[WIP] New Mesh Replacer

Post » Sat Aug 23, 2014 4:02 am

I've been slowing replacing items that make me unhappy from MGSO. This is mostly due to horrendous UV mapping. It was easier making my own meshes from scratch, so here we are. I'm going to eventually release these as a brand new mesh replacer.

http://imgur.com/a/Vctff#2

Things I've done so far:

- Started replacing candles that had like a billion unnecessary polygons with lower poly versions (that look exactly the same or better).

- Added a texture for the wooden trim on the ceramic and brass candlesticks (because it was never upgraded).

- Started re-doing almost all the redware (see image album for why).

- Completely redid the redware lamp (even though it doesn't appear in the game. I needed a good version of the mesh for another project).

- Redid the buglamp so it's back to the vanilla look, but better. Made a new texture for it as well as mesh improvements.

- Redid the peach glass pots so they're back to vanilla standard -- as in actually peach and actually glass. Made a new texture for them as well as mesh improvements. This texture will replace the MGSO one (I hate that bubbly red ceramic).

- Redid the mottled pot because the UV map is totally broken on the MGSO version.

- Redid the bug bowl because the MGSO mesh is totally wonky.

- Redid dwemer barrels with less polygons than the MGSO version and better texture mapping.

- Not shown are lower poly (and yet smoother) half-barrels and a smoother Bloodmoon forge (done because I needed them for my blacksmithing resource).

Almost all my meshes have 1/2-1/3 less polygons than the MGSO versions, and yet look the same or better (due to better UV mapping). When you have that many extraneous polygons on a tiny misc object, they add up. Do we really want all our computer crunch power dedicated to rendering cups and plates and bowls? No, but we still want them to look good. That's why I'm doing this.

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SUck MYdIck
 
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Post » Fri Aug 22, 2014 11:55 pm

Very good. Thank you and keep comming.

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Marcus Jordan
 
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Post » Sat Aug 23, 2014 4:45 am

Looks great. I know there are may meshes that could greatly benefit with the optimization you provide.

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le GraiN
 
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Post » Fri Aug 22, 2014 3:05 pm

:goodjob:

Definitely something I'd like to see done. Great work so far, Stuporstar!

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Jack Moves
 
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Post » Fri Aug 22, 2014 5:33 pm

With MGSO, KP put in the best mods he could find and get permission for. I'm sure when he comes back, he'll more than likely want to add your stuff, SS, they look that great. :goodjob:

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Frank Firefly
 
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Post » Fri Aug 22, 2014 4:55 pm

Wow incredible stuff! thank you. :tes:

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Lisa
 
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Post » Fri Aug 22, 2014 8:05 pm

Thanks everyone. I just finished doing all the round cushions. I reduced the poly count from something over 2000 to 1088 and they look exactly the same as the MGSO ones. I'd love to see all this stuff make it into MGSO. It needs an update (especially since you fixed your dunmer lanterns, Melchior Dahrk).

I also found other oddities while looking at some MGSO meshes, like meshes with their objects accidentally duplicated (so it has twice the poly count for no effect whatsoever). I'll be fixing those as well, even if I don't make new meshes for them.

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Genocidal Cry
 
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Post » Sat Aug 23, 2014 2:39 am

Great work! Your elegant simplifying of the meshes combined with your excellent UV mapping make these must-haves whenever you release them. Which software do you use? I'm a long time Blender user and I'd like to create some original meshes. I'm just put off by the workarounds that seem to be necessary to make my files acceptable to TESC.

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Bellismydesi
 
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Post » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:06 pm

I'm using Blender as well (even though I hate its interface with a the burning passion of a thousand suns), and exporting nifs for Morrowind is the worst, even with the Blender nifscripts installed. The nifscripts make exporting less painful though, that's for sure. They don't work past Blender 2.49b though, so I'm using that version.

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Jessica White
 
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Post » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:19 pm

You're on fire Stuporstar

Do you think you could have a look at matching Nioliv's clothing meshes to Robert's bodies? Even if you just did one and let me know what to do I'd be happy to then fix the rest

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Paul Rice
 
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Post » Fri Aug 22, 2014 11:46 pm

This looks absolutely awesome! Great job! :thumbsup:

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Assumptah George
 
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Post » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:00 pm

Awesome stuff! Keep it up :D

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Daniel Holgate
 
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Post » Sat Aug 23, 2014 4:12 am

I'll give it a try sometime in the near future. I haven't done much with clothing yet, since importing/exporting body parts is such a pain, but I plan on figuring it out. Once I do, I'll let you know how. :smile:

Also, I redid the wood bowls. The only one that didn't need fixing was misc_com_wood_bowl_05. That one's pretty nice already. I'm debating fixing the cups. The poor ones are super chunky, but I think that's ok. The cherry wood ones look great, but I know I could cut the polys by 1/3 on those and have them look the same.

Edit: Actually the inside-bottom of the cherry wood cups look terrible. I will be redoing those.

As for the poor wood ones, I'm thinking about how they were made. I mean, are they supposed to look like they were hacked into shape with a knife? The poor bowls look turned on a lathe. Why not the cups? Hmm...

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Averielle Garcia
 
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Post » Fri Aug 22, 2014 11:21 pm

This is really very good stuff! I agree that there are a lot of mesh improvements out there which only use a subsurf modifier to smoothen the vanilla meshes and do nothing about the horrible uv mapping, but rather make it even worse. Not to speak about hundreds, if not thousands of unnecessary polygons. I hope you are familiar with my http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1496399-wipzrelz-improved-meshes-weapons-armor-parts/, where I pursue the same goal as you do. I'm glad to see that you are doing the misc objects. I have one request, however, if you are not already doing that: Please pay attention to which vanilla meshes you remake have collision, and if they don't have their own collision nodes but use the actual mesh for collision, could you take the vanilla meshes and use them as collision nodes? For example on the round cushions you have mentioned.

Thanks and keep up the good work! Just leave weapons and armor parts to me, if you don't mind! :wink:

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Juliet
 
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Post » Fri Aug 22, 2014 8:08 pm

Thanks! Don't worry, I have no plans on doing weapons and armor, since I figured that end was already well taken care of. Misc items tend to go neglected for long periods of time, so I'm focusing on that.

I've had no problem adding collision to meshes without collision nodes. I'd like to know how not to (in case I ever need no collision objects), but stuff like the cushions have it.

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Ilona Neumann
 
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Post » Fri Aug 22, 2014 10:05 pm

The nifTools devs mentioned on SourceForge that they're working on a nifscripts version for 2.7. That would be nice because I spent considerable time unlearning 2.49b while learning the new interface. This weekend I'll try renaming a .nif and importing it into 2.49b and then exporting it as a .3ds which I'll open and modify slightly in 2.7. If I can reverse the steps and get the resulting.nif to work in-game then meshes and UV mapping/texturing will be easier for me.

Side note: I tried every possible avenue to acquire a copy of the Gamebryo version used to create Morrowind with no success.

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Janette Segura
 
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Post » Fri Aug 22, 2014 5:08 pm

This is a really cool project! I had actually started making new meshes to replace some of the candles the meshes from the replacers I have didn't cover, I only replaced the triple candles so far, but I was intending on replacing all of them. Haven't gotten around to that yet.

I look forward to what comes out of this. :)

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Alexis Acevedo
 
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Post » Fri Aug 22, 2014 5:38 pm

I'd love to see those candles. No sense duplicating good work others have done. :)

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Francesca
 
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