Silgrad City Exterior Layout & Design?

[Brima]

Questions about the city layout for TESV -


1. Where on the height map is Silgrad City going to be built? (Where STTest currently is?)

2. Are we rebuilding the city from scratch, to be smaller and more contained, or are we wholesale importing the layout from Oblivion?


Fiddling around with trying to construct Eastside from the models we currently have in STTest -



(The long "road" thingy in the middle would be a canal.)


Layout ideas Resulting from STTest experimentation -

Designing the city around one main canal, possibility of "canton" architecture in the larger districts.

In the TESIV version of Silgrad Tower, I noticed there was a "canton" interior, which looked like the cantons in Vivec. Do we have a canton exterior, or can we construct one somehow with smaller models for TESV? That might be one way to do the Dunmer slums, or the Downtown district, and provide visual variation. You could fit a lot of Dunmer into one canton, and if you flooded the Waistworks and posted Argonian guards on the bottom, it would make the population easier for them to control in the event of civil unrest. (Onwadal might think like that, anyway. :/ )

Basically, if the Dunmer slums were these floating "canton" islands in an otherwise Argonian-occupied city, it might provide visual variation from Eastside & Upper Chambers, while also showing how the city had evolved since the Argonians moved in. The water between the cantons could serve as a sort of thoroughfare, one which the Argonians could navigate more quickly than the Dunmer. (Since they're natural swimmers.)

Using height differences might be another way to differentiate the districts visually.

For example, Eastside, Upper Chambers and the Tower might be located on one side of the the canal, with Upper Chambers and the Tower being on the highest ground: this "Grand/Great Canal" would set them apart from part of the the Red Plaza/Downtown area and the lower-lying Dunmer Enclave, while linking Downtown & Eastside to Riverside by a waterway. Historically, we might say that the city's most desirable housing was always on the higher ground, while the majority of the city's population lived in more cantonish housing on the opposite side of the Great Canal. We could stick some of the "cantons" in Riverside, too, for variation: the enclave and southern Riverside might blend together a bit.

Image to illustrate -

(Could repost this thread in the City Exterior forum if that's a better place for it.)

[Brima]

Test canal!

Layout concept laid out in scale in the construction kit:



Not nearly as grand as TESIV Silgrad, but maybe Riverside having been partly flooded would help explain why things suddenly seem smaller.

[sandor]

Nice work!

A few quick remarks.

I guess the "canton" interior is the Silgrad city Temple (Velothi).
After the model conversion all the tilesets will be available. We don't have an exterior model, just for the temple, we could use that or we ask a modeller to create such a model as per your design.

I am working on a conversion, if successful we could use the existing child WS' (worldspaces) as base for the SC layout. I don't mind making changes as suggested by you.

It also means all of the interiors are more or less ready, except for the Oblivion vanilla content --> has to be replaced by Skyrim content. The dialogue can be ported over as well (tool WiP).

STTest is where Silgrad city should be located.

[Brima]

Ok, sounds good! Mainly I'm interested in knowing what the exterior layout for TESV will look like so I don't write anything into the main quest that jars with it, but I can draft the plot around main buildings which we know are important (the Temple, the Tower, etc.)

I'll see if I can find the interior again. It wasn't the exactly the same as the Temple of Silgrad (though it was similar): there was a temple in it, but it was a accessible via a door on the lower level and was much smaller. The upper levels were enclosed and you couldn't walk off them, like the cantons in Vivec. It may not have been in the city proper.

Is Silgrad Tower: From the Ashes designed to be played by the Dragonborn coming into Morrowind, or for a new character which the player creates on starting the module? My impression was that it was for the Dragonborn (b/c of Rift Watch and the plans for a tunnel under the mountains) but I could introduce the main quest another way if character creation runs at the beginning of the module (An "You're an Argonian/Dunmer who was born in Silgrad Tower" sort of setup.)

[sandor]

Ok, sounds good! Mainly I'm interested in knowing what the exterior layout for TESV will look like so I don't write anything into the main quest that jars with it, but I can draft the plot around main buildings which we know are important (the Temple, the Tower, etc.)

I agree, I like your idea for the layout, also for the canal.

If we use the existing child WS's for the Silgrad City Slums, Silgrad City Riverside SE & NW, SC Upper Chambers (keep the layout because of the door links we can "fill" 4 child WS'. The UC has to be updated to fit to your proposal.

I'll see if I can find the interior again.

Okay, I am looking forward to see it.

Is Silgrad Tower: From the Ashes designed to be played by the Dragonborn coming into Morrowind, or for a new character which the player creates on starting the module? My impression was that it was for the Dragonborn [..])

Yes, also for the architecture.

[Brima]

Cantonish interior, the "Main Lobby" of a Market Hall in Upper Chambers -

Exterior, for reference -


Impressive building exterior in Upper Chambers which might work well for an Argonian "palace" or administrative complex.

[sandor]

Glad you found the interior it's SCC0105 made by TheImperilaDragon.