I've started landscaping for the Azura's coast, I'll post screenshots and all that here. The Azura statue is a placeholder until it is retextured.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Azura statue new.esp | 824 bytes |
Sat, 12/07/2013 - 19:36
#1
Azura's Coast Landscaping | LASentry
Edited by: grumpycat on 03/14/2014 - 23:16
Some progress, I'm adding in the basalt stuff soon
dude thats ideal. I can already visualise the tall cliffs/walls being made of basalt. good job :D
Thanks man!
I edited the statue texture, I might edit it again to make it look closer to the colour of the base.
Progress update, I wasn't sure if you guys would like it because it might look like there is plainly too much stuff? But yeah, take a look and give me some suggestions or tell me if you like it. Also there is a little bit of clipping and see through objects which I will have to fix but generally it's fine. Edit: I'm not sure why some things are glowing blue either...
well looks promising, on the hills, the texture patterns are too small and it becomes obvious, but on the other hand there is no vegetion. it will probably look way better once vegetion is on place.
Dude... I haven't even started on that, those textures were there long before I even started this project. Haven't you played the game?
Wonderful! .... but ;-) The basalt columns on the left are too thin, just from a visual aspect, but even more from a geological point of view. The way basalt columns develop is that you have a lava flow, which cools down, becomes crystalline. During cooling these hexagonal shapes form. And as you will have similar temperature, cooling time and rock composition, the columns should all have similar diameters ;-)
But nonetheless: I am really happy to see these basalts in the game :-)
hm, it looks really strange for me))
you have used way too many different looking resources, keep it simple. keep the color scheme consistent
I'm pretty sure he said he didn't even start on the texture yet. Clearly once that rolls out it'll look much more unified. Take this more as a modeling phase of sorts - getting the right shapes in place before adding on some sick art to make it look like one massive formation. I for one was actually wondering whether or not you intended to replace those mounds in the back of Azura with larger basalt columns to make the rest of the coast sort of appear like this;
Eloth, that's what I was thinking, but barely anything has the same texture on the model that I would actually like to use.
Ok, take 2: What do you think
Much better! once alittle cross texturing is done to match either the landscape with the models or the models with the landscape, it will fit perfectly. Prehaps a retex of the pointy rocks near azura to match the basalt? or vs. versa. Model eye-candy wise it near perfect.
Ohhh I really really like this. It looks much more natural than the last shot, and the rock platform is a nice touch. What were your intentions for the textures? I dig the dark volcanic rock but since we already have a ton of ashlands on Vvardenfell I'm wondering if you're thinking of making the coast a lighter red tone like Hawaiian beaches or if you're sticking with black.
Further progress. I tried to make the shrine look like it was imbedded in the rocks.
Ended the cliffs and added some more basalt. I'm not sure what to do with the ground textures though, any suggestions as to what to use? I was told to not go overboard with grass and I'm not planning to, so I need something that doesn't tile as badly. As for the general colour, I'm not sure, maybe the texture could be more brown, like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/matteo_dudek/8387027634/ but desaturated a bit.
I dig it. Give the sandier-looking textures a shot. The image you used also gave me the idea that it would be neat if you darkened the rocks closer to the water to give them a ''wet'' appearance. Likewise, you could lighten the basalt texture near the top to give it a more eroded and weathered look. Don't know if that'll mess with all of the models you intend to use in the future for the coast though so I mean by all means go with what you feel is easier. We can always worry about detail once we actually got a color scheme that we prefer.
Any plans to make the statue match or are we keeping the bronze?
Well as you can see in the original Skyrim game, it was grey and then I changed it to bronze to match the Morrowind style, I think once I make the basalt textures brown it will fit better. Edit: I have some shots of the brown basalt, I think they are not the colour I was expecting though and there is also bright grey ash on top which I don't know how to fix.
Well if anything ash isn't exactly immersion breaking for Morrowind :P
Looks good I like the subtlety of the color and it makes a big difference. If the ash is really a no-go though, I really guess you could give it a moss-like texture?
I'm not concerned with the ash itself, it's the bright grey colour. I fixed most of it but I couldn't do all of it because I couldn't locate the textures. And those big dark rocks on top - I can't find the textures for that either. So maybe I'll just leave the whole thing grey, like it was - I don't know.
I actually don't find the contrast between the columns and the platform unappealing. I couldn't help you find the texture for those items though. You'll have to ask one of the more capable modders around these parts.
Believe me, I've tried - it's like the file doesn't even exist. I started on the islands opposite the cliff side. There are a few holes which I have to patch up though.
Ok, so I've moved on from those cliffs and I'm doing the mountain parts now. And yeah I have already changed the grey outline under the rocks, so don't worry :)
Nice work.
