OOO/FCOM kind of creates new stories for some dungeons. Such as the Light of Dawn being found by a unique vampire character in one, amazons hanging out in some caves or a paticular band of wood elves in another all of which have notes laying around cyrodil and quest related to them.

The problem you are facing is other overhauls maintain some compatibility through wryebash, since they edit spawning content or add new content they do so much to change geometry of the world or alter default areas in ways that would block other mods typically. What you have in mind would though, if you alter the physical structure of the vanilla dungeons or redirect them your mod will be incompatible with thousands of other mods. Take for instance Enhanced economy has merchant quest that send you to find items in many of the games default dungeons just to get players to explore more. Many mods add a unique weapon hidden in a dungeon somewhere. Many quest add new npcs or items to be found using some vanilla dungeons. All of these would be in conflict with any dungeon you alter too much or close off. Which is why I say you are better adding to instead of removing. I don't think there would be any problem adding some elements to the dungeons or altering decoration as long as the key features stay intact but I would think your safest way of overhauling dungeons is expand them in some manner. Let the vanilla part of the dungeon be just a mask for something you put in place deeper. I mean I don't think going into a normal looking for then taking a door that leads to another area in which a group of rebels have set up base with flags handing, weapon storages would be a big deal. I mean they would want to hide their operation in the fort not announce it to the world on the outside of the place.

Just offering some ideas here, along with what I offered before. You have to be careful how you approach this as too much changing could mean you will be one of the few using the mod because if it conflicts with ayleid steps, OOO. FCOM, enhanced economy, Starx vampires, and dozens of other quest and new item mods then not many people are going to look into it unless they just want to use it as a step toward something totally different like combining it with Warcry new dimension or something.

@cyruscloud: Thanks for the feedback. I think I'm beginning to understand why a widespread dungeon overhaul has never been attempted before. :bonk:

I find it vaguely amusing (though disappointing) that the consensus seems to be converging on the opinion that I shouldn't mod the dungeons too much since so much depends on the geometry being there. It seems like the encrustation of mods over the years has created a dependency on a certain state of affairs which it is best not to tamper with. I understand why this is so and am by no means railing against the fates but it is almost making the very idea of a dungeon overhaul seem pointless. This is not a complaint; it's an observation. Examine the situation and see for yourself.

If the very concept of the mod is to improve the vanilla dungeons but I can't tamper with the geometry, creature spawns or loot spawns what's there left to do? Extending vanilla dungeons by adding load doors to the edges of the maps was acceptable to me in instances where the design of the vanilla dungeon is adequate, but one of the main reasons why I wanted to do the mod in the first place is because I find the layout of the geometry to be so generally unacceptable. If all of my modifications occur after the vanilla dungeon in added levels then I'm not really modding the dungeon am I? I'm making them bigger, but I'm not making them better.

If all of the vanilla loot and creature spawns have to be left well enough alone in the first half of the dungeon, then every dungeon is going to develop a split personality since I can't even know in advance what the first part of the dungeon is going to contain. In fact, it would be better if I created entirely new dungeons in this case since having schizophrenic dungeons will be more immersion-killing than leaving the vanilla dungeons as is. Would you really want to explore a dungeon that is half bland vanilla with random creature and loot spawns and then transition into a new area where everything is tightly connected and subtly balanced? This isn't a jab at the overhauls: their solutions are by necessity somewhat generic; their emphasis is on adding variety to gameplay, not unrolling a narrative.

The point of the dungeon overhaul was to allow each dungeon to tell its own story, and to be a memorable and unique experience, unlike any other dungeon, to have layouts that made sense, inhabitants that had goals and purpose, and loot that could serve as a fitting reward for the obstacles that had to be overcome. Would leaving the first half of every dungeon as is achieve this goal?

