TOYB's Thread of Mod Refinery

[The Old Ye Bard]

Okay nice people, I'm throwing my weight into this, because frankly it needs to be released soon, because it's pratically done, and since no one can send me the appropriate files so I can finish the MQ & other quests to the best-of-my-abilities, I'm making some general refinements.

Bonus-thing-one:



Will be doing one of western Cyrodiil, and of Valenwood too (the Valenwood map will come as soon as I've finished the actual map, which just needs city designs and place names added). To go on a table on the ship before the player departs, just to make the experience more unique, might also do a 'South Seas Company' logo or something too.

Another plan is to make an animated intro/filler sequence between between the ship leaving, and crashing, something akin to the animated Redguard intro, an animated sequence following the players journey on a map, intercut with a scene with a storm on the horizon and the ship going into it, in a similar art style to the loading screens -just to help lengthen the amount of time the player is on the ship, so it gives this part of the story more weight.
Something I just whipped up of what that might look like:


Other needed stuff that needs refining, new outfits for the bosmer, which I'll probably do some retex stuff for (I'm thinking some cool 'found'-patchwork garments, and some sea-mammal leather clothing). There's also a need for scripted conversations on the boat between the Npcs prior to setting sails.

If anyone else feels something else would be good to have, let me know, I'll see what I can sort out.

[Deeza]

The map model looks fantastic! I'd considered an animated opening before, but I wasn't sure how to do it. Would we actually use in-game footage, like they did in the OB opening cinematic, or art we'd drawn ourselves?

[windsurfer]

The animated screen will be quality. How is it done though. I think a drawn one would look amazing but surely it will take ages. It would be impossible to get ingame footage of a crash really.

[The Old Ye Bard]

Originally posted by Deeza
The map model looks fantastic! I'd considered an animated opening before, but I wasn't sure how to do it. Would we actually use in-game footage, like they did in the OB opening cinematic, or art we'd drawn ourselves?

The footage at the start of OB was rendered in a 3d modeling program, it's not from the game itself (there are alot of tells that give this away, such as the guards you see walking around being totally out of scale, and so on). It'd be art we've done ourselves, I described the process reasonibly well in the post (also the less frames we have the better, as the video format for OB is huge, so the more still frames we have, the better).

Also, a logo for the South Seas Company (I'll make it into a texture that can be placed onto crates, etc in game, rather than me retexing a whole lot of stuff with the logo on it):

Originally posted by windsurfer
The animated screen will be quality. How is it done though. I think a drawn one would look amazing but surely it will take ages. It would be impossible to get ingame footage of a crash really.

Nah, I'd just take some screenshots, do abit of fancy artwork on top, and some photoshop magic, and hey-presto you've got a quality movie to begin the mod.


Also, it'd be great to make some loading screens, if anyone could take some high resolution, high detail screenshots so I could make loading screens, that would be awesome (loading screens done in the same design as the stock ones).

[morcroft]

Originally posted by windsurfer
The animated screen will be quality. How is it done though. I think a drawn one would look amazing but surely it will take ages. It would be impossible to get ingame footage of a crash really.

Well, the usual way to show expensive-to-stage wrecks in the movies is lots of wind and splashing in the dark then cut to sprawled figure on a sunny beach. Which should work quite well in the style TOYB's suggesting.

[The Old Ye Bard]

Originally posted by morcroft

Originally posted by windsurfer
The animated screen will be quality. How is it done though. I think a drawn one would look amazing but surely it will take ages. It would be impossible to get ingame footage of a crash really.

Well, the usual way to show expensive-to-stage wrecks in the movies is lots of wind and splashing in the dark then cut to sprawled figure on a sunny beach. Which should work quite well in the style TOYB's suggesting.

Well atm, it's working quite well to show the storm (given you wake up in the wreck, then have to escape from the ship, all set in it's own stormy worldspace), the problem I see, and the need for the footage is rather the ship going into the storm as in my illustration found in the first post, just to brake up the chopiness of departing, and then suddenly (which should be atleast days in the future) finding yourself in the storm -the cinematic would just help to mesh it together more appropriately, and lengthen the amount of time the player spends on the ship.

[Deeza]

I wouldn't mind taking some screenshots. My comp can run Oblivion on max settings so they should be high enough res.

[The Old Ye Bard]

The map isn't 100% finished, but it'll do. Players aren't likely to notice what's missing very easily, and you'll only see it in the short duration you're on the ship before departing.

[AnImpatientFan]

Just randomly pitching in, That map is amazing. :goodjob: