So here is the official WIP thread for my Ald' Ruhn facelift. The new city will be placed in a large canyon at the original coordinates in the ashlands, though it will be much bigger than the former version. I won't touch any NPCs and quest-content, just relocate some NPCs in the exteriors due to the changes of terrain. It is most obvious that this plugin will conflict with some other mods that change Ald' Ruhn in any way, but at least the first release will not take care of that.

I'll post some screens later!!!


TheDaywalker:rock:

Goooo Planet! Just pweeze... make it LGNPC compatible. :goodjob:

Got a severe problem with that giant crab, cause it doesn't work at all with my canyon concept. I just looks odd and messes up the whole scenario. There are two ways around this problem, first is to get rid of that stupid cadaver, second is to dump the canyon and come up with something different. Fact is seafood in an ash desert looks outta place, no matter what lore says, can't become friend with that at all!!!


TheDaywalker :rock:

It does look out of place, but that's entirely the point. One of the reasons I love Morrowind is because Bethesda made a lot of choices that *didn't* make a ton of obvious sense. I always assumed that it was lifted out of the water along with Red Mountain (since the entire island of Vvardenfell was underwater at one point), and wasn't able to make it back to the sea. If there's any way for you to keep it, I hope you will :shrug:

My canyon is already a couple of cells big and the crab thingy doesn't even fit in correct without scaling the whole canyon model up again. I wanted to make this canyon eyecandy, but with that crab inside it just looks wack!!! Can't we say there was a hell of a lava rain comming down from outta nowhere one night and sadly it burned the whole thing down to the core. Would that be lorefriendly?!


TheDaywalker :rock:

It seems you don't care much for lore, but it's your mod and your choice. I'm sure there are enough people who will download the mod anyway, so just remove the emperor crab and show us some screenshots.

Although IMO the emperor crab is what makes Ald'ruhn unique. The whole city feels quite "organic". But hey, if people want to see something fresh, then by all means...

Well what if you treated it like a velothi and built it inside the canyon? You could have it so somehow the front and/or top is sticking out from the rock, like it was built inside the rock, or like it was a fossil crab.
Dunno, just an idea. :goodjob:
Or maybe you could script a dwemer tectonic elevator that lifts the whole thing out of the canyon on the press of a button, with little twinkle magic around the bottom like it was enchanted with a massive levitation spell.

:chaos:
That would be so unloreishly cooltastic. :turtle:

Nice ideas guys, but I still vote for the lava rain!!! :rock: We'll find a solution somehow, but take a look at the canyon as far as it looks now and judge yourself. Lore aside, would you really place a crab in here???

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/8514/can01.jpg

The textures I've used for the terain are a mixture of the cracky rock I also used for the canyon model itself and some kinda gravel, which has crumbled down from the withered rocks by the years passing by. I will have to texture the surrounding area of the ashlands with some loose samples of this to make it integrate into the landscape. Hope you guys can live with that. Don't wanted to use vanilla textures for this project!!!

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/9569/can02.jpg
http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/7910/can03.jpg

IRRC I'm using Swiveller's soils for ashlands in my game at the moment, so I'll make my textures harmonize with that and recommend his replacer for this mod.


TheDaywalker :rock:

:clap: I have no words to describe such beauty. :rock:

Well, I suppose my input is ultimately irrelevant-- I can't run any texture replacers because my framerate is terrible enough with distant land and my shaders enabled (neither of which I'm going to disable), so it looks like I'm not going to be using this anyway

Looks great though

What about the crab getting buried BELOW an avalanche or sth, so that it's interior is still accesible, but the city itself stands above it? ^^

Keep the crab, it's unique, strange and the main thing in Ald-ruhn.
I wouldn't put a crab shell in the middle of the ashlands in the first place, but that's Morrowind for you, strange yet cool.

Alternatively you could make a city mod for that other redoran town with the rock in it instead (maar gan?), the rocky enviroment might actually suit it better.

The canyon mesh looks very good though.

As long as the interior is accessible, I don't give a damn about the crab. Skar is cool, but a random canyon is as good as a random crab shell in my book.

