Hlaalu House Project

[Quentin Fortune]

Originally posted by Oom

Originally posted by Razorwing
[...]
Keep up the good work, milady. I don't know what we'd do without you :goodjob:

[...]
I suspect there might be a slight misunderstanding about my gender but with a name like Oom it's understandable (I'm male). And frankly, I would not know what to do without me either.

Hi Oom,

I suppose the misunderstanding derives from the fact that your profile tells the curious investigator that your female. :hmm:

First and foremost, congratulations to this excellent work. :applause: I only wanted to have a short look to give a first impression and I suddenly found myself rearranging meshes and trying to build some houses.
I had a Bethesda model added for comparison and to be honest, I couldn't see a difference.

So, from my point of view (a simple modder with no clue about moddeling) I say carry on. :goodjob:

I have a few comments though, but they are mere formalities.

- the meshes need to go into a folder Data Files\meshes\HlaTS\, (your readme says just \meshes\)otherwise they won't show up

- the following mesh is either not in the package or I'm completely blind: 001_Hlaa_ATo_B_Co.NIF (belongs to ex_Hlaa09_To_B_Co). I checked out all the folders, but I didn't find it.

- just to clarify things: will these pieces be put together to houses, towers etc. or are we going to use them as they are? I will be able to help you better with the nomenclatura when I know that.

Oh ... and we are not so puristic that we would refrain from using pieces that are not in the original game.

Again, very, very well done and thank you so much that you decided to put so much time and effort in our project.:wave:

Greetings

Quentin

[Oom]

All three mistakes fixed. Thanks Quentin Fortune! :goodjob:

Hlaalu House Project Tile Set Ver.Alpha002 (I67kB) attached to this post.

My intentions don't go any further than to make a tile set, just as the currant release . There will hopefully be both a TES3 and in time a TES4 version.

Cheers! Oom

[Razorwing]

Oom: Puzzling... this is the second time I've confused a man's gender based on the information in his forum profile. I don't know why that happens in certain forum profiles, but I'll never take that information for granted again. It's just pure luck I haven't accidentally insulted anyone =) I'll be sure to correct the gender references in the information I've posted ASAP.

Unfortunately I lost access to Morrowind about a week ago when the other comp crashed, but if all goes according to plan I should have it back from the shop in another week. In the meantime I'm stuck with "The Elder Scrolls Construction Set 3?"... i.e., 3D Studio Max

From what I can tell when I imported pieces into Max it looks like very fine work indeed! :goodjob: I'm impressed that you could combine both a great look and high optimization at the same time. And about the size I feel the only really important things are that 1) it's not too small for the player to move around in and 2) the doors and doorjambs doesn't look out of proportion. For example, whether a room has a roof height of four metres or two metres doesn't matter in regards to believability, but if a door is 2x3 metres then that might jolt the player. That's a general statement by the way, it's certainly not directed at your work - I thought the scale in Max was perfect. But as I can't check how it looks in the CS I thought I'd mention that as a general note.

Something I noticed in Max is that the pivot seems very far from the center of the object. If I recall correctly the stuff I made in the past that had a remotely located pivot behaved strangely in the CS; not ending up where it was dropped, and when turning it sideways it turned on a very wide arch. I'm not going to speculate or jump to conclusions as I'm highly aware of your skill - I'd just like to ask what your thoughts on that matter is? =)

I came to think of one thing I would very much like to see. In many of your pieces - 001_Hlaa_AGr_DenWall being one example - there are rectangular indentations. Would it be possible for you to create an alternative set of these pieces with the center of the indentations cut out? Because I thought if you could do that, then modders in the future could add reskinned planes and similar to vary what is in the center of the indentations. It could be a painting that reflects what's inside - for example a bank might have something that ties in with gold and wealth, a temple might have religious motifs, others might have a translucant window. If it could be made as an alternate set instead of replacing what you already have created, that would leave the window open (pun) for the future to add specialized planes and windows. Just something that crossed my mind.

I have some thoughts about the naming system too Wouldn't it work if you named the first part of the meshes' filenames something along the lines of "ExH_..." ? As they're in your own folder I don't see how they would be confused with other meshes.

Oh, and feel perfectly free to stray from the rigidity of Bethesda's design whenever you find you want to. Like culture, architectural design vary depending on it's influences and at least to me it's not hard to imagine that in a town situated where Silgrad is, the architects there would be influenced both by Skyrim and Cyrodiil just through the sheer closeness of those cultures. Or maybe I've just played Civilization III too much

Releasing your work both for Elder Scrolls III and IV is a wonderful idea! I'm confident the foremost will yield very valuable feedback from many, many people and be highly appreciated by the whole community. Two thumbs up for your sterling work and dedication, Oom! :goodjob: :goodjob:

[Oom]

Originally posted by Razorwing
Oom: Puzzling... this is the second time I've confused a man's gender based on the information in his forum profile. I don't know why that happens in certain forum profiles, but I'll never take that information for granted again. It's just pure luck I haven't accidentally insulted anyone =) I'll be sure to correct the gender references in the information I've posted ASAP.

