[WIP] SWG's Skies Version 4- Brainstorming Stage

http://www.2shared.com/file/p6RJwsxL/Skies_v4_Moons.html
See http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1166146-wipz-swgs-skies-v4-brainstorming-stage/page__view__findpost__p__17182078 for feedback suggestions.
http://www.2shared.com/file/uqPjBAGM/Beta_Moons_Transparency_fix.html
http://www.2shared.com/file/3XtEdLLq/Beta_Horizon_Clouding.html


So, it's been well over a year and a half since I've contributed anything to the community, mainly because I didn't have my computer until about a month ago, and then it didn't work for most of that time. So, I'd like to formally announce my next major WIP, a whole new SWG's Skies.

What I've got in mind so far:
(italics are things I've started working on)

• Even Nicer skyboxes, with horizon support and better textures
  
• More night sky unequity:
  • friendlier with lore
    
  • Remade/Improved Moon textures with alpha shadows, this is based on TES lore.
    
  • Monthly constellations
    
  • Dual Horizoned Skies (so half of it won't be visible )
    
  • More detailed nebulae, using fractals
    
  • A better starfield, with unique star clustering/concentration
• Possibly a better INI colouring set, if there is any at all.
  
• Unique Sky colouring based on direction/time of day (done via atmospheric scattering, looks very nice)
  
• Twilight Sky/Light colouring, after sunsets there is a blue light period!!
  
• Fixed cloud movement speeds, in v3 the clouds moved faster due to the new uv map. To get this, divide every cloud speed in the INI by 5.
  
• Possibly a port to Oblivion, I've already put my sunglare and moon textures into it, and they look very nice it OB's Engine.
  
• Possibly a particle cloud system, will need to get in touch with someone like Hrnchamd for this.
  
• Lightning textures, many lightning types, such as cloud-to-cloud lightning, and lightning during blightstorms/ashstorm/blizzards, blizzard lightning will be quite rare.
  
• Even more weather effects, like Aurora Borealis/Australis, Rainbows, Circumhorizontal/zenithal arcs, sun dogs, light pillars, and more.

Screenshots:
http://oi51.tinypic.com/hs80lu.jpg
http://i51.tinypic.com/15fgiz7.jpg

So that's it, and please, feel free to THROW ME AS MANY IDEAS AS YOU CAN!!! I really appreciate feedback, and I seem to get too much of it only after I've released my stuff.

you seen my weather-editing mod?

might wanna check it out for ideas.
(just suggesting)

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=8982

Cool, I hadn't seen it before. Unfortunately it wouldn't be something I'd include in the next Skies mod, as it's limited to edits I can do via meshes/textures/and INI.

Oh, I forgot something on the list, a possible Oblivion port.

Would twinkling stars be possible? That could be really nice.

Hmm, I've thought about it before, maybe if someone made a twinkling shader and I hooked it to the night sky texture via MGE, but you'd have to ask someone else about that, I don't know how to make shaders at all.

EDIT: Does anyone have or know of where I can get a perfectly uv-mapped UV Sphere? You know, the type that planet textures are mapped onto? Blender is awesome, but unfortunately it fails at mapping spheres correctly.

Sounds awesome, we need more skies.. i was fooling around with some really http://piclair.com/data/4apqw.jpg skies just yesterday, looked awesome for 5 minutes, than i got tired of them, hehe.

"Horizon support", how do you mean?

Have you seen this? => http://www.mediafire.com/?kyunljupnpcnuwa

This:
So yup, I have. I did check it out. The support for horizons in theory is relatively simple, you just have to extend the dome down to zero on the z axis, unfortunately getting the texture to look good around horizon level is the tough part. Horizon clouds are different in appearance than clouds directly above, Fallout 3 uses a separate mesh/texture set for horizons, and Assassin's Creed simply maps the clouds to just horizons, considering they are what you end up looking at most of the time, this method wouldn't work in Morrowind though, due to the way the clouds move across the sky.

shooting stars!

unless you have them ofc, but there's a mod for oblivion that adds them, and it's great!

I'm totally happy with the latest skies you made, but lore-friendly and the famous constellations like Mage, Lady Tower and so on, would rule!
Maybe a shooting star, ( if technically possible )

Can you show some screens?

No, I haven't gotten that far yet. I'm still in the brainstorming stage, so as the first post says, throw me ideas!

As for the shooting stars guys, there's a mod that does that, it's quite awesome. I may have to tweak it though, because the shooting star mesh moves across the sky based on the size of the texture, and SWG's Skies v4, and even v3 used/will use huge textures, so the shooting stars would, and will again shoot across like half the sky.

Would be nice with clouds that arent just on the skydome itself. In GTA: San Andreas they have 2D planes of clouds + a sky dome. Would be cool if it was possible to do something similar for Morrowind. It would add a little depth to the sky i think.

Well... how about rainbows after rain? Don't know if it's possible though.

