Seashell House

[Deeza]

That house is.... incredible..... There are not words to describe it really!

By the mangrove region, do you mean the whole south coast, or just the bit that's visible in the beta? Are we going to do an invisible barrier, or just roughly generate the remaining regions so playtesters can wander around in them?

[morcroft]

:pop:

That's stunning! And totally different to my... well, sort of different to ... well... gimme some time in Blender!

Obviously that Mexico City house is quite opulent - is that how you see the BM ones? I was modelling more from a lowerclass perspective but in a way up-market might be easier - especially with that concept art.

I'm really new at modelling so have no preconceptions as to what's possible or practical - which is both good and bad, of course. I did actually start with the outside, then flipped the normals so I could see whether there was any hope the idea would work.

Since it's not completely cloud-cuckoo-land I'll have another look at the outside, with a view to doing it in different sizes. And I'll concentrate on other rock-sized seashells for the moment too.

I'll try and let you know if I think I'm getting anywhere within a week or so, is that OK?

Another left-field idea I had was, would Argonians want to live in seashell houses underwater? Entry from underneath to hold the air etc....

[Deeza]

Underwater houses would be excellent, particularly in the deeper marsh. That way the more remote villages could be completely invisible to the player unless they dive. No problem for argonians of course, since they're amphibious.

I reckon having both a lowerclass (plain) and upperclass (more like the one in the picture) would be ideal.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Originally posted by Deeza
By the mangrove region, do you mean the whole south coast, or just the bit that's visible in the beta? Are we going to do an invisible barrier, or just roughly generate the remaining regions so playtesters can wander around in them?

Both. I'll put the invisible boundary halfway into the non-beta regions so that players can have a quick browse around. There'll probably be some clipping but they'll get the idea that it's outside the beta regions once they encounter the boundary line...and I'm not intending working on those regions much so it's unlikely there'll be anything there unless one of us just can't resist working on it as we await release.

@ morcroft - I think Koniption had the idea of having a permeable membrane over the entry point to the shell, rather like some kind of snail with a soft belly. Besides creating a rather unusual door, it could also keep the water out to some degree...although Koniption discovered during working on the Paatru house models that to teleport directly from water to land can cause problems with the player AI and might have you swimming on dry land. This was solved by teleporting initially into water and then swimming up inside the interior itself to reach dry land.

This whole idea came from a science fiction short story I once read. I'm pretty sure if it had had a drawing accompanying it then it would have been something a bit like a cross between Leonardo Da Vinci and the sort of SF cityscapes made popular by films like 'The Fifth Element'. I always liked the old Victorian pencil-and-ink drawings. =)

Btw, here's some pics and a pic for inspiration: http://malewail.com/10-crazy-houses-around-the-world/ .

[Deeza]

So from the sounds of that, we'd need to do at least part of Arnesia, Vudai, Murkwood and the Mangrove Coast.... Do we have any definite plans for Murkwood?

Edit: although, come to think of it, we could probably use the Stormhold region presets for Arnesia and the Mangrove preset for the East Coast as well...

[Ibsen's Ghost]

We've been having a discussion on Murkwood here: Murkwood Development . Arnesia and the rest will bear some resemblance to adjoining areas but they're best off with some more distinguishing features, especially Murkwood. Oh, and if TheFilthySpaniard comes up trumps with his work on the quicksand then the Vudai Marsh will be pretty damn nasty too!

[Catlemur]

What about caurie money?Cauries are seashells that were used by some African tribes as money.

[Deeza]

That's actually a pretty neat idea. You mean cowries, don't you?

http://kirstenz.web-log.nl/expressfree/i...cowrie.jpg

http://www.pomexport.com/1WordBulk/Cowries.jpg

[Catlemur]

Yes.I have one of those in my shell collection.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Interesting although we've discussed the difficulties surrounding BM currency before and it proved a little too complex. I don't like the amount of scripting it would entail without a scripter who already has excellent ideas on what to do and how to go about doing it without taking their attention away from anything crucial towards completion of the mod...