As some of you may already know, I have recently released a weapons meshes and textures replacer for the iron weapons: http://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/43077/?

This retexture was based on http://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/34844/? which are basically new, more detailed models for the vanilla iron weapons, but they still use vanilla textures (which I have replaced for my mod, obviously). Now I would like to provide additional replacers for other weapon types which also deserve improved graphics. But unfortunately, for most of them there are no improved meshes like Psy's iron ones until today, even though many of the original meshes are really crude and lack detail. So now I decided that before I will attempt to do a new installment of "Real Reflective Weapons", I will first try to create new and improved meshes for the vanilla weapons which use the original textures, just as Psymoniser did. The first slice of this was already delivered with the iron weapons retexture as a bonus weapon: The steel mace, although I already included new textures for it in the mod.

Now that I have begun remodeling the other steel weapons, I decided I to upload them one by one to my dropbox folder so everyone who is interested can already download them, before I will release them all together in a complete pack once I have finished all of them. So this will hopefully frequently be updated as I add more and more new meshes.

Steel weapons are finished! http://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/43120/? and http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1501057-relzimproved-weapon-meshes-steel/

Current Projects:

Improved Armor Parts (http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1496399-wipzrelz-improved-meshes-weapons/?p=23671076):

• Ebony Pauldron and https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-b0MMm1UzezA/U6dDX6iAKVI/AAAAAAAABgw/JeKOBdgrkQU/s0/ebony_helm-comparison.jpg (tried to improve the shape, too, as I did not like the original pot-like look)
• https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-q6oDxrv7pSE/U6dDYWRAlJI/AAAAAAAABgk/nzgPd6KcEdk/s0/imperial_helmet-comparison.jpg
• https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-XpdzeSUQUkM/U8wjhOesjmI/AAAAAAAABoc/LhaTuPHKvrg/s0/Templar_helmet_comparison.jpg - with https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-WHQBzpEYIv4/U8wjhF3c3FI/AAAAAAAABoY/B-NY7Lwsn4I/s0/Templar_helmet_alternative_texture.jpg
• https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-gdWtFyco5rw/U8zlol6ixcI/AAAAAAAABo8/OvAzBKmUOhQ/s0/Imperial_chain_coif_comparison.jpg
• Iron https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-kpi9umSKCXo/U6dDYl4HB6I/AAAAAAAABgY/PJVZgsWNUAE/s0/iron_pauldron-comparison.jpg and https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-85YVfGcLX9M/U6dDZCJ5qjI/AAAAAAAABgo/zw09vN0Pc94/s0/iron_shield.jpg (with new improved textures based on the originals, as an alternative to Darknut's textures)
• https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ZQwW48rnZwc/U6dDXxSj9bI/AAAAAAAABg0/P9mHeJmCibc/s0/chitin_helm-comparison.jpg
• https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0D0yzbnkLQ8/U6dDZFfLGbI/AAAAAAAABgs/cwoSCne9Rsc/s0/netch_leather_helm-comparison.jpg
• https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-nd82M17-uNs/U6dDX0_65EI/AAAAAAAABgI/54oB-eRPs2E/s0/boiled_netch_leather_helm-comparison.jpg

Textures in the screenshots are either http://mw.modhistory.com/download-4-11529 or from http://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/41947/?

Ebony weapons:

• Ebony Mace: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-na8fXwbVz7g/U7pipCkHiaI/AAAAAAAABmo/oqRRf3l9PzM/s0/ebony_mace_comparison.jpg - https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-xmN9up6zGr0/U7pipJaMPbI/AAAAAAAABmk/WSlPIboAhBc/s0/ebony_mace_1st.jpg

They can all be downloaded here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/l1660o8fg664bii/w1oDErFG3-

When I create a new mesh I will also upload it in this dropbox folder. As these are to be considered WIP it is very likely that they will be modified again in the future, but I will make sure that all of them can be used in the game without any problems. Also, because they are not yet finished I don't want them to be used in other mods, yet, or uploaded anywhere else.

I am, of course, open for comments and suggestions. With my new meshes, I try to improve the look as much as possible while still keeping the polycount rather low. Also, the overall design of the weapons is kept as close to the original as possible, I only create more detailed and smooth versions of them which hopefully blend seamlessly with the vanilla game or a modded version. These are not just subdivided versions of the original weapons, but completely new meshes based on the original design.

Fantastic! I've been waiting for someone to improve the other weapon meshes too

This looks awesome. Subscribing for updates to this topic.

It's exciting to see an improvement finally being made to these old weapons, Pherim! I don't have any critique at the moment, those screens look fantastic!

Thank you! I just added the steel shortsword. I am not completely happy with it, yet, so I will probably work on it a little more.

Added longsword, bolt and arrow. The original longsword mesh was particularly ugly, so I took some liberties with the shape of the crossguard. I hope you like it!

