[WIP] Common/Nordic Buildings Exteriors

Nice initiative. My suggestion is much sure you check out all the in game instances to get an idea of how building need to be made. You can do this through either Morrowind or Skywind, in game or through the Construction Set or Creation Kit.

As pointed out to StormAndy in the other thread its not quite as straight up as making one model look nice. You need to look at how many individual building need to be constructed.

Looking forward to seeing the collaboration.

Prepperaring Seyda Neen - Arilles Tradehouse Assets for texture atlas. Going to gather reference materials and layout my proposed atlas with a rough texture block-out.

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Managed to get a good portion of the unwrapping done, still got most the roof, chimney, support beams and entrace to do.
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Looking really nice, super impressed at the speed and quality of your work.

You can afford to split this up into 4 different 2048 textures. This is basing it off how Bethesda Skyrim assets have been done for buildings and we want as much detail.

Stonewalls

Thatch roof

Stucco plaster

Wood deck and railings.

personally i like the door.
I think my only crit is the door needs a bit more dirt/dark colours, and perhaps the bottom of the door needs some more wood fraying.

though we can add another reskin later as it would be good to have new and old door. can also reduce polycount. got pics of meshflow?

Uvs are good, good layout.
good quality bake :)

I think some green moss/grime on the bottom would look nice and for the plank size used perhaps making it a little bit thinner.

With the extra texture space I've decided to add a duplicate atlas with alternate wear and tear plus moss to add difference to the piece nearer the swamp ground and doubling the variation elsewhere on the plaster walls. I've optimised the assets in this tradehouse down to 31,677 Tri's so far. without the entrances its just over 20k.

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Once I'm happy with the tradehouse I will be using the assets to make a Seyda Neen set. Making a couple of variants of smaller pieces for more editor friendly building construction.

 

That is a great idea. A modular set would give us a way to make Seyda bigger and better. Also give us a little artistic license. :P

@Philiciter Just the right amount IMO :)

EDIT: Check with Ravanna though! I know they want to reuse textures where possible

Just posting up a progress shot of the Seyda Neen pieces so far.
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That looks great so far. It is coming along nicely. Also, Caldera uses the same housing style as well. 

Can you also create some props to go with it. Like A well, vendor stands, or a short circular wall like in White run around the big tree. Modular of course. I have some ideas for Seyda and Calmora. They both use the same Imperial style and need some tlc and I need more models that are not ingame to do that. But only if you are able and the bosses approve. 

excellent pieces so far.

Philiciter - can u make the metal ring handle a bit less fat.

when you send this can u include the high poly, we can make an extra door that is much more worn and rotten.

StormAndry - the models are great but we will be doing new tile sets of textures.
Folliage on walls is not done by adding it to the stone texture. Its done by an alpha
we can sort this later.

Sure Ravanna, currently the model has two variants of the atlas, one has moss on. I personally would recommend refraining from doing all moss and foliage on planes. There's also a completely non mossy base not shown in the render above.


Hey Archie, I've made a well to fit the set and I could certainly do some walls similar to that which use my cobblestone texture. I've bee looking through the towns in the TES3 editor to see what pieces the world might benefit from.

Here's the well
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If you see any art in which has similar ideas to props you think could be helpful post them here or send me a message so i can take a look :)

All the best,

-Andy

Created a shelter which could be used for outdoor market areas.
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Going to produce a patchy fabric texture of stitched leathers and skins together for the sheet covers.
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So apparently Feng Zhu has been mentioning the project in one of his student demos :D
"@Andrew Cool! I mentioned you guys in the video...but didn't know it was called Skywind. Best of luck on the project; the screenshots look beautiful."

Going to try take some ideas from his concept sketch of Seyda Neen

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full resolution image of the concept can be found here

http://fengzhudesign.com/blog/fzd_concept_MRW_01b.JPG
 

Currently working on a stitched together pelts/hides texture. Modeled a new roof varient based off Feng's sketch above.

