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Deeza · 02-08-2010, 03:23 PM,

Progress, anyone?

drmccoy · 02-09-2010, 07:12 PM,

I got my hands on the latest uploaded esp of mine, but I still need Oblivion which is at my parents house. I'll start modding once I bring that to me, I'll be there this weekend so we'll be off soon! Smile

PS: I don't think those books made it? We can change that fairly easy though

Deeza · 02-09-2010, 07:30 PM,

Sure. I'll whip up an esp with the books in it sometime in the next couple of days.

drmccoy · 02-09-2010, 07:46 PM,

That'd be great!
I really appreciate your input, Deeza! You're one of the few guys that stand it through with us nevertheless, I'm really glad you're doing that Smile

Deeza · 02-09-2010, 08:53 PM,

Thanks drmccoy, it's been my pleasure. I'm just doing the books now.

Deeza · 02-10-2010, 12:10 AM,

As promised, here are the books.

Only one detail remains - the books are connected up to new renamed meshes I created, so that we can give them unique covers. I think these should be based on the fur textures of animals from the game, to make it obvious they're made from animal parts, not paper. I lack the skill to do this, so perhaps someone else can do the retex?

Regards,

Deeza

morcroft · 02-10-2010, 10:32 AM,

Hi

There's not much fur on a game texture - I think a general-purpose fur texture would be better. And when you say "animal parts not paper" do you include the pages, or will the stock pages texture do?

I played around (briefly) with book covers a while ago and just rehashed an old working file with a fur and coarse leather texture. Is this the sort of thing you have in mind?

[Image: ValenwoodBookTest.jpg]

Needs cleaning up - and I'd probably want to rework the UVs on the model - but I'll give it a go unless someone else can knock them out quickly.

I did this at double the res of the game textures, which I think are very fuzzy. Could go higher if you think it's worth it. Phoenix Amon did hers at 4x but that's probably excessive for my artwork....

How do you feel about snakeskin? And what have you got in mind for valenwoodbookSPECIAL.nif? Those teeth are a bit distinctive....

Deeza · 02-10-2010, 12:15 PM,

That's exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of. Smile

If you can retexture the pages, that would be fantastic, but I never knew that would be possible...

You could try using the animal fur textures from the "creature" files as a base for these textures (the idea was that each book mesh would correspond to a different fur).

Snakeskin would be great for one of them as well....

And ValenwoodSPECIAL is going to be a unique mesh for the two books of the Meh Ayleidoon, which in the province's lore is a very ancient and holy Bosmer book, kind of equivalent in importance to the Torah or something like that. It should be made of high-quality skin of a rare animal, with jewels and ivory (the teeth) set into it.

morcroft · 02-10-2010, 01:07 PM,

Quote:Originally posted by Deeza
That's exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of.

OK - I'll take a crack at it.

Quote: If you can retexture the pages, that would be fantastic, but I never knew that would be possible...

Well, a texture's a texture - should be do-able. Are you thinking of something thicker and yellower, like parchment or vellum? Maybe less neatly trimmed edges? No promises, mind!
I wouldn't want to change the page texture too much otherwise it'll be a disappointment when you open the book up and see the same old boring pages inside, and I don't know how to change that!

Quote:You could try using the animal fur textures from the "creature" files as a base for these textures (the idea was that each book mesh would correspond to a different fur).

I looked at the textures for the BS game creatures - as I say: not really enough fur to work with directly, but I can try to colour and texture-match - shouldn't be too hard (he says....)
Does Valenwood have unique creatures, or are you just using the stock ones from Oblivion?

Quote:And ValenwoodSPECIAL is going to be a unique mesh for the two books of the Meh Ayleidoon, which in the province's lore is a very ancient and holy Bosmer book, kind of equivalent in importance to the Torah or something like that. It should be made of high-quality skin of a rare animal, with jewels and ivory (the teeth) set into it.

I'll give it some thought, then. The teeth still seem a bit "dark" to me - the ivory might be nicer as inlay with the teeth replaced by gems - I could maybe rework the mesh. Probably after I've done the rest and have got my head in the right place.

What's the standard of craftsmanship like for the other books? Generally good? Pretty rough? Full span between the two?
And what about sizes? Your meshes are all Folio, which is quite big. I'd spread them out across the smaller Quarto and Octavo as well, unless you'd rather all the books were the same size.

Deeza · 02-10-2010, 01:52 PM,

Thanks for taking such an interest! To answer your questions:

1. Ah, I thought you meant the interior pages (the ones where the words actually appear). The outside should look like its made of vellum (I put a note in all the books describing the paper and ink, it's the best we can do I think).

2. Valenwood supposedly has plenty of unique creatures, from centaurs to talking apes. You could use pretty much any kind of fur as a texture source really. Just try to find some interesting ones!

4. If you can replace the teeth with gems, that would be great! Ivory inlay sounds good too.

5. Yes, there should be a full range from poor to high quality. And feel free to change a couple to other sized books, these were just quick placeholders I knocked together last night.

Thanks again,

Deeza