New WS Progress: The Hist Dimension

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Cool! Where can I find it? btw, if you're interested in producing some sounds for it then I recommend some very weird woodland creakings and mysterious flutes...something like the little tune I attached here....

[Xae]

It's here, along with the other BM music. I'll take a look at the sounds.

Edit: It's a bit too musical but I get the central theme of being alone in an admittedly very fascinating but also dangerous place that hates you (maybe). While I was experimenting I ended up adding a boys choir which added some evil to the mix. I think I might remove this and add a solo flute playing a weird melody over some gentle mid-range drones. Seeing as it's such a powerfully significant environment and similar to the Oblivion realms that didn't have any music at all, I was thinking a very ambient space would be most fitting for continuity.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I like the boys choir refrain but I think you're right about replacing it as you suggested. Nonetheless, I'd like to see something like that appear elsewhere in the mod. In Stormhold, I would like to have a small storyline about Cyrodiil missionaries of the Nine coming to bring 'enlightenment' to the heathens of the jungle....the religious might fit in nicely.

ThePriest909 used a little bit of Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells' in his promo video for 'Gates to Aesgaard: Part 2' and I'm quite fond of stuff like Orbital's 'The Box': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q25Zx6B5HJA which is similar...

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Thanks to Koniption, I now have a form of entry into the Hist Dimension. What you see in the first screenshot is my first concept for this. I'm not that happy with how it's looking in-game but the aim was to go for a butterly-themed fractal and I got that. It's just that my thinking is that it's perhaps too bright. Also, I'd like it to glow a lot brighter in a yellow colour and perhaps spin. Talking of yellow, I haven't looked into this yet but does anyone know of a tutorial that might enable me to alter water textures so that we can create a yellowy sap instead of the current swamp-water....?

Other than this, I have worked on separating out this area into three parts which will each represent different challenges. The 'root-gates' that you see will be locked until you have passed these challenges. Note that, in one of the shots, there is a large log tunnel that you can travel up to get to the exit (or the next stage) so that the whole area becomes visible....hopefully covered in yellowy sap.

The custom flora for a special field is on the way....

[Koniption]

Originally posted by Ibsen's Ghost
[...] It's just that my thinking is that it's perhaps too bright. Also, I'd like it to glow a lot brighter in a yellow colour and perhaps spin. [...]

Ibsen, you can control the brightness of the glow by making a glowmap (texturename_g.nif) that has shades of "grey" where the overly bright glow is. The darker the shade of grey, the less the glow. Pure white glowmap is pure and bright glow, but pure black glowmap means no glow at all. You might can try to also set the Emmissive Color of the NiMaterialProperty to a shade of grey (I set it to pure white), and this *might* make it so the overall cube cube dims accordingly (I cant remember correctly, I just woke up, gotta love weekend mornings). Also, if you want the cube to glow a different color than what the initial regular texture is colored, make the glowmap have that color (whether yellow, red, blue, etc) in those areas of the texture. You can also "darken" those red/yellow/etc colors with a greyish shade, so also dim the glow.

If you want it to spin, I can do that animtion for you. But what direction and how do you want it to spin? Along the Z axis, X axis, Y axis, or a wobbly spin incorporating one or more of those axises?

[...] Talking of yellow, I haven't looked into this yet but does anyone know of a tutorial that might enable me to alter water textures so that we can create a yellowy sap instead of the current swamp-water....?[...]

Go here:
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/ind...Water_Type

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/ind...ext=Search

Also, I noticed that the "textures" folder of Oblivion has a "water" folder set aside for water textures...I think you can make a yellow/orange or whatever water texture and apply it to the HIst Dimension water using the first link I linked to above.

Water is not an object or a nif, so trying to find it in the meshes folder will not yield anything. But it does use textures from the textures folder, when you tell it to in the CS, or something.

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Thanks K,

That's really useful. It's a bit late at the moment so I don't have time to try those ideas out yet but I will. As for the Hist Key, I'd like it to spin diagonally, if that's okay. In the meantime, I have tried out one version of the sunflower textures using your model in the CS and will get some screenies soon. The prospect of having Hist sap water textures has got me nodding in hearty approval. :yes:

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Oh yes! :yes:

The Hist sap is here! I'm a little worried though because I'm badly colourblind with greens and browns and always tend to think that the colour I've chosen ends up wrong so let me know if the colours are way out because I can't tell.

