Lol, can't wait!

I hope your works paid off for yourself, cause it sure will for me.

Woot!

Thanks for the update Bananaman!

:)

Really happy to see you're still working on it.

Really really happy.

*grins*

This and Sutch were the two mods I was most looking forward to. Glad to see at least one might see the light of day.

Heres hoping you finish soon.

When this is done, the beers on me. :foodndrink:

Cheers, Bananaman! I hope you have a happy and productive New Year. I love what you wrote in your News Years post. I can't wait for my character to spend some time in Leyawiin. Thank you for your diligence.

You, sir, are a horrendous bloody tease.

When this creation is finished, Leyawiin is going to become party central.

This is shaping up better and better every time I drop by, good work :foodndrink:

The screenshot of the http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=LR_6.jpg&public_view=1&album=22952&fullsize=1 has been posted in 2006, could you make another similar screenshot of a more recent version of your mod? (Or hasn't it really changed?). 'Cause an aerial shot gives a better overview than anyother screenshot.

A patch may be needed for one of Simyaz's mods, I think it's Tears of the Fiend (Or it might be the Lost Spires by that other team, I'm a little hazy on that) which adds a burnt out scribe services building to Leyawiin

Actually, it's an addition made by The Lost Spire

I would like to see some new screenshots as well.
I'm currently using "Open Cities: Leyawiin Reborn" by Arthmoor/texian/godhugh... but since it's open, I get a lot of stuttering, so I'm still very interested in your project.

What I don't like about OC:LR is that there are no new buildings, apart from the lighthouse. No harbor and no Imperial Navy, no new shops or other interesting buildings that would increase the feeling of being in a big city. Since it is more spread out than vanilla Leyawiin, it seemed even more empty. That is something you should think about.
In my opinion, Leyawiin should be an important military base, with the Imperial Navy stationed at Niben Bay (the harbor could actually be a good walk away from Leyawiin itself) and with the Imperial Legion defending the borders of this newly claimed piece of land. In order to keep the Legion happy, there should be taverns and brothels; and there should be a big Imperial Fort with a drill-ground and everything.

That is just how I see Leyawiin... would like to know if you have something similar in mind or not. I guess you may want to release a version without all that fancy stuff first, but after that first release, maybe doing something like Better Cities would be a good idea. And I think there would be MANY people who would like to help you out. For example, I would really like to add the fort I mentioned above; I have a very good-looking interior tileset for forts (retextured from a vanilla tileset) that would be perfect for that.

If you think you're getting a lot of stuttering now, adding all that stuff ( yes, it would be cool stuff ) is only going to magnify your perceptions.

A city being open is not an inherent cause of stuttering. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this said only to find out that there were 15 other factors contributing to it behind the scenes that produced the over all affect. But since the city is what's visible, it's what gets the blame, even if it's not deserving of the blame. Yes, overcluttering a city CAN cause problems, but none of the Open Cities cities do that, and in fact the spread out style of Leyawiin in OCLR would contribute to reducing stutter, not increasing it. I think it's also worth noting that OCLR's intention was not to be a wild fill it full of stuff rebuilding of the city either. It was to approximate the concept images as reasonably as possible given game limitations. I think it came out rather well.

Consider the Imperial City. Composed of several closed worldspaces. Yet arguably the center of many claims of poor performance. Not entirely without merit either. That place is built from the largest memory hogging meshes and textures the game has. Compare that to the Waterfront district. I rarely hear people complaining about how it lags and stutters there, even with mods adding things to it, yet it's in the open worldspace and composed of some of the same large memory hogging textures, and is exposed to the issues of LOD.

So what's the biggest cause of stuttering? LOD. Nothing will bring your system to its knees more quickly than too much LOD. Having too many LOD objects displayed drives the polygon render count through the roof. This becomes magnified by using the older inefficient unoptimized LOD packages. The game's default grid distance setting also doesn't help here. After that, the next biggest cause is cramming too many ships into close proximity with each other. The ship models are thousands of polygons, some of the few super high count meshes in the game. More than 3 in close proximity is enough to be felt by even the best rigs. More than 5 and people will raise pitchforks to come for you in the night. A distant 3rd is cramming too many large buildings into too close a space. The issue which plagued Tamara's Weye expansion. Placing enough structures to build an entire city in the space of two cells is generally bad all around. Toss in tons upon tons of miscellaneous clutter and, well, there you go.

Overpopulation of NPCs will do as much if not more damage than any of the above. Too many mods with spawns that use AI and you're up a creek in a hurry, even in an otherwise vanilla game. Yet people will still blame the eye candy before blaming the fact that that have 900 NPCs roaming the streets.

