Ok, so one of the main features I want in my http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1166146-wipzbeta-swgs-skies-v4-now-in-public-beta/ are lore-friendly lore-accurate night skies. The problem is, I'm having trouble making sense of all the lore.

I've taken a look at http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Astronomy as well as http://www.imperial-library.info/content/cosmology, and I'm still somewhat confused, and have some questions I need to clear up, to start:
-Are the Moons "shadows" really translucent? Should we be seeing the stars through them?
-I know constellations are defined, but is there really any set lore on nebulae? What are they anyways? Are there supposed to be certain ones with specific appearances? Nebulae in Morrowind and Oblivion were completely different.
-How do the constellations move across the sky? I heard this was shown in Oblivion, but I never noticed myself. What parts of the sky are they in? ect.
-How would the "planets" appear in the sky? Would they look like stars, as we see them on Earth?
-How do I make sense of things like the Orrery in Oblivion? What are all the planets shown? Are the constellation placements accurate?
-What exactly is http://images.uesp.net//7/73/Rg_dwemerstarmap.jpg representing? The position of constellations on the visible zenith?

Please also feel free to go crazy explaining all sorts of other night sky lore to me, as the more I know, the better I should be able to make http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1166146-wipzbeta-swgs-skies-v4-now-in-public-beta/.

I think the general consensus on the moon's shadows is that they are translucent, presumably because Lorkhan is busy resurrecting himself, bit by bit in each game (his heart in Morrowind, his mind- ie Sheogorath- in Shivering Isles, etc etc). Remember, Masser and Secunda are Lorkhan's body, and they're pretty much dissolving, as Lorkhan prepares his second coming. With the whole Rebel/King ultimate showdown (Lorkhan/Shor vs Akatosh/Alduin) that Skyrim is building up to, there probably won't be any moons at all once TES 6 comes around. Or maybe there will be. We'll see.

As for the stars, the Warrior, the Thief and the Mage are the three nebulae (according to Skyrim, anyway, which I actually like more than them being constellations, being as they're so important), and the constellations they watch over are contained within or near them. Except for the Serpent, which is made of un-stars (presumably black holes) and it moves across the sky, wherever and whenever it wants.

Check this out for anything I might have missed.
http://www.imperial-library.info/content/astronomy-and-astrology

-Are the Moons "shadows" really translucent? Should we be seeing the stars through them? Lore-wise, as of the Infernal City, yes. As of Morrowind, it was a graphical bug that Beth had to explain away and it unfortunately encoded itself into the literature. The moons are believed by some to be the decaying body of Lorkhan. Decaying here means "Slowly fading away in an achronal order."

-I know constellations are defined, but is there really any set lore on nebulae? What are they anyways? Are there supposed to be certain ones with specific appearances? Nebulae in Morrowind and Oblivion were completely different. Nothing's really been said on Nebulae. Perhaps they're some phenomena associated with the mercurial Waters of Oblivion. You are looking into Oblivion when you look into the sky...

-How do the constellations move across the sky? I heard this was shown in Oblivion, but I never noticed myself. What parts of the sky are they in? ect. http://www.imperial-library.info/content/general-information-history-and-depictions-planets in this link illuminates this somewhat. It also helps if you have the Orrery plugin for Oblivion too.

-How would the "planets" appear in the sky? Would they look like stars, as we see them on Earth? Without magnification, how do planets appear on Earth? Like twinkling stars.

-How do I make sense of things like the Orrery in Oblivion? What are all the planets shown? Are the constellation placements accurate? I don't think anyone's mapped them to the night sky. So it's hard to say, but I'd wager that they're correct, if the same art team worked on both. It's different from Redguard's I know, but it doesn't take into account Talos who became a god after the events of Redguard. Nirn's in the center, though, with a planet corresponding to one of the Nine floating there. As to which of the Nine corresponds to which planet, you'd have to interpret the statuary. Obviously the one with the Dragon Head is Akatosh. Hmm, though now that I think of it, I seem to recall http://www.imperial-library.info/content/cosmology being involved in constellations.

