldn't help myself,

lol, I couldn't help myself, I was looking forward to it and it was just so uninspired and lame looking.

Cave just outside of Seyda

Cave just outside of Seyda Neen

Dagobah...I mean Bitter Coast

Dagobah...I mean Bitter Coast :)

Looks really cool I like the

Looks really cool I like the roots

wow that looks insanely

wow that looks insanely good!!

hi everyone i am new here so

hi everyone i am new here so i don't know much, yet

yesterday eloth asked me if i could do improve the landscape in ascadian isles and i accepted, so i would like to request this area so that i could work on it.

this some w.i.p. landscape of ebonheart that i started working on this morning. Please give your opinion.

Finally i would like to know which cells i can work on, because i read in the description that happychappy was working on seyda neen to vivec(so it includes part of ascadian isles) and i don't want to overlap is work.

(No subject)

@happychappy: the landscape

@happychappy: the landscape design is great but are you using the trees from shadow of morrowind? You should really increase the alpha settings because the leaves are awful in this mod.

@silvermodder: nice work ;)

Hey Silvermodder, yes I've

Hey Silvermodder, yes I've done basically between Seyda Neen and Pelegraid so far. So anywhere else is good to start on. I'll get my stuff merged in next development release, so you can get an idea of some of the stuff done for acadian isles and carry on :)

Anthelius I've used a bit of a mix between a bunch of mods. Its mostly based off your flora overhaul mod, but I changed the trees in bitter coast to be more canopy. The Acadian Isles trees i've kept a bit more vanilla and the Graze Lands I've just scaled down the trees a bit (the quality loss for the large sizes was quite noticeable) and some other replacements. I've not included the West Gash at all, the models need to be matched perfectly for the root systems, and they are not close to a match.

I spent quite a while getting all the models up to a certain standard, but they still need work before they are a finished product. But at this stage I'm just going to upload them as is. Thanks heaps for the overhaul, we are going to add it into the next release :)

ok thank you happychappy i am

ok thank you happychappy i am going to improve the area around ebonheart.

this is a wip model that i did to substitute the model of the big dragon statue in ebonheart

this is the old model, the textures for the dragon are a darker and the the pillar is quite different (i think i will post different varieties of pillars later to see which one is better) but i think it catches the idea, please give your opinion.

Improved weather and lighting

Improved weather and lighting for the bitter coast. Release 0.7 was too green and flat looking with colour and depth. Also the green tint made towns and people a bit too green, so ended up looking sickly :-P

Spent all weekend on this and used every trick under the sun to get the depth and effects I wanted. Simply beautiful now :) Looks more realistic as well (in a high fantasy, enchanted forest kind of way lol).

That looks insanely cool, I

That looks insanely cool, I can't wait to see it in game... I wish Bethesda put as much effort into landscaping! Is there any performance hit though?

really cool effects!. to me

really cool effects!. to me the air almost look acidic :)

IMPOSSIBRU! That's even

IMPOSSIBRU! That's even better than the concept art ;)

To have exactly the same feeling you should probably plant trees and use green water in the large pools too (the ones next to the daedric ruins). And what about the green mushrooms I've included? They where not so bad imo if you want an enchanted forest (there is also a second model).

[External image]

Anthelius, actually i did

Anthelius, actually i did like the mushrooms, but for some reason during development I accidently deleted them :( Were these hand placed? Actually can you estimate how many trees you hand placed around the regions? Not actual exact numbers, just an indication.

Is there any performance hit though?

Yes, mainly because I've added mist to some of the tree tops. So we will do some testing and if it proves to be a problem for everyone, I'll need to remove those, but otherwise will still look good.

see how the trees are in

see how the trees are in this?

they have like those lines and bumps going up and down them? thats how we need to make our trees.

Roger that Alex...your wish

Roger that Alex...your wish is my command....unless I fail of course...nah

wow. That's beautiful.

@alexanderb: some of the

@alexanderb: some of the trees in the first vurt bittercoast mod have exactly the same trunk, but the foliage was not great so maybe we can mix them (and to reach this effect they had ambiant occlusion, which has to be recreated from scratch).

