Silgrad Tower from the Ashes

All links below updated to the March -06 version of the team post
> ESF post
> Elder Scrolls Central Forums post
> Emma's ES Forum
> Waiting 4 Oblivion post
> TES Source post
> CanadianIce & HownDog post
> Elderscrolls.co.uk post
> Princess Stomper's Lounge post
> Planet Elder Scrolls post
> Psychodog Studios
> The Drawbridge

> Tes-Oblivion.de
> Scharesoft.de


I started a thread on ESF (reposted below) where I adress who we are and what we want to do, to the best of my understanding. Perhaps it'll turn out to be our official thread up until the game launches, where we can communicate the latest developments. Personally I'm happy about how things are going for us right now, but I'd like more information put out there regarding the Velothi Mountains area. Such as what the scope of it is and if there's any major claims that Ben wants outsourced and such.

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black[/hr]
Hello, my name is Razorwing from the Silgrad Tower project. For those that don't know me, I've been with the project for going on two years now and I'd like to take this opportunity to talk a bit about the plans we have for Oblivion. If this doesn't interest you, I won't waste any more of your time - please just click the back button.

Fans of Morrowind might be familiar with our mod team from the three and a half years we've been around in the community, and we have every intention of continuing to mod for the new game. The part of the mainland Morrowind province we modded for The Elder Scrolls III is the heart and soul of our mod and there wouldn't be a team if we modded something else. That's why we plan to bring a part of the Morrowind Province to Oblivion, and we welcome all modders who share our love for this place of Tamriel and want to see it live on.


1. Overview

This overview map shows at a glance what we plan to mod for Oblivion, and is also available at our website where it's linked to the different areas. The current plans are to mod a substantial part of the western mainland of the Morrowind Province, bordering Skyrim and Cyrodiil to the west and Vvardenfell across our shores to the east. The latter is also the focus for a separate project we're cooperating with, who plans to rebuild the island (more information about their team here).

In our plans are five major cities, several towns, and even more smaller settlements. In the far north is the large Imperial city of Blacklight, and westward across the border you'll find the Nord keep of Windhelm. As we go south you'll pass Reich Parkeep - or Soluthis as its known by the locals - which is a major Redoran city situated among densely forested hills. Silgrad Tower used to be Redoran as well, but was destroyed in a war with House Hlaalu and has since been rebuilt under Imperial supervision, using architects and masons from the latter. It's now run as an independent city-state under a Council of Elders, comprised of representatives from the factions that have a stake in the city. Last but not least, Kragenmoor is Morrowind's Redoran capital and situated in the rocky Velothi Mountains. For the two middle areas we also have a more detailed concept map (kindly created for us by Tempered), which can shed more light on our plans for those areas.


2. Organization

The western mainland of the Morrowind Province will initially be divided up into four areas (as seen here), and will be developed as stand-alone mods. This is for technical reasons, as we believe that the process of team modding for Oblivion will be similar to Morrowind in that it places a lot of work on a single administrator, who recieves plugins and maintains the base mod (with bugfixing and other factors playing a major part in the workload). By spreading the workload on several administrators in the beginning stages, we hope to avoid a bottleneck situation so that work can progress in a steady manner. As the mods grows and expands they'll meet up at the seams, and eventually merge into one when the time is right. While the areas may be separate, the administrators behind them all belong to the same team who work together towards the same goals.
- Blacklight area: administrated by Thorpe a.k.a. Rodan
- Reich Parkeep area: administrated by Razorwing
- Silgrad Tower area: administrated by Quentin Fortune
- Velothi Mountains area: administrated by Ben Vagara
- Vvardenfell area: administrated by KuKulzA - separate organization

The team itself is loosely organized into members, honorary members, core members and admins (here's an overview). Core members are modders that have a long history with the team and have stuck by us during harder times, and for doing that they get to vote on internal matters. Admins are core members with expanded control over the forum, website and other areas behind the scenes. Honorary members are retired core members, whose work for the team in the past deserve praise. This organization has worked out well for us over the years.

We don't divide ourselves into specific tasks such as concept artists or modellers; rather, members are free to pursue whichever facet of modding appeals to them. Joining is as easy as signing up on the forum - and there isn't any strings attached. As a member you're as active as you want, and you do as much work as you want; which isn't to say that ambition won't be recognized. Naturally the amount of effort a member puts into the project affects the weight of his word, but there's no threshold for our respect and kindness.