Man, I really have a run right now.

They look quite beautiful Pherim . Great models and , I agree totally - Darknuts Textures look fantastic with them .

It's a really nice idea to hold on the compatibility with vanilla textures! Will wait for updates impatiently.

Yes, I thought since many people like the original look of the game I first concentrate on improving only the meshes, although I myself are not the biggest fan of Darknut's textures - sure, they are a huge improvement over the original ones, but I don't like how many of them just look like "carved in stone" because of the sharpening technique he used to improve the vanilla textures. That's why I made my "Real Reflective weapons" retexture in the first place - to have actual new textures which add more details and look more like the material they are supposed to represent. I intend to do the same for the steel weapons eventually, after I have finished the meshes. However, it is possible that I will diverge a little more from the vanilla look than with the iron weapons.

I intend to make them more in the style of the steel mace I included in the RRW - Iron mod as a bonus:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-fgtHP7pI4NA/UygjTSjQ3KI/AAAAAAAABPE/tp7TOD2daLU/s1152/Bonus.jpg

The steel mace in the first post of this thread is basically the same mesh (except the blades which are modified to fit the vanilla texture), but the textures really make a big difference. Also, when creating the new meshes now I often struggle over how bad some of the original textures already are in terms of their basic shape, so it is often really challenging to map them onto the new meshes. In the original ones there is much distortion and stretching due to the simple projection of the textures, but I can use more advanced techniques like quadface texturing or cylindrical mapping, but this again requires better textures, e.g. in terms of tiling etc. The vanilla textures are often just not meant to be used on better meshes. But I try to do my best to make them work.

Just wanted to drop by and join the people praising your work here, the meshes are beautifully done After trying your Iron weapons, I can't wait for the full set of steel

Btw. as I really like the bonus mace, I thought that if you would feel like doing it, you could create replacer for Mace of Molag Bal. I know it is something that is out of the scope of your current project, but since there is no replacer AFAIK, I believe everyone would enjoy it.

To my mind, Bal's mace could be different in used texture only, but a little different mesh would be much better decision, of course.

As we can see by your Iron mesh replacer, you can be really close to original style of Morrowind, so keep doing this way and everything will be allright!

This mace actually has one of the better meshes, that means there is no horrible uv stretching or parts where the mesh does not fit the textures. It even does not look as blocky as many other meshes - partly because it is supposed to look very edged and martial. There just are almost no parts that are intended to be round, so this time the blockyness is mostly a good thing. So this is quite low on my priority list, but I suppose I could eventually do it in the future, it should not take too much time. But I suppose the mesh would be very similar to that from Oblivion, as this is very much a better version of the Morrowind mesh already. Of course, I know that it is not allowed to port this mesh to Morrowind, so I would create a new one that would just look very much like it.

I just added the Steel Claymore. This one was a little tricky because of how some of the textures are used on the original mesh and how the textures are structured overall. This thing really is in dire need of new textures with improved layout. Also, this is the first new mesh where I added a texture that is not used in the original mesh to improve the look: the edges of the crossguard and the clover parts now use the same texture as the edges of the steel mace blades for a more seamless steel look on those parts. Also, with 90kb this is the most complex mesh to date and I don't want them to get much more complex than that, in fact I have set myself a size limit of 100kb but I would prefer most of them to stay at around 50. The claymore mesh is only that complex because I went full detail on the clover parts and there I could save polygons very easily without changing the look to much. As with the shortsword, I am not entirely happy with it, so I guess I will change parts of it again in the future.

By the way, this is what happens when you accidently export a two-handed weapon from Blender with 1/10 of the normal size (a thing that can happen with my workflow): https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-PeW68zFnJxk/UzJ_DkNr01I/AAAAAAAABRk/G9blnMxPeBw/s0/MGE%2520Screenshot%25201286..jpg

Two-handed Steel Toothpick!

Just wanted to praise you for this. It's something that the game badly needed and that no replacer ever handled until now.

Thank you for all your work, Pherim!

Impressive work!

I saw on Nexus that the vanilla miner pick displays an axe shadow, I thought that I should share the info as I don't know if you remodel the weapons from scratch or just alter the base meshe.

Also, can you please make a reflective version of the MGSO's improved pick? (It was Daduke's work, the original mod has been lost with ElricM site afaik).

Thanks and best regards.

This is the wrong topic for questions about the miner's pick, you should ask it in the "http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1495484-rel-real-reflective-weapons-iron/" thread (Or maybe a mod can move these two posts over?). This is only about the new weapon meshes I create myself.