If it isn't already obvious to others, it seems obvious to me, at least, that it would be better for me to create entirely new dungeons. I would avoid the compatibility issues presented by tampering with geometry and leveled lists (of course, I'd have to worry more about compatibility with mods like UL) but the result would not be a dungeon overhaul, it would be a new dungeon mod. And there are already great mods out there that add new dungeons. The entire point of this mod was to make the vanilla dungeons better, but I can't do that if I have to leave the geometry, creatures and loots as is. :shrug:

Please think about this carefully before responding: is there anything to be gained by a dungeon overhaul that doesn't make any changes to the vanilla dungeons but only makes them bigger by adding new levels, especially if those levels do not include any of the changes you have come to enjoy from other mods and they don't match the rest of the dungeon? If it's not worth the price of admission, you're not going to go on the ride and I'd be better off expending my energies elsewhere.

Thanks to everyone for their informative and candid feedback.

Please don't give up...I really want to see vanilla dungeons expanded, improved, made more different, etc.! NEVER SAY DIE!!!!!!!!!!

People who use UL or Better Cities sometimes have to make very difficult choices, perhaps giving up mods they used and loved before. Yet, I would not say that BC and UL should not have been created. If I were you, I would try to avoid breaking vanilla quests, but you do have a right to make a mod that interferes with other quests, if you want to. Those teams both did, and have done their best to be as compatible as possible with other mods. I think you have every right to do the same and that some people would choose yours over Ayleid Steps.

If you make it regional/modular, people could choose to install only parts of it and that would get rid of part of the incompatibility issue. It wouldn't help with Ayleid Steps but it would help with dungeons mods that have a more limited scope.

The way I see it, you have two viable ways forward:

• Make your dungeon overhaul the way you envision it, with changes to geometry, spawns, AI, loot, etc., and then just list incompatibilities. Mod users can make their own choices. Not everyone uses OOO/FCOM.
  
• Create only new dungeons to avoid conflicts with popular mods that make changes to existing ones. David Brasher has created some nice huge dungeon mods using this method.

I suppose if OOO compatibility is important to you, you could get a list of dungeon changes from the FCOM team and work around it. For instance, you could leave the Amazon caves alone but decide to go ahead and overwrite some loot changes in other less important dungeons. (Of course, these less important dungeons would become more important once you're finished with them.)

This really reminds me of CDEP back in the days. Too bad the project stopped after a while. Making vanilla dungeons more unique is a lot better than cluttering the map even more up with new ones. I never finished my own CDEP dungeon, but than again I overhauled almost every vampire lair for StarX Vanilla Vampires Revised to fit the dark vampire theme. One of the CDEP modders (Folex) even helped out on a few of the dungeons.

If you want my two cents: if you want to do it right than go for it 100%. Don't worry about compatabilty while building your stuff as it will limit you in the creative process. While making SVVR I ignored the compatability factor completely, no compromises or short cuts. People will end up making patches anyway as we all like to combine several mods all the time.

@richardrocket009: Don't worry, I haven't given up yet. Drinking scotch at two in the morning will make you say some pretty strange things.

@Telyn: Wise words. I just hate the thought of excluding people. I guess I'm just too much of a people pleaser. :no: I would like to limit the amount of destruction I cause to people's setups, though, hence the modular approach. I know I'll get flak for eating up too many slots, but whatch'ya gonna do? :shrug:

@gothemasticator: 1. That's true. I don't use OOO/FCOM. :yes: 2. And I think David is doing a fine job. Don't think that area has been neglected. I might just have to talk to the FCOM peeps and see what's what. For the record, the compatibility isn't important to me, though I have a feeling it's important to a lot of other people. :biggrin:

@StarX: For the good advice, I will spare your dungeons...until last. (But seriously, the vampire dungeons are pretty low on my list, so I might just check out your mod. Maybe you have already satisfied my overhaul urges for these ones.)

Thanks to everyone for the replies.

