[RELz] [WIPz] Mesogea: Fantasy Ancient Earth Total Conversio : IV - Oblivion

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:24 am

Are you familiar with the ALS design as it has been? Or load screen formats? You're working with a 1024*512 texture with a picture placed centre. The game automatically resizes the 512 vertical dimension to match your resolution and crops anything on the sides of the texture. You don't really notice it on the vanilla load screens because they're so... uhh... uninteresting at the edges. (Or all over IMO). If you start doing "interesting things" further out towards the edge of your 1024 horizontal space then you're going to lose that on a non-widescreen resolution. The new loading screen design does exactly that: increase the quantity of screen dedicated to the picture and reduce the amount of screen devoted to boring background, however on non-widescreen resolutions you're clipping off the sides of the central picture and also the sides of the text that accompanies the loading screen.Fabulous, then. That's the least amount of work for me all around.

Vac

Yep, I've seen the format and I'm sure I've used it, though I haven't really played the game a whole lot lately. I went through so many different Load screen replacers while researching different formats and what I liked best, I couldn't recall what ALS used offhand.

Huh. I didn't realize that normal resolution would clip some of the central picture as well as the border. I wouldn't have noticed since my monitor is widescreen and I never have a reason to use 'standard' resolution.

Well, widescreen it is, then! Can't wait to see 'em.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:29 am

I think you should still do a normal sized version, because if they are required to run Mesogea, someone won't like them...

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:59 pm

I think you should still do a normal sized version, because if they are required to run Mesogea, someone won't like them...

I was assuming they'd be an optional addon for Mesogea rather than an integral part. That's thekarithian's call to make though: I simply offered to make some loading screens. No one's ever said you couldn't make loading screens yourself too.

Vac

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:36 am

I think they would be better as optionals via a plugin? is that the way we would make it?

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:25 am

I think they would be better as optionals via a plugin? is that the way we would make it?

That sounds good, that way people could use whatever Load Replacer they wanted. Or none. Also, it would give people a choice whether they have Widescreen or Normal screen format.

I'll eventually do a replacer that replaces the Load screen text with quotes from Mesogea. It's a pretty easy thing to do, just a little time consuming, and I want to match it up as well as possible with Vacuity's Load Screens. If I ever finish doing my load screens, I'll just make them optional, as well.

btw - is Vacuity doing additional screens, or is he replacing the original Oblivion screens? (I'm talking about the ones like "load_cave" "load_forest", etc. in "\Data\Textures\Menus\loading")

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:29 am

Additional, of course. Why deliberately build in incompatibilities?

Vac

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:11 am

Additional, of course. Why deliberately build in incompatibilities?

Vac

Well, to get rid of the original OB screens, of course. I'm not sure how that causes incompatibilities, except that any other mod that overwrites those screens would either over-write or be overwritten by any other. But if you want to change the original vanilla screens, you have to either overwrite those files or provide an esp that changes all the Loading Screen file pathing, right?

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:57 am

provide an esp

Making an esp was part of the work I said I'd do for thekarithian.

I'm not sure how that causes incompatibilities, except that any other mod that overwrites those screens

There are plenty of loading screen mods out there. As I said, I don't see any reason to make this incompatible with any of the larger ones like ALS or trollf's mod that modify the original loading screen entries.

Anyway, it's thekarithian's call if he wants the original screens replaced. If he wants that then that's what I'll provide.

Vac

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:49 pm

if it is possible to gear it to replace the originals that would be nicer, to have people load up to play Mesogea and have the theme of mesogea from load through to play, to keep one theme. However would this create problems? For instance would there need to be an overwrite of files and folders in order to do this?

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 5:12 am

would there need to be an overwrite of files and folders in order to do this?

Heavens, no: the graphics would be redirected at the esp level (assuming you still want the esp you asked for?).