I'm struggling with Glowmaps though because I thought Koniption had meant to say .dds as opposed to .nif when she quoted "texturename_g.nif". I think the tutorial says that it has to be merged with the model or something....? So I'm not sure how to apply it...even though I made a glowmap that looked about right.

Anyway, notice the purty sunflowers there? Hey, what are they doing in a hostile Dimension? Well, they're not exactly your conventional sort of sunflower....look very closely....thanks also go to Koniption for the spiralling roots that reach up into the clouds. They don't quite convince enough to be able to say that they look like they might reach up to meet with the rootsky but they look fine anyway.

Then I added two significant locations.....a likely area for a battle scene and a shrine.

[Koniption]

Originally posted by Ibsen's Ghost
Oh yes! :yes:

The Hist sap is here! I'm a little worried though because I'm badly colourblind with greens and browns and always tend to think that the colour I've chosen ends up wrong so let me know if the colours are way out because I can't tell.

The sap looks perfect! It's a bright yellow, with a slight texture to it. You wanted yellow sap, and you made yellow sap. Looks ok to me.

I'm struggling with Glowmaps though because I thought Koniption had meant to say .dds as opposed to .nif when she quoted "texturename_g.nif". I think the tutorial says that it has to be merged with the model or something....? So I'm not sure how to apply it...even though I made a glowmap that looked about right.

I meant "texturename_g.dds" - whoops, my bad.

I think the Emmissive Color property in the NiMaterialProperty has to first be set to pure white, to allow the glowmap to take effect. Then put the glowmap in the same folder as the regular and normalmap textures. Oh yeah, make sure the glowmap is named the same as your regular texture, but with an "_g.dds" at the end of the name. That should be all you need to do. If you're unsure if the glowmap is taking effect, make a pure black glowmap, and test it ingame.

If the object still glows brightly, then you might can do this: open the nif, go to the NITextureProperty, where it says "Has Glow Texsture - doubleclick on the right field until "No" turns to "Yes". Then expand the field for that area, and you'll see a space to put another NiSourceTexture. Copy and paste the current NiSourceTexture for the reg. texture and hook the second NiSourceTexture into the Glow Texture "Source" field's right column. Rename the folder path of the new NiSourceTexture to point to the glowmap (example: texture\Blackmarsh\HistDimen\texturename_g.dds).

I think the idea in immediate paragraph above is not necessary, and that the game automatically detects a glowmap if it's in the same folder as the other textures, and is named correctly.

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Originally posted by Koniption
Copy and paste the current NiSourceTexture for the reg. texture and hook the second NiSourceTexture into the Glow Texture "Source" field's right column. Rename the folder path of the new NiSourceTexture to point to the glowmap (example: texture\Blackmarsh\HistDimen\texturename_g.dds).

I think the idea in immediate paragraph above is not necessary, and that the game automatically detects a glowmap if it's in the same folder as the other textures, and is named correctly.

Koniption

I was with you up until this quoted section. I'm not sure what to copy and paste and where. ?(

[Koniption]

Originally posted by Ibsen's Ghost

Originally posted by Koniption
Copy and paste the current NiSourceTexture for the reg. texture and hook the second NiSourceTexture into the Glow Texture "Source" field's right column. Rename the folder path of the new NiSourceTexture to point to the glowmap (example: texture\Blackmarsh\HistDimen\texturename_g.dds).

I think the idea in immediate paragraph above is not necessary, and that the game automatically detects a glowmap if it's in the same folder as the other textures, and is named correctly.

Koniption

I was with you up until this quoted section. I'm not sure what to copy and paste and where. ?(

In Nifskope, expand the NiTriStrips or NiTriShape (whichever it's called) of the cube's mesh. Expand the NiTexturingProperty, and you'll see a NiSourceTexture. CLick on it with your mouse until it's highlighted, then rightclick and choose "Copy Branch"...then in a blank spot on that window right-click and choose "Paste at End" or (or "Paste Branch", as some older NIfskope versions will say). A copy of that NiSourceTexture will be pasted into the window. Then, enter the node # for that new NiSourceTexture into the Glowmap's expanded field that I talked about ealier, then point the folder path to point specifically to the glowmap dds texture.

Koniption