General Information for Region Modders

[TheImperialDragon]

[title]Description of the claims[/title]

The jist of these jobs is to bring regions from our Morrowind mod to life in our Oblivion mod. In other words you'd be doing a lot of exterior detailing on our landmass. No modelling- or other external skills are necessary, but you do on the other hand need to be proficient with the Construction Set. It wouldn't hurt to have a knack for crafting interesting nature scenes either. If you do have those requisites we imagine you'd have a blast creating a region.

Sandor is more than willing to help/advise the the person that claims a region with the auto generation settings. He/she may always PM him.

[title]What would I need to do, exactly?[/title]

Detail the landscape with the assets outlined in the region thread. There is more info on the individual region threads about what you can use and how to use it.

Be sure to look at the Region Guidelines to get an idea of how we work with the region files.

[title]Sundry[/title]

Before you start, make sure you have Silgrad Tower v2.5 installed, as well as the latest modding ESM. Info is in the release thread pinned on The Tavern.

Important. Every two weeks, or every week if you work intensively, send a copy of your work-in-progress esp to sandor so that he can check it for technical errors. The Construction Set is insidious in the way it lets you mod without noticing any technical errors; you can even playtest it and it'll work just fine, but even then, a technical bug may have crept in. If the bug is left in for too long it can become very time-consuming to correct it, or in worst case means your esp can never be merged. By sending wip esp's on a regular basis you can avoid that situation. You don't have to worry about explaining anything when you send the wip, because sandor won't review it until you're finished -- he will only check for techical problems in the esp file.

Let Razorwing know if any models give you trouble when you generate them and he'll try to remedy it. We're not quite sure why some of the models work with the generation and some don't, but perhaps we can work together in finding out. When we say that they don't work we mean that they may not automatically align themselves with the ground or they may float/sink, but judging by the last tests performed by Razorwing and sandor, most of the models work smoothly. If a model causes trouble with the generation feature, please don't generate it but instead wait until Razorwing can send you a revision of the model.

NOTE. We do not believe we can expect to be able to generate mushrooms growing on trees. You see that sometimes in Oblivion, but Bethesda probably placed them by hand.

It's always wise to keep in mind that Bethesda surely used the generation feature mostly to avoid a lot of drag-dropping and that they went in and tweaked things by hand in a lot of cases. That's not to say you would have to mod everything by hand, just that you should feel free to let loose your creativity whenever you spot an opportunity.

You should set up entrances to caves, animal dens, tombs and other locations at your discretion. You do not have to mod them yourself, but it would be wonderful if you could mark them in screenshots or similar and offer them up for claiming on the Region Claims board. Keep in mind that Morrowind does not have Ayleid ruins, but does have plenty of Velothi tombs.

If you have requests for new models, like a rope bridge for example, let Razorwing know and he'll add them to his to-do-list, but if you can make do with assets from the game that would probably be best.

[title]Reference[/title]

Most region claims have a map and a set of screenshots for you to use.

- Use the region map to define your region area. Do not mod beyond the area outlined in the region maps.
- Refer to the screenshots for an idea as to how the region looked in the TES3 mod. The region should look similar to what you see in the screenshots.

Modified - Originally written by Razorwing