Having received the OK, I am now working on Balmora. Here's some progress:
The Odai Canal:
The Overlook:
The overlook will house the nine or so npc's that need a place to sleep, as well as the Skooma den that Balmora is so notorious for, which also has Balmora Blue.
it can still be paved, even tiled. In fact it would be nice if it was. But to differentiate make the poor version cracked and dirty, with weeds in between, and the earth showing in places.
Balmora market stage, bards will play here at times, and some npc's will stop by and sit on the rug mats.
A pottery station/redware shop (Open to the exterior):
oh nice. Are you have plan to make some pottery-production places?
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there is good place for clay deposit in river end, also it can be limestone carrier and potters shacks outside.
This is very beautiful work. I love to keep stopping by and looking at the things you create in spirit of morrowind. & to think it's playable, is a bonus.
Update on the redware stall: now the 'inside' part is more of a pottery workshop, and the stall is in front of it, so that it feels more connected to the rest of the market, while giving the player a better place to craft as well.
The sharpening wheels are placeholders for pottery wheels.
iceflame, whenever u place any of the following, can u use skyrim meshes, cos we're reusing these nifs. The sizes will match when u later come back and chose skywind finished ones.
Morrowind Carpets = skyrim carpets
Morrowind Tapestries and Banners = skyrim banners (mostly banner1 with minimal movement)
This may be easier than keeping morrowind ones as the sizes/methods will change.
Will do. As for those streets, they will be getting a paved look, one more faithful to the original Balmora. What is there is temporary.
The market:
Hul decided to sit there during my screenshot run, but she will not be the one to run the stall. There is a chance she may offer gondala travel to the Hlaalu stronghold, though.
Ash yams and Hackle-Lo leaves for sale
Once I get different colored fabric textures, these overhangs will be more colorful like in the concepts.
I love the idea of oranges and yellows for Hlaalu fabric. If we're to keep consistent with the banners for each houses (Yellow Hlaalu, Red Redoran, Brown Telvanni) I believe it would play along with the visual fidelity of each House capital.
I agree, though the occasional teal or turquoise wouldn't't hurt...
You can use more dead animals on this bazaar.
I could add a butcher's stall, but a least for the main area of the bazaar (first city impression), I want to emphasize Hlaalu sophistication. There will be live animals though, in the form of pack guars. I set up some hitching posts for them, and will add the guars once implemented. Perhaps the city could get a guar market(stable?) as well. My aim is to make it feel lively, with merchants advertising their goods, bards playing on the bazaar stage, drawing customers to nearby businesses, things like that.
I was of the opposite impression about Balmora - being a city with loads of foreign influence, you would see a strange and dissonant mix of cultural art from independent backgrounds.
I'm happy with either direction in the design, was just thinking that the typical cultures that have strong identity are also the most xenophobic. Hlaalu in my limited understanding of the lore was not the case.
Maybe my wording could have been better, you are certainly right about the Hlaalu being more open to foriegn influences, I am hoping to create that cosmopolitan feel, what I mean is economic sophistication. The districts west of the Odai are mostly the more prosperous ones, and I hope to identify the individual districts ingame.
Sorry, it is me who needs to clarify - I was referring to Tajnarasha's post.
Keep up the good work, it looks amazing so far :)
How about making market a bit more crowded. I've done fast overpainting
and created covered alley inside too
Like in this example. There is no need to add too many assets, just create separate spaces. Then u have feeling that market is bigger than actually is. Not too big, about 10-15 meters long passage in one place.
Also u can use ashlands tent with lighter texture variation too. Maybe a bit smaller. Just to give impression that Balmora is one of major cities.
Here's a start to making the market more crowded, and I changed the placeholder road, although it still isn't fully representative of the final one, which will have the larger stones the original had.
Resinworking tent
Ground is too bright we will need to add more dirt in the future
Yeah, the ground is still a placeholder, the final one will have larger stones like the original.
The Balmora Bazaar
A small bazaar guar pen, this will be where the player can purchase a pack guar (If I had one!), once the guars are modeled and game-ready.
I can't wait, when u get more colorful versions of overhangs and rugs
Proof of concept old quarter, carved into the cliff interior. This old quarter would replace the overlook in name, and I plan on altering the old design of said overlook to take this design into account.
Best of possible!
I hope this all will give many workplaces!
Some more screenshots and info:
I'm going to make the exterior part where the overlook was more faithful to the original Morrowind, and move those buildings and Ald Desroth to be in the Old Quarter. I also moved the resinworking station there too.
This is in its own worldspace that uses the Skywind landmass, so holes in the cliffface will offer views of the rest of the city once I copy over the main buildings.
Old Quarter Update:
To Ald Desroth
To Labor Town
Damn, that's really a huge expansion... How will the NPC's be dealt with? Generic dialogue, or some new lines? Or maybe it's homes for the ones who didn't have a place to sleep in original Morrowind?