No problem, I probably used the scroll wheel while still in the gender drop down.

Unfortunately I lost access to Morrowind about a week ago when the other comp crashed, but if all goes according to plan I should have it back from the shop in another week. In the meantime I'm stuck with "The Elder Scrolls Construction Set 3?"... i.e., 3D Studio Max

From what I can tell when I imported pieces into Max it looks like very fine work indeed! :goodjob: I'm impressed that you could combine both a great look and high optimization at the same time. And about the size I feel the only really important things are that 1) it's not too small for the player to move around in and 2) the doors and doorjambs doesn't look out of proportion. For example, whether a room has a roof height of four metres or two metres doesn't matter in regards to believability, but if a door is 2x3 metres then that might jolt the player. That's a general statement by the way, it's certainly not directed at your work - I thought the scale in Max was perfect. But as I can't check how it looks in the CS I thought I'd mention that as a general note.

I have not made any game testing in Morrowind yet. Possibly the stair - door jamb combination is to low, apart from that not much can go wrong. Jonathan's model is very well made.

Something I noticed in Max is that the pivot seems very far from the center of the object. If I recall correctly the stuff I made in the past that had a remotely located pivot behaved strangely in the CS; not ending up where it was dropped, and when turning it sideways it turned on a very wide arch. I'm not going to speculate or jump to conclusions as I'm highly aware of your skill - I'd just like to ask what your thoughts on that matter is? =)

The pivots are, with a few exceptions, set in the center of the tile. This is very convenient during development and also very easy to change later. I would like to keep them for a while but it is no problem to move them once the meshes have settled.

I came to think of one thing I would very much like to see. In many of your pieces - 001_Hlaa_AGr_DenWall being one example - there are rectangular indentations. Would it be possible for you to create an alternative set of these pieces with the center of the indentations cut out? Because I thought if you could do that, then modders in the future could add reskinned planes and similar to vary what is in the center of the indentations. It could be a painting that reflects what's inside - for example a bank might have something that ties in with gold and wealth, a temple might have religious motifs, others might have a translucant window. If it could be made as an alternate set instead of replacing what you already have created, that would leave the window open (pun) for the future to add specialized planes and windows. Just something that crossed my mind.

To use separate materials in each panel is a excellent idea, or maybe each panel could use a different part of the same texture, then the same set will work both ways. So far, very little effort have been put in to texture mapping and I rather have one set of tiles with two functions as I try to keep the number of tiles at a manageable level. There is still some hope to keep this under 100 parts.
Making the panels alpha enabled is, as far as I know, just a mater of ticking the right boxes in 3DS. My only objection is lore, but giving a opportunity doesn't mean everybody have to use it. (I'm quite confident no one will even think of making a Vvardenfell version of Amsterdam's red light district :brew: )

I have some thoughts about the naming system too Wouldn't it work if you named the first part of the meshes' filenames something along the lines of "ExH_..." ? As they're in your own folder I don't see how they would be confused with other meshes.

The naming system was made to allow several texture versions by different artist, based on the same tile set, to be used simultaneously. It would be better to rename the parts to match the nifs then the other way around. As the first part of the name is ?free? ExH_ is no problem. 001 is a version number during development. I should have changed it to 002 but forgot . None if the nifs were changed so no harm is done.

Oh, and feel perfectly free to stray from the rigidity of Bethesda's design whenever you find you want to. Like culture, architectural design vary depending on it's influences and at least to me it's not hard to imagine that in a town situated where Silgrad is, the architects there would be influenced both by Skyrim and Cyrodiil just through the sheer closeness of those cultures. Or maybe I've just played Civilization III too much

Actually I try to restrict my self not to stray too far from lore, I'm afraid the set will lose the Hlaalu feeling. To repeat myself: Giving a opportunity doesn't mean everybody have to use it.

Releasing your work both for Elder Scrolls III and IV is a wonderful idea! I'm confident the foremost will yield very valuable feedback from many, many people and be highly appreciated by the whole community. Two thumbs up for your sterling work and dedication, Oom! :goodjob: :goodjob:

Thanks! =)
Now, let's see.....Stairs.... hmmm..

edit: Typos

[Razorwing]

Thankyou for taking the time to explain things. I agree with everything you said

I ended my train of thought prematurely when I mentioned the Skyrim and Cyrodiil influences. Reading it again I see it gives the wrong impression, as I didn't really mean to suggest fusing Hlaalu and Skyrim/Cyrodiil architecture. Far from it. Rather I wanted to reference how towns within the same culture can still differ somewhat in architecture while still retaining a common theme. Cultures in our own world tend to swing wildly in architecture depending on the time period it was built in for example. But before I confuse myself again :] in practicality I meant one could use the same shapes and style to create new pieces that look Hlaalu but aren't identical to what Bethesda did. The key word is could, I just meant to say you were free to do that if you wanted. It's definetely not a requirement of any kind, the work you're doing now is awesome and much more than I could ever hope for.

