[WIP] Necessities of Morrowind 3.0 - Thread 2 : III - Morrowind

» Mon May 31, 2010 4:47 am

I like the idea of bad wells. It's very realistic and the model looks great! One thing though, just because a well's structure is damaged doesn't mean it wouldn't have water or that the water would be bad. I suggest keeping the water in *some* ruined wells and also making *some* regular wells dry or contaminated. This would certainly keep the player guessing. Here are a few suggestions:

1) Label it 'contaminated well' and prevent the player from drinking or filling containers.
2) Don't label it and put up a message box telling the PC the water is contaminated and prevent the player from drinking or filling containers.
3) With or without a label, put up a message box telling the PC the well is contaminated and allow them to drink, but not fill containers.
4) With or without a label, put up a message box telling the PC the well is contaminated and allow them to drink, and/or fill containers, but make the containers permanently contaminated and create ill effects from drinking the water.

Examples would be:

Well Label: "Contaminated Well"
Message boxes:
"The water in the well looks and smells foul. You cannot drink from it or fill containers."
"The water in the well looks and smells foul. You cannot fill containers. Drink Anyway?" Yes/No (Yes causes some level of poison.)
"The water in the well looks and smells foul. If you fill containers with it, they will be spoiled. Fill Anyway?" Yes/No (bottle/jug/skin becomes tainted somehow. Not sure how this would work; probably best not to let them fill containers) "Drink Anyway?" Yes/No (result same as above)

This way, if the player is about to die of thirst, they can still choose to drink the contaminated well water, which will restore their health first, but then poison them. Or it will only partially restore their health.

» Sun May 30, 2010 5:56 pm

I like the idea of bad wells. It's very realistic and the model looks great! One thing though, just because a well's structure is damaged doesn't mean it wouldn't have water or that the water would be bad. I suggest keeping the water in *some* ruined wells and also making *some* regular wells dry or contaminated. This would certainly keep the player guessing. Here are a few suggestions:

1) Label it 'contaminated well' and prevent the player from drinking or filling containers.
2) Don't label it and put up a message box telling the PC the water is contaminated and prevent the player from drinking or filling containers.
3) With or without a label, put up a message box telling the PC the well is contaminated and allow them to drink, but not fill containers.
4) With or without a label, put up a message box telling the PC the well is contaminated and allow them to drink, and/or fill containers, but make the containers permanently contaminated and create ill effects from drinking the water.

Examples would be:

Well Label: "Contaminated Well"
Message boxes:
"The water in the well looks and smells foul. You cannot drink from it or fill containers."
"The water in the well looks and smells foul. You cannot fill containers. Drink Anyway?" Yes/No (Yes causes some level of poison.)
"The water in the well looks and smells foul. If you fill containers with it, they will be spoiled. Fill Anyway?" Yes/No (bottle/jug/skin becomes tainted somehow. Not sure how this would work; probably best not to let them fill containers) "Drink Anyway?" Yes/No (result same as above)

This way, if the player is about to die of thirst, they can still choose to drink the contaminated well water, which will restore their health first, but then poison them. Or it will only partially restore their health.

Yes, poisoned water sources could be a funny thing (well, that depends on how much health you have when you drink from them). The problem, as you point out, would be with bottles and waterskins. I would have to create a second toxic version of them all. I'll think on that!

However I didn't explained well what I was asking. The two wells I posted above have both water. In the first one the water level is above ground, so that the player can see it. In the second one I removed the water and left the dark painted bottom, to create the effect of a real well, a hole where the water lies several meters under the ground level. Clearly it's only an illusion, because in Morrowind you cannot "dig" holes in the ground. Now, while the second one is a more "realistic" well, I'm curious about which version looks better to you all.

» Sun May 30, 2010 10:48 pm

Yes, poisoned water sources could be a funny thing (well, that depends on how much health you have when you drink from them). The problem, as you point out, would be with bottles and waterskins. I would have to create a second toxic version of them all. I'll think on that!

However I didn't explained well what I was asking. The two wells I posted above have both water. In the first one the water level is above ground, so that the player can see it. In the second one I removed the water and left the dark painted bottom, to create the effect of a real well, a hole where the water lies several meters under the ground level. Clearly it's only an illusion, because in Morrowind you cannot "dig" holes in the ground. Now, while the second one is a more "realistic" well, I'm curious about which version looks better to you all.

