Gonna answer your PM here, for another bump .

Remember the lore discussion about living Tsaesci in Rimmen and the authors statement, that all Akaviri left Tamriel long ago? My idea was to make some Akaviri, more precise, Tsaesci ghosts living in the city. In contrast to the ghost creatures these ones should be 'friendly' and 'normal' NPCs, fighting them is not allowed. TheTalkieToaster's latest genius tip to convert creatures to NPCs makes this much easier, no need to do a lot of new 'floating' anims for instance. As a ghost has no or not much lower body, the problem with the snake part would be solved too.

As I posted you, I tried to improve the Tsaesci lower body over the last two weeks, but still don't like the results. To get a 'real' snake look, the body has to be about twice as long as the vanilla Argonian tails. My first try was a 'blown up' argonian tail, but I didn't change the skeleton bones, only the mesh. Bad way, as the engine seems to look only for the bones, making the mesh going through the walls and everything around. Very ghosty ... although it is animated already this way and looks quite 'snaky'. Haven't installed Fraps yet, so I can't make a clip, may be later.

I'll try TheTalkieToaster's 'bone scaling' method now, but getting a nice looking body this way is more difficult as modifing the mesh itself. And my modding time is very limited these days. I'm to much playing the game, it's my first time with full FCOM, and then there's Side's ships to explore Onra's fantastisc new landscapes ... but of course I do a little bit modding 'work' every day. Only not as much as last month.

By the way: @Team, please cry out loud if you have something new to merge. No need to wait for me finishing this bad bloody snake monsters

@auryga: id install XFire actually its free, and takes very long videos. Check http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27379 out. i used that for the videos in my tournament. No real for me to send in yet though. just some additions to Katana and Hammer with that new resource i showed ya. Once i get the Hannoren textures orked out and the signs done, ill send ya my work. I wanna try and include the Lower Class tavern in the next 1 as well actually.

Thx, I'll try it, although it seems not for the Tsaesci. Tried several different approaches, but nothing worked. Things looked quite well first, but always some of the basic anims looked very very weird. Like crumbled paper.

Corthians way (using the right leg and foot) still worked best, but looks weird too on a longer 'tail' part. May be that's why he did it that short. Sizing the bones didn't work either, looks very weird already in the CS idle mode. Somehow this bone changes didn't even show up in my game environment, may be bash patch and/or TFF interfered there.

Did already spend too much time on this, I'll go back to static meshes and normal CS work, that's much easier .

Maybe this will help? http://www.rubberbug.com/reptiles.htm

There was a reason my Tsaesci turned out the way they are. I am working on a lot of things lately but, I think the best way to create a decent Tsaesci (short of animating a new skeleton) is to play with the proportions via TheTalkingToaster's "bone scaling" example: make the upper body smaller and the lower body smaller. I have been able to work miracles using edited skeletons for unique races. Of course the animation still won't be the slither they should be.

I used the tail because it's animations looked a little more 'slithering'. And I did use the bone scaling on the tail bones 4 to 8. The lenght was how I wanted it but between bone 3 and 4 the mesh looked like some very crumbled 'steps'. My mesh was not around the tail bones as usual but a lot below them, to get the body on the ground, and I think that's why it's 'distorted' this way by the scaling. Had similar effects with some of the anims too.

Think it's better to solve this with adapting the animations:

Great help, indeed. According to what I found already on the web Blender and NIF scripts seem to support this spline/bone method. Never worked on animations before, only know how to import them, hope it's as easy to change and export them . I'll give it a try as soon as I have recovered from my current Tsaesci frustration.

Work is going great guys, I really like what you guys have done so far :tops:

Hey Auryga, are all the resources from "Aurygas Akavir Fuyohin Island" included in the Rimmen files? I saw some pretty nice things in the mod, and I'm just wondering if I'll have to get them into the Rimmen mod, or if they're already there.

Not much included yet, the buildings for the guilds, the tatami floors and one desk. Feel free to add what you like. I added the few non-building things in Anequina\Clutter\Rimmen.

Got a new update from Johnn123, has anybody else something to merge for a new version?

Not much (if anything) from myself, started some dialogs but that's only rough concept yet, so can't be included. Also started working on a tile set for the arcades. Only the dome roof finished yet, hopefully can do some progress on the weekend.

Tsaesci and ghost NPCs haven't made any progress, I have to study Blender's animation tools first. I was able to produce some 'interesting' results already, but it took me hours. I'm sure there are easier and faster ways to do it.

I haven't got around to decorating the interiors yet, but I made the exteriors way better looking, and now the doors actually connect to the interiors!
So, do you want it now, or should I wait until I've finished the interiors?

hey auryga the dialogue in that last package i sent isnt working right can you check it for me? and did i ever send you those voice files you wanted? i cant remember if i did or not...

Better finish the interiors, I had some trouble with my TV PC, and reinstalling/reconfiguring that will most probably last for the whole weekend, not much time to do any modding.