@alexanderb: yes they were handplaced, along with a few unique trees (the one with fern on the trunk..), bamboos and tamira bushes (only for testing purpose). I've also tried some "grass like" bushes like in vurt skyrim mod.

[External image]

i made a ashlands tree

i made a ashlands tree replacement. maybe we use maybe not. as for me, im tired of those gross looking bright ashland trees.

here is a pic of the new next ot the old, and a close up of the textures compared. notice mine doesnt have stretching lol..

Attachments

ill remove those white spots,

ill remove those white spots, i dont know where they came from.

i tried to make my own

i tried to make my own mushrooms :/ not soo good. needs alot of texture work if u guys would want to use them, and i need to work on its glossiness because i will want outsides moreglossy.

Attachments

2013-07-11_00001.jpg

Happychappy, I'm literally

Happychappy, I'm literally crying right now because I still have no computer and can't check all this awesomeness out for myself, you guys are killing me with your epicness, damn you expensive computer! I will skip groceries and just steal food from my dad if I have to to get you back!

Why not using vurt ashtrees ?

I have some new ashtrees in

I have some new ashtrees in WIP as well, but due to unforeseen issues and more tweaking on the BC trees I was working on it will take longer for me to release them.

Wanted to chime in and say

Wanted to chime in and say that I'm still around. I've had to backlog a bunch of projects and I'm methodically going through it all.

I want to enforce that I will keep working on my designated area when I have time but you should not wait for me if somebody else feels that they want to get artistic and do Sadrith Mora, be my guest.

Another thing that happened was that I burnt out myself really easily figuring out how to export models from 3dsmax and tweak .nif files to work with Skyrim. Most of the time I could do it but just the conversion process took away from my creativeness. And people told me to learn zbrush which.. wasn't really gonna happen. I still really dislike the UI after having tried it out and the pipeline seems buggy to me. Dunno. I just don't get along with the app.

In any case, you'll see me when I get around to work on it again. First step in my backlog is getting the most recent build and make sure my additions work and does not introduce any issues and then I will be ready to get into it when I have time.

Cheers!

Thanks heaps Mireneye for

Thanks heaps Mireneye for leaving a post on where you are at, just helps to know if people have quit the project or not :)

Sadrith Mora is still all yours, a few people might chip in with some models, but almost all of the Azura Coast needs to be done...yeah a lot.

What happend with the stonewall models you were planning? Let me know because I will make them instead if you have burnt yourself out. Getting what you have done would help.

I just got to find it.

I just got to find it. There's a pretty large de-organization that I have to sift through. Well it was organized once until I decided I should reorganize. And now I'm like 10 re-organizations in and things are well.. hard to find :P lol

My computer is such a thick

My computer is such a thick mess of project folder and files, that either I commit to organizing it for a couple of days, or just leave it in its state of chaos. At least can sort of find what want :-P

THis is thrilling to look at,

THis is thrilling to look at, you guys are just bossing your way through this.
And Happy Chappy, your screenshots feel more like TES 6 than some mod. They look brilliant! Well done all of you guys and keep it up! It's a blast to get on here and see what you guys have been up to! :D

Thanks, having a blast

Thanks, having a blast pushing the TES5 engine with capabilities at the moment and we are set to have an even more immersive world than Skyrim is :)

Caves with caustic water reflections, exclusive to Skywind :) Hard to see in this screen shot, but in game is very immersive. We are going to need level designers to help introduce these to appropriate parts of interiors...Uncle Sam says sign up now!

need some better maps on them

need some better maps on them caves

They other screen shots were

They other screen shots were taken in 1200x800 low res, so the textures are pretty good actually.

For anybody wanting to try out a sample cave Addamasartus just outside of Seyda Neen.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1vwmz6hbHGPMXJDdnlBZzczdXc/edit?usp=sharing

I always wondered why

I always wondered why Bethesda didn't push their engines to their limits, especially when the outcome can be as great as what's happening here.

LASentry wrote: I always

LASentry
I always wondered why Bethesda didn't push their engines to their limits, especially when the outcome can be as great as what's happening here.

Because consoles ;-)

(The mod is called W.A.T.E.R)