I prefer the one with water personally, use scripting to handle toxicity. I prefer it because it looks more "realistic" than a vertex colored "hole" (not that yours isn't nice, it's just too hard to not notice what it is) However, it is possible, with a bit of work, to make a well with a real hole. If you set your radius to 1 or 2, and drag the landscape down, you can create an inverted spike, in which to put your mesh. You will need to recreate the ground around the hole, of course, but it might be better than simply vertex coloring. In that case, I'd go for a mix of the two styles. I still like the idea of poisoned or contaminated wells - particularly in the hinterlands!

BTW, the mesh for the source in Tel Fyr is awesome. I want that mesh *BADLY* for my mod!

» Sun May 30, 2010 7:57 pm

Ah, I see. Funny that. I'm not an artist so I don't see what Morovir does. I like the one without water better simply for the realism. In deep wells of that style, you aren't supposed to see the water. I suppose having an actual hole would be better, but from the different graphics cards I've played Morrowind with, places without light go an unnatural black as soon as the light drops off; it just doesn't fade as realistically as your 'fake' hole does. That's my two cents anyway.

» Mon May 31, 2010 3:38 am

Show the water.

» Sun May 30, 2010 10:23 pm

The problem with the well source is: it looks better with water, but it looks more realistic without. Maybe I have an halfway solution, based on Morovir's idea of the hole in the ground. The ruined wells are placed near the dwemer fortresses and the fortresses are built on elevated platforms, so I could dig a hole in the platform and place a real deep well on top of that. Then if it looks weird, as Elaura suggests, I'll return to the fake hole solution.

I put the idea of spoiled water sources in standby, for when I'll have more time to think on it.

BTW, the mesh for the source in Tel Fyr is awesome. I want that mesh *BADLY* for my mod!

Thanks! All the water sources will be in the updated resource pack, so everyone will be able to use them for their mods.

» Sun May 30, 2010 10:26 pm

Ok, since it was requested a little modernisation of the fruits meshes (apple, pear, orange, lemon, tomato, onion), I worked on them and here are the results.
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Apples.jpg?t=1275327445
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Oranges.jpg?t=1275327465
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Pears.jpg?t=1275327465
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Mix1.jpg?t=1275327450
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Mix2.jpg?t=1275327455
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Mix3.jpg?t=1275327454
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Mix4.jpg?t=1275327464

:D

» Sun May 30, 2010 9:01 pm

Those are lookin pretty good

» Sun May 30, 2010 7:41 pm

Uhm, I think they look good but it's actually getting really hard to 'see' things with all the MGE shaders modders are using lately. Since everyone's settings will be different it's getting really hard to have an idea of what things will look like in my game versus yours. Can we see some shots without the shaders? That way players can get an idea of what the 'actual' mesh looks like in a vanilla game and can potentially visualize the addition to their own game and shaders more readily.

» Mon May 31, 2010 4:22 am

Uhm, I think they look good but it's actually getting really hard to 'see' things with all the MGE shaders modders are using lately. Since everyone's settings will be different it's getting really hard to have an idea of what things will look like in my game versus yours. Can we see some shots without the shaders? That way players can get an idea of what the 'actual' mesh looks like in a vanilla game and can potentially visualize the addition to their own game and shaders more readily.

Hehe, you're right, I tend to make an excessive use of those shaders in screenies.

Here are some screenshots without shaders enabled:
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Mix1NS.jpg?t=1275345444
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Mix3NS.jpg?t=1275345440
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Mix2NS.jpg?t=1275345440
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Mix4NS.jpg?t=1275345437

» Mon May 31, 2010 7:57 am

Now that's some lovely fruit! Thanks!

» Sun May 30, 2010 11:37 pm

Ok, and now for something new. I spent the last two days (well, not the entire day, only the modding time

) trying to make new bottles. As you know, NoM has bottles of wine, beer, water, fruit juices and empty ones; moreover, water bottles can be completely or only partially full. That means that there are more bottles in NoM than bottle models in the vanilla game. Not being able to 3d model when I first built NoM, I had to use the original models and ended up giving the same mesh to different objects. But now I can assign its own art to each different bottle in the game.
Till now I built the updates for the vanilla bottles and jugs.
I've gamma corrected the images below because as always Morrowind screenshots are incredibly dark...

http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle01.jpg?t=1275562872
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle02.jpg?t=1275562864
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle03.jpg?t=1275562861
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle04.jpg?t=1275562861
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle05.jpg?t=1275562861
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle06.jpg?t=1275562857
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle10.jpg?t=1275562850
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle07.jpg?t=1275562853
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle08.jpg?t=1275562853

I've still to build the models for other 4 beverages: Cyrodiilic wine, Moon's Tear, Lucky Star and Dwemer Beer.
For the Moon's Tear wine I'm planning to make a drop-like bottle, to recall the tear in the name.
For the Dwemer Beer I think an octagonal bottle would be good.
The Lucky Star beer could have a bottle with some sort of leather coverings, who knows...

