Found some tutorials which could be helpful:

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/New_World_Space_and_Region_borders_drawing
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Heightmap_Editing
http://www.silgrad.com/wbb2/thread.php?threadid=7244

I followed the lead on TESannwyn, and I'm looking at Terragen now. I'll fool around with it some tonight.

Btw, forgot to include the Temple of Time on my map which would just to the north of Castle Town and probably actually within the "city walls", so to speak.

Now I'm making some progress!

Roadblocks like file conversion are where I totally lose hope and abandon projects. Thanks to TESAnnwyn, this might actually work!

I'm currently transferring the Tamriel Worldspace into a BMP image to mess with, and I should be able to use that as a reference point for Hyrule.

Not sure if I'll finish work on The Book of Mudora entry today-I might, but it'll be up a bit latter than usual-not sure if anyone cares quite that much. Once I'm finished with the entries I can focus more on creating content with retextures. I'd especially like to work on the Gladiator/Slave clothing that the player character will wear at the start of the game. It should be reminiscent of Link's traditional clothing, but I don't think you'll officially get a "Kokiri Tunic" until you actually buy one from the Kokiri (or have it made by them or whatever the deal will be).

Tunics are a really common item of clothing. Link happens to wear extra-long ones. The Flax Tunic from Vanilloblivion should suffice as a base for what you want to make.

btw this occured to me:
I hated wandering Hyrule Fields as little Link during night because of the stupid enemies. You should do something similar if you find the time to include that into your busy schedule. you know, more enemy spawns that only are there at night....if that is even possible...I would imagine it is.

Yeah, something like that would be pretty easy. Thanks for the suggestion!


I think maybe we should go the route of long respawn times but more enemies. Then it's like traditional Zelda games in that Link always has to fight a ton of enemies on his way there, but it's less annoying an experience fighting the same monsters time and again.

The final article for the time being (wasn't really sure I'd feel like writing it today earlier lol): http://hyruleisle.deejaygamer.com/phpf/articles.php?article_id=7

The Book of Mudora is a bit like The Elder Scrolls, only you don't go blind from reading it and it can also be used for translation (it would be interesting if we could script that somehow).

It isn't too huge a spoiler but Mudora will be one of four sages currently planned for inclusion in this mod, the others will be Kaepora Gaebora (when he was human), Rauru (before he started living in the Temple of Light in the Sacred Realm), and Kasuto, who is based on the one town in The Adventure of Link that wasn't named after either a sage or character from Ocarina of Time. Kasuto will be female, a philosopher, and the wife of Sheik, hero and establisher of the Sheikah Tribe. It's likely that Zelda II (granddaughter to the first recorded Princess to bear the name Zelda) will also serve as a fifth sage as well.

Come to think of it, the history of Link's tunic is rather "confused" to a certain extent. I think that they meant OoT to sort of make the "origin" of the outfit be from the Kokiri-however other games have come out since which are believed to predate OoT (I think Minish Cap is the only one that appears to have been firmly established in most time lines as predating OoT-the Four Swords games I'd originally based before OoT as well but now I'm not quite as sure since most of the timeline theories I've looked at recently seem to place it after now).

I think however that in the context of my story the player would start out in rags and a sort of primitive gladiator armor which will still have a similar "look" to the "Hero Tunic", but the actual Kokiri Tunic will be earned or bought later on.

On another subject, I've compiled a collection of images depicting shields Link uses through the various Zelda games and it would be cool to replicate a number of them for this mod.

Definitely a lot of shields. Each version of the Hylian Shield, Mirror Shields, Fighter's Shield... We need a lot to fill the gaps. Plus, simple items like shields are easy.

And off-hand weapons!

We might even be able to include the "classic" Loz shields with crosses on them and describe them as "human" or "Crusader" shields.

I'm currently working on a clothing/armor combination based off of the Iron Armor and the "08" lower class shirts-it's shaping up pretty good so far for the female version-I'll post a screenshot from NIFSkope once I've made a few adjustments.

Hey, since you know how to do retexturing and such, perhaps I should share a normal mapping technique I learned. This is quite easy with Paint.NET, and the Colors>Normal Map effect plugin.

First, take the image and apply a normal map as normal. Then, copy it onto a second layer. On the top layer, set it to overlay, and apply a Glaussian Blur. Then just flatten the image as usual. It'll look a ton better!


Of course, that's for full retextures, though it wouldn't be necessary for simple recoloring.

Yeah, I already saw that tutorial a ways back and practically have it memorized now. lol

Here's the female version of the Gladiator Clothes/Armor: http://hyruleisle.deejaygamer.com/femalehero-gladiator.jpg

I'll start working on the male version next-although I may make some adjustments to the saturation for the skirt bit because it doesn't quite look right. Trying to get theses things to match up is a bit of a pain. lol

On a side-note, I just downloaded Zelda Reorchestrated and it sounds pretty awesome. I'm starting to get some ideas for an intro video/teaser trailer-I'd just need someone to do a voice-over for Zelda, and I'd need to write a script for that voice over, and we'd need enough models and textures to create the scenery and such. lol

Wow, that's really nice! I think you've got the job of clothing, eh? :3

I just made a test map, and I'm going to see if I can import it properly. I'm still trying to figure out just how to position it the right way...

Okay, I think this'll be it for tonight-here's the upper armor for a male hero: http://hyruleisle.deejaygamer.com/malehero-gladiator-upper.jpg

It was really tough to put together since the male iron armor is radically different from the female armor. The main problem was that the pauldrons are more attached to cuirass in the main armor so I ended up taking the pauldrons from the female armor and resizing and repositioning them to fit over the male physique-hopefully there won't be any problems with clipping or anything when wearing the armor in-game. I'll be sure to test best versions to make sure there aren't any issues.

