I love the looks of the cave, but would you mind turning the ambient light down? It would make the lights from the torches pop much more, as well as generally it would give a more of a "cavey" feel. Unless that's just cranked up light to make decorating easier ;)

It would be cool to have crane like that, here. Or at least sth similar could be created ^^

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And maybe add some graffiti like that, here and there.

Of course Ravanna mentioned that "Ellange already did a lot of pure writing grafitti". It will be nice to see them here. I'm sure this piece of vvardenfell is in good hands.

I hope u will redo Balmora too ^^

If a crane asset is made that would be really nice, not only for the mine, but also for the Ebonheart harbor, where the player could see dock workers by the cranes unloading lumber from the mainland, or East Empire Company crates of imported Cyrodiilic goods, raised on a pallet attached to the crane. Things like that could really add to the immersion, provided the right assets. A crane could be used in the Hlaalu docks in Vivec too, or really any of the docks there.

It would be nice to have some 'under construction' imperial buildings, to show that Caldera is still a new town and expanding.  Scaffolding and pices of lumber sitting around, with a couple of builder NPCs.  Assets like these could also be used for Tel Vos, the tower that Aryon grew a mushroom through while it was being constructed by imperials.

Early progress for some sulfur-covered parts of the mine crater, it would be nice to have some sulfur fire too

awesome work iceflame!

I'm experimenting with blue sulfur flames

Interior of the main mine tunnels

Here's some more of the mines:

Sorry, The mine exterior is not looking right.  Part of the problem is the exterior set being used here.   The rock should be dark or ashy, and the crater, more smooth on the sides.  More ridges or erosion.  Sulfur is also off, looks like yellow snow.  Sulfur seeps into the soil, it cakes on the rock, drains down into valley, it stays on the ground.

I think blackish texture would be more volcanic, also the ebony is black.  I prefer colors and exterior of Morrowind in the surrounding region as well.  Morrowind had so much more subtle variation in regions, but the radical shift in landscaping themes and landmarks on the mod overall is a different and larger topic, and a preference not likely shared by many.

Also agree with Drago about the cave lighting.

calderas:

http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/03/b0/bd/76/poas-volcano-cr-national.jpg

http://wstronemarzen.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/tambora2.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Pinatubo92pinatubo_caldera_crater_lake.jpg

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yellowstone:

http://www.verenigdestaten.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Bumpass-hell.jpg

I'm working with what assets I have, if new sulfur assets are made, I'll gladly use them, this is Skyrim's sulfur shader. Also, I'm not sure what you mean, the reference pictures you posted are not any darker than what I already have. And when sulfur is being actively released through fissures and vents, as it settles on objects it would act like "yellow snow". Not all of the caldera crater will be as sulfur-heavy as that area though, and it already is "drained down" into fissures as well. The Caldera does not surround any ashland regions, and in my opinion, being surrounded by the West Gash, should have a different feel than the Red Mountain volcanic regions, being a caldera instead. I'm going with kawah Ijen as a refrence for the volcanic features because it is actually a mine in a caldera, which isn't exactly a common thing, because of the dangers posed by volcanic activity and sulfur gas. And by the way, Yellowstone is a caldera too. Skywind isn't Morrowind either, it is a modernized take on its story and environs, now that the technical limitations of 2001 are no longer as restricting on what can be implemented. So there now exists the opportunities to make things stand out with new detail, and realize concept art which never made it into the final game. Skywind is about ceasing those opportunities, and shouldn't be considered a direct port. Raw ebony isn't black either, it's a malleable purple(ish) volcanic glass, and only when cast becomes more of a black color.

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I don't know why my posts are doubling all the sudden, but I'll edit this double post to replace it with an update later

Are you double clicking the post button when it freezes?...Because that causes double posts.

I realize that Morrowind had technological limitations, but this exterior is limited only by vision and lack of assets, which is why i uploaded picture of what a caledera looks like for some additional references (yes i realize that Yellowstone is one which is why it is included).  Your trying to do something unique and outlandish, i can respect that, and you are obviously skilled at what your doing.  Yet, it does not look right, and I'm saying so, because it is unlikely that anyone else will, and providing more references so you can use your skills to improve it.  If you disagree with me, disregard my post, but hopefully you'll see that what I'm saying will be true in any picture you find.  The image in your own post is a good example.  The ground there has been saturated, its not just dusting the top of any raised object anywhere.