I'm also planning to use different glass textures if I can find something good.

Suggestions/feedback?

:foodndrink:

EDIT: The icons you see in the screenshots are still the old ones.

» Sun May 30, 2010 9:39 pm

I'm running out of words! I've already used incredible, wonderful, amazing, awesome, terrific, and others I can't even remember. NoM was one of my favorite mods to start with and now it's ten times better. I'm speechless!

Great work _Taddeus_ !

» Sun May 30, 2010 7:16 pm

Your new model work is amazing, but the pink-background inventory icons really stick out. I hope that you're planning to change those too.

» Sun May 30, 2010 6:00 pm

Your new model work is amazing, but the pink-background inventory icons really stick out. I hope that you're planning to change those too.

Yes, I'll do the icons as I finish with the bottles.

» Mon May 31, 2010 3:48 am

Looking pretty slick - too bad we can't have the liquids refract the objects behind them through the transparency (yea, a little much, I know), but still very nice work. My anticipation for this release grows every time you toss a new detail out on it.

» Sun May 30, 2010 4:52 pm

Looks nice - as long as they're not replacing the vanilla objects as well. I've already got several replacers for those and I'd like to keep them.

» Mon May 31, 2010 4:23 am

Looks nice - as long as they're not replacing the vanilla objects as well. I've already got several replacers for those and I'd like to keep them.

They will replace the original objects when you install NoM, but you can simply overwrite them with whatever replacer you like more, since I kept the original file names for the meshes. However, some of the NoM bottles will pop out anyway here and there because Morrowind has only 15 different bottles and NoM has something like 30 of them.

» Mon May 31, 2010 6:40 am

Yeah, I'm ok with the NoM specific bottles changing. It's the rest I'd like to keep the same.

» Sun May 30, 2010 4:52 pm

Tweaking the water sources, I removed the water from one of the ruined wells I built.
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/rUINEDwELL03.jpg?t=1275059015
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/RuinedWellnowater.jpg?t=1275058997

Which one do you like more?

Me, personally, I like the one with the water.

Ok, and now for something new. I spent the last two days (well, not the entire day, only the modding time

) trying to make new bottles. As you know, NoM has bottles of wine, beer, water, fruit juices and empty ones; moreover, water bottles can be completely or only partially full. That means that there are more bottles in NoM than bottle models in the vanilla game. Not being able to 3d model when I first built NoM, I had to use the original models and ended up giving the same mesh to different objects. But now I can assign its own art to each different bottle in the game.
Till now I built the updates for the vanilla bottles and jugs.
I've gamma corrected the images below because as always Morrowind screenshots are incredibly dark...

http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle01.jpg?t=1275562872
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle02.jpg?t=1275562864
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle03.jpg?t=1275562861
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle04.jpg?t=1275562861
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle05.jpg?t=1275562861
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle06.jpg?t=1275562857
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle10.jpg?t=1275562850
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle07.jpg?t=1275562853
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle08.jpg?t=1275562853

I've still to build the models for other 4 beverages: Cyrodiilic wine, Moon's Tear, Lucky Star and Dwemer Beer.
For the Moon's Tear wine I'm planning to make a drop-like bottle, to recall the tear in the name.
For the Dwemer Beer I think an octagonal bottle would be good.
The Lucky Star beer could have a bottle with some sort of leather coverings, who knows...

I'm also planning to use different glass textures if I can find something good.

Suggestions/feedback?

:foodndrink:

EDIT: The icons you see in the screenshots are still the old ones.

Honestly, I'd like to see a little less texture in the glass; I kind of like my glass smooth and shiny. :shrug:

» Sun May 30, 2010 9:56 pm

Just to be clear, the new bottles will replace every bottle from the vanilla game.
As you know, NoM replaces the original, purely scenographic, Morrowind bottles with something with a real use: bottles of wine, beer and empty bottles that you can fill with water. The problem is that, counting the half full bottles/jugs and everything else, NoM has more than 30 different bottles, while Morrowind only supplies 15 of them. So in version 2 I had to use the same model for different objects: for example, a jug with 1/4, 2/4, 3/4 or 4/4 water looks exactly the same. Also, some empty bottle models are used for wines and beers. This was acceptable back in the days when the old version came out, since the bottles were opaque and one could imagine that they contained something; but if you use a replacer that applies transparency to the bottles, you'll face empty bottles used as model for wine and beer, which isn't the best.
That's why I chose to make completely new models: this way I can update the graphics, assign to each object its exclusive model, give an unique look to the most rare wines and beers, use full models for full bottles and finally allow the player to enter a tavern, look at a table or a shelf on the opposite side of the room and think "hey, they have dwemer beer here!" rather than "hey, they have bottles here!".
But, since I understand that someone can have different tastes, you'll be able to apply any bottle model replacer simply installing (or reinstalling) it after NoM.

