Been a long time since I've been around. Recently moved and was going through my old discs and found the files for the giant mech I was working on with Cait and Bear371 a few years ago.

Cait and Bear371 got him animated, but I never got around to reskinning him. I have a zip file that includes the original textures and meshes, along with a file called 'testrobot.nif' which I'm pretty sure is the unskinned animated nif for the mech. I don't have a PC anymore, so I don't have a way to test any of this, if it can be tested ingame or checked in Max - my copy of Max was old back then, and I don't know how compatibility works for newer versions. There is also something called LN_Dwemer_Mech_armor.esp in there but I can't for the life of me remember what that was. Maybe a set of armor built from the pieces that either Bear or Cait put together and sent me.

Here are some pictures for size reference:

http://photobucket.com/giantmech

In the zip file I have, all the source textures, max files (one is the static, and I think the other is the animated one), and nifs are included.

If anyone is interested, let me know.

Thanks!

I think that dwemer mech model is used in Rise of the House Telvanni, but not animated. I'm not sure that adds anything to the discussion, just an observation.

I remember a version of this already existing. I used it in Deus Ex Machina.

Yeah, I gave it to a few people to use a while back. I never got around to putting a skin on the animated one, so there is only the static guy out there.

The one I used was an actual enemy that moved and tried to kill people.

I'm not surprised that more than one person has tried to assemble these existing parts into a workable creature. It appeared that they were leading up to this in vanilla morrowind... maybe they ran out of time.

Arcimaestro Antares assembled a much smaller version that easily fits in the vanilla Vvardenfell-style Dwemer ruins. Its animation is the same as that of the Steam Centurion, which works well.

The problem with the sheer scale of the giant one is well... the sheer scale of it. It needs a lot of room to move around, and when you have it at such a scale, its animation really needs to be a lot more sophisticated than anything I've seen done so far for Morrowind, even by Antares, because it's basically like having one of the Sentinels from X-Men traversing the land. Such a creature belongs in a game that has a physics engine, like Oblivion or Skyrim, if justice is to be really done to it.

Nice to see it was done. It has literally been years since I did any modding work or played on a PC - I'm way, way out of touch. Can't you tell?

Whoa! Hello Snape! Nice to see you here

There are animated mechs used in the http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=8117. There is a gigantic non-hostile mech standing outside one of the Dwemer Ruins outside Dagon Fell also.

That sounds like one of my files. Years ago, I released an alpha or beta for a mod I had made in which I made the mech pieces into armor. I had reskinned some black. LN is what I always used as a prefix.

That was probably about ten years ago -- I will look into my archives later to see if I can verify this.

Lingarn


EDIT: I have looked, and the file I found was LN_Dwemer_Mech.esp, contained in a zip file LN_Dwemer_Mech_armor.zip which appears to have non-retextured version of the armor.

I'm not sure if this is what I released or not, but it dates to January 2004. Actually, looking through the e-mail I used at the time, it looks like this zip file was sent to someone whose e-mail included GraphicAlchemy -- possibly for the retexturing. There is a later file from March of that year, though I haven't opened it in the editor -- the retextured version of the armor exists in my directory, so who knows...

EDIT 2: I just looked through the .max files, and I found a bunch called "Snape_mech_head.max" and so on from March 2004 -- so you were the one who did the texturing?

so, you are the one who made the http://arcimaestroantares.webs.com/Immagini/Crippled%20Skeleton.JPG?
I used it in one of my mods.

I'd like to see the dwemer creature too. Someone could upload it somewhere and share it.

I have dug into this question a little, and think the answer is possibly no. I am definitely the Lingarn that is credited by Neoptolemus, but from what I have been able to find (most of the threads from that era are apparently gone), it seems likely that what he did was take a skeleton I'd released as a physiqued biped and modify it further using NifSkope. He certainly added the armors and such in this way.

I did experiments with skeletons -- a vampire skeleton, a pygmy skeleton, skeletons with particle effects and so forth -- so it is not impossible, but I have no recollection of creating the damaged skeleton in the picture. On the other hand, I didn't remember that Snape made the black mech texture either, so I am sorry to say I am not certain.

the main node in the nif, is named LN_skellymancer_c.NIF, so I guess it is your work.