Silgrad Tower from the Ashes

There was a guard tower and Skar made by others a loooooooooong time ago, im not sure if they are going to be used or not but I think they are in the models database here on the site.

Zarf: Aah, now I see how you mean about the shadows. Like on this screenshot, the bottom part of the roof is shadowed in-game, but the top of the main body of the building isn't shadowed by the protruding roof. Yes, that does look a bit strange, now that I think about it.

The tiles you created will work perfectly :goodjob:

I've attached a simplistic image which might or might not make my reasoning about the border cap texture clearer. The first cap/butt/end textures you created to go with your standard border texture looked like the left icon in the image, whereas I think it would look better if it resembled the right icon, with no vertical bars separating the 'ridges' of the border.

I guess it's possible Bethesda talked so much about bump and parallax textures just because a lot of gamers recognized the terms from other games, and it was easier to just say the game used them instead of trying to explain why normal mapping removes the need for bump and parallax maps. I would have been a bit pissed at them, since I've created dozens of bump maps before release, thinking that our mod could use them in the game, but it's not wasted effort I think; with a few modifications they could be put to use as specular maps.

3D Studio Max uses a technique called Displacement mapping, and it does almost exactly what Zarf said; it displaces the polygons of a model, like the geometry is growing. I haven't found any use for it. I tried it a few times, but it just distorted my models so I stopped experimenting with it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed TES 5 will support Refraction and Reflection maps in ordinary models, I imagine that'll look mighty fine.

Caligula Superfly: Hehe, sure, I'll be the God of Razors. My palace will have fountains spurting after shave, and virgins frolicking in pools filled with foam. I'm the one who's responsible for keeping every single man in Cyrodiil clean shaved at all times, which is why you won't ever see any beards in TES IV.

The doorjamb and door works nicely. I went with the high-poly version, which isn't *that* high-poly considering I heard that a normal NPC in full armor uses about 12,000 polys. If it's not too much trouble, could you model an accessory keyhole model for the door?

No, I flattened the back of the hut variation you sent. Hope you don't mind. One of the huts looked like the first variation you made, the other had a flatter back. The flatback hut in TES3 was smaller than the other one, whereas the flatback hut here is larger, but I didn't think that was very important; they both look great.

Ok, parallax maps are applied in NIF files by the alpha channel in apply mode 4.

Here is a Keyhole for whatever you wish to use it on.

As for progress on the outer wall, I made a corner pillar, and I also will make a height changing tile and an entryway tile so its all finished.

I was curious though, would you be able to send me the .obj of a couple of the buildings that you know you have compleatly finished tweaking and scaling? I would still very much like to try and do that mapping I had planned on doing before.

Quote:Originally posted by Caligula Superfly
Here is a Keyhole for whatever you wish to use it on.

As for progress on the outer wall, I made a corner pillar, and I also will make a height changing tile and an entryway tile so its all finished.

I was curious though, would you be able to send me the .obj of a couple of the buildings that you know you have compleatly finished tweaking and scaling? I would still very much like to try and do that mapping I had planned on doing before.

Thanks for the keyhole. Cool, looking forward to seeing the walls!

I attached screenshots of the mapping I used on the keyhole, and of the first entrance set up in "Kali Gulas' Square" (With "Czaprh Plaza" being the next area) I've got a pretty good idea of what model to use for the statue of Kali Gulas - Veet made quite a few Dunmer ones - but I don't know of a Dwemer statue off the top of my head. Hmm, but then again, the Dwemer are still villified in Dunmer culture, aren't they? Sortof one of the ancient arch-enemies of the Dunmer, whom together with House Dagoth tried to destroy their civilization. Zarf, is there any way we could make your avatar out to be Dunmer? =)

Oops, I forgot about the .obj exports
Sorry. But here they are, attached below. Did you want the textures I used on the temp ones? I guessed that you didn't, but if you do I'd be happy to attach them as well.

I can't say I'm 100% finished on them when it comes to textures and mapping, but I am when it comes to geometry. So any model you make that have the same exact geometry as one of those in the archive should be able to overwrite the old ones seamlessly. Assuming the in-game size doesn't change somewhere along the way, from exporting to obj to modification in Blender to re-imported into Max and re-exported to NIF. But heck, as long as it's somewhere in the general ballpark it's not like it'd be a monstrous task for me to readjust windows and doors and such, so one way or the other I bet it'll work.

When you said you liked the texture on the low walls, did you mean the "cement2.jpg" texture? I think it's good and definitely useable, it's just that I didn't find it in the "RockWall" dir but in the "Horn" dir in the 'RedoranAccesoryModels' package.

WOW that door looks good. I mean, wow. I'm really impressed with you guys! Good job! Green glass and the requested end texture comming... expect them in about an hour. :-)

EDIT: Here's the edge textures you requested. I agree with you, this does look significantly better. :-)

Preview:


Download: 34k (Includes both left and right edges and normal maps for each)

Thanks Zarf, that cap texture will work perfectly! :bananarock:

Here's a shot of how the low-wall system turned out. The rocks are about waist-high (at their highest). Was this how you saw them being used, Caligula?

Thanks Razor!

Green glass beta: I'm not too happy with this. But, here's a beta for now. It includes, as always, a normal map.

Preview:



Download: 169 K

EDIT: You mentioned making a not of bump maps. Bump maps work GREAT when they are converted to normal maps using the normal map filter in Photoshop. If you don't want to do them, send them over and I'll do them for you. :-)

I always desaturate my images before turning them in to normal maps. That technicly means that I make my maps into usable bump maps before converting them. Sometimes I even go as far as to invert the colors (As simple as [CTRL] + [i]), and then I apply the filter. Easy as pie. :-)

Those low wall designs will be great for the plantations and villages near Blacklight! I think they will be well used (especially near Cormaris View)

Zarf: Nice. I can't wait to see what the finalized version of the green glass looks like.

Thanks, I'd be happy to take you up on that offer! I've never used Photoshop, so normal maps hasn't been within my reach before. I'll send them over as soon as we get a NifSkope guy. A d'Artagnan to the musketeers, so to speak.