I'm not trying to discourage you or doom your project just trying to offer a realistic perspective on things. You don't have to pay attention to a word I say in the end I am only one voice out of the masses. This mod may not even affect me for a long time because I am already playing my last run through oblivion before skyrim so it could be years before I come back to it again. I am just offering my personal opinion, I am on my 4th play of oblivion have run a lot of different mods and have over 600 hours of gameplay in it probably and I am just basing my thoughts off of what I have seen personally.

I understand wanting to make dungeons more unique, more personal, more interesting. However at the same time I think what does it really take to achieve that, for example the forts in the game were built for a purpose and likely built by the same architects so if you enter several and they each look entirely different inside from each other doesn't that seem a little strange. What architect would over think the design of something that purpose built for certain functions. Now what happened to that fort after it was no longer in use is up in the air but how much could later inhabitants change it and why would they change it. Forts probably wouldn't be good targets for major overhauling because it wouldn't make a lot of sense if you went too far, however stories of later inhabitants of the fort seem possible. Ayleid ruins were built by them and had their own uses much of which we really don't know what they used them for originally, it seems like they should be overall similar looking to each other but their functions could vary greatly but at the same time how much lore is there to determine anything pertaining to them to be based on, so if you changed the ruins in ways to make it related to the ayleids you would probably need to just use creative addition to lore that makes sense to you. Later inhabitants are unlikely to do much to them because it would be dangerous to try since most wouldn't know the finer points to them to begin with. Ayleid ruins would probably be a good target for overhauls if you can figure out ones that haven't really be touched by other mods I am sure there are many. Caves are usually the most boring places, very basic typically however that leads them to be the best targets for an overhaul in my opinion, you can just about do anything with them add whatever you want to them such as dwemer machines, ayleid ruins or even some kind of new strange growth of plants taking over one that is sentinent. Many caves have been touched by other overhauls but I am sure not all so there should be many potential choices left. Mines much the same as caves though you would need to maintain a certain style for a while because a Mine would have a certain function so strange things would need to happen deep or else the mine would never have even gotten started, however it does lead open to potential of something unearther deep causing the rest of the mine to be alterted by it and it does offer potential for a mine to have something in it that others don't to be mined, however it that is the case getting into something so special and secret should be hard as the ones who discovered this new material wouldn't want it found.

Main concern I think would be avoid the dungeons that play a key role or were already made more interesting by the major overhauls and try to avoid the altered vampire caves from starx vampires. After that most mods that touch them add items to them, significant and unique items. However if I was going to choose 3 mods that add a lot of unique items to various dungeons or your mods that has dozens of unique dungeons and as many unique items to be found as those other 3 mods but conflicts I would choose yours over that. The biggest draw would be if you offer enough to make your mod a must have and other stuff second, it's hard to compete with other must haves already out there but other mods that are personal preference items only your mod could easily out weigh them. Personally I look for mods that expand content over just changing things so I want lots of unique items to be found and quest to follow, one reason I don't use unique landscapes, I wouldn't be able to add near as much content and game lengthening mods with it as the number of plugins for them plus their various patches would add way too much to my list, it makes things different but is incompatible with so much that UL will take up 50 plugin slots or more on it's own and still have potential incompatibilities with some more obscure mods.

End of the day though all modders should mod for themself first, create what you want then just let others share it with you if they want. If you want to bounce some ideas off of me personally I'd be happy to, I am just trying to help if I can. I've not really done much modding of oblivion myself as I tend to spend most of my time modding racing sims but I've played oblivion a lot. Also yes I know I am long winded and my post get really long, sorry about that.

With the modular approach you also have the option of making a complete version for those who want to install it all in one step. Some of the other overhauls take that approach. If you're clever about it this could mean that you can use the modular pieces as interim patches or updates, also. If you make fixes to a couple areas, people could just install the complete version and overwrite with the modular pieces that have fixes. It's doable. Don't worry about excluding people, because frankly, this game has an estimated 30,000+ mods for it now. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can make any mod at this point that won't conflict with something somewhere.