And sorry for jacking the thread, but these sort of unfounded claims really bother me and I don't address it nearly often enough when it happens.

Only 17.6% of the way to go. YIPPEE!

Now just 15% left...I am having an Oblivigasm!

EDIT...

You have this much done already...I hope you have a backup made so it doesn't get lost due to some unforeseen accident. If said accident did occur, the Oblivion gaming community would probably mourn for eternity.

Not to worry. I make backups of my work on this mod all the time.

I've been working on pathgrids and npcs a little bit today...It's extremely gratifying seeing the little guys moving along the paths they're supposed to go on, instead of constantly smacking into a wall again and again and again...

Now I've gotta get to sleep, get up early tomorrow and drive to another state, come back tomorrow night, write two research papers, go to work over the weekend, and THEN I might have time to give all you guys a proper update. (With hot, buttery screenshots!) :chaos:

I've actually been making loads of progress over the past few months, but not posting much about it...

Driving to another state...how do we know you don't live 1 cm from a bordering state? :hubbahubba:

Still loving to torture us with tons of progress and no updates, ah the Bananaman we all know and love :hehe:

Great to hear from you again, how's the fps working on this version of the city?

Yep, that's me! You guys have sure been patient...waiting months for new screenshots and all...

You're right...

Well, since you all asked so nicely...

New Screenshots!! :celebration:
http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=LR31.jpg&album=22952&fullsize=1 compared to Bethesda's original http://www.elderscrolls.com/images/art/ob_concept/ob_concept03B.jpg for the city
http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=LR32overview.jpg&album=22952&fullsize=1
http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=LR34.jpg&album=22952&fullsize=1
http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=LR35.jpg&album=22952&fullsize=1

I've updated the first post, as well.

Leyawiin Rebuilt will have several new buildings, including a new player home, a street market, several gatehouse interiors, and several parks inside the city walls and one or two new farms, two new lighthouses, and an extensive harbor on the outside. To me, the city feels sufficiently dense inside the walls, but nicely spread out across the countryside outside the walls.

The city certainly looks fortified now, with the walls rising straight up out of tall, sheer cliffs... I am adding quite a few tower interiors (including two in each gatehouse), along with adding two upper floors to the interior of the castle barracks tower. I'll be sure to add a training area inside there for the castle guards to practice in...

I'm not really worrying about that yet...I'm sure it will be intensive on some people's computers, but I'll wait to tweak things until I alpha test this svcker with the modding community later this year.

Yes I am usually...but not today. Here are a few more new screenshots!

http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=LR36.jpg&album=22952&fullsize=1 (featuring mr_siika's crane, cog, corvette, and small fishing boat ^_^ )
http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=LR37.jpg&album=22952&fullsize=1
http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=LR38.jpg&album=22952&fullsize=1
http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=LR39.jpg&album=22952&fullsize=1
http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=LR40.jpg&album=22952&fullsize=1

I've been working on this mod much more often lately. I think I can see the point on the horizon where it's complete enough to send it out to a few alpha-testers, sometime this summer. But don't get your hopes up. (There's going to be a LOT of work squashing bugs before release...)

In the past few weeks, I've been focusing on detailing the castle courtyard and county hall interior. I'm nearly done with both of them. I've also been figuring out what trees, bushes, and other flora was in the vanilla city and surrounding area (by poking around in the CS) in order to place similar plants in my mod. (I'd like everything I'm modding to blend in seamlessly with the surrounding Blackwood region.) I've started copying Leyawiin guards and placing them in various sections of the city. (I'll work on changing their faces and AI later.) I've also been adding a day/night cycle to the lighting inside the new castle. What do you think?
http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=LR41.jpg&album=22952&fullsize=1
http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=LR42.jpg&album=22952&fullsize=1

In addition, I've been working with the pathgrids for the first time ever. (I've been putting it off, but it seems pretty easy!) Like the results?
http://server6.theimagehosting.com/image.php?img=LR43.jpg&album=22952&fullsize=1

As I've said many times before, I'm committed to finishing this mod eventually. And I think I'm finally getting there...

If you have any feedback on the screenshots or if you can't see them, please let me know!

Those new screenshots look amazing! I'm thrilled that this is still going strong. I'm sure I speak for a great many people when I say that I'm as committed to seeing this through as you are! Bloody brilliant, really stellar work :goodjob:

I always liked the flora in the area - glad to know you plan to to that particular detail justice.

I am so excited by what you have been doing!!! It looks fantastic. I can't wait to play with it. Thank you for all your hard work.

Impressive ... nothing more to say