Wait, this is without detailing?

Can't wait to see the finished piece, great job on those slums. :goodjob:

Where will the mod be located? Been a while since I've looked, and you've probably already stated, I'm an idiot. I hope your mod doesn't get forgotten due to being in the way of the already big mods like Silgrad tower and TR... There's a huge space up north that's rarely used.

Rough completed percentage, maybe?

Sorry I never replied to this.

The final location is not set simply because currently the landmass is far enough away from 0,0 to have the graphics issue. So I may end up moving it if no marked improvements are made to the Morrowind engine before release (which honestly given my time schedule is possible!)

Don't worry, there will not be any conflicts like that! I've worked it around TR's mainland (I have the .esps lol)

Percentage? Well, I'll try and give a rough LANDSCAPING percentage. Maybe 15% ??? I don't know there are still several areas I still haven't even begun work on. Maybe later I will try and give a rough update schedule

UPDATE!!!!!!!


OK, I have two updates. First is a new creature I have made (thanks Antares )

If you have read any of my literature on the mod, I have mentioned the Illuvitar, which are a mostly evil daedric race created by Azura inhabiting the subterranean cavern complexes below the Isle of Dawn. The Refulgent Erudites use the armor like scales from the Illuvitars to fashion their armor (check the mod logo screenshot in the first post for an example).

I was having trouble coming up with a concept, but when Antares released his Cecelia mod, I thought: THAT'S IT. Anyway, I'll stop jabbering and show a picture...

http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/9356/illuvitar01.jpg http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/7283/illuvitar02.jpg

--------------------------

That was the first update, the second is completely different.

I plan on including an optional .esp with the final release which will add MGE style grass accross the isles. I have made my first version of it and thought I'd show the results here. They are beautiful if I do say so myself. Credits to Vurt for his gorgeous textures (including some on the trees...)

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/5897/screenshot32d.png http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/5600/screenshot30a.png http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/1769/screenshot33d.png http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/4058/screenshot34s.png http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/1957/screenshot35g.png http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/5999/screenshot36gp.png http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/4155/screenshot37h.png http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/7962/screenshot38.png http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/7098/screenshot40.png http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/7748/screenshot41.png http://img34.imageshack.us/img34/6417/screenshot42v.png http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/1784/screenshot43.png http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/5741/screenshot45u.png

Hope you all like it, I love the way it turned out.

----------------------------------------

As always comments are much appreciated and welcome!

I don't have internet access so I may not reply for a few days

-Melchior Dahrk

Always a pleasure! That Daedric menace is looking quite super Awesome!

The grass is always a welcomed addition to(almost) any landscape. Keep it up mate! Someday soon i'll have to catch up on your lore for this.

Very nice work! I love how it fits so well with the original style of the game, while still remaining original and imaginative.

Wow, this looks really intriguing. I'll follow your progression closely .

Looking awesome

its fantastic to see an update here!! :wub:

Looking very nice.

Thanks everyone

I've still been slowly accumulating more resources to try and make certain things set apart from the rest of the game. And work is advancing, at a decent pace.

Hopefully more updates will follow again soon!

I love poping into this thread to see what updates have been done and i have to say i am never let down! Impressive work Melchior, keep it up! I will be watching from the sidelines.

Just got around to taking a peak at this thread, and though I have yet to fully read up on everything, this looks really awesome and I hope work on it is going well for you. I was unaware you had returned, but I'm happy to hear it. I rarely get excited to play a mod but well, with:

1.) Lots of land mass

2.) Good lore

3.) Attention to detail

4.) Creative placement

5.) New objects

6.) etc..

You seem to be creating a believable society apart from the main land, that is full of content. It seems as if it "lives and breathes" and may really feel like a new place. I'm anxious to start walking around the area. It just looks great, and I may even settle there for awhile if I like it enough. :laugh:

This does indeed look very promising! I will look out for new updates from now on

Thanks Midgetalien, I love to post the updates here and show how the isles are expanding


That is the whole goal, for this land to be totally believable as if its (almost) always been there. I am glad to hear that I seem to be conveying that so far!

I'm sure there will be a few options of places to settle down here (once I actually begin working on interiors )


Thanks



-Melchior Dahrk

Hey Melchior, I thought I'd drop in and explain a very odd coincidence concerning this thread. If you've noticed, I have only posted in this thread once, indeed it was the first reply to this topic. But, I have been coming into this thread to check your progress since then. However, the thing is that whenever I wanted to check up on your progress I was always on a public computer and so I wasn't logged in automatically. I've got to admit to being a very lazy guy, so needless to say I kept to myself and never logged in to congratulate you on your amazing progress and screenshots. I've got to wonder why I never see this thread in the first page when I'm logged in here at home. But today must be special because I did see it and I thought "oh, I should go tell Melchior about this weird coincidence"... And so I did.

I'm sold. This looks amazing, I'll be awaiting it eagerly.