3. We need you

Modders
Modders are always welcome to Silgrad Tower, but since Oblivion hasn't been released the options for a modder is limited right now. But if you're interested, that shouldn't stop you from swinging by our forum and getting to know the team. Maybe you'd like to tell us a bit about what type of work you'd like to do on the mod once the game is out. Perhaps you have an interesting story you'd like to write, which can later be added as an in-game book? Or maybe you have a great idea for a quest - or perhaps you're a graphical artist and would like to share your concept art? Whatever the case may be, we're looking forward to hearing from you.

Major claims
There's also another feature of Silgrad Tower which might interest you. Personally I informally call them "major claims", others in the team may call them differently; they are towns and important locations which calls for more effort on the part of the modder who shows an interest in taking them on. The Reich Parkeep area has four major claims, which you can read more about on this page if you wish. The Blacklight area has several, including the Nord keep of Windhelm (more info). There may be other major claims in the Silgrad Tower and Velothi Mountains area; for more information on those please contact Quentin Fortune or Ben Vagara respectively. As holder of a major claim you'll be responsible for setting up the exterior and optionally outsourcing the interiors that make up the major claim, as well as generally taking responsibility for your part of our world.

Modellers
The department where we need the most help at the moment is in architecture modelling. As our mod will take place in the Morrowind Province and portray the Dunmer culture, with towns and settlements and other locations, there isn't a lot of architecture models packaged in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion that will be of use to us. Using assets from TES3 would be illegal, so that has never been an option. Architectural models are fundamental because they form the base on which almost all our interior modding will rest on, and if we're not able to sort out the problems we'll have a real problem on our hands.

The Great House Hlaalu culture is taken care of thanks to the immense efforts of Oom Foyat, whose tile set comprises hundreds of individual pieces with which one can assemble any Hlaalu structure configuration imagineable. Another friend of ours, spankybus, is creating a Velothi-style tile set that we'll be able to use for the many tombs and temples we have planned. The Great House Telvanni culture isn't a factor in our area.

The Great House Redoran culture though is at the heart of the matter. The whole mainland region we'll be modding is in the control of Great House Redoran, and several cities and smaller settlements are planned to be made in this style. The most ambitious 3d project we have open, and indeed the one still left that would be most useful in my humble opinion, is a Redoran tileset. By tileset I mean the same thing that is sometimes called 'pre-fabs' in other games; 3d pieces that can be turned and twisted on a grid to make up seamless interiors. We plan to have a high number of Redoran homes and other locations in the mod, probably several hundred. Naturally, having an interior tileset would be crucial in order for us to mod those places.

Bethesda made many different Redoran interior tilesets, but the one I'm thinking of is the "in_redoran_s" set (for corridors) and "in_r_s_int_" (for rooms). I attached a couple of screenies, and as they show, we only need five corridor pieces and four room pieces + a doorjamb/door combo that works with any tile. More than that would just be icing on the cake. I also attached the esp where I lined up the pieces seen in the screenshots, in case it could be used (it's in an interior called "aaa").

If the tileset turns out to reseble Bethesda's design that would be terrific, but that's not to say the modeller wouldn't have any creative freedom over it. Straying from the basic design is totally okay, especially if it leads to the set looking more advanced than the Morrowind version. Basically we only need pieces that would let us mod rooms and hallways + ramp pieces that leads to other levels.

While we have a large collection of single-mesh exterior models, an exterior tileset to supplement the single-mesh buildings would also be of great use, and it could definetely be modelled from the interior tileset if that's created at the same time. It would be a Redoran counterpart to the Hlaalu exterior tileset created by Oom, so to speak, although the set doesn't have to be as extensive as the one he created. The basic premise would be a rather scaled-back and smooth tile set which allures to the soft, round shapes of Redoran design, but which is supplemented with additional architectural pieces that reminds of Bethesda's design. The supplements can be things like windows, doorjambs, banners, light posts, chimneys and the like, as is desired.



Redoran_Tileset_aaa.esp (a Morrowind plugin for reference)

Other model requests on the wishlist
While the Redoran exterior + interior tile set is the most important challenge facing us, it's by no means the only thing on our humble wishlist.

