Galadrielle's content converter

[Galadrielle]

Originally posted by Ghogiel
aye it only uses dds. also normal maps must be generated.

Yes my program will only copy textures that are in DDS format.
For normal maps, a flat normal map file is generated so lighting will work but no bump mapping effects.

Ghogiel, it's you who have made these beautiful morrowind armors for Oblivion (Bonemold...)?
A guy from Wiwiland french site told me that I have your permission to use your mod, is it OK?
I will only incorporate your meshes and textures, not the ESP file.

[Lightwave]

Originally posted by DarkAsmodeousDA has serious reservations here.... I'm just saying, you've always been prepared to do the work to creat the best Vvardenfell you could, even if it meant more work. Just because there's a shortcut or placeholder available... Don't change your plans based on that.

It's fair to recognize the current risk and temptation in settling on something less than a completely TES4 Vvardenfell (i.e. pre-2002 meshes, textures and low placed mesh density). But many settlements are already in development, so a great deal of TES3 placements will be wiped and recreated. It will always be the desired goal to go back and improve parts of Vvardenfell that might use inferior content in future releases. Using Galadrielle's content provides and an inspirational and labour saving boost and also leaves us with the possibility of releasing the mod even though, say, 3 Dwemer ruins and a bunch of tombs are still TES3 scaled versions, so long as they don't look significantly inferior to the quality of the rest of the world.

I think the problem more recently from what Dave_91 has told me has been the region generator, which is unreliable at auto-placing content over such vast areas. Most modders will be more interested in creating human-like structures (towns, forts, ruins, tombs etc). Whilst rocks and trees are vital to set a scene, finding anyone willing to do this outside a small area is highly unlikely, especially across 26 or so square miles. Using Galadrielle's mesh converter in this context helps save time and can add those motivational and inspirational facets in the face of aspects that I think people are finding frustrating and tedious. In very little time we have a completely visitable world (and a legal one too at that). Areas that look wrong or are too bland will stand out a mile, but I feel features like TES4 3D grass make any area with a couple of mushrooms and a few trees look more than satisfactory for the immediate future.

The only real problems I've experienced with the 2x scaled and placed meshes are that some walls are too tall for your character to look over (e.g. the canton walls in Vivec and along the sides of Imperial Forts) and that in some small villages, such as Seyda Neen, the buildings do look oversized compared to the NPCs, though a moot point since such settlements will be remade with new meshes. We are also missing a number of meshes (I long to see a stilt rider in TES4, even more to hear haunting whalesong breaking across the open water). I haven't directly compared shots from TES3 and TES4 to see how much Galadrielle's converter didn't convert, but the vast majority is already there.

Btw, does anyone have any thoughts about converted interiors? Galadrielle's converter converts these also (you can enter most buildings, caves, tombs etc, though most clutter is missing). Of course most will be replaced, but it gives the option of leaving the recreation of every obscure tomb and cave as a lower priority, side-projects for anyone who elects to take on changing one or more of them.

Lightwave

[Lady Nerevar]

WOAH! i had not expected the screenshots to be that cool. even with all the errors and stuff, that is still one of the awesome things i have ever seen (and I am not lying here). I especially love the Vivec shots...

if you guys can make that you will have my undying admiration

[DarkAsmodeous]

Let me ask this... is it possible to use the placement capabilities of the content conerter... with different meshes?

Because you could use the locaitonal data of trees and rocks, with TES4 rocks... Kinda like a region editor with predetermined placements.

So you use the locational abilites of the app, without hte drawbacks inherant in use of TES3 content.

[KuKulzA]

Originally posted by DarkAsmodeous
DA has serious reservations here.... I'm just saying, you've always been prepared to do the work to creat the best Vvardenfell you could, even if it meant more work. Just because there's a shortcut or placeholder available... Don't change your plans based on that.

I'm going to be gone soon, unless there'll be an even more competent leader to step in my place, this could be the lucky lotto-number... I understand you though and would've said the same only a few months ago :goodjob:

[Lightwave]

Originally posted by DarkAsmodeousLet me ask this... is it possible to use the placement capabilities of the content conerter... with different meshes?

Yes, you just change .nif file on the hard-drive or just change the filepath of nif file in the STAT record. This was the approach I was thinking of to save time with all those placement problems, whether you stick with the old meshes or update them as you go along. Either will automatically cause all references to that object to use the new mesh.

The trick is to make sure the new meshes have similar dimensions and co-ordinates, so replacement rocks must be of a similar size for example and have the same central co-ordinates; especially tree (since AFAIR the block of roots in TES3 trees are much deeper than the TES4 trees). Alternatively as each mesh is replaced, you just look for each placed occurrence of that object in the CS and move them around a little in the render window so they still look normal.

For buildings, no-one is ever going to get them exactly the same size and dimensions as Beth's (if they did, that in itself would look suspicious. ) so that kind of replacement content will have to manually placed, but then most buildings are going to be placed in enlarged towns anyway which requires total manual re-placement of objects.

[blackbird]

It looks nice but not practical when every builiding has the double size of its MW equivalent.
What will happens with interiors? They wil not fit anymore with the exteriors.

[The Old Ye Bard]

Originally posted by blackbird
It looks nice but not practical when every builiding has the double size of its MW equivalent.
What will happens with interiors? They wil not fit anymore with the exteriors.

Actually in TES3 most of the interiors were bigger than their respective exteriors.

[Lightwave]

Originally posted by blackbirdIt looks nice but not practical when every builiding has the double size of its MW equivalent. What will happens with interiors? They wil not fit anymore with the exteriors.

Many of the 2x exterior buildings will only be temporary workarounds - most if not all habitable building interiors would be replaced later with normal scale versions, just as the exterior buildings will probably be entirely replaced.

If we wish to include converted interiors (and if so I can scale these to 2x just like the exteriors), usable usable placeholders for those many tombs, caves and ruins, then it would make sense to scale them up just the same as the exteriors, so they 'match', though as TOYB points out, the interior-exterior matches are only approximate anyway. Most clutter is missing from Galadrielle's converter atm, so the larger scale of interiors doesn't look so bad (few giant chairs or tables), though I suspect walking in to a shop where the keeper can't see over the counter will look a bit ridiculous. If we do it, those cases are only temporary. Or we retain the original interior scale for now and just make sure the interior doors match up to the exteriors. When you're inside a ruin or cave, the difference between the interior and exterior scales is harder to notice.

[john44]

I don't know if this is the right place to ask but I am having some problems with Galadrielle's content converter. I have it installed and I can go to Morrowind and explore the contryside fine but the game crashes when I go to the cities. I can go through Seyda Neen the Imperial forts and villiges without any problems. Balmora, Alld Ruin,Tel Vos Crash but Caldera works fine. I really like this package Galadriell wrote though. I wish it had a more automatic install routine and that it would play the Morrowind"s music instead of Oblivion"s. Its seems like if it could be devleped further it could be used as a base package to make the Vardenfell mod on top of. In the mean time if is very nice to see Morrowind again this way. Thankyou Galadriell.