Disturbing Dream Scenes

Interesting reading everyone's ideas. Such a cool concept. I personally believe that obscurantist's youtube mockup is really good with the blurred vision, lack of control over the player with just the ability to move the camera.
I think it could be cool if the dream started completely black with ominous music/sounds and then a sinister picture of dagoth ur's mask and/or of things to come flashes/fades in front of the screen before it faded away so that the player finds himself walking down the hall asking what in the nine is this? implementation maybe similar to the images that flash in front of you in fallout 3 in a particular vault so it would happen while you're in the cutscene. it would help to separate the player falling asleep from normal gameplay and signal crazy dream stuff. just my two cents. Even if 2d is a no go, I think fade in from a few seconds of black and creepy sounds would be awesome.

perhaps for the last dream start out with the sound of a beating heart in pitch black and have it fade into Dagoth talking while walking around the heart of Lorkahn under red mountain?

hmm i like the idea as it merges both ideas. first SOME (not too many!) omnious pictures and sounds, then the "playbale" part starts. good thinking there mate. we definately have talented modders here who can do this memorable!

Idea with picture before eyes was implemented in elder scroll effect, when some runes and symbols appears after reading it. I should dig in that direction.

*BASED ENTIRELY ON VIDEO POSTED*

I realize this is a rather bare-bones proof of concept but an idea stemming from this:

Instead of a cave, perhaps it could be in a large room in Kogoruhn back during the height of its glory. This juxtaposed with the corpses will be very off putting, plus when the player finds said room in its current state, I imagine that it would be quite striking.

My thoughts would be this: Considering the nature of the dreams, we are faced with a great deal of technical problems if we wish to have the dream sequence interactive. This means new animations, and un-necessary coding. "I tried to breathe, but my chest didn't move." How are we going to portray something like that? If we were to go with something heavily interactive, then a great deal of the dreams content will be impossible to portray. Just being able to move the camera is another option, but if we're going to restrict them that much, why give the players any control at all? It's not like they can affect anything.

At the same time, although I am in favor of a cutscene, I do not mean one like the one in Mass Effect- the pacing is far too fast for starters. Instead, I think a slower sequence of images, clips and mostly samples of in-game footage would be the way to go, cut together in a way that makes the sequence as short as possible. This way we avoid tasks that require more work than they're worth, give it a disjointed and nightmarish feel, are able to add other affects that might not be accomplishable using the normal game engines, while at the same time keeping in line with the a style of the opening dream- which has already been completed. You know- "Why are you shaking? Wake Up!" In my mind these nightmares have the same sort of feel.

The whole thing of dreams is feeling creepy and doomed, they are about you can't affect anything (even your body), only observe, so restricting movement is my option. Playing with light, interior design and ambient sound may do the trick. Like adding heavy breathing sound at the beginning while vision stabilized or some picture fades like here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVRnayj1Xq4

Just to add additional artistic inspiration...

I had a disturbing dream. I can only recall one part. A tall figure with a golden mask led me among the dead as through a wedding celebration. I heard many voices, but no lips moved. I strained to breathe, but my chest didn't move. The tall figure spoke with each figure as he passed among them, laughing and joking, as if they were alive, but they made no reply. I tried to cry out, but without breath, my tongue fluttered in vain.

I love the idea of this taking place in an earlier rendition of Kogoruhn. There can be a multitude of Chimer/Dunmer standing on both sides of the corridor/chamber, and they can all be standing idly. Not sure if we can have it so they have solid white eyes, but something like that would add to the creepy factor. They can just be standing in place; no walking or additional animations necessary (outside of head tracking or something). There can be a multitude of audio points amongst the crowd, which could sound ominous like the "soul whispers" one hears in Morrowind when near a tomb ash pit. Dagoth Ur can be there and, as he walks down the corridor, can have wily banter with these "husks" - banter that is both cryptic and ominous.

An example of how the scene could play out...

FADE FROM BLACK. Thethe player sees DAGOTH UR, golden masked deity, before him.

DAGOTH UR: Ah, we have a much-exalted guest! Look upon the eyes of glory, of friendship!

Daguth Ur offers an outstretched arm to the player.