I suppose for dialogue/lore purposes it could still be considered Labor Town, rather than its own district. This is mostly to replace some of the overlook area, since I kind of felt keeping it the way it was messed with the atmosphere of the town too much, so NPCs who are lacking homes will live in labor town's Old Quarter.
Also, some market stalls:
Alright, probably the last update for today, since I moved the resinworking tent, that spot is now home to a Dunmeri tea stall:
I've been trying to integrate crafting into the theme of the market stalls, so now that the player can craft teas from local Vvardenfell flora, I thought it was fitting.
Alright, one more for tonight:
A chandler's shop, where the player can purchase Dreugh Wax, Sload Soap, (Dreugh Soap?), and candles/lanterns. A statue to St. Olms, patron of Chandlers and Clerks, stands to remind viewers of the Haalu saying, "To trade fairly and freely is to honor the Three."
Add torches to be for sale in the new shop. Torches can be hard to find at times.
I like how your ideas are live!
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btw can this lanters&torches be extinguished/ligten_up?
have game animation of actor making such actions?
will there be such person who doing this?
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will you make/made temple yard bigger?
would be nice to have some place for all this beggars and crippled ones to exist.
Amazing work. Balmora was my favorite city in Morrowind, and I can't wait to return.
I just want to add that the pictures with the sunset-like coloring and shadows makes it feel like you've spent all day working on this. "Well, sun's going down. Better take some pictures of what I've done before it gets too dark!"
I love it.
A chandler shop, never seen that in any RPG :D That's absolutely awesome. Makes it feel so much more like an actual city, not just a base for the player to sell junk and buy gear. For the chandler, if it's possible, it would make sense to have piles of unlit candles, and I think you should add a ton of kwama wax in there too ;) It's easier to get than Dreugh, probably more common to make candles out of.
Thanks, and absolutely, I'll be sure to add unlit candles as well. For Kwama wax, would that just be Kwama Cuttle, or some refined version of the cuttle? I'll be sure to make Kwama soap also, Sload soap is hard to get a supply of as well.
Edit: 777 karma milestone! Thanks for the support everyone!
That's an interesting thing, I remembered Kwama cuttle as Kwama wax for some reason. Probably due to the Polish language version where it was just translated to wax. Since cuttle is probably not something Kwama excrete (contrary to waxes), and scuttle is made from it, I guess it would be good to add Kwama wax (for candles and boiled netch armour) as a separate ingredient for the resinworking station. They could use it to build their nests and that's where it'd be harvestable, together with eggs.
EDIT: It actually has some sense to it. According to Morrowind dialogue: "Kwama cuttle is a tough, waxy substance that comes from the beak of kwama beasts. Kwama cuttle has modest magical properties."
So it's most likely similar to beeswax but tougher, and also used for building of nests. In the face of this it's probably okay to put it in just as it is. On the other hand now I'm not so sure if scuttle would be made from it :P
"Scuttle is Vvardenfell's favorite local dish. This cheese-like, greasy substance made from the flesh of local beetles is remarkably tasty, and has modest magical properties."
Local beetles could imply Shalk. Perhaps a few beetle insects, including Shalk, could be looted for their flesh, which would be used in a crafting recipe for making Scuttle.
wuld be nice to have some basic local "beetle" retexturised for every elytra-shields that already exist in game.
iceflame542"Scuttle is Vvardenfell's favorite local dish. This cheese-like, greasy substance made from the flesh of local beetles is remarkably tasty, and has modest magical properties."
Local beetles could imply Shalk. Perhaps a few beetle insects, including Shalk, could be looted for their flesh, which would be used in a crafting recipe for making Scuttle.
off-topic:
We could replace butterflies with beetles as ingredient dispensers, which when caught would add "beetlejuice" to the player's inventory. Except not actually beetlejuice. I just couldn't resist the temptation.
@iceflame542
I plan to do some concepts for statues (I rember that some guy volunteer to do that) for saints so u can reserve some additional space for devotional shop (second could be in vivec)
Nice, I was thinking that there could be a Veloth statue near the temple, since Veloth the Pilgrim is the patron saint of House Hlaalu. I wonder if a Hlaalu depiction of Veloth as the Pilgrim would differ in any way from that of a more traditional house.
Work in progress Glassmaker's Shop, also consistent with the professions of which the saints are patrons of. A lot of things are placeholders, like the glassblowing pipe which is a muck shovel right now, but I plan on implementing sub-professsions for the major crafting fields, things like pottery and glassblowing, with the blessings of the saints.
Nice reference, I think I'll try to blend the cliff and buildings better, like this on the right side:
Hopefully the assets will work well with each other in that process.
Wow!!!! Pretty amazing master! [External image]
Hmm, Balmora means Stonewood in Dunmeri, maybe u can add some survived sticking out rocks on outskirts.
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I second this - I'm actually
I second this - I'm actually a little distracted by how much the rock formations/hill protrude in the streets. Balmora strikes me as tiled; more urban than the common village. I feel as though even the poor areas would have been paved over time, and done away with the natural look.