Hey Iceflame, there's a lot of suggestions floating around so I'll keep mine brief; I think the blue flames on the exterior of the mine are a bit out of place. If you look at all the reference pictures, the outside of Caldera's (black and ashy, or yellow) have a lot of sulfur/steam, but not fire. I think however, that some of those blue pyres would be very interesting elements in the interior of the cave to offer eerie, volcanic lighting. You're doing great with the assets you got and a lot of the aforementioned issues can be fixed with some texture work. 

will be nice to have some oil in that mine. So cautions would really vital.

[External image]I'll limit the fire on the outside to just in the fissures and certain spots, although those pictures are actually outside, just at night. I don't think Kawah Ijen has caverns in it like Caldera does.

Yeah, hazardous conditions will be added, the gas explosions from Dragonborn come to mind, and some collapsed rocks, and poisonous sulfur clouds and sulfur dissolved in water. Some magma lit with blue sulfuric fire over it too, if it could be set up in a convincing way.

Oh. If we have gase explosions that is of course much better.

There will be two gasses found in the mines, "Hydrogen sulfide" which will act much like the flammable gas trap from Skyrim, and "Sulfur dioxide", which is not flammable, but instead acts more like the poison gas trap. However, unlike the regular poison gas, it won't kill the player right away, but still pose a danger. I'm working on implementing them both now.

They both are slow-toxic, and second gase is lachrymatory. I think it will be very hard to implement it in game plausible as "toxins".
But if this is possible - it can be implemented as disease, that strikes if you are too much time in the cloud.
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Gase that flammable in mines (mostly in coal mines thou) is a methane. Will be nice if player be blowed up when uses fire/shock or torch.

Yeah, I was thinking about making them give a "disease", I'll have to look at how that could be set up, they could both give different "diseases", but one also being flammable, and the other not.

Minor update, there might be a little too much sulfur, but this is how the crater looks currently:

I'll start to work on the carved out features from lukkar's concept once I find suitable assets:

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These will be carved into the walls of the crater, as it starts to slant upwards.

Back to the town, I'm adding steps to the sloped parts of the road, it helps to break up the tiling.

And by the way, for the sneak-thiefs and free runners, the ivy ladder is 'climbable' without a load door.

Damn Ice, every time you post something you make my eyes happy. If you keep doing that this might end up my favourite Imperial location in the game :P

Or if you want to tackle every town in the game, we wouldn't complain ;)

Here's the weaver's house, where the player can purchase decoration upgrades for the player home (tapestries and rugs), as well as tailoring related supplies (bolts of cloth and silk, dyes, etc). I'm thinking of moving Dro'Shavir here to give him some life, instead of just being a "commoner" with no real background.

Another thing, I forgot to post this: the front of the Mage's guild:

And the work in progress guard barracks:

Dro'Shavir's new home business is now cluttered, his old furnishings moved in along with the weaving workstation:

His old house provides a new spot to add an in-construction building, as suggested earlier, to make Caldera feel like a newly developed settlement.

Here's an attempt at making an in-construction building with what assets are currently available, although it won't really work, considering some interior pieces were used, which don't have LOD. I think a new asset is in order if there is to be construction sets:

I could instead or in addition add other touches to make houses feel new, using crates as temporary furnishings and scaffolding set up for unfinished additions without any new assets.

This makes me moist.

All perfect, but why do flowers are so giant?

It's just how the models were, some of those are already scaled down, and none of them are bigger than the standard size. I can scale them down further though.

Better to change base size if you can. Now i see that this is everywhere problem.
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Plants of this region are giant, but they looks like they shouldnt. If this is final model of course.

Who made flame_fern and bitter_green models? They are awesome, would be great if other plants would have this level of quality.

@iceflame542 Giant plants fits mage guild in this case but I have to agree with alysander about rest. It would be good to add some more variety (more species) too but it is minor problem.

The base size has to do with the model, I could try scaling it down in Nifskope.

The Caldera Mine Tunnels - A perilous journey into the even more perilous sulfur and ebony mines!

I may try to make those sulfur chunks mine-able ^

A pickaxe, but what happened to the miner? ...

