A selection of recent progress made:
- Shots 1-2: a new coral reef is in development (this is the existing one at Mannatyr) and a more effective sea urchin has been created.
- Shots 3-4: a basic impression of how the layout for Helstrom might be developed as seen through the CS (with some items used as placeholders for experimentation purposes).
- Shots 5-8: some features of Stormhold such as the new Imperial Guard armour, the Undercity and other city views.
- Shots 9-10: a rough approximation of how the Vudai Marshes will look once generated (but without landscaping).
All the shots look really nice. Could benefit from some higher settings and resolution if we're to use them for PR, though.
Helstrom should definitely have a complicated layout, with lots of height variations. Are there modder's resources available that provide stone staircases and such?
Yeah, this is just to show progress. I should have uploaded them to the progress thread, actually.
As regards the Helstrom layout, I'm still waiting for SG to return with the models which, incidentally, included stone staircases. He asked for a month's time to get them finished. Well, a month is up now. I should send him another PM.
Is it just me, or do the coral reefs look quite "unfinished" due to lack of coral model variety and such?
Ack, maybe one day someone will get round to making more coral models, then the reefs can be retouched a little bit with those new models.
But otherwise, the screenies look promising.
Koniption
I believe that morcroft has made some more coral models for Valenwood. Once that gets released, we might be able to use them in a later update to spruce up our reefs.
Yes, I have made a few bits and pieces, and of course Windsurfer made many models that are in use already. There's a load of screenies in the main thread -
[POLISHING] Coral Reefs
All of it's under embargo until VW Islands is released, I'm afraid.
If you'll accept a little advice: your reef would look better with the individual corals attached to the coral rocks, which in turn should be bigger. Also, coral would grow quite happily on the stonework. It wouldn't grow on open sand.
Also, I see a model that looks like a plant, not a coral. If the water was nutrient-rich enough for plants, then the coral would be totally smothered and killed by algae. I know: boring biological detail, but I thought I'd point it out.
That's sea kelp. I like it because it breaks up the monotony of the corals. I'm in favour of keeping it, personally. Do you think I can get away with this?
Perhaps a bumpy, rocky platform can be overlaid onto the naked sand...? It would have to be a flat model with a good coral texture and the edges of the model would benefit from being turned down to sink into the sand.
As regards having the coral on the stonework then yes, that's definitely something missing, I think. However, if you bear in mind that these are only shots of the small coral reef in the 'Garden of the Autarch' then another point needs to be brought to mind, namely the fact that there are no plans for another Ayleid ruin structure in the larger reef....unless I were to add a sunken one that is fully collapsed and inaccessible...?
Thanks for pointing all that out, morcroft. I think it summed up what KP and DZ had said.
Quote:Originally posted by Ibsen's Ghost
That's sea kelp. I like it because it breaks up the monotony of the corals. I'm in favour of keeping it, personally. Do you think I can get away with this?
I'm guessing infinitely few will know morcroft's snippet of information, and even less will actually care all that much. Unless a realistic, as it were, replacement for the sea kelp can be found, I say just go with what's aesthetic.
Quote:As regards having the coral on the stonework then yes, that's definitely something missing, I think. However, if you bear in mind that these are only shots of the small coral reef in the 'Garden of the Autarch' then another point needs to be brought to mind, namely the fact that there are no plans for another Ayleid ruin structure in the larger reef....unless I were to add a sunken one that is fully collapsed and inaccessible...?
Continuing my penchant for posting slightly off-topic stuff everywhere, I think it's worth mentioning that in order for the writing part of the mod to be fully effective, we must leave the final worldbuilding (including everything from dungeons to landscaping) for when all the writing is done. In other words, we could remember this Ayeleid ruin idea and use it for a quest instead of it being only for show.
Quote:Originally posted by Xae
...we could remember this Ayeleid ruin idea and use it for a quest instead of it being only for show....
Aye, the new coral reef, like the Kothringi ruins it lies next to, are in a WiP state at the moment anyway. They can, and will, be adapted.