I am someone who makes mod lists for people a lot. One of the requests I dread most is "Looking for Mods that Make Dungeons Less Boring" type of requests. If they are looking for new dungeons, no problem, but there aren't a lot of choices for people who want to make the vanilla dungeons less samey. Most of the ones that exist have been abandoned. So I have to give them very messy lists. This one revamps Vilverin. This one changes this type of dungeon. You have to cobble things together. Most people who make requests like that are looking for a dungeon version of BC or UL. I'm usually an a la carte sort of person and don't use any of the top overhauls, but even I am very tempted by yours, because vanilla dungeons had promise but they ended up overly generic. There is nowhere near the level of variance in the vanilla dungeons than there is in towns or landscapes. All the time I see people posting that they avoid vanilla dungeons unless a quest forces them to go into one. So what you want to do, there is a pre-existing audience ready to be converted to the joys of dungeon delving. Those people won't even be worried about conflicts, because they currently avoid dungeons and consider them boring.

Exactly. OOO is the backbone of FCOM so the latter can basically be seen as an OOO Plus mod, retaining most of OOO's changes while adding more enemies/weapons etc.

I agree with StarX and others that you should focus on your vision rather than compatibility issues at this point, but that said it is a mess of compatibility issues to edit vanilla dungeons, not just with major overhauls such as OOO but on a smaller level as well, with mods such as Adonnay's and dozens of others handplacing weapons etc. in them.

@cyruscloud: Not to worry. Your input has been very valuable, so thank you for contributing.

Interestingly enough, my major beef with the design of the fort ruins is that they don't seem to make any sense from a practical standpoint. What were they used for? Who lived there? I can't figure it out from the vanilla dungeons. Granting that much of the business of the ruin would have taken place above ground (which I won't be modding to avoid even more compatibility issues) and that, realistically, the underground areas would have served primarily as dungeons and storage, I have put a bit of thought into particular uses these areas could have been adapted for. They would have been designed according to traditional standards, but individual architects, combined with the particular needs of the structure and input from it's various commanders over the years would certainly have influenced its overall design. Plus, certain sections may have collapsed, been breached by goblins, adapted by secret societies, altered by magical means, etc., so I see no essential conflict in designing a variety of fort ruins.

Ayleid ruins hold tremendous promise, of course, but pose particular difficulties as well. Since they represent an entire culture which is mostly unknown, the ruins could be adapted to serve virtually any purpose. The primary obstacle presented by extending the Ayleid ruins lies in the limitations of the tileset itself.

I agree that caves are generally the least inspired and in some ways the most flexible dungeons to work with. To get the most out of these environments, however, I'm going to need to extend the tilesets quite a bit. One of the major reasons why all vanilla dungeons suffer from a boring sameness owes itself to the simple fact that there aren't enough tiles. That doesn't mean that a great deal can't be accomplished with existing resources, only that people shouldn't expect miracles in this department. Pretty much anything that can be put in a cave has already been put in a cave by one modder or another.

@Telyn: Yes, the modular approach is definitely the way to go. A full version, supplemented by modular patches for each dungeon. In this case, would it be better to NOT use door redirects? Altering the vanilla dungeon cells might make it easier to adapt them to other mods, even if the geometry is completely different.

And you're probably right about the pre-existing audience for this type of mod. Many authors have made important contributions to dungeon delving over the years, but a full-scale overhaul is a tremendous effort only a fool would attempt.

@Arkngt: There's not much I can do about compatibility issues with the FCOM family. That's a huge subject in it's own right which will have to be tackled a little differently. I'm hoping to add a lot of custom content, however, if I can get permission from the authors. Suitable rewards for dungeon delving.

Incidentally, if any talented modelers and texture artists feel inclined to offer their assistance, I'd love to extend the tilesets (if that's not already obvious). I can do it myself, if I have to, but the help would be greatly appreciated.