'Tis already done! It's a cool little mod, the shooting starts are not overdone, rare enough that when you see one it's a nice suprise:
http://www.elricm.com/nuke/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewdownloaddetails&lid=1556

@ SWG - everything you've already mentioned pretty much completes my wishlist for skies - good luck and looking forward to it!

Added a couple things to the list, Particle Cloud/Weather system (will need to get in touch with MGE developers for this, probably Hrnchamd), Even more weather particle improvements, unique sky coloring (the sky looks different depending on what direction you look!), and improved/remade moon textures using alpha (the way they were supposed to be according to lore. I've already started working on this).

EDIT: I'm throwing lightning textures onto the list, if the meteors mod can figure out how to make a mesh act as a decal to the sky mesh, I can too.


SWG's Skies v3 had all the Firament Constellations in it, they just never changed from month to month, and weren't quite as obvious as in the vanilla game, you had to stargaze to find them, which was entirely my intention.

an animated sky..

lol. Unless you want to download a file that's over a Gig, and I sure don't want to have to upload one, that's not going to happen. Sorry.

Umm.... is it possible to make effects like Aurora Borealis, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumhorizontal_arc? In other words, have some unique weather patterns happen everyone once in a while, or when certain conditions are met (i.e. a rainbow occurs but only after a rainstorm).

Is it possible to add more weather types? What with the US snopocalypse, I was pondering what Solstheim would be like in a hail storm. And by the way, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graupel is so cool. Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning#Cloud-to-cloud_lightning would be neat to see, either on its own or in addition to cloud-to-ground lightning strikes. Dry lightning - like http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/gates/ - would be so cool to see over Red Mountain!

But, I don't know if such things are possible, if the current engine just is not capable of being able to do things like that, even with MGE and MWSE power.

-double post, please delete-

Well, I'm waiting on Hrnchamd to see what he says about my current crazy ideas, maybe yours will be possible as well, that would be awesome.

I'd love to add some, Hrnchamd had said it was possible in the past (I don't have a quote but I remember it clearly), besides, ashstorm/blightstorm/and snowstorm lightning would need some edits via code patchy type things anyways. For new weathertypes, I'd love to have ash snow, ash overcasts, blight overcasts, clear skied snowfalls (they happen quite often here in Ottawa), and much more. Dual layered skies ala Oblivion would be nice too.

These types of effects would be done the same way I would do visual lightning, and all those types of lightning you mentioned, I already planned to include in some form, they would make the game so next-gen...

My goal pretty much is to give Morrowind the some of the best weather in games these days, we have some of the best graphics enhancements, awesome shaders, MGE XE and whatnot, and our game is covered in high-res textures, so lets add even more!

your skies are already awesome I don't see how humanly possible for them to get any better then they are, oh How about updating your mod and including the patch along with it?

Meteors would be cool, I really don't like this Meteor mod though:

http://www.elricm.com/nuke/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewdownloaddetails&lid=1556

My main complaint is that the Meteors almost never appear. I think you should see them a few times an hour when you aren't near bright modern cities. Also, it's just not fun if you never see them! Another criticism: the meteors appear only in a discrete number of places and directions, because of the way the script is written.

What? Well obviously you aren't a texturer, because I find them horrid now, the cloud formations are too large and/or repeated due to laziness/lack of effort, they lack the sharpness I want, they have lots of seams, the night sky texture is too drastic in the way that it doesn't flow through itself well enough, and lots more...

Besides the things I mentioned in the first post... Hey, if they were so great, why wouldn't everyone use them? Not that I'd want to do that to my fellow texturers of course.

Err, umm. I could, but then I'd have to repackage it, and reupload it to Nexus and PES, and that would take too long, it's a battle between my laziness as a modder and the users laziness not to click on another link... I'm just going to be annoying and let users lose.

Progress update! Almost done the new Masser textures, now with proper alpha and differing appearances ala Oblivion (moon looks different depending on phase)!!
EDIT: Done the Masser textures! Woot!

Sorry for the double post, but I knew that if I just edited the previous one, nobody would look at it.

Anyways, the moons are done, and I've uploaded them for public beta testing http://www.2shared.com/file/p6RJwsxL/Skies_v4_Moons.html. I don't have Morrowind Installed at the moment, so unfortunately I can't provide any screenshots, so just back up your moon textures before testing this.

Things I'm looking for feedback on:

• Alpha shadowing confirmation- moons now have shadows via alpha maps, I'd like to know if they allow the player to see through the moons to the stars.
  
• Continuety errors, ect. Does one of the moon textures not have transparency at all for some reason? I'd like to know.
  
• How spherical do the moons look, if they look flat, I may have to include versions of the moon meshes with edited uv maps.
  
• Any other feedback or suggestions are nice, I'd like to have this looking perfect by the time I release the whole mod.

That's it, here's the DL link again if you missed it:
http://www.2shared.com/file/p6RJwsxL/Skies_v4_Moons.html