DAGOTH UR: Dagoth Ur welcomes you, Nerevar, my old friend.

Daguth Ur turns and moves through the crowd, with the player unable to resist. The player is animated to follow, but may be able to turn his/her head. As they move through the crowd Dagoth Ur spouts idealistic banter about the blight, about himself, and the Nerevar.

DAGOTH UR:
"A celebration for the return of Nerevar reborn! Long ago Nerevar Indoril chose the path of deceit, but by the moon and the star s/he has finally chosen to embrace enlightenment..."
"But now we shed ourselves of ancient superstitions, and I give the Gift of perfection, of the intimate knowledge of the divine."
"If you dare to defy the gods, take my hand. Together we will stand as we once did, upon the slopes of my namesake." "You have... ability. Special gifts you don't even understand. Serve me, and I can help you master those gifts."

Having reached the center of the crowd, Dagoth Ur turns to the player and stops.

DAGOTH UR: Nerevar reborn... Let us embrace him with the arms of family, giving ourselves unto him as he gives himself over to us.

The crowd starts to close in around the player, and the dream begins to fade to black.

Over the darkness Dagoth Ur cries with ecstasy:

DAGOTH UR: Rapturous! Glorious! The divinity brings us plumes of righteousness!

CUT TO player awakening.

thegentlemancaller

Just to add additional artistic inspiration...

I had a disturbing dream. I can only recall one part. A tall figure with a golden mask led me among the dead as through a wedding celebration. I heard many voices, but no lips moved. I strained to breathe, but my chest didn't move. The tall figure spoke with each figure as he passed among them, laughing and joking, as if they were alive, but they made no reply. I tried to cry out, but without breath, my tongue fluttered in vain.

I love the idea of this taking place in an earlier rendition of Kogoruhn. There can be a multitude of Chimer/Dunmer standing on both sides of the corridor/chamber, and they can all be standing idly. Not sure if we can have it so they have solid white eyes, but something like that would add to the creepy factor. They can just be standing in place; no walking or additional animations necessary (outside of head tracking or something). There can be a multitude of audio points amongst the crowd, which could sound ominous like the "soul whispers" one hears in Morrowind when near a tomb ash pit. Dagoth Ur can be there and, as he walks down the corridor, can have wily banter with these "husks" - banter that is both cryptic and ominous.

An example of how the scene could play out...

FADE FROM BLACK. Thethe player sees DAGOTH UR, golden masked deity, before him.

DAGOTH UR: Ah, we have a much-exalted guest! Look upon the eyes of glory, of friendship!

Daguth Ur offers an outstretched arm to the player.

DAGOTH UR: Dagoth Ur welcomes you, Nerevar, my old friend.

Daguth Ur turns and moves through the crowd, with the player unable to resist. The player is animated to follow, but may be able to turn his/her head. As they move through the crowd Dagoth Ur spouts idealistic banter about the blight, about himself, and the Nerevar.

DAGOTH UR:
"A celebration for the return of Nerevar reborn! Long ago Nerevar Indoril chose the path of deceit, but by the moon and the star s/he has finally chosen to embrace enlightenment..."
"But now we shed ourselves of ancient superstitions, and I give the Gift of perfection, of the intimate knowledge of the divine."
"If you dare to defy the gods, take my hand. Together we will stand as we once did, upon the slopes of my namesake." "You have... ability. Special gifts you don't even understand. Serve me, and I can help you master those gifts."

Having reached the center of the crowd, Dagoth Ur turns to the player and stops.

DAGOTH UR: Nerevar reborn... Let us embrace him with the arms of family, giving ourselves unto him as he gives himself over to us.

The crowd starts to close in around the player, and the dream begins to fade to black.

Over the darkness Dagoth Ur cries with ecstasy:

DAGOTH UR: Rapturous! Glorious! The divinity brings us plumes of righteousness!

CUT TO player awakening.

I love this dialog. My only thought is, keep in mind that Dagoth was the friend of nerevar. He wants them to rule almost side by side. Also, you are too specific. Do not mention the name Nerevar, just a you, or "my old friend". Nothing too revealing. Suspense is crucial.

