Murkwood Development

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I am very close to getting my final plans for the asset replacement that will make the mangrove region a reality. The mangroves themselves will have to be added by hand in clumps which makes the landscaping a little harder but should produce a much better effect.

After this, whenever I do any work on regions then it will probably be on Murkwood. I'm going to skip the Talu swamps for now as Koniption is still working on the mossy trees and this will probably be a big task. In the meantime, I wanted to post up some concept ideas for Murkwood.

The first pics include suggestions on possible flora for the region. It needs to be fairly unattractive stuff so I went for weeds...well, you can guess what came up on Google by those search criteria but here are some ideas I'd like to check with you all. We can probably use stuff like nirnworms and more 'offensive' flora types too.

The last three pics are from my first trial run of Murkwood using Razorwing's 'Forgotten Forest' trees along with a mix of cypress trees and dead trees. I added a single rock to get the rough idea too. The only problem so far is finding grass types that don't conflict with the very dark textures and in trying to make it look super-dark even in full daylight...now that's the really tough part!

[Koniption]

That first black and white pic is of a plant that I can't tell off the top of my head. It looks like a "ColtsFoot" plant flower-wise, but the leaves look different.

OMG! You want a "Marijuana" plant?! (second black and white photo) I don't want to be held liable for promoting a plant like that. I know we already use poisonous and other type plants in our game. But this plant is so mainstream in real life, and kids could end up playing our mod and thinking it real popular....I don't think it's such a good idea. I have other "plant idea" to substitute for this plant, that is not so mainstream. I'll PM you the details.

That purple thistle plant is already a vanilla Oblivion flora plant used in the game: floramilkthistle01.nif . I think it's a suitable choice for Murkwood.

The nettle plant would also be a good choice. But it'll need to be modeled.

The dandelion...this is something more likely to be found in the vanilla Oblivion Imperial City's province, I think. It's true that dandelion's grow everywhere, just about (and hard to get rid of). I will make one if you really want to use it, though.

I also recommend the following plants for Murkwood, possibly:
Fireweed :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireweed

(silky fiber from opened seedpods; flowers used in syrups/jelly/icecream; leaves make tea, grows well in "waste" and other areas)

Tower Mustard :
http://members.tripod.com/~Elspeth_Storm...rbs-M.html

(Leaves and seeds edible; seeds make "mustard" condiment;

Eyebright :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyebright

(used for eye problems)

Horsetails (might be better for Talu Swamp..):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equisetopsida
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equisetum_fluviatile

(stems used for scouring/filing/sanding because of high silica content <think sandpaper>; young shoots eaten; used by ancients to stop bleeding; contains nicotine <like in tobacco>)

IG, when you have time, look at the above plant links and tell me what you think. I tried to choose mostly tall, thin, and compact plants, as per a previous discussion of ours.

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I'm really lovin' those horsetails!

Yes, you're right regarding the wacky one. I was just thinking what went best in Murkwood and thought, "weeds" and you can imagine what came up in Google... . Ganja smokers can be pretty tiresome company as well. I wouldn't want people thinking BM is cannabis-fuelled. It would attract unwanted attention.

Thanks for reminding me about the milk thistle. I'll mark that one down as a cert.

That mustard site drove me mad...there's a little tinny tune going round my head from it...gah! I'm not sure about the tower mustard though. I'm trying to avoid anything too bright. Murkwood needs to be pure murk!

The Euphrasia would be good as either shrub or flora and I like the idea of it treating eyes...might make for a good antidote somewhere along the line. The fireweed is a little bright although I think it would look great with really vivid red blooms.

My main goal was to find stuff that was as ugly as I could get hold of. I've been searching for the name of something that I haven't been able to find as an example. I think it's basically a root vegetable but it has satanic associations on account of the fact that it looks like some kind of contorted baby voodoo doll. The only is that the ugly part is under the ground and you have to pull it out by its 'hair'. I'm sure I saw some horror program once where the thing squealed once it had been pulled...pretty disturbing, actually...

[Koniption]

Ah, you're thinking of the "Mandrake" root plant:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandrake_%28plant%29

And it's in vanilla Oblivion, too!! - floramandrake01.nif

It was literally right under your nose!

