As requested by eloth, I have started to work on the Palace of Vivec based on the original concept for Morrowind. Nothing much to show yet, I just did 1.5h of work on it to get a feel of the challenges I will face, this post is here to say that I am working on it and am open to ideas from you guys.
Quick screenshot: https://imageshack.com/i/5bj3zjj
Man looks amazing. The only thing I can really critique on it is the size of the top but I don't know if thats changable so what ev. Good job man. :)
Alysander - the palace is for Vivec and the puzzle canal. Expect quite a few pilgrims wandering around.
Smerk - what exactly do you mean by the size of the top? Do you expect it to be bigger? It is very difficult to change it now, but possible.
Anyway, made a bit more progress, I'm not certain if I will keep the four side domes, I think they look nice but they might be too lore breaking. With the model now being 31k verts, they will probably be the first thing I will get rid of if needed.
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| palace_of_vivec_14_02.jpg | 1.26 MB |
for the top, just make it stubbier. i suggest taking screenshots of it at various heights and widths and allowing people to vote on one
just to calm everybody down, the player model will be quite small compared to the door, that door is huge
http://screenshot.su/img/14/46/65/1446652c9d493ec33e6b19f6692be68b.jpg those parts are too not Morrowindic, Morrowind is not daggerfall, no islamic architecture elements appear there
by the way the model looks very nice!
I dont know why you're panicking about poly count. Besides, much of this model can be ripped apart and seperated for ingame use.
All the blue bits here are different objects with their own collision and potention LOD parameters.
Saivryn has the right idea. Whereas many real world cultures have a more spherical appearance to their domes, Velothi domes are more like 'spheriodal ellipses', like the top of an M&M. Just convert tall domes to M&M domes and it all fits together to showcase a great work of Velothi architecture!
Sorry for the lack of updates lately, I had one change to show with a (hopefully) better top of the palace, so I'll put it here. Should the geometry be considered as finished?
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| palace_of_vivec_15_02.png | 424.34 KB |
That is gorgeous! This model has improved in all the right ways!
Does anyone have any good references on how to do collision models?
I finally have some spare time to do the final work on the palace, but I have never done a collision mesh and have no idea what to expect in terms of its level of detail, or what balance to strike between LOD details and core geometry, if that makes sense?
Also, can anyone please point me to the existing Vivec texture assets? I could start the UV mapping if I get stuck with collision.
You can use ChunkMerge for collisions, works very well and is very fast.
Tecnically you can have a collision as detailed as the original mesh itself, but if you model a simpler one I think it works better. Try craft the original mesh and from it create a lower poly version for chunkmerge.
I think theres actually quite a good automated process for making collisions. Talk to eloth about it. I think he has an idea on this stuff.
Made some progress today with UV mapping and general cleaning of the mesh. The textures currently used are placeholders, and will be replaced with something better.
Speaking of which, would anyone like to give a hand in creating some tileable textures for Vivec city? <puppy eyes>
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| palace_of_vivec_16_02.png | 2.24 MB |
Another update - almost finished with the main model geometry and UV mapping.
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| palace_of_vivec_17.png | 1.94 MB |
More progress on the UV mapping and redesigned top dome:
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| palace_of_vivec_19.jpg | 1.03 MB |
| palace_of_vivec_19_02.jpg | 938.62 KB |
Some experiments with new textures. Critique would be welcome, and if any of the concept artists could create some Dunmer looking ornaments, I would be very happy to incorporate them in the textures :)
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| palace_of_vivec_20.jpg | 193.05 KB |
I like that a lot, Im not sure, but looking at that the textures are a very low res? (if that's a Morrowind one, which i think it is?) but damn, those colors complement each other very well.
I especially like the trim. Gives it a very authentic palace feel
Just have a little question here , even if I don't know if it's the good post to ask it:
Is all the the district are going to be huge as this one, I mean the palace seems to be very big and it kind of fit with the prestige of the place but the others districts are market and home so we could move fast one to an other , that means they should be smaller than in the original game.(I don't think I'm the only one the fly between districts)
Also, I think the districts should be closer again for the efficiency of the travel.
Is the city his going to be a close city like whiterun (whit loading time)
tanks to answer the question , and I personally thinks that we should be very inspired from RomanDubina consept art or just completly rebuild the city
Piro , sorry for bad english
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| consept art of Roman | 716.71 KB |
I think it would be better if you return green nephrite elements, they are very important
Erik - the textures have the same size as the templates I got from Eloth and Ravanna. Most of them are 1024x512 and 1024x1024.
Piro - it would be up to level designers about the compactness of the city. I have no idea at this moment how the cantons will be placed. Roman's concept had walls, so it is entirely possible that it will be a closed city, since the plan is to follow Roman's concepts quite closely.
DaedricLord - yes, I was afraid that I'm going too far from the original colour/material scheme. I will finish this variant and then prepare a new set following more closely the original textures to give some choice. Perhaps if the set I am making now is not used for Vivec, it could be used for Molag Mar? We'll see, but I definitely take the point that current work is not feeling authentic enough.
Guys, I'm sorry to admit this, but I need help with the texturing. I have been stuck in a cycle where
Start work,
Nothing comes out right after 1.5h of trying,
Get demotivated, stop leave it for some other day
It has happened 5 times already and I just figured something needs to be changed. Perhaps someone has a good texture source repository to suggest other than cgtextures and google image search?
You might want to be more specific about what exactly is not working with your attempts at making textures.
vivec all uses the same textures, all we have to do for now is UV to the correct dimensions.
We can improve them later, by re uploading and replacing them individually.
if you're not happy with the way it looks, convert our current ones to greyscale, apply, take a step back, imagine these from a distance, and then upclose.
Do u have the textures?
@twentyenginerunner - the problem is that for the last few days I have been failing to produce any textures that visually match in style what I have created so far. I'd probably have to redo everything anyway, since I deviated from the original too far.
@Ravanna - I have done the UV mapping of the model, it is just that eloth asked me to work on replacement textures and that has been going nowhere for me. If the goal for me is to just finish the Palace model geometry and UV maps, it is almost done.
When you say retexture everything, do you mean textures or the whole model?
It seems exquisite and all, but what's with the friggin planets on the dome.. (Sorry, if I seem ignorant in this matter, but I'm just a visitor-fan interested in seeing how the project goes. And for me the planets make no sense)
What I mean is, while such decorative details may look cool or awesome to you, the majority of players are not familiar with Kirkbride's concepts/ideas etc, and like me, would find it confusing, since besides looking cool (and probably a meaning from the Vivec-sun concept I looked into), it doesn't really have a proper, not to say point, but reason having those there.
Why do the kagouti not have arms? While not having arms may look cool or awesome to you, the majority of players aren't familiar with Morrowind, and like me, will find it confusing, since besides looking cool (and probably attempting to make them look alien), there's no proper reason for not giving them arms.
Whether can they (planets) look better inside of building?
Orbiting in Vivec's room around him?
With the implied meaning of he is studying them?
EDIT: I was repetitive. Sorry, i am completely forgot previous talk.
It's based after this concept art for how MK intended the palace to appear.
And in all this pretty big
And in all this pretty big appartments will be only Vivec?
Will he go from the top building from time to time?
Or is he god-transsexual-hikikomori?
:)