Plans for skyrim?

[Candlemaster]

Hey all, I'm just wondering what the Silgrad Tower team plans to do once Skyrim is out. Will you keep working on Oblivion with no changes, or will you for-the-most-part migrate your work over to Skyrim? I can definitely imagine both teams working simultaneously, but they would likely have to be separate teams, as the job will undoubtedly be way different. Apart from the raised bar on visuals, there's the whole "200 years have passed" issue.

I know it's a tad too early to be thinking about Skyrim mods (116 days too early, to be exact), but we can always get a head start. Thing like modelling, texturing, and sounds we can always get a head start on.

[TheImperialDragon]

Hi candlemaster, I certainly agree it's a good idea to start discussing Skyrim, seeing as its release is (very quickly) approaching. :yes:

I imagine that we would in fact be shifting our focus to Skyrim, though we may still have a smaller team working on Oblivion (much like how we had a Morrowind project during Oblivion's life span). As for whether there would be differences, I suppose it would probably depend a fair bit on lore changes. In the past, we've looked at our Oblivion mod more as a remake-of rather than a sequel-to our Morrowind mod, and we may have a similar case with Skyrim (though I think it is too early to say for sure what will be doable and what won't).

I'm not too concerned about our existing custom visuals. Many of our models for TESIV were intentionally made to be very detailed, such that they could potentially be used in one or more future games. We will of course, however, need to look into what steps will be involved in moving them to TESV once we know more technical details.

[Candlemaster]

About the existing visuals... I've seen them, and no offense, but I'm kinda disappointed. They're good compared to Morrowind's, but even compared to Oblivion's they're bland and plain-looking. In Skyrim, I really don't think they'd cut it.

It looks as if they were made with the idea of "let's copy Morrowind's visuals as closely as possible, only with more polygons". Well, I really don't think that's enough, to be honest. It's not just poly count and texture resolution that makes something look good, it's the attention to detail and creativity.

Having said that, I am a modeller, and I have a copy of ZBrush, so I'd be happy to try my own hand at making something nicer. Still learning ZBrush's workflow mind you, but I'm getting better all the time.

Again, I don't mean to insult or put down anyone, it's just... yeah.

(disclaimer - I haven't seen *all* of the visuals you guys have, I'm just going by what I have seen)

[JcHARP]

The tileset I have been working with these past days, to me looks well done. Whoever did the Velothi tileset, it gives the right feel off. Once you use lighting then it really shines.

[Candlemaster]

Shines? Perhaps. But it takes more than specular maps to make a good-looking tileset. Even with good normal and parallax maps, I'm afraid that's still only approaching good enough, if you ask me. As long as the designers feel they need to emulate TES3, the visual quality will never truly compete with TES4, let alone TES5.

[Sniper4]

Originally posted by candlemaster
It looks as if they were made with the idea of "let's copy Morrowind's visuals as closely as possible, only with more polygons". Well, I really don't think that's enough, to be honest. It's not just poly count and texture resolution that makes something look good, it's the attention to detail and creativity.

I think I understand what you are saying. Or, to put it as you mentioned in another thread:

Originally posted by candlemasterI think, aside from the fact that it doesn't look like vanilla morrowind's, it would make a great velothi tomb tileset. And, one must remember, most of why Morrowind looked like it did is technical limitations. Inspiration-wise, I'm going more from the concept art (such as This lovely image) than what was actually in TES3.

I must agree with the part of your post that I have placed in bold. I'm sure that Bethesda would have put much more detail into their tilesets, as well as all other models, if PCs at the time had the same resources as they do now.

One thing that always slightly bothered me about the original Velothi and Hlaalu structures was that, both on the interior and exterior, they looked like they were made out of brown concrete. With more visual detail, we may have even been able to guess at what these structures were made from just by looking. As it stands now, who's to say whether or not a Hlaalu building is made from mud brick or stone?

The same goes for the Redoran buildings: rather than a more organic shell shape, Bethesda had to implement a round, dome- like shape.

Also, perhaps a graphical upgrade could give us the edge needed to bring in new blood? Many will come to us in the early days of TESV for the sake of TESIII nostalgia, but we ultimately have to have a means to keep others as well. In other words, we may face trouble down the road if we rely entirely upon TESIII's success to promote interest in our mod.

Of course, the challenge to a visual redesign is how to make it still feel like we are in Morrowind? I think a big key there is color: sticking with the more earthy browns, tans, and beiges of Morrowind's original look. If Morrowind structures were suddenly changed to be made of grey or white stone, it may confuse the older TESIII players. Of course, as shown in the original Velothian concept art, I'm sure the Dunmer might paint designs on their structures to add color.

To go along with color, I think form is important to consider in a possible redesign as well. Hlaalu structures are very geometric, while Redoran structures would be more organic (being made of shells, that is).

These are just a few cents I'm throwing in. I'm not strongly for or against anything. I just like to let my tongue flap for awhile. Then I tend to prance away and do something else .

[Candlemaster]

I'm probably mistaken, but I think the velothi architecture is made of a bonemold/concrete hybrid. At least that's what I've been going on as far as texture and color. It's either that or shell, but considering the non-holamayan velothi concept art, that seems unlikely for the majority of the architecture.

[Deeza]

Just thought I'd drop by to cheer you guys on. I think that revisiting the original concept art and deciding whether or not we should do things which weren't possible with the graphics limitations of TES3 is exactly the right approach to take.

I'm interested though, where are these Velothi concept art pieces? They don't seem to be on the uesp concept art page.

[Candlemaster]

There are quite a few of temples (see this, this, and this), but the one for tombs that I've been looking at is [this] one (Holamayan in the lower-right corner).

(at least exterior - interior I have to kinda wing it)