Silgrad Tower from the Ashes

Hi! First, this is a very great mod (I am modding here too). That said, I have a little constructive criticism.
http://www.youtube.com/v/O9zdcLbY_nc

Thanks for your feedback Sam! Glad to have you with us

The emperor parasols in your video are from the public version. Those from the private version look much, much better and those are the ones that will make it into Silgrad Tower v3.0.

I agree that there is something amiss with the nifs because the parasols were one of a handful models that amorilia's nif optimizer script* wouldn't accept - which is indicative that there is something technically wrong with the nif, just not wrong enough to crash the game. I don't know if that was behind the weird collision detection you mentioned though, and if I recall correctly the script processed all parasols except the private version ones.

Personally I can't recall a problem with their collision, besides the outdated use of strips collision. Strips collision is a real strain on the FPS, but for a long time it was the only alternative besides setting up collision in Nifskope - a process that could easily take hours for each model. It's a lot easier these days since the good kind of collision can be set up in 3D Studio Max itself.

I will work on the parasols in the near future, primarily to fix the technical problem that prevented amorilia's script from processing them, but I will also take the opportunity to change their collision to the good kind. It would help if you could you elaborate what problems you encountered with the collision, since it wasn't clear to me from watching your video.

The Redoran huts in your video are also public version models, and the private models look a lot different, to say the least.


Can you tell me what the locaton is of the missing exit, floating tree, and wrongly-used grass landscape texture? It's impossible for me to tell from your video. If you feel like it, the best way in my opinion is to take screenshots of the location in the Construction Set, paste the image into a graphics program and save it, then upload it to photobucket and paste the link. But there is also a way to make data appear ingame, among other things which worldspace and cell the player is when the screenshot was taken. That information together with the visual information of the screenshot is as good as always enough for another person to find the same spot. I don't know off the top of my head what the console code is that makes it display though.

Thanks again! If you find more bugs I'm always interested in investigating them

* The 3d studio max exporter bloats models by hundreds and sometimes thousands of invisible, redundant faces which hurt the facecount budget. By facecount budget I mean the number of polygons you can have in a cell without it affecting the FPS. The nif optimizer script amorilia created, which I believe is based on his work on the exporter for Blender, optimizes these kinds of 3d studio max models without the need to go through Blender. It also perfects the tangent spaces, which means the normal maps get displayed perfectly.

Glad to hear this mod will be even better in v3.:yes: The missing door was in Soluthis0412, but when I loooked at it in CS, the door was not missing, so therefore I am unsure of the cause of this weird bug. The floating trees were in Soluthis, where the big sign is. There were also some floating rocks in Deepen Moor where the Mooncaps touch the coastline.

Quote:Originally posted by Sam324
Glad to hear this mod will be even better in v3.:yes: The missing door was in Soluthis0412, but when I loooked at it in CS, the door was not missing, so therefore I am unsure of the cause of this weird bug.

That rings a bell. I recall there was a problem like that, especially with the public release. I'm positive it's been fixed along the way.

Today, I found some more stuff. There's this guy, Opacius, in Reich Parkeep that will say "Hey! You! Come here!" as if he has something for you, but he has no topics (Screenshot6). Also, there's some bad grammar in the Golden Griffin Commoners' bar in RPK (Screenshot7). This lady in the same place asked me to fetch her some mugs from Ra'Viir, but later died somehow (Screenshot9). Also, there is this guy in the Rusty Guar that came in and killed everybody and myself. And everybody in the mod hates me enough to not talk to me until Speechcrafted (Screenshot11). I already ruled out Vampirism and personality. Is that supposed to happen? Anyway, I'm always happy to help perfect this already great mod. I think Steadhelm was very nice.

Thanks for sharing your findings.

Quote:Originally posted by Sam324
There's this guy, Opacius, in Reich Parkeep that will say "Hey! You! Come here!" as if he has something for you, but he has no topics (Screenshot6).

I know that there are no topics, it's for Razorwing to decide if he should have topics or not.

Quote:Originally posted by Sam324
This lady in the same place asked me to fetch her some mugs from Ra'Viir, but later died somehow (Screenshot9).

Strange, I'll try to find out why she died.

The grammar has been checked by Oblivioneer and the info's have to be updated. It's on my to do list.

Quote:Originally posted by Sam324
Also, there is this guy in the Rusty Guar that came in and killed everybody and myself.

Which NPC?

Quote:Originally posted by Sam324
And everybody in the mod hates me enough to not talk to me until Speechcrafted (Screenshot11). I already ruled out Vampirism and personality. Is that supposed to happen?

Yep, I'll have a look at the disp. settings.

Quote:Originally posted by Sam324
Anyway, I'm always happy to help perfect this already great mod. I think Steadhelm was very nice.

Thank you.

I'm not actually sure it was the Rusty Guar, it was in Reich Parkeep. The NPC was Adding the Builder. And about the topics, I just wasn't sure if it was a bug or not.

Quote:Originally posted by Sam324
I'm not actually sure it was the Rusty Guar, it was in Reich Parkeep. The NPC was Adding the Builder. And about the topics, I just wasn't sure if it was a bug or not.

It's the Screaming Helm (ReichParkeep04).
Perhaps he killed Canodia (Mug quest) as well because she's also a customer.

I'll lower Adding's agression value (it's rather high), that should fix the problem.

I found today that Thalyne Brenos's house in Soluthis (exterior) is not touching the ground at the back. Also, some of the voiceovers are too quiet, and are drowned out by the game's background music. Specifically, two people, Patrique the Primate and Ertius the commoner. This can easily be fixed by going into a sound-editing program, such as Audacity or Wavestudio, and raising the file(s') volume.

Opacius did have dialogue at one point. I'm not sure when it was lost. I'll fire up an old version of the mod and see if I can find a copy of it (that I can transfer to a notepad doc and re-enter through a new plugin). I don't know why he told you to come to him, he's not supposed to do that I think ?(

I created the NPC because I wanted to keep the first volley of voicework a person recorded. Actually, I should probably just delete him because he doesn't have a home nor much of a purpose.

You're right that Thalyne Brenos's Home (Soluthis0604) floats. Good of you to spot that! I'll remember it when I move that area into a child worldspace