Waters of Morrowind

I want to add some sponges and fish-like creatures when i got enough time (or if somebody would complete my works).
http://tesrenewal.com/comment/54247#comment-54247

There is plenty of ideas. Even lots of concept art. What's missing is the people who can do it, everyone is swamped with higher priority work, like the actual vanilla Morrowind core content ;)

But making seas more interesting is definetly a thing to consider.

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Vurt had a coral mod for Morrowind that added some coral fields... They were awesome and would be a great "concept" in what could be done.

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

I don't think Vvardenfell is warm enough to support coral reefs, remember that Morrowind is not tropical. Some more variation in water life would be great though, like on the shores of Scotland for example.

@ Dragomir: there is no sense to make copy of IRL reefs. We just will make fantastical northern ones.
Also (Antarctic): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KJ2Ppn4Z7g
                         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0wuMhsgJoU

Nice idea about dreugh hive.
 

It may not support great barrier reefs.. but cold water can harbor some sponges starfish and coral.

coming from someone who plays the Argonian race, I would love some more underwater stuff, plus we didn't see much of that in skyrim (the disappointment scrolls V).

Sounds like good stuff for stage 2.

Actually we'd love for somebody to completely retopologies the ocean floors.

Mainly so that we can say that our heightmap has been altered enough so that we are not copying the Morrowind one. Doesn't have to be fancy just make it deeper and give it any shape you want really.

Any volunteers for this? You can't go wrong with this, its the ocean floor. You don't need much experience with the Creation kit for this, we can get you setup.

I think dreugh wax architecture will have nice odor of Morrowind

starting to work on the concept art [External image]

@DaedricLord

Ohh, we have common ideas on this area :) Maybe I will scrap sth. But not too soon.

May be basalt is more relevant to Soltsheim side?
Anyway we need only narrow belt of underwater biome in littoral area.
Especially on south - where (generally) continental coast is really close in this scale.
I hope we will have at least continent as background/distant view.

I'm thinking that the center of the Firemoth archipelago would be an underwater caldera, considering the shape the islands make is consistent with caldera formations. That could have a crater of hydrothermal vents surrounded by the kelp forests outside of it. The fort itself, an odd position for normal legions, could have more of a naval presence instead.

Thought I'd give this a go to see where the three different environments would be 'fit'. In this case, the kelp band is akin to a forest that spreads over the western and southern reaches of the island. This might be way too much for now, but I thought it'd be a good way to illustrate the ideas to landscapers. 

 

Basalt on the borders of Solstheim & Azura's coast. I do not know where the basalt distribution cutoff is on the map for AC, so as of right now I've drawn what I thought made sense. 

 

Geysers I've kept to the most volcanically active regions of Vvardenfell; near Caldera, Firemoth, Molag Amur and a little bit of the ashlands. The northern ashlands are almost completely desertic, so it seemed a bit strange to have active geysers in that area when we have a place like Molag Amur that houses lava-lakes on the surface. 

 

Obviously this is just a sketch, hope this helps a bit :)

You can also adopt en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_pool if you are about underwater 'craters'.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/NOAAseep_600CratersBrinePools.jpg

I would keep the kelp away from bitter coast as its very salty.

I had hoped to see large sections of coral around the west side of the island up to north west gash

(he want to keep kelp in the sea),
anyway there is no reference if water of salty marshes of Bitter Coast is more saltier than seawater? 

Coral generally grows in shallow, warm waters however there have been reports of coral existing as far north as the japanese isles. It would also be feasible to see it around the volcanic reaches, as the water around those areas might be naturally warmer. 

 

I did a bit of research on kelp forests as well, and they seem to reserve themselves to oceanic waters, so it might make more sense to have them on the easternmost northernmost oceans of Vvardenfell, as opposed to the sea seperating it from the mainland. I'll sketch up something soon with updated ideas. 

 

Edit: Speaking of the mainland - I know there was an idea being thrown around about making it a visible landmass in the game around the island, kind of like the other provinces in Skyrim. I suspect this would impact the way landscapers would tackle waters. 

> I suspect this would impact the way landscapers would tackle waters.
= That was the reason, because i said about it.
Ideally to make some basic landmass first, prior to work with any underwater except the northern-eastern and northern parts.
But as alternative - its possible to make underwater just 1-2 cells off coast or start from work in Sadrith Mora and Vivec - as most populated (and tripped by player) areas.

It never made sense that vvardenfell looks like its ages away from tamriel, like summerset isles are... but The mainland is actually closer then solsteim is... yet for some reason you can only see, and also travel to solsteim, its ironic.

For reference, heres a map of tamriel.

 

First things first - the map that I've been using seems to be topographic, which means some of the information regarding levels should be helpful to landscapers, I've also been using it to draft more natural underwater ecosystems and 'belts'. Here's a second draft with a few edits from the suggestions that we got. Added coral as a biodome, and added it in the region like Ravanna specified. For the lolz I also did a bit of a pre-emptive wiki-search just to make sure my ideas weren't too far fetched. Turns out coral can go as far north as Japan, and kelp forests are found in a variety of waters. The northernmost coast of Morrowind is thus a fine ground for a Kelp belt to grow. 

 

On the topic of the Bitter Coast acidity - that far down the water might actually be soft rather than salty, but the volcanic activity might warrant it being more sulfuric. So... maybe vegetation? Give me your thoughts! 

 

I think geyser areas should be widely inhabited with dreughs, soon i will design their buildings

I've done some conceptz.

All together they look like that

Kelp, Coral, Cold/Basalt, Hot/Geysers

Each biome has unique flora and fauna

Kelp dominated by Mollusca and Algae. On the bottom floor grow seagrass. Quite good visibility.

Coral dominated by fish. Quite ordinary fauna. Good visibility.

Cold waters dominated by starfish and Arthropod. Flora similar to this topic. Very good visibility.

Hot waters/geysers. A lot of worms and other strange forms. Poor visibility.

And my proposition for map

It would be great to fill everything. But we can do only coastline first and in further development rest.

I wait for feedback as always.

 

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These are some extraordinary concepts Lukkar. I really hope we can liven up the waters around Morrowind like that. Dreugh will love it!

All I can say is I love it and can't wait to see what kind of progress will be possible thanks to those concepts :D

Now that I look at it though, there's one thing I'd change. ZAFIRBEL BAY NEEDS CORAL! Loads of it! There won't be basalts there anymore.

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The region marked red will have corals in the tidepools, would be stupid if in the deeper sea it wouldn't have them.

Dragomir, you're in charge here, chief ;) To add more realism I propose to add a lot of thermal vents near Molar Amur's coast as heat source for corals.