The script is very nice but I get the feeling you're not supposed to know so much about Dagoth Ur and the Neverarine just yet. Aren't the dreams supposed to build up to a slow reveal? If everything is made so clear from the beginning, there is no sense of wonder or surprise. I know the majority of us have played through Morrowind before, so the reveals about your character's true nature don't mean much to us anymore, but I would like to use Skywind to introduce friends that never got the chance to play the original, and that means the slower reveal. Using obvious keywords like Dagoth Ur and Nerevar so early on does not seem like a good idea to me.

The very nature of the dream entries are cryptic unless looked at by somebody who knows the whole picture, and I think that we need to reflect that, regardless of whether we choose a cutscene or a playable sequence in the end.

Yeah, just something I threw together. Seeing that there are four dreams, the reveal and concept would have to build so not to give too much away at first. I almost see each dream becoming more ominous as they go -- Dagoth Ur almost seems likable, trustable, at first and readily grows more sinister throughout the subsequent dreams. I didn't expect much of a response (I'm more a lurker than a content producer)...

So revised could look something like this:

FADE FROM BLACK. The PC stands in a Kogoruhn interior during the second era, long ago. It is a long corridor, smoke and torchlight casting long shadows along the walls. A multitude of Chimer/Dunmer line the walls, standing absently, their eyes an unseeing milky white -- they are soulless husks a parallel to the result of ash servants. Eerie whispers emanate through the crowd, like the quiet death whispers the PC hears when standing near ancestral ash pits.

Out of the shadows stands a tall figure wearing a golden mask - DAGOTH UR.

DAGOTH UR: Ah, we have a much-exalted guest! Look upon the eyes of glory, of friendship renewed!

Daguth Ur offers an outstretched arm to the player.

DAGOTH UR: Dagoth Ur welcomes you, my old friend.

Daguth Ur turns and moves through the crowd, with the player unable to resist. The player is animated to follow, but may be able to turn his/her head. As they move through the crowd Dagoth Ur spouts idealistic banter.

DAGOTH UR:
"A celebration for the return of friendship renewed!"
"Lost sheep no longer, for we shall all become shepherds."
"It is as it was meant to be. The glory of the past reawoken!"
"By the moon and the star we stand together once more."
"Come, there is no reason to fear death any longer!"
"Take my hand; I have prepared a place for you at my table...."

Having reached the center of the crowd, Dagoth Ur turns to the player and stops.

DAGOTH UR: My children, let us embrace him with the arms of family, giving ourselves unto him as he gives himself over to us.

The crowd starts to close in around the player, and the dream begins to fade to black.

Over the darkness Dagoth Ur cries with ecstasy:

DAGOTH UR: Rapturous! Glorious! The divinity brings us plumes of righteousness!

CUT TO player awakening.

This is better, but if memory serves, the first dream's text specifically doesn't name Dagoth Ur. I would propose changing the line where he introduces himself to something like "Welcome, my old friend." Also the line "A celebration for the return of friendship renewed!" seems redundant.

Honestly, I like the last paragraph most out of all of it. I'd consider cutting the beginning bit where he directly refers to the player and just start with that, maybe his back is turned all the way till the ending bit? Might be more ominous that way.

My thoughts on this topic, to add some dreamlike and creepy experience, and not to destroy any hidden lore nuance, all dialogs should sound like incoherent whisper (like here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvPzjoc4hjU ). But if someone would voice act additional dialog lines it also would be great.

@Electricwestern - Good points. Making edits. Redundant lines is what I get trying to work on this in the middle of the night when I should've been sleeping. :)
@Obscurantist - Those incoherent ghost whispers are exactly akin to what I had in mind. That's great!!!

FADE FROM BLACK. The PC stands in a Kogoruhn interior during the second era, long ago. It is a long corridor, smoke and torchlight casting long shadows along the walls. A multitude of Chimer/Dunmer line the walls, standing absently, their eyes an unseeing milky white -- they are soulless husks a parallel to the result of ash servants. Eerie whispers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvPzjoc4hjU) emanate through the crowd, akin to the quiet death whispers the PC hears when standing near ancestral ash pits.

Out of the shadows stands a tall figure wearing a golden mask - DAGOTH UR.

