Here's something I've been working on for a while. It is basically a pluginless replacer for the most neglected objects in the Morrowind world: the rocks. They're everywhere, there are hundreds of them, but there's still no replacer for them. Well, working on this I understood why: so many models to replace and a lot of hard fights against clipping.

All the rocks have:
- A more refined model (each rock is between 600 and 1000 polys)
- Ambient occlusion baked in Blender and applied as a detail map
- Bump map

Released modules: Bitter Coast, Azura's Coast, Grazelands, West Gash, Ascadian Isles, Red Mountain, shores
Download and screenshots: http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=8763

As always feedback and comments are very welcome.

It is great, very well done, i like that you decide to make vertex paint by texture, this is very intresting way. Those textures made by Connary.
Here is some screens of meshes, i made, with AO map:
http://s003.radikal.ru/i202/1010/a1/b76c07601de3.jpg
http://s001.radikal.ru/i193/1010/56/8c12b5aeb720.jpg
http://s48.radikal.ru/i119/1010/43/f0324a180ace.jpg
http://i064.radikal.ru/1010/47/2d463914e1a7.jpg
http://s47.radikal.ru/i116/1010/69/8c085b0ae70d.jpg
http://s47.radikal.ru/i115/1010/b1/c85439fc42f6.jpg
http://s58.radikal.ru/i161/1010/91/ddf04b4beaab.jpg
http://s51.radikal.ru/i134/1010/fd/a10a1bcdafbd.jpg

Maybe some mossed rocks?

Very nice...they now fit really well in their environment. They practically have the same texture as the grass/moss from the BC texture pack i use.

These rocks are a great improvements, thank you!!!

There is a few screenshots of your rocks at Seyda Neen =>
http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/3552/mgescreen6.jpg
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/4900/mgescreen8.jpg
http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/5291/mgescreen9.jpg
http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/6787/mgescreen3.jpg
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/7405/mgescreen2.jpg
http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/5291/mgescreen9.jpg
http://img704.imageshack.us/img704/800/mgescreen4.jpg


There is a few bugs at Seyda Neen (maybe the rocks are too big?) =>
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/9137/mgescreen5.jpg
http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/6229/mgescreen1.jpg
http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/8843/mgescreen7.jpg

Looking good I didnt regenerate distant land to see the differences, seems like some are a little bigger, but it's still WIP so you probably know this already..

You know, I'd actually been thinking today that the rocks in Morrowind could do with some improvement, and then I see this... I'll give this a try.

These are absolutely fantastic! Thanks for these, and I look forward to the rest. I've been saying for a while that rocks don't get the attention they deserve and you have adressed the issue perfectly.

Plus that means my Bitter Coast is fully modded. I have some hi-res ground textures, Vurt's trees and grass and now the rocks too. It looks stunning.

Thanks guys!
I'm working to solve the clipping problems...

They look superb, I'll download as soon as you've solved the clipping issues

Thanks for the screenshots - good testing too

@ _Taddeus_ Nice work - looking forward to your final release

I have to add my thanks as well.

Taddeus those rocks look amazing! I /need/ those rocks now. ^^

I like this...a lot! Maybe, just maybe, you will continue all across the land, bringing realism to the world and ushering in the NEW STONE AGE.

This... Rocks?

Great work. This would've been on top of my list in case I ever went into modelling. I'll definetely check it out. Ambient Occlusion as a detail map sounds good, I'll have to have a look at that to see if it could add to my Vivec retexture

"The File you are trying to access is temporarily unavailable"



Love the screens I saw of the meshes, and I agree, the vertex "painting" is brilliant!

LoL the Seyda Neen Siltstrider needs to rebuild the platform.

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w172/Illius_photos/Diversen/MWScreenShot17.jpg

Hehe, after a long struggle I think I overcome most of the clipping. I ran all around the Bitter Coast and couldn't find anything noticeable. Maybe there's still a mushroom slightly clipping with a rock in a remote corner, but there shouldn't be nothing major like the silt strider platform here...
Tomorrow I'll pack it up and upload Bitter Coast rocks to PES.

I've Azura's Coast in the works. However, I don't want to rush this too much. Slow and steady is the way to go!

Yes, baked AO it's a technique that has quite some potential, but you must use blender (or a similar 3d modeling software) to achieve this.

Hmm. I think AO would be better suited as a Dark map then a detail map. Another interesting feature to note is that they can use separate uv mappings. So you can say have a small color map on a small uv map and a detail texture on a huge uv map. Or stuff like that.

Yes, in fact I'm using 2 different UV maps, one for the detail texture and another for the color texture.
I'm using a detail map since I'm sure that Morrowind engine draws it. I'm not sure it draws dark maps (I never tried) but I'll make a try.

EDIT: The forum and PES are incredibly slow for me these days. Is this a common problem or it's only me?

The forums here where quit slow for me yesterday, but now the pages load fast again.

It does draw dark maps. I've tried it. I think you can even use both but you'll get problems if your textures have opacity/alpha map,

Another thing people don't really know is that you can use a projected light source and project a texture onto a 3d surface in a .NIF and MW renders it. It doesn't interact with other things in the engine but it can be used for a lot of things in-mesh so to speak.

Sounds pretty complicated to me. I have never used blender or baked textures before. (Well, I tried a couple of times when I was 16, but that was a long time ago and I failed )

Why can't it just be as easy as adding the detail map inj NifScope?

These info could be useful, thanks for sharing them.

Well, you can add the map in Nifskope, but you need a 3d modeling tool to draw it first.

I uploaded the Bitter Coast module on PES.
Link is pending, expect it in a few days. As soon as it's online, I'll update the opening post.

http://i794.photobucket.com/albums/yy227/_Taddeus_/Morrowind%20Mods/OTR-BC01.jpg?t=1287159699