Edit-a thought that recently occurred to me:

Should we make the Light Armor skill a virtual requirement considering that the traditional "Link Garments" pretty much fall into that category, or should we put in the extra work to attempt to design Heavy Armor equivalents?

So it turns out I've been modifying the heightmaps in the wrong format. I know how I can create a completely new set of heightmaps from scratch, but I won't have any way to reference its size compared to Cyrodiil. I'm asking around though, so hopefully there's a simple answer.


(And I bet that answer is going to be "Photoshop", at which point I will ritualistically rip out my own hair.)

http://hyruleisle.deejaygamer.com/malehero-gladiator-full.jpg

The next step will probably be to test it in-game, which I'll probably do sometime tomorrow.

I might actually work on creating the gladiator shield first, though.

I'm thinking it could be based off of this: http://www.zeldawiki.org/Fighter%27s_Shield

Done!
http://hyruleisle.deejaygamer.com/fighters_shield_01.jpg

I'll do a screenshot from the CS which will provide a better idea of what it looks like in-game.

I'll also need to do some gauntlets and boots and such as well to complete the "armor set".

Also, at least I do have Photoshop so that if worse comes to worst I can use that.

Also, Adobe does provide thirty day trials of all their Creative Suite software and I believe they have full functionality for the entire trial period (meaning you can save and all that). So for thirty whole days you could have a more advanced version of Photoshop than I do (I've got CS4). lol

http://hyruleisle.deejaygamer.com/templeoftimewip01.jpg.

Dayum, not bad in the slightest!

I've been working on the heightmaps. I've decided to simply do it in the CS and stop taking shortcuts, 'cause I can never get the shortcuts working. It's coming along alright, but I'll have to learn this process of compiling multiple ESPs together to keep the CS from crashing again.

I've made half the map about 3 times before I realized the problem. -,-

The textures are just preliminary, I'll probably darken them up a little for the exterior because they're only supposed to look "pretty on the inside" where the sunlight shines through them.

I've also come up with an idea for the Forest Temple-what if you had to go through the Deku Tree's roots to get there, and like the root system is actually kinda part of the temple. That way we'd have both the Deku Tree (using Shivering Isle's Root Cave meshes) and the Forest Temple in one dungeon.

Hi,

I have a feeling that there is a mod that adds a Fierce Deity Link sword to the game, you could have a look on TesNexus and ask the author if you can use the model and texture. You may have your own of course in which don't bother but this could save you some work.

Spec Kay

We'll probably make our own since we have some exciting ideas for the Fierce Deity mask, but thanks for the suggestion!

That's fine... Just thought you would like to know. I found the link so you can check it out.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16108

Thanks,

Spec Kay

*EDIT*

I might even ask for permission to edit this seeing as many people asked for this to be updated but the author never did.

Wow, I thought you were talking about the one that had been blocked from viewing (I never understand why that is-couldn't they just have an option that blocks it from both viewing AND searches so it doesn't "tease" us like that?). Looks like it might be pretty good.

Edit: Looking at the mesh-the texture definitely looks like it needs some work. The hilt is alright but the blade looks a bit "Photoshoppy" and cartoonish.

So to sum things up-the mesh looks alright but the texture looks like it needs some work.

Seems like somebody's recreated the Temple of Time as well-I'll check it out: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30619

Edit-It's just an esp, so it seems to be an attempt to recreate the interior layout-which might be a good thing to look at as a reference for ourselves.

Wow-it's simply amazing how it's all built out of stuff from the base game and Shivering Isles. Not sure if we'd want to copy it exactly, and at least for the prequel there's a bit of creative freedom as it could've been remodeled a bit before OoT and of course there's that level of creative interpretation we're kind of giving ourselves.

Wow, it's amazing how it's all built out of stuff from Oblivion/Shivering Isles-not sure if we'd want to replicate that exactly since I sort of think we should do our own "interpretation" of it and I'm not sure how well the interior actually matches the exterior in this case-I supposed I'd have to look or something. Plus I have a feeling that it would be rather tedious to try and replicate the way this thing is put together exactly.

Tuah's having a bunch of real life issues right now she is pretty much dropping out of the project which is definitely a mixed bag since on one hand it kinda simplifies the direction of the project but on the other I'm losing a key collaborator which will make a number of things quite a bit more difficult. I'll be hopefully getting most of the stuff she's worked on in the near future which I believe is mostly races and such-and maybe a bit of landscaping.

I'll likely be needing someone who can create 3D models and/or animations, someone to create and/or complete the landscaping and just an overall team of talented (or at least capable) persons.

I've started work on something of a custom tile set based on the first dungeon from the original LoZ-it's going to be something of an Easter Egg but I'm having a bit of trouble since I'm more or less building it from scratch in NIFSkope and it doesn't seem to light correctly (or at all) in the Construction Set. http://hyruleisle.deejaygamer.com/classicdungeon-wip03.jpg

I'll drag a lighting object into the scene and it doesn't seem to affect any of the surfaces at all. The tile set is based mainly off the flat surfaces found in the sewer set retextured and rotated and such into various configurations. The mesh in the screenshot is actually put together 100% in NIFSkope partly because I'm unsure about whether or not it will all line up together properly with the default grid settings. I'm fairly sure this isn't the source of the issue since for instance the meshes for the house interior are all one big thing and they don't have any issues with having lights put inside them-although on the other hand they don't consist of quite as many trishapes and such. I think it may have more to do with either material settings or perhaps the normal maps or something.