Sorry about the website with the tune.. =) .I could have linked you to wikipedia, but I wanted a picture that showed the mustard could be tall, thin, and compact.

Ok, so Euphrasia and horsetails would be ok. And fireweed might be ok if the flowers were a deep, dark red.

I'll try to think of and research ugly plants. We could do with some art concepts of dark fantasy plants for this region though, and other regions. I know we're depending on real life plants a lot, but it would help to infuse some more fantastical plants into the mixture. I need to look through the concept art section and see if there are any plant sketches/ideas.

Koniption

[jucklesjenk]

While I don't like the idea of RL drugs being in the mod, I can't help but be appealed by the idea of fictional drug plants that the Sotho Tren could take advantage of, perhaps to farm in a plantation to supply to a refinery that produces a new type of drug that can only be found deep into the marshes....

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Aye, that's a good point, JK. Drugs and diseases must take careful consideration.

Regarding the mandrake, I wondered at the possibility of having a giant mandrake that sits out of the ground so that you can see its ugliness (see the first pic).

The reason why I chose the dandelion was to aim for a kind of 'spore' effect. It would be ideal if we can get some sort of effect in Murkwood whereby a gust of spores occasionally drifts by. Hell, it might even be triggered by knocking into a puffball or something and end up causing a disease.

The rest of the pics are of giant spores and puffballs. Pic #4 could be used as a large clump of moss with the heads of the spores sticking out. The last two are puffballs that remind me of your pulsing bugerwarts from Glok-Chuba, KP.

So, to sum up, at the moment, these are our options:

• Milk Thistle
  
• Eyebright / Euphrasia
  
• Fireweed
  
• Giant Mandrake
  
• Spores and Puffballs
  
• Pukeweed / Gagroot (as discussed in PM)
  

That's more than enough in terms of the quantity of flora varities. It's normally only possible to get up to four different types of flora generated in any one particular region and the leading ones are likely to be the tall, thin ones. Plus we have the idea of Horsetails for the Talu Swamp and maybe...Razorweed? A quick search for this on Google showed that it appears in FFVII as an enemy but I don't think we need to go that route, particularly.

[llamaranger]

I think pretty much all the plants in murkwood should be giantesque and alien looking. It should be like walking into a nightmare

x

[Ibsen's Ghost]

:yes:

[Koniption]

I hope you haven't forgotten about this post of yours, IG:

http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/?p=conceptart&section=15273

And also this Murkwood thread with art and city modeling work (lost):

Murkwood Concept art

If you want any of those "alien looking" plants in the TR site modeled, tell me which ones (or even all of them, if you want). Do we have to ask permission from TR to use their concept art for modeling, btw? I'm not sure if we do or not. It might be good form to ask anyway.

I have sent you the Stinging Nettle by PM just now. You might be able to switch out MilkThistle and use the nettle instead, if wanted.

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Good linkage, KP!

All of those flora types look good to me. The one at the top left that springs from a branch will need to share the texture of one of the Murkwood trees. I'm very likely to use the BMCypressTree models so this might be the best choice. Btw, I'm currently using Silgrad Tower's Forgotten Forest trees but I'm not entirely sure if they work yet...

The one at the bottom left is pretty cool, too although it will need to be a putrid colour and clearly give evidence of the worm-like stem in order to enhance its 'orribleness.

Likewise, the one at the bottom right resembles a project you're working on, does it not? It looks like the model at the bottom but with tendrils sticking out.

I'm still in favour of puffballs, giant mandrake and mossy clumps although I fear the ability to actually mod with them seeing as their shape will differ radically from normal flora types and may require extensive hand-adjustments. To counter-act this then I'd thought that maybe the marsh grass would be a good option although I've now seen the stinging nettle and it looks great!

We seem to have already developed some of Rickious' excellent ideas. The ancient swamp city looks intriguing though and is quite detailed with the ideas on the bridges and so on...much of the later stuff will be looked at later when we're past the beta. I just want to get some region borders in place for the beta...probably unpopulated as yet.