DAGOTH UR: Welcome my old friend.

Daguth Ur offers an outstretched arm to the player.

DAGOTH UR: Look upon the eyes of glory, of friendship renewed!

The crowd stirs slightly. Daguth Ur turns and moves through the crowd, with the player unable to resist. The player is animated to follow, but may be able to turn his/her head. As they move through the crowd Dagoth Ur spouts idealistic banter, vague and cryptic in his relationship with the Nerevarine.

DAGOTH UR:
"By the moon and the star we stand together once more."
"It is as it was meant to be. The glory of the past reawoken!"
"Lost sheep no longer, for we shall all become shepherds."
"Come, there is no reason to fear death any longer!"
"Take my hand; I have prepared a place for you at my table...."

Having reached the center of the crowd, Dagoth Ur turns to the player and stops.

DAGOTH UR: My children, let us embrace him with the arms of family, giving ourselves unto him as he gives himself over to us.

The crowd starts to close in around the player, and the dream begins to fade to black.

Over the darkness Dagoth Ur cries with ecstasy:

DAGOTH UR: Rapturous! Glorious! The divinity brings us plumes of righteousness!

CUT TO player awakening.

Much better, though I had a thought. See how it sounds if instead of Dagoth directly leading the player, instead his voice leads him through the bodies to a room where he then steps out of the shadows, greeting him/her as a friend, and telling him/her that soon they shall be reunited

So.. is the final verdict something of a Machinima? not the youtube channel, but where a film is crafted that the player can't interact, but it's done live inside the engine? Something akin to Quake IV's Stroggification or Half-Life 2's Breen's Office scene?

Guys if you need dark music or creepy stuff i can make everything you want! That's my speciality :D im a hardcore producer so im used to that kind of stuff. Also if you got a voive actor i can do cool fx on the voice

Still waiting for approval from main team to start my work, because everything i could do w/o skywind resources I'd already done and showed

Hmmm, I think it would look good with either people sitting in pews, looking all ghoulified, or ash zombified. Alternatively, instead of just using the bodies, how about the burnt and charred bodies in Skyrim already. When I think scary Dagoth dreams I think ashy corpses.

To go back to the idea about Mass Effect-ish flashes if I may, I could see it playing out with the long walks being just as they are now, silent and uncontrollable, building suspense. Then when Dagoth Ur talks, the player has intermittent (and slower) flashes of subtle, ancient-artworks depicting Nerevar and the battle of Red Mountain, along with maybe visions of key locations in-game. It may seem counter-productive to have the exciting flashes happen during the talking while leaving the long walks somewhat empty, but I feel like empty spaces are crucial to a good dream sequence. Twin Peaks, for example.

I think it's important not to get too enamoured with the Hollywood idea of a dream as a sequence of surreal events - dreams are often mundane, and rarely sequential. With that in mind, it's probably counter-productive to get hung up on backdrops and set dressing; the crux of a dream is that only the things you look at exist. If there's no need for a certain detail to be present, it may as well not be there - backgrounds can be blurry, ornaments blobby and amorphous. If people are talking, they should speak in murmurs, like they're distant, or behind glass. Shouting crowds would sound like a hollow winter gale. People who aren't in direct view might have blurred faces, if such a thing is possible in the Skyrim engine (speaking of which, any kind of colour bloom or light-trail effect that's possible is surely worth considering).

Basically, when it comes to dreams, exaggeration and obfuscation are the name of the game. Everything significant should be unmissable, and everything else barely present at all.

tl;dr Less dialogue, less set-dressing, less clutter, less everything. Keep it punchy, keep it cryptic.

If all else fails, we could always just pull a Legend of Grimrock and have the events unfold via shifting text. A few meaningless dialogue choices e.g. Go willingly or Struggle to escape (and fail) could really play up that lack of agency you feel in a dream.

Just my two cents.

This mod add's a really well done whispering voices file as if you're going insane. It's tied to the enchantment ("ket_umbra" or something) in CK but I couldn't disable the voices it besides deleting it so there may be hard time extracting it. Or you could ask the mod author, maybe he grabbed the file online.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=84469731

Another hellish voice overlay, it might not be needed for the scenes, but maybe for the Heart of Lorkhan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYAxMQVH6z0

What goes for Dagoth Ur, will he be given a face? The dreams say that he smiles, but you wouldn't be able to see that behind his mask. But overall I think that his face aka mask should only be revealed in the last dream when he addresses the Nerevarine directly.