-What exactly is http://images.uesp.net//7/73/Rg_dwemerstarmap.jpg representing? The position of constellations on the visible zenith? Yes, it's the position of the constellations at the time it was representing. Notice the inner-most band is where the three guardians are with the Serpent wandering there now.

There is no reason the planet's couldn't have discernible details, though they should be much smaller than the moons. That would be a fine way to do it.

Ok, that's what I had thought, I didn't know Lorkhan was resurrecting himself though, that's pretty cool.


Yeah, I found that link right after I made the thread, it's a pretty useful reference.


Actually, in Morrowind the Moons don't have translucency, in this screenshot, I've made the moons shadows completely from alpha (so they should be seethrough, and put in a different place they are), and the game doesn't show stars behind, it just reads the sky colour and makes the shadows that colour. It's become a pest for me, since I can't figure out how to make the blasted moons translucent.


Ok then, I think I'm going to go by combining the Skyrim lore and the existing lore, the guardian constellations will have their own nebulae, and some other nebulae will be scattered across the sky.


I have the Orrery plugin, although loading Oblivion with anything but Oblivion.esm causes the game to think that Oblivion.esm isn't there for some reason. But it shouldn't be a problem, I guess I'll extract the meshes/textures from the Orrery, then base the constellation placement on that, that, or I could base them on the Redguard starmap, which would be more accurate?


Ok then, so I guess the sky may have changed from Redguard to Morrowind, I'm leaning toward the Oblivion Orrery being more accurate, but I'm still not entirely sure.



Planets in the night sky don't twinkle, they give constant light, but what you said is what I suspected. This suggestion seems like it could look cool though,

I'm not sure you would be able to see details though, You can see Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and sometimes Saturn in our night sky, yet they appear simalar to stars through the naked eye, the only 'details' you could really see would be colour (slightly reddish colour to Mars), and Saturn's rings through a telescope.

Anyways guys, thanks for the info, I should be able to start up my night skies with a little more confidence now.

Really? Cause http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f386/vtastek/morrowind/screenshotspart01/MGE-big-sky-above-me-1.jpg begs to differ.

http://s676.photobucket.com/albums/vv121/hamburgermustache/Morrowind/?action=view¤t=MGEScreenshot051.jpg also begs to differ, and about that one... I'll have to ask vtastek about it. Then again, come to think of it, the problem could be being caused by my new night sky mesh, I'll have to do some testing when I get home. How ironic, I may have solved a bug which I'm now trying to preserve.

Mind you this isn't confirmed, but it's reasonable to assume given the evidence.

I'm gonna give you some insight into real lore.

Lore isn't just about memorizing the "facts." It's about cool. Lore is creating a totally awesome fantasy experience. So your planets can be as big as you want them to be, because this isn't the real world and maybe that makes them cooler. The point is this: there are some basic facts about what is, like that the Wood Elves live in Valenwood or that there are eight planets in the sky, and that's a part of lore, but the real lore is coming up with how the audience experiences these facts, and in The Elder Scrolls, the rule of thumb is not realism, but the more eye-popping the better.

You might find http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1090991-structure-of-the-aurbis/ helpful, as it identified the planets of the Orrery and has some information on the subject of TES cosmology.

Man! That's incredibly useful! It's got maps and everything, plus a much more comprehensive explanation to the whole TES astronomy/cosmology deal. Took me a while to read, but it was worth it.

I have one question, are the Daedric realms represented as planets or constellations of the like when viewed from Nirn? Or are they not visible from Nirn at all? I'm expecting the latter, but the first theory would end up looking cool ingame.

I'm really perplexed now, I know I should be putting this into Software Issues or the mods forum, but I think it relates to lore more. The issue is, I cannot, whatever I do, get the blasted moons to have transparency in my game, I've sequentially disabled every aspect of my sky mod and now I'm back to the original skies, but the moons still have solid shadows, no stars appear behind them.

This is very strange, I wonder now how many people have moons with solid shadows, and how many have translucent ones, and why? This is really confusing.