Can I bump this? This mod was being worked on when I left modding a year ago and at the time the green glass armor (the only thing I really wanted) was done. Can you just release the green glass and then release the other stuff later? Come on man, don't be like some of us who took too long and ended up not releasing anything.

I have wondered why this mod has been a work in progress for so long...Now I know why!!!!!!!!!!

My PC rig is finally setup and primed for modding again. I am REALLY enjoying the speed at which I can do things. Opening the CS took over a minute before and now takes 10 seconds!!! The load screens in Oblivion are almost non-existent!

Anyways, I've got the Vvardenfell Glass project files back in place and I am still taking inventory of all the things lost. All the NIFs except the originals were lost but I have most of the source .blend files to recreate them. All of the source texture files are lost except for the very 1st TIF files. I have a handful of the end-result colors but not all of them. But regardless, I have to re-create the multi-layered textures to allow for quick-n-easy recreation of the various colors. The plugin is an older version but much of the most important features are there and will be just a matter of getting it back up to snuff.

Hopefully, there won't be any family or work issues that will keep me from working on this daily for the next month or so in order to get it to a point that it can be released.

Just know that I am back and modding again. I probably won't be posting much in the way of updates since you guys have seen most of the progress already...I just need to re-create that progress, push further and get 'er done.

LHammonds

Good to hear project is alive once again

It's kind of a good thing I was set back a bit regarding textures. While trying to put the pieces back together, I was scratching my head as to why I was doing some things the way I was. Instead of all the textures separated in their own colored sub-folders, they are all now in the same folder. Using the same trick Bethesda does, I am able to save more than 1/2 the total amount of texture space necessary for the mod. This is possible due to sharing common textures such as the Normal Map and Glow Map files using the underscore trick. I am able to fix this now because I have to re-create the NIF files anyway and that is where the paths are stored.

Example:

** Diffuse Textures (e.g. Color Maps) **
Helmet_Blue.dds
Helmet_Green.dds
Helmet_Red.dds

** Normal and Glow Maps **
Helmet_n.dds
Helmet_g.dds

With this file naming convention, all the helmet diffuse textures can share the same Normal and Glow maps. I can have 10 different colors all using the exact same glow map file! This is possible because the game engine parses the name of the diffuse texture only up to the 1st period or underscore. When it sees "Helmet_Blue.dds" it will automatically find "Helmet_n.dds" because it only sees "Helmet" in the texture name...not the "_Blue" part. It takes the diffuse name that it determines as "Helmet" and adds "_n" to get "Helmet_n" for the normal map...thus, you can share normal and glow maps with many textures in the same folder depending on how you name the diffuse texture files.

This is old information for several modders out there but I figured that explaining it might help other modders that don't know about this trick.

EDIT: Oh, one more thing...I was controlling the color of the glow in the glowmap but now it will be controlled in the material settings in the NIF file. The glowmap will only specify the intensity (which means it will now be a black-n-white texture)

EDIT #2: What washington said below is exactly the point I am trying to get across. iggey, what you said is indeed nonsense in a technical manner. The model obtains its texture path via an explicitly defined path INSIDE the NIF file which can be located anywhere under the Textures folder and named anything and it WILL find and use the correct texture...but the _n (Normal Maps) and _g (Glow Maps) are implicitly calculated by the game engine based on where the diffuse textures reside and how they are named..

LHammonds

I don't think you need to go as far as naming the colour maps "whatever_somecolour.dds" Just give them a name that's similar to the nif. Like "greenglasscuirass.nif" gets a "greenglasscuirass.dds" and so on. Glad to hear you're back in action. Good luck with what to me seems like a somewhat daunting task. :foodndrink: :cake:

That's nonsense. What Conan said is that texture_n.dds is used by texture_red.dds, texture_green.dds, texture_whatever.dds.
That means that instead of x _n files for x textures you can have only one _n file for x textures.

Aah, I've been Pyffiing all day long so I may not have been too comprehending when reading and posting.

Just in case no one else has said it...

Do Want!

Seriously, vanilla glass is sorely lacking in the awesome factor. I've almost considered using heavy armor because how awesome daedric looks compared to glass.
Mind you, I'm more of a speed over power kind of guy when it comes to melee combat, and yet I'm hooked on massive spells that ruin my foes.

Just be careful when doing this !!! - As in your Example the Helmet_Green.dds will be seen as a Glow map - thus creating intermittent problems as the game may at times use the correct _g.dds while at other time use the _green.dds as the glow map (deppending on which it loads into memory first !!) - Avoid using Green, grey, Navy,Navaho,Neon,etc. or use an X or similar as the first letter after the _ to avoid having problems crop up that you miss (ie. Helmet_xblue, helmet_xgreen)

Would hate to see this release delayed :poke: trying to track down an inadvertant misuse of the naming scheme that might take awhile to find the cause of !!

So, this looks really awesome, and from all the released videos/screenshots, I'm not sure why it's not out yet... everything looks so great, what's left to do?

Wow! Thanks for the heads up! If I had to correct that problem AFTER release, it would take a LONG time fixing all the references. Kudos!