As for the textures, it's not easy to find a texture that looks good on transparent objects. I found this one and I'm using it for everything, since I'm now concentrating on 3d models more than textures. However I'll try to find more acceptable textures to give to the different models a different look, some smoother and others more elaborated.

I've some more bottles nearly completed and I'll post their screenshots later.

Bye

» Sun May 30, 2010 10:25 pm

Great models, Taddeus!
But there's one thing I keep thinking about. A lot of plugins in my list were NoM'ified with Wrye Mash reference replacement function using 'older' NoM2.0 refs.
Here's the list:

Spoiler

# [Filetype: Wrye Mash Replacer]
@ srcmod
NOM MiniRes.esp

@ replace
# Statics
ex_nord_well_01: NOM_well_nord_01
furn_com_cauldron_01: NOM_cauldron_01
furn_com_cauldron_02: NOM_cauldron_02
furn_com_kegstand: NOM_kegstand_beer, NOM_kegstand_wine, NOM_kegstand_emp
furn_de_kegstand: NOM_kegstand_beer_de, NOM_kegstand_wine_de, NOM_kegstand_emp_de
furn_de_minercave_grill_01: NOM_grill_02
furn_dwrv_stove00: NOM_oven_dwrn
furn_redoran_hearth_01: NOM_oven_01
furn_redoran_hearth_02: NOM_oven_02
furn_well00: NOM_well_common_01
# Misc
misc_com_bottle_01: NOM_wine_09
misc_com_bottle_05: NOM_wine_08
misc_com_bottle_06: NOM_wine_02
misc_com_bottle_07: NOM_wine_03
misc_com_bottle_10: NOM_wine_04
misc_com_bottle_11: NOM_beer_02
misc_com_bottle_12: NOM_beer_03
misc_com_bottle_13: NOM_beer_09
misc_com_bottle_14: NOM_beer_08
misc_com_bottle_15: NOM_beer_04

While all the new NoM3.0 objects/references is a good thing by itself, the other aspect of this diversity is that my game could get messed up seriously with version upgrade. What do you think?

» Sun May 30, 2010 7:53 pm

While all the new NoM3.0 objects/references is a good thing by itself, the other aspect of this diversity is that my game could get messed up seriously with version upgrade. What do you think?

There should be no problems because I'm leaving the original IDs. The wines, for example, are still NOM_wine_09, NOM_wine_08, NOM_wine_02, NOM_wine_03 and NOM_wine_04. So your replaced items should simply update themselves with the new models and icons.

I promised screenshots of the other bottles and here they are (gamma corrected as always):
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle12.jpg?t=1275684080 - a cog-like bottle encased in metal.
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle11.jpg?t=1275684082 - a bottle with a leather strip bearing the Akatosh emblem.
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle18.jpg?t=1275684071 - a drop-like elven bottle.
http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle21.jpg?t=1275684075 - a glass bottle with a star shape if you look it from above, as you can see http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle23.jpg?t=1275684064.
And some group shots for the new bottles taken from various taverns and shops: http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle22.jpg?t=1275684065 - http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle19.jpg?t=1275684072 - http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle17.jpg?t=1275684078 - http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/NOM/Bottle13.jpg?t=1275684078.

These are not the final versions, but the models are done. I've just to tweak a bit the textures, adding a bit of variety to the glass and replacing the metal on the dwarven beer with something more fitting.
When the bottles will have a final look I'll make the icons.

» Mon May 31, 2010 12:15 am

They look great, _Taddeus_! For some reason I'm thinking the Moon's Tear should be in a blue bottle, but that's just me. I especially like the Dwemer Beer and the other shapes achieve what you intended. I would certainly know what is in those bottles just by looking at them.

» Sun May 30, 2010 8:21 pm

Just to be clear, the new bottles will replace every bottle from the vanilla game.

Bottles? Just bottles? I can live with new NoM specific bottles. What I'm worried about is not NoM specific items, like the original liquors (matze, sujamma, cyrolic brandy etc) as I've already replaced most of those and those bottles have never to my knowledge shown various levels of fullness in NoM - and I think you mentioned glasses too. Those are things that aren't NoM specific and I'd rather have them in a separate replacer for two reasons, so that they get proper attention from those looking for misc item replacers and so that they're easier to pick and choose from for install.