Or you could move his hulking corpse to some of the unused ashlands outside the walls and have a tunnel or something to the entrance. That way everyone'd be happy? Anyway, it looks great so far, and I'm liking the erosion-carved look of your canyon model a lot!

Looks nice! :thumbsup:

I like the pillars especially.


I think if you took the existing crab model and mostly buried in, with just the front entrance sticking out of one wall of the canyon, that could work (aesthetically, functionally, and lore-wise). Seeing how long it's been since the island came up, if any Emperor crabs were trapped (or crawled up), having one buried under a few hundred feet of rock would certainly make sense. It'd also let you keep that aspect of Ald-Ruhn's architecture, without impacting your canyon too much.

"I think if you took the existing crab model and mostly buried in, with just the front entrance sticking out of one wall of the canyon, that could work (aesthetically, functionally, and lore-wise)."

That's exactly the way I see it. Alternatively, the Skar could end up in a cave, but caves require solid rock structure unlike the one being the result of an avalanche or rock slide. TheDaywalker's work is amazing, it's just me being a lore geek...

Why the double post?

It would be a stone cave, however instead of being rock, it would be fossilized crab shell. Given the size of that crab, its shell should be extremely strong, easily capable of both holding up the rock and leaving an empty space and lasting hundreds/thousands of years. The empty space, surrounded on all sides with solid rock/fossilized crab, would make a very defensible fortress and be the location of choice for the aristocracy of Redoran (plus it's an Emperor crab's shell, which sounds all high 'n mighty ).

NazoX9,

No idea... I just refreshed the page and there it was, AND here we go again...

Peachykeen,

What I had in my mind was that the Skar itself would be in a cave, so that you could behold it's awesome crabbyness - not just the interior. Your idea makes way more sense though, especially if a rock slide scenario is to be considered.

Hmm, ok, I will keep that stupid crab, but the whole body is far to large for my canyon and would eat up too much space I could use for better things. So I will make only the head of the crab and model some crab scissors and let rest be buried under a giant pile of gravel. A stair then will lead directly into the mouth of that crab!!!

I said I won't touch the NPCs, well that wasn't the full truth. In my eyes the Ald' Rhun population doesn't look like desert dwellers at all, except the guards with their bonemold armors. I wanna change that too and give them more beduine-like clothing. Will have to see, wether I use ressources or make my own. I also want to make a new race for this mod, a desert version of argonians. Therefore I'll use bb-beasts and make my own animated heads. I want the average population on the dusty surface of the city to be Argonians. They will live in half open tents all over the canyon and do minor services and trade. Only the richer folks, meaning members of the different houses can afford to have safe housings below the surface. This way the canyon will remain a wild place and don't be crowded up by solid buildings.

Lateron I will also create new environment sounds. I want to have unique beast roars outside the city walls and inside something like on a large market place with dozens of voices in all kinda languages, interrupted by oriental music and sounds of working people.

I also want to have new pack animals. Therefore I will borrow some vanilla armature and wrap a new creature around that. You may suggest what animal that would be, the modeling process is the same for me!!!

Dang, why do all my projects tend to become a TC?!


TheDaywalker :rock:

Yeah, and the front bit could still be poking out where the entrance is.

I have to say, I was kinda iffy on whether I'd be interested in this, until I saw the screen of that canyon. I think this has a lot of potential.

Thx for the input guys, I'm sure I'll find a good compromise for the crab now!!!;)

Well here is my first concept for the houses. Not too big, all interiors are underground. The houses all have some overhang stuff on the outside, giving a lot of space to put merchannts, smiths and other working people under it. I just placed some Argonians here and there, so you can get a picture of the scale.

What you think?

http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/3530/houseconcept01.jpg
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/7559/houseconcept03.png
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/7067/houseconcept04.jpg


TheDaywalker :rock:

I like it so far!
but the over hangings stand out a bit too much
they don't seem to fit in with the scheme
other then that it's awesome!

Yap, you're right, I agree with that and here's a fixed version. Desaturated and darkened the textures plus added some stains to make it look more grungey!!!

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/9872/can05.jpg


TheDaywalker :rock:

You can't put a water living crab by ghostgate!

What? You mean the crab that Bethesda placed there?



http://uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Ald-ruhn