If you had read the description you would know that the RRW-Iron mod uses Psymoniser's iron meshes, which I modified to work with my new textures. As far as I know, these are remodeled from scratch, just as my new steel weapons in this thread. I did not know about the shadow problem, but I will look into it tomorrow, as I won't have time to do this today. Also, you probably mean http://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/1216? I looks like the model that is used in MGSO. It should be not much of a problem to make it work with my new textures from the "Reflective" mod, so I could do that tomorrow, too. Also, if I find that the shadow problem persists with the pick from my mod I could attempt to fix it for this mesh, too. Since the fix mod seems to include a fixed version of the vanilla mesh, too, this shadowbox should also work with the one from my mod.

IIRC, it's not a problem per se, it's an engine limitation. There are a few shadow... meshes? textures? - that are used on weapons, divided by weapon type. One shadow for swords, one for axes, etc. It's just not so noticeable when using most weapons. But I remember being surprised when I saw a sword shadow from Daedric Crescent.

You are right, those generic shadow meshes can be found in the same folder as the weapons themselves. But judging from the description of the fix mod this can be changed by adding a "ShadowBox" to the mesh. I can't take a look at the mesh right now, but I will do that tomorrow, as I said.

I provided a reflective version of the alternate pick here: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1495484-rel-real-reflective-weapons-iron/?p=23541169

Please continue the discussion about it in that thread and use this only for comments about the steel meshes, so things don't get confusing.

Oops I thought that I was in the other thread. Sorry and thank you.

Back with a big update: First, I added the steel halberd, spear and staff. With the halberd and spear I thought the hexagonal profile of the shaft was intentional in the original design and not because they wanted to save polygons, so I decided to keep that, just like the part on the battle axe which uses the same texture. Also, the metal parts at the bottom of both used the horrible battle axe grip texture and it still looked awful on the better mesh so I changed that to the metal_strip_01 texture to improve the look. Besides that, I mostly stayed true to the original designs, just with smoother meshes and improved texture mapping.

As for the staff, there is probably more potential to add details, for example on the grip, but not so much with the vanilla textures (or Darknut's improved ones), so I will most likely keep that until I actually create new textures. But it is certainly possible that I will still work on that a little more.

Besides these new meshes I have updated the battle axe: As mentioned before, the grip texture was especially awful and this part I could barely improve at all with the new mesh. So I decided that the metal parts should also use the metal_strip_01 texture and for the grip I took my new shortsword grip, duplicated it and rotated it towards itself to create a longer grip. Now in my opinion it really looks a lot better. What do you think?

Lastly, I have added the reflection effect which some of the vanilla meshes already have to those parts of the weapons which don't have it where it makes sense. It is very subtle, but I think it still is a nice addition.

By the way, I am not so happy with how the longsword looks in first person. Any ideas to improve that?

edit: small update of the spear, I corrected a small mesh error and added a little more detail on the top parts.

edit2: uploaded a new version of the longsword with modified shape, in my opinion it now looks better than before, though still not perfect. Maybe I will have to redo the crossguard again from scratch, as it looks too thin in first person view in my opinion.

I added the steel warhammer. Once more I am not yet completely happy with it, especially with the part in the center of the head (the ornamental face). Maybe I can make this a little more threedimensional in the next version.

Also, I have uploaded a new version of the longsword with a completely redesigned crossguard, it is now broader on the outmost parts and less round overall, and in my opinion this looks a lot better in first person view (the difference is not so much visible in the updated screenshot in the start post). In addition, I have modified the blade: made it thinner and changed the shape of the top part.

Please tell me what you think about this (and the last) update, I really wish to get these as good as possible. My goal is that once I am finished with these meshes, noone will ever want to use the vanilla ones again.

I will also take suggestions as to which artifacts derived from the steel weapons should get new, unique meshes. Psymoniser did that with the iron weapons and I think I could do the same here. I know that there already are replacers for some of them, like some of Drakkmore's, but these are very far away from the vanilla look and I want them to use vanilla textures, just as the rest of these meshes (of course, later I intend to create my own textures for the Real Reflective Series).

You can find an overview of the special weapons with the steel meshes here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Steel#Special_Weapon_Items

Obvious candidates would be: Shortbow of Sanguine Sureflight, Cloudcleaver, Spear of the Snow Prince, Ancestral Wisdom Staff, Trebonius' Staff, and Rammekald.

Hm I'm a bit sceptic about the longsword. I'd prefer a round pommel and a cross-guard very similar to what the short sword has.

Fantastic work overall with the other pieces!

Well, the basic shape is derived from the original mesh... I only made it smoother and more detailed. The textures require this shape of the cross-guard, anyway. After all, it is my goal to stay as close to the vanilla design as possible and the longsword has a very different look from the shortsword, for whatever reason. Please keep that in mind and compare the new meshes with the original ones, not with other weapons meshes.

But it would be possible for me to provide an alternate longsword mesh which is more similar to the shortsword. The same could be done with the dagger.