Also, some street clutter:

The littered papers blow in the wind, but are caught against some loose cobblestones. I'll retexture them later to be more relevant to Caldera, making them things like ad pamphlets for A Miner Appetite, and warnings about the "notorious theives" that robbed Aeta Wave-Breaker just outside of town.

narrow streets are awesome.
now it looks like a real mountain town.

Fantastic work iceflame542! Looks better than original! [External image]

Nice. Narrow streets are perfect for some illegal activity like gambling, rats race or skooma trading ;) Caldera is mining town due to that it would be nice to see depressions and sinkholes similar to them. It is corrupted city then nobody cares about that they are mining below it.

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Just one street or several houses could be a big damaged or more sloping. Maybe if doesn't fit to caldera it should fit to mining offices and slaves buildings.

Great idea, thanks for the suggestion, I made a flooded hole caused by a volcanic geyser opening up:

I'm thinking of making one of those into Bugrol gro-Bagul's now abandoned house, which would have safe containers if the player chooses to temporarily settle there. Maybe it could be nice to have grafitti marking the house with whatever crime Bugrol was accused of, which can be cleared off by the player. The interior would have in that case likely been looted of valuables.

Maybe it can even used to construct player house with a spa. Everything can be fixed with money.

If that isnt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidoarjo_mud_flow

@alysander Meh. I think it should be some levels in houses. Like top ones will be factions house in biggest cities in shitier ones in minor. Just to create feeling in progress like in real rpg.

This abandoned house can be occupied, although it is not officially purchased. It's yours as long as you don't mind the slant, size, and lower class feel, and provided you can pick the lock. However, if you work your way up, and get involved with a bit of the governor's corruption, a nice house on the hill will become available for purchase.

Here's some progress on the interior of that aforementioned house:

Update, still working on the lighting:

Forgive me for asking this but I haven't been on the site in quite a while due to the removal of the Skywind files and I'm getting really confused.

As far as I knew, the Skywind project was to accomplish the same thing as Morroblivion- to take the game world, NPCs and quests of Morrowind and import them, as is, into the newer game. While the graphics, textures and some gameplay tweaks would by necessity be different, the content of the earlier game would be left alone.

As I said, I haven't been here in a while so now that I've stopped back in I'm browsing various topics and becoming really confused. Is the original goal no longer the desired result of this project? On one thread I'm seeing requests for the integration of old Morrowind mods and in this one there's lots of discussion of added objects, quests, changes to the landscape, talk of how and why the theme of Caldera should be manifested in the form narrower alleyways for gambling, questlines about corrupt officials, sinkholes in the town etc.

I'm not trying to complain about anyone's efforts, I'm just trying to understand what's going on. What happened to the concept of simply importing the unaltered game into Skyrim? I feel as if I've really missed something.

Skywind is about creating a modern approach to Morrowind's story and environs, essentially as if it were released today. With that comes additions geared towards greater immersion, with cities feeling lived in and NPC's utilizing radiant AI, and works to implement concepts that could never properly be implemented due to technical limitations (Such as Michael Kirkbride's Vivec with open cantons and more detail). Having a direct port sort of defeats the purpose, as Morrowind graphical mods are more than sufficient to modernize the graphics while leaving the rest untouched. That being said, I've been looking into what was stated and implied about Caldera from the original Morrowind game, and from other Elder Scrolls sources such as TESA:Redguard's colonial imperials (and the corrupt Admiral Richton), to make the city feel alive in as much of a lore-consistent way as possible. The governor and other officials of Caldera are shown through related original Morrowind quests to be quite corrupt, and are using slaves as replacements for miners (despite Cyrodiil and the rest of the Empire banning slavery). One quest shows the mismanagement of profit generated from the mines for a personal project, and so it seems fitting to show income disparity between the working class (mostly miners) and the corrupt and wealthy officials. Mining within a caldera is a very perilous endeavor as well, and volcanic activity as well as dangerous sulfur gas and other "traps" seek to make that more evident, as well as represent the reason for both hired workers and slaves (hired workers are dying from the difficult conditions, and it is easier to replace them with slaves). Use of Radiant AI to give NPC's lives and character who normally stood still also means that new homes need to be added to give some of them a place to sleep, which is why the city is expanded into the narrow sidestreets and alleyways. The main street layout is preserved, though with more detail.

> working on the lighting:
= Maybe not good place to ask, but will we have kindlable\extinguishable light sources?

> aforementioned house:
= flooded basement?