*** One rather major area is traditional Morrowind flora, and there's a lengthy post on our forum with information for anyone interested in that prospect. Included in the post is screenshots and .3ds example files of what the flora type is like. The .3ds files are NIF files imported straight from the game, which might be useful to examine three-dimensionally for anyone attempting to recreate them. Three of the plants have been recreated already by yours truly, but don't let that stop you from making better ones if you're interested in those particular ones. The traditional flora is important to the team because it'll go a long way towards creating believable wilderness and farms.

*** Dunmer furniture is also an important factor in portraying their culture. There are two categories of Dunmer furniture in TES3; ( p )oor and ( r )ich. The poor furniture is wobbly, basic, and rugged-looking, while the rich furniture is polished and luxurious with ornate details. A zip archive (1.14mb) with reference pictures of the furnitures can be downloaded here.
So for we have two rich tables, courtesy of Hoss, and a scroll shelf, courtesy of xchaosdragonx. Thanks guys!

*** Traditional Morrowind armor and weapons, such as bonemold armor and chitin swords, is another important matter for the mod. While it's true that having the game at hand would be needed for the last touches, starting work on any armor or weapon ahead of time will certainly not be a wasted effort. A full set of Bonemold is the top-most priority.


4. In closing

I could easily fill a dozen pages with information, but I doubt anyone would want that. If you happen to have any questions I'm happy to answer them, whether here or on Silgrad Tower's Forum.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post, and whether as a player or modder I hope this isn't the last you choose to hear about Silgrad Tower

awesome!
...very welll written... makes me wanna help out!
really, good job on the posts... :goodjob:

( and thanks for putting in a mention for TES4 Vvardenfell, I/we appreciate it :yes: )

Quote:Originally posted by KuKulzA
awesome!
...very welll written... makes me wanna help out!
really, good job on the posts... :goodjob:

( and thanks for putting in a mention for TES4 Vvardenfell, I/we appreciate it :yes: )

Thankyou =)

Very well written!
This post should help to find additional modders... which ST will need for a project that huge.

Continue the great work! :check:

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Greetings from Germany

>> Updated
(the old thread had been deleted due to inactiveness)

Reposted below:

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black[/HR]
Morrowind is nearing it's end, and it's almost time to close the final curtain on a game whom many of us considers to be the best there ever was. In its stead waits Oblivion, whose release date is fast approaching, promising new adventures and fun for many years to come. But there are those of us out there who share an inescapable love of Dunmer culture and history, and to whom the Morrowind Province is the only place where they'll ever feel at home. We don't want to give it up, but at the same time we of course recognize the flair and potential of Oblivion to be an even better game than TES III.

What to do?? ...
The answer: Bring a part of the Morrowind Province to Oblivion!
That is what the Silgrad Tower team is all about.

We've been around the Morrowind mod community for over three and a half years now, and during that time our team created a massive landmass (intended as a part of the Morrowind Province's mainland) west of Vvardenfell. With its attention to detail, dozens of quests, and many hundreds of houses, tombs, caves and other places we created a mod that got played by tens of thousands of players. In doing so, us who modded on it fell in love with our part of Tamriel and the history and background we developed for it. There wouldn't be a team anymore if we hadn't set our minds on returning to the same place of Tamriel for the new game, so doing something else was never really an option for us.

Pre-work for the planned Oblivion mod has gone on for close to a year now, and we've made a lot of progress in that time thanks to the hard-working, devoted members on the team. At the heart of pre-work is models, because if we are to realize our vision of going back to the Morrowind Province we need to portray the culture and architecture of the Dunmer people in a believable manner.

All our models are catalogued in a model showcase, which has over 75 entries.
To name but a few, the showcase includes:
? Hlaalu exterior tileset
? Velothi tileset
? Redoran buildings (work-in-progress)
? Special-culture tileset
? Emperor parasol

1. Overview

This threedimensional overview map shows at a glance which regions we plan to mod for Oblivion. We'll border Skyrim to the west and Cyrodiil to the southwest, the latter of which will be the direction the player will first enter our mod.