LHammonds

But you missed out on a great hair pulling moment. :confused: :banghead:

Yeah figured better to catch you before you finished up the renaming !! - I had done it by mistake when working on some recolored grey fox cowls and it took awhile to figure out where the weird glow was coming from on all of the colors when I hadn't made any glow map for it ! :facepalm:

That should be included in 'common troubles'. I haven't heard of it before! (off to check my textures)

Edit: Already found two! emperorshirt_greenred, emperoarms_greenred.
But, it's only important if I have glow map too right?

If I don't, does it matter?

Holee crap, I've missed morrowind glass so much, that looks awesome. And to complement this I might mention that I've just finished a batch of Morrowind Daedric weapons(sans asian counterparts yet).

I lost the original Light and Heavy versions of the Armor in Blender (source) format when my PC crashed last year. I had to re-import the NIF files and do a LOT of clean up to get them back to some semblance of how they were before. While doing this though, I found a few areas that could use some improvements and have done so. The heavy armor is now a bit thicker in some places with more glass as well. Once I finish tweaking the light and heavy male armors, I will begin work on female equivalents. Don't expect busty, skin-showing versions either...it will be the exact same except made to fit the female body. I'll let others create alternatives if so desired after release.

Due to a fairly recent update with Blender NIF Scripts (Thanks amorillia), I will be looking into including a bow to complete the set.

EDIT #1: Having all the armor color files in a single folder is working out VERY well and saving tons of space!

EDIT #2: Oops, meant NIF Scripts, not PyFFI...and the version that started supporting Bow morphs was http://niftools.sourceforge.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2466 (Nov 2009)

EDIT #3: As for what I am using, I have the latest experimental build noted on my upload page at http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12248 which is Blender 2.49b, Python 2.6.4, Blender NIF Scripts 2.5.0, NifSkope 1.0.21.4886, PyFFI 2.0.5

EDIT #4: NOTE: Morrowind only had one armor: Light Male glass. All these other versions (Heavy, Female, multi-color) were not part of Morrowind and thus are not trying to be considered as canon since they are purely imaginary.

EDIT #5: I don't normally use Wrye Bash.

LHammonds

Are you using the lastest pyffi ?

EDIT So you are using PyFFI 2.0.5, is it compaitible with Wrye Bash ? I don't think so...............

:shocking: just awesome. I'm really looking forward to the final release.

Off-topic but I'd love to see what you've done so far on the Daedric. You should start your own thread.

LHammonds. Glad you're back at it.

Good to be modding again. Just wished I had more time to do it. My wife is out shopping right now and I have the kids either asleep or playing quietly in their rooms.

I almost have the texture templates done and ready to start color distributing. I also need to completely re-do the normal maps because the ones I have now are very odd and dis-jointed. Hopefully, it will be better than before this time round.

EDIT @ 10pm: Light Armor + Textures + Normalmaps + Glowmaps = All working good!

While optimizing and making some corrections to the light armor set, I reduced the size of the NIF models by 1/2 a megabyte! The changes I already mentioned in how I plan to use a shared normal and glow map is saving 114 megabytes in the mod for the armor alone. I have not yet begun optimizing the weapon textures but expect a similar savings.

EDIT (Next Day): Here are some WIP shots of the heavy armor with and without the additional glass pieces to make it look heavier:

http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1267389093.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1267389061.jpg
http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/images/128909-1267389033.jpg

EDIT (Day After): The above images are now out-dated. More glass added to the back thighs and cuirass.

EDIT 3/4/2010: New picture of the http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/image.php?id=52625 so far which is sporting more glass shards. The armor is now properly separated into 5 pieces so each piece can be worn by itself and mix with others. Once changes are complete to the armor, I'll then focus on making ground models and a female version. I'll probably re-visit the light armor to see how it looks with additional glass shards.

EDIT 3/7/2010: Here are some comparison images of the current light and heavy armor sets. The light armor surface is 100% shiny glass-like material. The heavy armor only has the glass-like material applied to the glass shards...the armor itself is a normal material.

http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/image.php?id=52787
http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/image.php?id=52788

LHammonds

I reached a "finished" point with the modeling of the heavy armor. I also created the ground meshes. While doing this, I looked over the light armor ground meshes and decided they needed some fixin since I had learned a LOT since I first created them. Now the collision models are much more optimized and not such a strain on the system...and they are 100% accurate to the shape of the mesh. :celebration:

I am going to work on the shape of the heavy shield a bit more to make it look even heavier.

After that, I will crank out the female versions of the light and heavy armor (vanilla body)...which shouldn't take too long. Wow, that's 4 sets of modeled armor!

No time for screenshots...besides, it isn't much different that what has already been shown. More than anything, the changes are made to look good while moving around in-game with the light reflecting off it. Screenshots simply cannot do it justice. :poke:

EDIT:

The light and heavy versions for the female body shipped with Oblivion are now done. The helmet and boots did not require modification.

http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/image.php?id=53123
http://www.tesnexus.com/imageshare/image.php?id=53124

EDIT 3/18/2010:

Created menu icon templates for all the weapons. I also did it using just Paint.NET in order to create an additional tutorial using that tool.

LHammonds

It's great to know that work is still being done on this!
I've been looking forward to this mod since it was announced in CanadianIce and Horndog's forum, back on August, 2007.
It's looks better than ever, I'm really looking forward to it!

Can you please release the Oblivion glass replacer? Honestly, I just want that and nothing else. All the other things look nice, but what I really honestly want most is the replacer.

I'm still still eagerly awaiting this mod, how's it progressing?