The horizontal cuts on the basalt columns are too frequent and are too clean as if they were the building blocks of a fort wall. i checked some photos, and i found this :
as you can see the cracks are random, fewer and in different directions. I hope this image helps. Otherwise they are really really nice !
If recreating the cracks require re - editing all the meshes then leave it be, it's fine as it is.
k i'm loving this. As long as the basalt meshes LOD nicely, all we need is to retexture them, and perhaps edit the model a bit to make them look more random and natural. Are you using a lot of meshes or are they quit efficient.
since you're steaming through this we may need to get a texture artist to edit some and i edit models/
hey just a suggestion because the basalt resources are quite limited i was thinking of retex some of the azuras crystals with the basalt texture here is an example i have made, use it if you want but it might need some adjustments in the textures(i am not the best at retexturing)
Is it just me or there's a blue glow on the back of that island as well?
I'm not using that many meshes, most of them are quite big, so yes they are efficient :P And yeah I hate that blue glow, who's idea was it to even put that in -.- And Silvermodder, those look great and they are really good because they don't have ash piled on them or anything.
That should be fine, since it's a sloped hill. As long as the entire region doesn't require constant jumping. It looks really good though.
Maybe it could use some bushes and harvestable plants to fill in the grass area, or the terrain under the grass part of the basalt column model could be raised to have grass blades visible, since that part is normally covered in ash the model doesn't have anything there.
I rather quite like this. A good trick to make walkable terrain in a basalt-heavy landscape would be perhaps to have levels - platforms so to speak - between the column formations. That way you can actually design pathways rather easily while still making it visually stunning. I'm loving this coastline so far - I'm looking forward to see how you intend to make the landside region ;)
Basalt leveled staircase-formations like you mentioned could probably work with the retextured azura crystals. They look closer together like that at the giant's causeway: (top right part)
Here's the first release, it's basically what you've seen in the screenshots but with some additions. Please tell me if there is anything missing compared to the screenshots. (This is for others to test only). And Iceflame, yup I agree - it would look good as well as being practical :P Not sure about how much space to put between each one height-wise. It currently relies on the DB DLC, but I'll fix that soon.
I found a way to fix it, but in order for it to work you need to rename the Dragonborn assets that haven't yet been renamed. Once you do that, you can change the master to any other one in Wyre Bash, and then when loading it in the ck hit ctr delete on both of the extra master files.
What do you mean rename them? Change the reference ID? Argh I just don't get this. And in Wyre bash I just have no idea what to do.
You locate the item you want to use in the CK, and then Right click, and choose Duplicate in the file browser window. Then you Rename it to fit The area you are working on. Like I used SN_ for Seyda Neen. and PG_ for Pelagiad. Then, you have a new item with all the properties as the original, including references, scripts, and even Doc links.
You can then place it and copy it as many times as you want.
What I mean is to add a 0 or something to the names of the basalt cliffs to make them not rely on Dragonborn, and then do this when selecting you esp (Ignore the Wyre Bash stuff, it doesn't actually seem to be necessary, I added an extra step):
I just get around how to do this, can someone else do it for me and then attach the file to the thread? Every time I do what has been suggested it just resets and checks Dragonborn.esm and Update.esm without my consent.
Oh ya, make sure you don't have your esps using update.esm or dragonborn.esm as a master. I remember Digital nearly blew a gasket last time Squally did that lols.
I can do it, but first you need to rename the ref ids for the dragonborn assets to make new ones, because otherwise I'm getting error messages and the ck won't load it. If you can do that and reupload it, then I can fix it and post it here.
Ok, I'll rename them now. Edit: Here's the file, everything renamed has 0SEN in front of it.
Ok, it turns out that there is actually more to this than I actually thought, for some reason now the esp seems to have duplicated the Skywind worldspace and it's refids, I honestly don't know why... I'm still trying to fix it though.
That esp is beyond repairing, ditch it and start again. Never check update.esm, dragonborn.esm or anything else vanilla in CK while working on Skywind. Also don't look into vanilla cells, worldspaces, quests or dialogs because they are marked modified in this case and saved into esp.
That's fine, I know where everything is meant to go, so it should only take about 30 minutes + I can make everything cleaner. How am I meant to use the basalt without loading Dragonborn, though?
Update, new esp, not relying on Dragonborn.esm or Update.esm, just Skyrim.esm and Skywind.esm. The basalt assets are temporary until I get new ones.
Here's a really rough paint drawing. Just focusing on the colour scheme - I think the brownish basalt would go really well with green grass.
to use the assets from dragonborn you have to unpack the meshes and textures that you want from dragonborn.bsa then go to CK and add these meshes as if their were new models. That's it now you can have the models you want without using the dragonborn.esm.
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