Spent the day working out the workflow for my custom tile extensions. Here's a peek at a WIP -> http://www.truancyfactory.com/images/misc/newCaveTile01.jpg.

This is a wall piece for the small cave room subset with a crevice along the edge of the wall letting in some sunlight. Ignore the texture stretching and the quick 'n dirty vertex painting. It's late and I have to get some sleep. Note that I haven't done the collision mesh yet for this piece either, but that shouldn't take long. The uv mapping is taking forever. :glare:

The tiles should be seamless. Ideally, you won't be able to tell the difference between the custom tiles and the vanilla tiles, but the collision materials are going to be off in some instances. That's owing to limitations in the export scripts which do not properly handle multiple collision materials. I'm taking suggestions for tile pieces as well if anyone has any ideas. All of the assets are going to be released as public resources with the mod.

Nice tile! These probably don't help but just in case something lower polygon could achieve similar effects:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Labeled_speleothems.jpg
http://www.goodearthgraphics.com/virtcave/
http://www.caverntours.com/KIDSPAGE_Formations.html (nice closeups)

I'm guessing it might be possible to preserve the overall Bethesda look but have a few fancier cave features for occasional "showpiece" rooms such as larger central caverns. Used sparingly, of course, but there could probaby be some cave pearls or something here and there. Just something to give that oh wow response when the player has been exploring a big cavern complex and suddenly enters a new cavern with a stunning feature that isn't in vanilla but blends in.

I studied those very sites quite closely a couple of months ago!

I'd love to do real cave formations (speleothems) but I don't think I could do them justice without baking high poly normal maps and creating a lot of custom textures. That's a lot of work! For now I'm going to focus on extending the vanilla set, but these sorts of caves are definitely in my future. Have you see this video for http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3bPjEbenew? I don't even want to think about how much work went into those caves! :bowdown:

Fallout 3 did a much better job representing caves (ironically) than Oblivion, so hopefully they've preserved that attention to detail for Skyrim.

Omigoodness! That Dear Esther video is amazing. Thank you! I am not sure the Oblivion engine could handle all of that, even highly optimized, but oh, what a dream...

Makes me wonder how much it CAN handle. Balzu has 1.5 to 3x as many references in exterior cells as vanilla OB and it only dips the framerate by a couple of fps. You might be surprised, especially with high-poly normal maps and low-poly meshes. Might have to test that limit one of these days.

Anyway, I've just resolved a lighting issue I was having with my custom tile and can now merrily continue on my way creating more. Still looking for bored modelers and texture artists who want to contribute their time and talent to helping me expand the sets (or create new ones).

Anybody have any suggestions for names for the mod? I'd like to avoid duplicating other mod names like 'Better Dungeons' or 'Unique Dungeons' and come up with something similar but different. 'Dungeon Overhaul' is just soooo boring. Maybe 'Deeper Dungeons' or 'Dynamic Dungeons' or something along those lines.

P.S. Played some Oblivion today and realized just how much I dislike the Citadel tile set. There's just something just very hodgepodge and 'thrown together' about it.

I've thought about the name, and I always have a tendency toward poetic names, but those don't work well in search engines unless the mod is already famous. I think Dynamic Dungeons is more interesting than most other options I can think of that have the word Dungeons in there. Having the word Dungeons seems necessary to me. You could call it something less common, like Dynamic Delving, but nobody would find it. Dynamic Dungeon Delving? Dynamic is a good word. It expresses what will be different about this mod.

As I understand it, no, it does not. I would expect "Dynamic Dungeons" to randomize dungeon maps/populations with each new game I start. While that would be absolutely awesome to see, my understanding of the Dungeon Overhaul mod is that it will create new and improved, but still static, designs for each targeted dungeon.