Hehe I can relate to that. I log into public computers quite often as well and have the same problem. I don't like to log in until I have my own, lol!

I'm glad you've liked following along though. I enjoy posting updates here. Speaking of which I have one coming here fairly soon... I've begun work on Jermora, The City on a Hill in a Lake, as it were and the associated Cataracts at Jermora. I think you'll like what I've done with the place!


Good to hear!

I'm looking forward to it!

Looks really fantastic! I'm especially in love with your cephalopod, though you may want to edit the textures somewhat so it doesn't have eye sockets on all of its tentacles

One thing that stands out to me is that it seems that there seems to be a bit of an identity crisis with your flora-- some of the trees are billboarded, others are modeled after the original Bethesda trees, and some (like the palm trees) simply stand out because they're much more photorealistic than the other stuff. It may not be a problem to most people, but I go a bit insane if my game isn't consistent-- I can't go into an area and have the entire visual style be different. That's just me, though bliviongate: Really great work overall, however

I believe I've done that per other's suggestions. I just never updated the picture here. Thanks for noting that though!


Actually, I should remove the picture of the billboarded tree I was working on. I've since scrapped that idea, mainly for the reason you've brought up here: that there is too much of a visual difference in the flora. And I agree, the palm trees and some of Vurt's trees I've included are certainly quite photorealistic. So far, I haven't noticed too much of a clash when I play-test it. I do use standard textures in my game so the contrast is most likely higher than for people who use replacers. I've been looking into creating some of my own textures (since most of my meshes just use vanilla textures) or altering some of the ones I use to match the rest of the scenery people will encounter while playing this mod.
Thanks for the comment Saint Jiub, immersion is definitely important to me with this mod! And this is good feedback (short of playtesting it yourself which I am still far from that point).

-Melchior Dahrk

looking good MD! The creatures especially!

Here is that update I promised a while ago. I think it should be a pretty big one I have been working on this...

Welcome to Jermora, the Highland city sitting in a pool of springs which cascade into the Jermoran Cataracts far into the Isles of Dusk...
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot3.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot4.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot5.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot7.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot8.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot9.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot11.jpg
Recent expansion has forced Jermora to create thishttp://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot13.jpg...
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot14.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot15.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot16.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot18.jpg

The isles of dusk begin where Jermora leaves off. I am currently testing them with Mireneye's great cloud mesh and without, currently I am leaning towards without...
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot19.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot21.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot23.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot24.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot25.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot26.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot27.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot29.jpg

I updated the palace to a new style, now it reflectshttp://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot33.jpg during the Golden Era of Lyithdonea.

I've begun some more work on the Thousand Isles region, here's what I've done.
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot34.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot35.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot36.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot37.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot38.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot39.jpg

Finally, here is Drakhis, City of the Dead. Lyithdonea's version of Necrom.
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot40.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot41.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot42.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot43.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot44.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot45.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot46.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot47.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot48.jpg
http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/rr256/ericthered1090/Lyithdonea/MGEScreenshot50.jpg

That's all folks!

-Melchior Dahrk

That's all? That's ALL!

Holy bajeebers, that is some absolutely incredible work. I don't pass out praise that kind of praise freely, either, because my standards are fairly high. However, these last set of screenshots are absolutely astounding. I really feel this is what Vivec should have looked like. It truly does have a 'city of a god' (or, in this case, daedra) written all over it. At the very least, this should have been somewhere in the original game - it fits in that nicely. Probably the best use of stock meshes and textures I have ever seen.

I can only imagine what it would look like with a good texture replacer. The islands already look great with vanilla textures, and in a way, I appreciate the use of vanilla textures, because it will allow for a seamless experience if you do use them. I would be so tempted to use some modern grass textures on the landscape, though.

As for the cloud mesh, I dunno. On the one hand, it does simulate greater height by obscuring the water; but on the other hand, it leaves nasty lines on the rocks. I'm also not sure what it does for frame rate. I tried using some of Mireneyes meshes in a narrow canyon area, and my frame rate dropped to the single digits. It's nice work, but the poly count is way too high for casual use.

I personally don't use the cloud mesh, I'm still researching how to make them. But if it's the one I think it is, then I'm pretty sure it's quite poly-friendly.

As for other meshes, yes they are rather high-poly. Especially the landscape ones.
It's mostly because there are pretty few tricks that I can use to get the same sense of detail, suffice to say tho, if I took time to model the detail more individually i could cut off a few hundred to a few thousand polygons.

Mind telling me which meshes are giving you trouble? All meshes are to be considered as tests and are a subject to change so any input on that is valuable to me. PM thanks?

Grand work here! I adore the use of stock-statics that you make so good use of to make something familiar yet so unique!

I don't recall the exact mesh name, as I'm not on my dev system, but it was the canyon passage mesh.