So, I just wanted to get people's opinions on this having hit a possibly major issue with a Mod I'm working on for the ORE Competition.

Basically, the question is whether people think the interior of a building (in this case a Castle) should accurately reflect it's exterior size: so, if a building took up 1 whole cell, should the interior fit inside it's exterior limits, or does that not matter to people?

The choices available are :

Yes - The outside shold always be the same size as the inside - I.e., Like Real Life
Yes - But only if the exterior is not too big
No - It can be bigger inside, but should at least look reasonable - So, more like the Castles we already have, where they're a lot longer inside than their actual thickness.
No - Outside is just for reference, it can be as big as it wants inside - I.e., you could have a 100-room Mansion inside a Bravil House
Other - Please State

Yes, they should be the same. Also there should be no loading between them.

That's not very practical. You'd get better performance by having the inside in a separate interior cell, it's much easier to do, and the lighting will be more accurate instead of being as bright as outside. And when it rains it won't go through the ceiling.


I don't care for it to be exactly accurate, I'm not going to check the exterior and interior rooms to see if they are appropriately sized. As long as it's not too obvious like entering a small shack and finding a large castle inside it's fine with me.

And of course if there are underground areas you can pretty much make those as big as you like.

With a caveat; If a wizard did it, then it's all good. Extra-dimensional spaces, wormholes, whatever, as long as it's accounted for in some way.

Well, the question was how should it be done, not what's the easiest way people would still put up with.

Besides, the lighting and rain issues are solvable with scripting.

I voted 'No - It can be bigger inside, but should at least look reasonable'

Almost every single one of Bethesda's vanilla interiors is much larger then the exterior. In fact many of them don't match the exterior at all, we were having a discussion on this on ORE last week. For me the interior would be best kept reasonable size in relation to the exterior, but I would not be concerned if it was bigger. For me more important is that it matches the exterior, in other words there are windows inside where there are windows outside. That said, even that is not vital.

KhadirgroGhurkag, while yes the weather issue is solvable with scripts you are still VERY limited size wise due to FPS issues, which is why Vince made such a small shack for his Abandoned Mountain Shack mod. He also had to ditch a larger house because of the FPS. So while it can be done, for a castle challenge it is pretty impossible.

There are workarounds, in fact for my Pell's Gate mod there are two 'exterior' homes. However it is very diffcult and again you are very limited for FPS.

As Meek says, it's unreasonable to hold modders to a stricter standard than we hold Bethesda.

Who said I don't hold Bethesda to the same standards? I was advocating to make them both the same and without loading screens since Morrowind came out, on these forums. Actually ... even back when they had this nice dark green background still.

By far, my preference is for exterior/interior to match. However, I'm also a believer in the interiors making functional sense.

However, Beth did not do this so having a building that is accurate would seem out of place in the game.

+1 for 'No - It can be bigger inside, but should at least look reasonable'. I never really noticed that the vanilla interiors don't match the exteriors even though it seems some (most) of them don't match at all.

That background's still an option, you know.

Anyway, lighting and rain issues solvable through scripting? Not... to my knowledge. There are some hack workarounds, but none that work particularly effectively. The Oblivion engine simply wasn't built for that and it's not really reasonable to expect it in a mod.

In the game itself? Right there with you, I'd love to see Bethesda do that. At the very least, the "city worlds" thing really ought to go, that's just irritating. And that's notably fiendishly difficult to solve with mods without massive compatibility problems....

Anyway, my own standards for mods is that they should appear to be a part of the original game. One should not be able to see something and say "ah, this is a mod".

It was possible in Morrowind, maybe it's possible in Oblivion too with an OBSE plugin.

The problem is: It would be too much work

It's not quite true that they're all already bigger inside. I've been annoyed that the Cheydinhal House for Sale has a smaller interior, but the ones that are larger don't seem to bug me at all. So my vote is that same size is best, bigger is OK, but smaller is a no-go!

I also voted "No - It can be bigger inside, but should at least look reasonable." It would be great if we had matching interiors and exteriors and no loading screens, but with what we have available that is not really an option. So what I think, do the best to match them. Its fine as long as it is somewhat believable. If you go much larger, then you need to have a logical explanation (example: a mad wizard built an extra-dimensional home or something.)

I voted for "The outside shold always be the same size as the inside".

For my taste a "must have" for a good castle-/house- plugin! At least as close as possible as long as the available meshes allow this.

In my opinion, it may be bigger but to extent so that Average Joe doesn't even notice it.

On a related topic - it adds realism if basemants that are below the local water level are at least damp, if not flooded. Impervious solid rock walls get you a partial exception, but don't treat it as carte blanche.

Unless it uses Transdimensional engineering it should be at least reasonable but doesn't have to match exactly. and again basemants and underground areas are exempt from this whi hc brings the idea to me of an underground Caslte ((rather handy for a vampire maybe with a network to get to all the cities under cover?) though personally I see somth ing along the lines of an Underground Vampire City in my headwith Anvil or Skingrad architecture on the normal buildings. but pleas don't make it a dark dank cave underwater or somthing? we have enough vampire havens like that already it should at least be livable if not lavish and regal. and perhaps a quest to become the owner b ut i'm j ust throwing out ideas here

I voted wrong I wasn't paying attention and hit okay before I had actually voted. I wanted to hit other. I think. Anywho, vanilla castles piss me off. Like, really. Hard frakking core. I can forgive smaller building, but castles just ruin suspension of disbelief. The interiors have so much more going on than the exteriors, and the layouts are absolutely ridiculous. So, maybe not other. Maybe "No, but it should be reasonable," with the caveat the vanilla castles (as per the example) are NOT reasonable (in my opinion, of course ).

"No - It can be bigger inside, but should at least look reasonable"

Went with this. Barring some kind of dimensional pocket or deliberate Tardis-effect, as long as you're not walking into the Grand Cathedral from an exterior the size of a tent, you're good

Voted No, it doesn't matter at all.

I'm not a big realism junkie. I figure everything in an rpg is just there for reference: 30 NPCs represent a thriving city, gold is weightless, castles are huge on the inside and just look good on the outside...

Now it would be silly to have a castle interior with a shack exterior...

gothemasticator

Given that almost all the buildings in the game are bigger inside than out, it is only "lore correct" to have them at least slightly bigger on the inside.

The size in and out should be somewhere the same, as long as the position of windows match with the outside then I am Happy. I don't like seeing windows that don't match.

Try lining them up in Blender one day. Most of the normal houses in Oblivion are exactly as big inside as outside (meaning, their outside walls have zero thickness); this goes for some castle interiors/exteriors as well, for example the towers.

I voted that the inside can be bigger, but it should look reasonable. along with most others here.

Floor areas have been discussed, but my biggest gripe hasn't neen mentioned and that is height/number of storeys of the building. I don't like seeing a towering castle on the outside, but on the inside the extra floors don't exist. This bugs me with the Unique Castles in Better Cities. I feel that Bethesda did quite a good job here, by and large, if a house has three levels on the insude, it will have three levels (above ground) on the outside. I really don't want to see architecture that serves no purpose other than to look nice, everything should have an interior.