Vac

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:28 am

Yes definitely an esp will be great and as the graphics are redirected then it all sounds like a go to me.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:22 pm

Over at the mesogea forum we are also looking for music to put into Mesogea, so if anyone has any ideas of where to get music from with full permissions, or has some skill in music and can join the team to produce theme music and soundtrack for the mod then that would be excellent.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:38 pm

Bump

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:38 pm

I was having issues getting on this site earlier, now it is still messed up, but I can actually use a non-cached version. I cannot however get on the mesogea site at the moment... I've been having these issues with a multitude of sites over the past few days, so I think it might be my fault, but if it is not, what is going on.

Edit- Perhaps it is an issue with Google Chrome... I hope not because IE is worse than crap, and firefox is really crappy...

Edit-Edit- Lol, edit-edit... It was indeed an issue with Google Chrome, not the website, changed my DNS server to update automatically and now I can get to the sites again.

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:28 pm

I was having issues getting on this site earlier, now it is still messed up, but I can actually use a non-cached version. I cannot however get on the mesogea site at the moment... I've been having these issues with a multitude of sites over the past few days, so I think it might be my fault, but if it is not, what is going on.

Edit- Perhaps it is an issue with Google Chrome... I hope not because IE is worse than crap, and firefox is really crappy...

Edit-Edit- Lol, edit-edit... It was indeed an issue with Google Chrome, not the website, changed my DNS server to update automatically and now I can get to the sites again.

Nope, no problem with Mesogea site or here for me. I use Chrome as well, never noticed that problem. Sometimes I have to use IE to view something and I am immediately sorry, or rather after a few minutes of waiting for a page to load, I am sorry.

I.E. and most of Microsoft's products are pretty much crappy bloatware now.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:51 am

I.E. and most of Microsoft's products are pretty much crappy bloatware now.

Agreed, well Xbox 360 was all right, it was at least better than the PS3, and the Wii doesn't count, it is categorized under feces, vomit, and manure rather than videogame console.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:50 am

Im still working on Port Deboran and have widened the work to include a couple of other lesser settlements and villas nearby. It might be a while before any updates are posted or added by me owing to work etc, but Im still giving this every effort and the work will just keep going on.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 9:09 am

So... kinda dead here and on the site...

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 11:32 pm

No, not dead just busy. I still work on Mesogea on and off and as Ive said many times, I will always work on it. I was hoping others wouldnt need my constant presence to take the mod and just keep adding and making stuff for it. Mesogea always needs people to work on it, and the downloads are always available. I will release an update asap.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:43 pm

Over at the mesogea forum we are also looking for music to put into Mesogea, so if anyone has any ideas of where to get music from with full permissions, or has some skill in music and can join the team to produce theme music and soundtrack for the mod then that would be excellent.

Hi Karithian,

afaik demos are free to use, and Two Steps From Hell [they do soundtracks for movies, and imo they are at the level of Vangelis and Zimmer]
have some great ones on YouTube.. You can check http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c69mFvNWBCY and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c69mFvNWBCYfor examples.

Hope this helps, all the best for your beautiful project

!

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 7:26 am

Excellent, I will take a look. Just added a new farm with a small quest. Next week I will plunge into completing Deboran, a port with up to a hundred NPC's

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 11:23 am

Quick bump, just to let you all know I am still here, still working on Mesogea. Could do with some help though.

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:00 pm

Talking of help: sorry it's a little late. I've been busy. But I've just finished making the loading screens from the screenshots you sent me last summer. Now, remind me, was I sending the screens directly to you for you to put them in Mesogea directly, or did you want me to put them in an esp for you?

At the end I had a total of 53 loading screens, by the way; not a huge amount, but not a tiny amount either.

Vac

Edit: I may as well supply http://www.4shared.com/file/1sa45Soh/the_Karithians_Loading_Screens.html. Each screen comes in: dds format compressed correctly for loading screens; png format for display purposes, e.g. an online gallery; and psd format as an uncompressed original to derive any further needed compressed copies from for any purpose.

» Tue Mar 29, 2011 9:59 pm

Thanks, thats excellent. Had a few hours at Mesogea yesterday and added a small farm settlement and basic quest.

» Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:25 am

Happy to help you in return for your screen contributions to ALS. Thanks for those!

Best of luck with it!

Vac