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Handles are better :)

we'll need a different texture around that stone arch, with slightly larger rocks.
also could u make the arches wider? stone one by abour 2.2x and wooden one 1.5x ish

​after that I think we';re done here :D

we'll have to take the file and check its mesh flow 
 

Added the Pelt texture to the stall, thinking It might be best to use a separate texture for the inside pieces.

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Also working on another building/roof piece
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Those beams on the roof piece is actually something you want to change the ones on that piece in morrowind are going through the windows.

Tggc is right about the windows/roof. Can you show more of the wooden framework from the outside on the roof, perhaps horizontal bent wood panels.

I quite like the pelt texture, I made a similar one last year, perferred for ashlands/aldruhn:

 

So more of the roof framework sticking/showing through the straw :) similar to the new roof idea so the structures more visible. Will have a go at that shortly.

That hide texture is awesome, I've made some adjustments to the values and contrast of my texture and used the hide texture you've made on the inside pieces.

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Here's an updated version of the new roof piece.
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This is all looking fantastic. But for the outdoor market stall, the wooden beams could all look more gnarled and weathered, I think. The wood is just too straight and neat, in my opinion.

Really love the work you guys are doing with the town architecture, the collaboration between all of you here is superb

Hey Sechrima, thanks for the feedback. I've made changes to the wooden frame pieces as suggested by making them less straight and using a new more weathered worm wood texture.

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Still need to work on making some wraps to connect the poles together similarly to the reference image i based the shelter off.
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Hell yeah, looking way more believable now.

Just in case you haven't noticed or taken it into account, I think those black bits on the hide texture on the sides of the stall are meant to signify empty space. So really, you should be able to see through those cracks in the patchwork to the other side.

Once you get the wrappings done on those wooden parts, this will be a pretty cool piece. I think it (or a similar version of this with a more rounded, less rectangular, shape) would work really well in some Ashlander camps as well.

Made a wrap texture and added some cloth wraps to bind some of the beams together.[External image]

Sech that texture was originally made for ashlander tents, not seen ingame yet

Hey guys,

That's my first post so hi :) Those models that you have made are awesome, but have you seen this tutorial?

http://wiki.polycount.com/ModularMountAndBlade

It would help you jump into even higher level imo, especially parts about the damaged and dried out edges.

Hey MontSKew,

Thanks for the link that's really helpful :), I really like what they've done with the roofs to break up the falt shape.

All the best,
-Andy

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Loving every piece of architecture, Andy - really nice touches all around. It's easy to notice your attention to detail. I can't wait to see what else you come up with!

Thanks Taj :)
been reworking the straw roof based on MontSKew's feedback.
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Is that beam of wood showing a bit through that thatched roof?  Nice!  The straw looks very strawlike, now.

Hey Smitehammer, I think I notice where you mean there seems to be some wood showing through the left hand side the roof. I'll sort that out now :) I've just worked on one of the other roof variants creating a similar straw roof.
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That looks absolutely awesome! Great work!

Cheers ^_^

Made further progress unwrapping and modelling the Nordic tower Piece.
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so happy to see u back :)

!!! I want it in game!

great work stormandy.. it's looking really good.

Your towers look great. I'm just not sure that this piece of masonry under the top cone is light enough not to crumble. Maybe you could apply a wooden texture instead.

Hey guys,

Thanks for the feedback. Apologize for being a ghost for the last 2-3 months I've been crunching on the end of my University work, which has been the busiest period of my life. I've done 3 modular environments sets this year with another half finished so I've improved quite a lot over the last couple of months and I look forward to spending my future weekends working on Skywind art.

-Andy

Yay you are back :D

:O Awesome!

Hey guys,

I'm ready to start testing meshes in engine. I've read through Ravanna's guide on naming conventions for files. If anyone knows of any good tutorials for exporting static meshes from 3dsmax into Skyrim could you please share them.

Cheers,
-Andy