But, yes, Dynamic Dungeons is a great name and I would immediately check out a mod by that name. And I would then be sorely disappointed if I discovered that it contained static, rather than dynamic, dungeons, no matter how well-designed those static dungeons might be.

ndervish makes a good point about the expectation being set. Although I would like to introduce some dynamic elements (vis my concepts regarding evolving dungeons) the focus of the mod is primarily on overhauling the appearance and design of the dungeons, not randomizing them, which is actually somewhat at cross-purposes with the idea of making unique dungeons. Randomly generated dungeons, imo, are almost as bad as generic dungeons, since, by definition, you would have to draw from a limited pool of shared resources that blend seamlessly (and generically) together. It is parallel to the difference between region-generated content in exterior cells and hand-placed content. Region generation allows for unlimited, but generic, extension. Random dungeons serve exactly the same purpose.

On a technical note, I have now solved the final technical obstacle to creating tile extensions: custom tiles will now have proper multi-material collision thanks to an update to the export scripts of which I was previously unaware. I am currently working on a small subset of cave tiles. The first piece has been modeled and I am now working on the uv mapping which is the hardest part. Vanilla tiles sometimes make unusual uv mapping decisions which I have to blend seamlessly in my own pieces, requiring a fair bit of finessing and tedium.

I was thinking of dynamic as

2

a: marked by usually continuous and productive activity or change
-Merriam-Webster

Definition 1 was a physics definition. I was thinking that the AI which will be added counts as making the dungeons more dynamic. I guess I was not thinking of physics, though I had the impression dynamics in physics isn't interchangeable with randomness. If it is, my bad. I really should stop giving opinions. I am lousy at it. LOL.

@ndervish If you download http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=37653 you will not be sorely disappointed. It does what it says. The dungeons will be different each time a new character explores them, and if you want the same character to have a new dungeon, it should work if you refresh it, I think. Have not tried that.

That was the interpretation of dynamic I had in mind when I came up with the moniker, but I think ndervish has identified the most common interpretation of the word in gaming culture where 'dynamic' is often synonymous with 'randomly generated by the computer while I play'. I'm currently leaning toward Deadly Dungeons, which captures some of the essence of the changes I'd like to make, including an added emphasis on improved AI, more numerous and dangerous traps, and larger, more extensive dungeons.

Here are a couple screenies of the new tile I've been working on:

http://www.truancyfactory.com/images/misc/caveTile02a.jpg
http://www.truancyfactory.com/images/misc/caveTile02b.jpg

The uv mapping is definitely proving to be the hardest and most time-consuming part. There are a couple of minor seams on the interior I'm having difficulty smoothing out, but it is pretty much seamless with the vanilla tiles and the lighting issues and multi-material collision issues have been resolved. Hopefully I'll get faster at it as I hone my skills.

I'm thinking about including the tiles in a shared community resource: Oblivion Tileset Extender (or OBTE)

Essentially, the tiles would be made available just like script, graphic, and magic extensions and people could use the assets in their own mods using a common folder structure. Anybody with the ability to make seamless tiles with proper collision (whether they are extensions to existing sets or entirely new sets) could contribute to the resource. Any modder using the resources would just indicate in their readme that their mod requires OBTE vX.YZ.

That's a really wonderful idea. Tiles are difficult to make, so sharing those would make it much easier for people to make their mods less generic looking.

When you reach testing stage, feel free to head on over to TES Alliance for help with testing.

You may wish to consider asking another modder to compile a specific list of cells (or whole dungeons) from the top/most popular mods that have dependencies, like the aforementioned Vampire Caves and Elven Weapons. While I agree that you should focus on the main aspects first, having a pre-made list of areas that need tweaking (again, only starting with the big mods) would likely help the compatibility process.

@Immortal-D: From page 3:


I'd be happy to hear of more potential compatibility issues if you know of any. The Ayleid Steps, CDEP, Star X's Vampire overhaul, Brotherhood Renewed, FCOM/OOO, and a few others have been mentioned thus far.