Still waiting for the files. And you now my weekend download problems, so don't hurry, I can't get them before monday anyway . But I will look at the dialog, for the next 2 hours backup of TV PC is running, can't continue there anyway.

Mostly finished merging Johnn123's ESP. Great job! Like that inn's name . Found an error in the dialog definition, there was a condition defined with a NULL target. Removed it, and the dialog showed up. But I couldn't hear zaf's incredible voice files in game, althought everything seems to be configured correctly. May be my own game setup ...

great to hear! is the taverns script working alright? or have you made your own? also do you have any idea when were gonna get a new update?

Can't use your original one, as it would replace a vanilla script (a Bruma inn, as far as I remember). Think you 'renamed' the existing script in the CS by changing the 'Scriptname' string. That simply renames the original, you don't create a new one this way. For the next time: you need to select 'new script' first, then cut and paste the old one into the new script window and then change the 'Scriptname' string and all the other things.

As so often, incredible Tes4Edit allowed me to fix this easily, as I could simply click on 'new copy' instead of 'override', and bang, problem fixed . Meanwhile I found some things I forget to copy (or you forget to set, don't know yet ). For instance there's no door to the inn in my merge, so I couldn't check the script in game ...

Change Form ID would have worked too, while also ensuring that anything referencing the script maintained the reference.

Didn't know that, thanks for the info!

it jsut changes the script? thats weird i thought it would save as a new one when i did that! thank goodness for TES4Edit though. Everything though should have been included in the tavern but dialogue, i did everything else needed for it. oh well except for a door to get to the inn didnt set that

Bad news from my modding work: did some cleanup in my working folder on sunday, and accidently deleted my current work too. Tried to recover with Undelete tools, but I already had done too much. Disk was nearly filled, that's why I deleted all the old 'in-between' versions, and that was bad for undelete. As always in such cases my regular backup is way too old, so about 2 weeks work on the temple folks is gone. Mostly incomplete things, copied some NPCs and worked on basic dialogs, but a lot of time-consuming little things I hate to do. Only a new street light http://www3.pic-upload.de/21.06.10/iunir6w9uy2w.jpg for the LC part survided.

Ok, as StarX said in another thread: this gives me the chance to do it even better this time. Although I hate this kind of talking, it's what my bosses always say after they ones again crashed something seriously with their ignorance and we poor wage slaves have to do all the work with cleaning up the mess.

Working on dome roofs now, as this part of the novel's description is still missing. Found a nice website, think I'll try some domes like the ones shown http://www.arkeo3d.com/byzantium1200/georgios.html. Will use only the roofs, not the lower part. Already half finished such a dome roof, think I'll try a 'normal' house with it (a 'upper-upper-class' house?). Or some shrine-like things, although I'm not sure were to place them. Wonder if I can 'adapt' or merge them with mr_siikas UC houses, as stairhouse-towers for instance. Anyway, the city will become filled with dome roofs now!

Could someone make a small mockup picture that illustrates where Rimmen is located on the map (and the approx shape of the city)? I don't have access to my Oblivion PC atm so I can't go looking ingame. Any effort will be appreciated.

Here's a still almost correct top view: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/31203-1-1271603447.jpg.

With a 'frame' of about one cell around it position is at 13, -20 to 16, -25.

Tried to do a "-f" texture map with TES4qLOD, but the tool doesn't like Rimmen. I can do a full map of Tamriel with all of onra's maps and Elsweyr active without problem. But whenever I add Rimmen.esp to the list, alone or with Oblivion.esm, I get an error message 'Unable to read entire marker record (55445 bytes) from Rimmen.esp into memory'. Quite strange on an 64bit PC with 6 GB mem and no other tool active. Not even sure what 'marker record' means.

Until I've solved that, I created 'Local maps' in the CS instead. One 'clean' set without water and map markers, and one with anything shown: http://www.file-upload.net/download-2621446/RimmenLocalMaps.7z.html. Hope the german interface on the site is not a problem ...

If there's anything else I can do please tell me. 'Geographers Guild' will always get full support, good maps are essential :angel:.

As of a few days ago, the upper class district looks completely different. There's less houses, nearly every house has a garden, and there's plently of benches and plants and the like. Also, I've made the majority of two interiors. I made a library (out of a UChouse02) with one NPC inside, and some clutter and furniture, and one house. The other interiors are still empty, with only the actual interior, no furniture/clutter yet.
I've uploaded some images to the tesnexus file of some of the cooler looking things I changed/placed:
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/images/31203-4-1277315189.jpg
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/images/31203-5-1277315190.jpg
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/images/31203-3-1277315189.jpg
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/images/31203-1-1277315185.jpg
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/images/31203-2-1277315189.jpg

Those pics are delicous.

Can't wait to see this in game!

I finished the first (simpler) dome roof type yesterday. Will try to modify the UC01 house mesh with it today (as I know this mesh so well from doing it's interior ).

just imagine Ilianas Anequina played togther with this amazing looking mod and StarX Senchal

whoooooooooooo :celebration: