If you have some experience with modeling then we are currently building a team that can work in an organized workflow manner.
The idea is to get a list of needed assets and assign people who can do the various aspects where they are best suited.
Please introduce yourself and let us know what you can do. Start with what you are really good at and what you would like to help with. Then move on to the other stuff you know but your skills in that area may not be as strong.
Don't worry if you are only good at one thing. Most 3D artists specialize in one or two areas. 3D generalists are rare, that's because 3D content creation is extremely complex "jack of all trades, master of none". So if you can do any of the following let us know.
Modeling, Textures, Rigging, Animation, Knowledge of (Niff Tools)
Our current 3D modlers, animators and texture people are:
Eloth and Machine our long term members who have expertise with all aspects of modeling Elder Scroll assets and best knowledge of how everything is set up.
New to the team are the people who have recently joined up, mostly via Gopher recommendation, so you will find yourself in the same good company of people.
Ravanna
3d modeling character artist graduate. 3dsmax, Zbrush and Xnormal.
Our needed assets are:
Armors: We are utilizing what we can already find in Skyrim modding community, perhaps with some alterations. We have a spreadsheet of all the armor resources available, so visit this thread to find out what Armors you can work on: http://morroblivion.com/forums/skyrim/skywind-development/3423
Clothing: I’m unsure of the plan here. Will wait for somebody with more knowledge on the approach.
Weapons: Same as armor, will utilize what we can find already, and make a list of those that we need.
Creatures: There are some Skyrim creatures that are very similar to Morrowind counterparts, but we will need to port some of the creatures over. This is where we need animators and some new models for the creatures. For a list of creatures that need to be created use this spreadsheet to guide you: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Alvwmz6hbHGPdHhWWFVzcnhURzhQdWVOclRIRXREYUE&usp=sharing
We have over almost 5000 meshes and textures that make up the Morrowind world and there is a desire to make our assets as spectacular as possible. We have done some work on various models to make them more appropriate for a modern game, and a complete overhaul has been done on the textures. But we are still in need of making sure that all our models are not considered Bethesda property if we want to distribute freely.
Without a doubt the challenges that are faced when working with any Bethesda game is the lack of supported tools. NifTools have been producing the most handy utilities, and NifSkope is the main product that would be used by the Skywind team, along with 3DS Max. We have a few tools that we have used to make the porting process easier for us. We have NifConverter which can port Morrowind format nifs into the Skyrim format. It can also apply certain settings to nifs in a batch style manner. The same with collisions, in that we can apply certain settings in a batch style way. We have been using a 3DS Max plugin for exporting/importing nifs. There is similar plugins for Maya and Blender, if this is your choice of software. However all of these are not perfect and come without some features that we would like.
We currently have some coders trying to iron out these things and add more functionality, but the reality is that it will take time. You will not be the only people in this situation, so persistence and patience at learning what is possible will ensure that you stay sane :p This is probably the number one reason why 3D modelers find it hard to stick with the Elder Scroll series.
However on a positive note, that is why we are building a team of people that have got experience with these things, and as a group will be able to figure things out together :)
These are the various workflows as listed by Onesepaph:
Modeling: building meshes, Optimizing meshes, Make morph targets, Editing meshes and making the initial UV maps for the texture team. Build organic meshes with poly flow required by the rigging and animation teams. Modelers you know the drill.
Texturing: Build/edit color maps, Build/edit normal maps, build/edit alpha maps, Build/edit spec maps etc. Texture makers you know the drill.
Rigging: Rigger with Nif experience or willing to learn Nif. Hard body rigging, Soft body rigging, Face rigging, Build riggs to game spec. Build riggs to animation team spec when it does not conflict with game requirements. Riggers you know the drill.
Animators: Hard body animation, Soft body animation, face animation, lipsync, Biped animation, Quadruped animation, strange and freaky creature animation. Animators you know the drill.
3D Asset integrator: Compile and package 3D assets for the game engine.
Testers: The test team needs its own leader. Create test cases for 3D assets, Make bug reporting database, Test 3D assets as they become available, report bugs to the 3D asset leads. Testers you know the drill "they make it, you break it"
A Content Management System for 3D assets needs to be put in place. fancy is nice but something simple will work. Not having some way to manage the 3D assets is not going to work. This is a very high priority.
If we can put together a 3D asset team, this could get real fun, real quick.
![[External image]](http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/300/s79t.jpg){kind=link}
Oh, great then
Oh, great then :)