In our plans are four major cities, several towns and even more smaller settlements. In the far north is the grand Imperial city of Blacklight, and westward across the border you'll find the large Nord keep of Windhelm. As we go south you'll pass Reich Parkeep, which is a major Redoran city situated among densely forested hills. Silgrad Tower used to be Redoran as well, but was destroyed in a war with House Hlaalu and has since been rebuilt under Imperial supervision, using architects and masons from the latter. It's now run as an independent city-state under a Council of Elders, comprised of representatives from the factions that have a stake in the city. (expanded information)

2. Organization

The western mainland of the Morrowind Province will initially be divided up into three areas, which will be developed as stand-alone mods. This is for technical reasons, as we believe that the process of team modding for Oblivion will be similar to Morrowind in that it places a lot of work on a single administrator, who recieves plugins and maintains the base mod (with bugfixing and other factors playing a major part in the workload). By spreading the workload on several administrators in the beginning stages, we hope to avoid a bottleneck situation so that work can progress in a steady manner. As the mods grows and expands they'll meet up at the seams, and eventually merge into one when the time is right. While the areas may be separate, the administrators behind them all belong to the same team who work together towards the same goals.

- Blacklight area: administrated by Thorpe a.k.a. Rodan
- Reich Parkeep area: administrated by Razorwing
- Silgrad Tower area: administrated by Valderon

The team itself is loosely organized into members, honorary members, core members and admins (here's an overview). Core members are modders that have a long history with the team and have stuck by us during harder times, and for doing that they get to vote on internal matters. Admins are core members with expanded control over the forum, website and other areas behind the scenes. Honorary members are retired core members, whose work for the team in the past deserve praise. This organization has worked out well for us over the years.

We don't confine ourselves to specific tasks such as concept artists or modellers; rather, members are free to pursue whichever facet of modding appeals to them. Having said that, several members have special responsibilities. Joining is as easy as signing up on the forum - and there isn't any strings attached. As a member you're as active as you want, and you do as much work as you want; which isn't to say that ambition won't be recognized. Naturally the amount of effort a member puts into the project affects the weight of his word. But there's no threshold to gain our respect and kindness.

3. We need you

Modders
Modders are always welcome to Silgrad Tower, but since Oblivion hasn't been released the options for a modder is limited right now. But if you're interested, that shouldn't stop you from swinging by our forum and getting to know the team. Maybe you'd like to tell us a bit about what type of work you'd like to do on the mod once the game is out. Perhaps you have an interesting story you'd like to write, which can later be added as an in-game book? Or maybe you have a great idea for a quest - or perhaps you're a graphical artist and would like to share your concept art? Whatever the case may be, we're looking forward to hearing from you.

Modellers
As much as we've modelled already, there's still a number of important model types we need.
Most importantly, plants. As good as the plants from Oblivion are, it just won't *feel* like the Morrowind Province if there isn't heather and stoneflower around. Some plants have been modelled, but most remain. Dunmer furniture and lights are other types which are needed to get a sense of Dunmer culture.

If you're not into modelling but would still like to lend us a hand then it'd really help us out if you could research Morrowind mods and see if you find stuff we can use for Oblivion. Please zip the meshes and textures and attach the archive(s) to a post on our forum along with screenshot(s). If you're able to import NIFs and export them to .3ds that would be grrreat, but if not then no sweat, NIF meshes would work too.

Fan Fiction
Are you up for writing a book? Or maybe you'd like to share one you've written previously? Please check in on our Literature Development board.

Quest writers
If you have a good quest idea, please present it in a new thread on the Quest Development board.

Sound/Music
We have an Acoustic Development board too, where music and sound effects can be submitted and discussed.

4. In closing

I could easily fill a dozen pages with information... but I doubt anyone would want that. If you happen to have any questions I'm happy to answer them, whether here in this thread or on Silgrad Tower's Forum.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post, and whether as a player or modder I hope this isn't the last you choose to hear about Silgrad Tower

i agree, extremely well writen. and believe me, i plan to stay here for a pretty long time. :goodjob:

Perfect! I didn't see anything that needs changing.

I reposted the team post on the new Oblivion Mods board on ESF, including the little news round-up (that served as a shameless bump):
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index...pic=255620

Have you posted anything on the Planet Elderscrolls forums?

Quote:Originally posted by Siegfried
Have you posted anything on the Planet Elderscrolls forums?

I have now.