[Oom]

I believe I got you about right the first time. Straying usually comes very natural when you work with a set. New ideas come along all the time. However there is another reason to keep close to the lore, any straying will mean more tiles and that is one thing I believe we don't need at the moment. There are still some 20 tiles left to be made, mostly stair-related and with the 8 mirrored tiles that are missing the total number of parts will be very close to one hundred. I believe it's a little too many to be convenient but not at all an impossible number to handle. Because of this there will only be tiles directly connected to houses in the release. That is no city walls, canals, bridges, stand alone stairs or slit port. They have to wait, sorry.
When the set is finished there will hopefully be updates and addons with better room to develop the possibilities of the set.

I have had a closer look at the Hlaalu parts from the game and two tiles can be removed from the ?None lore list?. The two inner corners are within lore.

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by Oom
I believe I got you about right the first time. Straying usually comes very natural when you work with a set. New ideas come along all the time. However there is another reason to keep close to the lore, any straying will mean more tiles and that is one thing I believe we don't need at the moment. There are still some 20 tiles left to be made, mostly stair-related and with the 8 mirrored tiles that are missing the total number of parts will be very close to one hundred. I believe it's a little too many to be convenient but not at all an impossible number to handle. Because of this there will only be tiles directly connected to houses in the release. That is no city walls, canals, bridges, stand alone stairs or slit port. They have to wait, sorry.
When the set is finished there will hopefully be updates and addons with better room to develop the possibilities of the set.

I have had a closer look at the Hlaalu parts from the game and two tiles can be removed from the ?None lore list?. The two inner corners are within lore.

Ok, cool. Yes, one hundred is definetely a nice round number and with that kind of resources we'll be sure to get a great level of detail and variety. I'm particularly looking forward to modding tall buildings near the heart of the town, and with this great tile set Hlaalu towns will surely be an awe-inspiring sight to see. Heck, I'm itching to see a future expansion southwards just so we can mod more Hlaalu towns =)

Hmm, I've been thinking on and off about contacting the guy who made the animated silt striders we feature in the mod, and getting the 3ds source files from him. Those are the only Morrowind-influenced creatures I know of that's been created by the community. Might be more, I haven't really checked that extensively yet as animated NIF files can't be imported properly into max.

Oh, you feel like making an entire set in time? Wow, that'd be terrific! Walls would be very handy to have, and I do have a special place in my heart for bridges. Didn't really like the Hlaalu ones though... I guess from falling into the river in Balmora one too many times and having to swim for a minute each time, hehe. We sure need those too, though, but no stress on that. We still have at least 2 months, probably 2? I'd say, until Oblivion is available so there's plenty of time still.

:goodjob:

[Oom]

Eeee... In time for what? (I'm new around here, remember ) All the different releases are a little confusing In 2-2? month, shouldn't be a problem. Might even be bridges, walls, canals and a slit port too by then (Are there slit striders on the mainland?). In time to use in the 1/11(?) release, tough call, maybe, maybe not, most probably not.

Have almost modeled all the catwalk-parts for the stairs, ?only? the actual stairs and a few odd bits left to do.

[Razorwing]

Bethesda has confirmed Oblivion will be released in time for christmas, which probably means sometime in November because then it'll be out in time for parents to get two pay checks before christmas, which is an important economic decision I think. That gives us eight to twelve weeks from now until the earliest time when the game might be released and we can start modding for it.

Concievably they could release the 3D Studio Max exporter together with releasing the game. I couldn't make a guess as to when they release the exporter, but in any case we can be reasonably sure we won't be able to do any hands-on modding in the Construction Set for at least 8 weeks. So, if your collection is ready in one week or on eight weeks doesn't really matter as far as using it goes.

But the moment we're able to use the exporter we'd export the collection you're making, together with Hlaalu interiors, so we can start modding Silgrad. Before that time I imagine we'll do a bit of modding with components from the game, making the imperial parts of our mod but also setting up landscape, flora and such, so I'm sure we'll have our hands full.

Silt striders get their name from wading through silt (~sediment/mud) and can move through any shallow water, I imagine. I'm sure they're common throughout Morrowind but I can check up on that on TIL. Even if the Silt striders themselves get added later on, having ports would be very nice I think.

The new meshes look excellent

[Oom]

:i: have the grate pleasure to announce that all planed parts are now modeled. Think there are 97 now but I believe it is possible to optimizes some. Alpha 003 will be coming in a while.