Edit: Just say that Rovana already did Dagoth ur, so nvm that

Also, unless the corpses are burnt to crisp, could they be wearing eye bandages like this one.

https://i.imgur.com/Q9Rifch.jpg

So I'm going to develop my concept, anyone with directing ambitions and basic lore knowledge willing to help me?

If u have questions about the 3d/art side lemme know, I wont be doing Dagoth Ur for a while, and dwemer/dagoth interiors are another 2 months off being added to ck at this rate.

It might be useful to incorporate some of Lukkar's murals and graffiti if we decide to go with 'flashes'.

Perhaps also some cutting between landscapes like the opening cut scene to indicate unremembered tumultuous dreaming before and after the dream sequence.

Ask Denevir

Denevir is no longer with us.

aretea

Denevir is no longer with us.

Just to clarify he's not dead...So no one freak out.

So for now w/o decorations i'll continue developing script templates for scenes. My thoughts on first dream are next:

Decorations: dunmer stronghold interior, On each side there are tables and dead dunmers (zombies/skeletons/burnt bodies? but that's not creepy) sitting at them. Empty tableware. 6'th house altar at the end of the room (my vision on dunmer wedding creepy mockery). Minor dust floating in the air. Lighting in red or dim grey tones.

Sounds: whisper effects appears on different sides of tables, may be heart bitting sound.

Scene: Nerevarin following (first person, controls disabled, only camera) Dagoth Ur (need some lore consultations, but as an option not a monstrous version but a tall dunmer in gold mask, like he was 3k years ago). ~10 seconds of following, choky breath sound, end of a scene.

Feel free to shoot me a message if you want any specific sound-effect for a rough dream prototype. 

Thank you, I'll keep this in a mind.

I had a disturbing dream. I can only recall one part. A tall figure with a golden mask led me among the dead as through a wedding celebration. I heard many voices, but no lips moved. I strained to breathe, but my chest didn't move. The tall figure spoke with each figure as he passed among them, laughing and joking, as if they were alive, but they made no reply. I tried to cry out, but without breath, my tongue fluttered in vain.

Awesome concept. Instead of being lead down a hallway, the player could be lead through a crowd of the dead in a room with no discernable shape or form. Everyone packed in together to create a claustrophobic feeling. You try to keep up with Dagoth Ur but eventually you lose sight of his mask and then darkness obscures everything before you wake up.

Exactly !

The point is to make the characters appear pretty vivid in the beginning, and very much dead in the end. Dagoth Ur leads, you lose sight of him, get lost, afraid, and wake up. 

My question is, is there any point in working on these cutscenes anymore ?

This topic definitely fell off over time, but the idea is no less brilliant than when it was first suggested. You should probably talk to someone whose over whichever department would implement cutscenes in-game to see if its still being worked on or if it was dropped altogether :)

 

We haven't dropped the idea,  just put it on low priority, because it really is at this stage. We will need to come to a final decision within the team about it when it becomes more important, but for now, we're not worrying about it. 

I can continue with my experiments on this subject to make scenes as dreamy as possible if I wouldn't have some tasks with higher priority.

obscurantist

I can continue with my experiments on this subject to make scenes as dreamy as possible if I wouldn't have some tasks with higher priority.

We have plenty of coding tasks available. Are you on the coding Trello board? Otherwise I can add you. I can see you have experience with papyrus :) 

The beginning of this has some animationy stuff that I think would work quite well for the 'disturbing dreams'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx-hNUXwXTo

Mace

We have plenty of coding tasks available. Are you on the coding Trello board? Otherwise I can add you. I can see you have experience with papyrus :) 

No but it would be awesome. I was in game mechanics skype conference but seems like it faded away year ago.

Smitehammer

The beginning of this has some animationy stuff that I think would work quite well for the 'disturbing dreams'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx-hNUXwXTo

Well I think this is quite good idea, especially when it is quite easy to do.