Rootworm Tunnels tileset

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I may be way off the mark here so I'll need the lore masters to set me straight on this one but I found some pretty sweet textures today and began playing around with the rootcave tileset. I have named the set 'wormtunnels' even though there are bones in the set and worms don't have bones ?(.

Anyway, I figured that a particularly rotted stump might well be getting eaten by something organic from beneath the soil. In which case, Paatru villages might give way to stumps and, further in to those stumps, you might come across an entrance into something organic-looking. Either that, or this could be an entirely different tileset altogether derived from some kind of 'swamp worm'.

Please let me know what you think about the textures here. I can alter the UV mapping now so that the tiles remain as seamless as possible but I have a range of different organic, guts and bone items. These are my favourites so far based on how they fit together.

[drmccoy]

Woha there! I definitly cannot help you with the lore matters, but i do can tell you that those tiles look sweet. I'd live to build something with it for the project, so I hope we'll be able to use it!

Good Work! :goodjob:

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Excellent. If the lore guys are okay with this then I'll make this my next project!

[Koniption]

Those textures look nice! And appropriately gross, too.

Just remember, one of the things I mentioned to Rickious was the doing of the Paatru tileset (besides the Murkwood tree city). I haven't heard from him yet, but from the way he sounded when I last heard from him, he was more than happy to male some models for us. He's probably either busy making the models already and will contact me when they're done, hasn't checked email yet, or is having a RL spell that he has to go through first. Or maybe he chose to do different models; I did leave the choice up to him, though I stressed the Paatru tileset.

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

No bother. Then we'll have even more interesting dungeons. We could have two tilesets that are based on vanilla ones (Ayleid/mossy ruin and Rootcave/wormtunnels) as well as whatever Rickious comes up with. I was never much into caves anyway but I guess we could make one or two if needs be.

[InsanitySorrow]

Looking good IG :goodjob:

[Senten]

Yeah,its really nice. :goodjob:

[Ibsen's Ghost]

@ Koniption - I have a much better alternative to turning this into a Paatru tileset so I'm going to rename this thread 'Marshworm Tunnels tileset'.

The idea is that there are vast snake-like worms living under the soft Argonian terrain. Sometimes they are hunted but most of the time they are avoided like the plague. The Argonians have learned to deal with them through various voodoo-like practices but, just occasionally, a really good team of skillful and opportunistic hunters will get to take one down. When they do, they leave the corpse of the worm inside the earth and, as marshworms rot very, very slowly due to their tough hide, they can remain there for a long time. It is widely known amongst natives that inside the worm lies some choice nutrients and invaluable salves but you have to go inside the guts of the thing to get them out.

Some hunters might use splints to prop open the jaws of the creature. Others might cut the head off. Either way, it would be great to have some kind of 'dungeon entrance' model that fits one of these ideas. Do you think you, or anyone else, can create something like a snakehead? If the whole thing is textured in black scales or something then there might be a segmented body threading in and out of the land elsewhere, thus creating a need for a second model. What do you think?

[Koniption]

Originally posted by Ibsen's Ghost
@ Koniption - I have a much better alternative to turning this into a Paatru tileset so I'm going to rename this thread 'Marshworm Tunnels tileset'.

The idea is that there are vast snake-like worms living under the soft Argonian terrain. Sometimes they are hunted but most of the time they are avoided like the plague. The Argonians have learned to deal with them through various voodoo-like practices but, just occasionally, a really good team of skillful and opportunistic hunters will get to take one down. When they do, they leave the corpse of the worm inside the earth and, as marshworms rot very, very slowly due to their tough hide, they can remain there for a long time. It is widely known amongst natives that inside the worm lies some choice nutrients and invaluable salves but you have to go inside the guts of the thing to get them out.

Some hunters might use splints to prop open the jaws of the creature. Others might cut the head off. Either way, it would be great to have some kind of 'dungeon entrance' model that fits one of these ideas. Do you think you, or anyone else, can create something like a snakehead? If the whole thing is textured in black scales or something then there might be a segmented body threading in and out of the land elsewhere, thus creating a need for a second model. What do you think?

I can *try* to model something like that. But I model best when going by concept art. It's hard for me to envision something straight from my mind.
So you would need two models: a head and the rear end of the body (to protrude out of the land elsewhere, away from the head entrance)?

ALso, I would need a nif file of the root cave interior entrance, to better size up the worm's head to the cave's entrance opening to so it's not too big or too small.

Lastly, I found some visual representations of worms from these two sites (fantasy vs real worms):

http://sales.starcitygames.com/search.ph....y=0&Go=Go
(type in "wurm" in the searchbox, if the wurm pics do not show up in my link; 4 pages of art for the wurms)

http://www.nhc.ed.ac.uk/index.php?page=24.25.312.316
(real life worms)

Can someone also make a concept sketch for me of this Marshworm based on inspiration from above sites? Don't sketch a worm to look exactly like ones in fantasy site above, but add one's own twist to the worm. I know you said snakehead, but that's not the way I'm envisioning the worm looking. Is there any lore for how they look?

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

The best possible concept art I found was this (see attached). Try to imagine just the head sticking out of the ground but the 'neck' lolling down onto the soil. The head itself could still be open, propped up by stilts of some kind (these could be added later, if needs be). The open mouth could be just as you see it in the first pic or you could go for the web-like flesh of the interior parts that you see inside the snakehead's mouth. The latter option would make fitting the root cave interior entrance easier.

I have attached the SI root models you asked for as well. I hope this is enough to go on.

As for the body part, if you take a look at the marshworm pic in the top-right corner, you will see that it's body is stuck up. Well, I would expect this model to be separate from the head because then it can be placed strategically elsewhere on the land. But it would need to be thicker than the head because the idea is that the marshworm's body is much bigger further down. That's why it would be best if we can not see beneath the body but position it so as to suggest that the body is just going to grow and grow.

Texture-wise, I should be able to come up with something, but if you could make the body segmented (should be relatively easy, at least in principle) or maybe scaled (much more time-consuming and possibly not fitting) then it should contribute to the final look. However, doing this is not absolutely essential but just a possible extra flourish.