The Reach - Western Grasslands #02 [berry]

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roerich
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Post by roerich »

Woah, nice shots! Very satisfying to finally see the city in the proper surroundings. I'm very confident that you will make this area awesome beyond comparison.

BTW, that Redguard fortress in pic #1 looks like it's very close to DS.
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berry
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Post by berry »

It is close, it's cell neighbours city's cell diagonally. Still, I think it may be a fitting part of Dragonstar's fortifications, overshadowing the canyon duct from Skyrim (it could be make less grand tough, perhaps a watchtower of some kind may look better), it wouldn't be a good call for the Redguards to leave this clifftop as it was, in my opinion. I can go with some different design for this cell, though.

Another problem I think it creates is how many "named" cells it requires to be on rather small area - even if we don't count 3/4 cells for Reachmen villages (clifftop, worsas canyon, berry #1) - and I think they should be named as well, there are few cells for Dragonstar, one or two I think for Haimtir, one for the Direnni ruins, and then yet another one for this fort... I wouldn't mind us turning -109, 9 into a named grove as well, it certainly looks landmark-ish enough. But yeah, lots of named cells around it. I don't know how much of an issue it is for us, but this densisty is undoubtly greater than in vanilla; the Reach isn't as sparsely populated as Vvardenfell or Solstheim, though.

Were we to keep this fort, I think it would create some cool possibilities. Recently I got to think we could actually have some Legion garrisoning here nowadays, continuing the pattern seen in vanilla and sometimes TR of having Imperial forts located close to mayor cities. Now, this region has been a part of Empire for ages, so maintained forts next to all of the cities wouldn't make sense (still, there are at least few ruins of Imperial descent around Karthwasten and Haafingar already) , but I think it could work with Dragonstar, given it's tense at best atmosphere. Imperial ambassador and those poor legionaries in the city would certainly appreciate that.

Additionally, it would allow us to smuggle in a strong NPC with developed psychological portrait who wouldn't be a Nord, Redguard, Altmer or Breton*, in the form of this fort's commander. I'm not up-to-date with our NPCing, but I think it's a cool opportunity, considering the racial proportions of the Reach. Strong willed, faithful to the Empire Dunmer soldier, cast so far away from Morrowind... Sounds yay to me. :D

But as I'm saying, it's all up to discussion. I want to focus on finishing berry 1&2 claims first anyway.

* because, you know, tense atmosphere

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roerich
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Post by roerich »

I think that is a great proposition. Redguard fort occupied by Imperial Legion it is.
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Post by worsas »

When you get around to looking at this claim again, would you be prepared to tweak the little mesa/hill with the reachmen village yet? Whenever I look at it, I find it strikingly non-conform with the refined regional concept, which you have worked hard to carry over to the area of #1. It would make sense to do away with the big hiding rocks on top of the hill. Maybe we cannot really hide the village after all. It is more important to me that the landscape around the village doesn't seem too constructed for containing the latter. Also, would there be a way to remove that big rock that is sunk into the cliff on the northeastern side? Right now that part looks too tinkered to my eye.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/223 ... grocks.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also there are quite many rocks in the area northeast of the little mesa that maybe should get reduced a bit. It doesn't look bad ingame, but it is more important to have this area consistent with the rest of the region.

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Post by berry »

Hm, you're right. Fortunately it turned out to require less work than I expected, worked on it this morning.
worsas wrote:Also there are quite many rocks in the area northeast of the little mesa that maybe should get reduced a bit. It doesn't look bad ingame, but it is more important to have this area consistent with the rest of the region.
I'm not sure about it, I actually think it would be more effective to have this cell adjusted inside claim #9 boundaries, together with bordering cell from #6 and those three northernmost from #11 claim proposals. I can definitely see it needs some work, but I can't quite capture what treatment would be most sufficient here.

Uploaded file tiles with Dragonstar's claim, Skyrim_main and ref.esp.
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worsas
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Post by worsas »

I'm not sure about it, I actually think it would be more effective to have this cell adjusted inside claim #9 boundaries, together with bordering cell from #6 and those three northernmost from #11 claim proposals. I can definitely see it needs some work, but I can't quite capture what treatment would be most sufficient here.
I had forgotten that that cell doesn't belong to Druadach Highlands anymore, too.

I'm generally wondering, how to go about cells in this claim that don't belong to the Druadach Highlands region, like the forest cells. It would be the best, if cells didn't need to be touched by other claims anymore. But that is probably a bit too much of an expectation and would require us to already know for sure how the other regions should look like in the end. At the moment you seem to be circumventing those areas, at least.

We ccould make this claim a precondition for the adjacent claims to the east and let them edit the bordering cells again to match the part belonging to the own region. And maybe we could just pursue a rigid system of moving east and basing future work on the final cells of this claim here and the claims following.

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Post by berry »

It sounds reasonable to me. So the claims to follow could be divided like this:

[hsimg=]http://i.imgur.com/xnTuJy2.png[/hsimg]

But overall, I don't think there is that much work to get done in these cells. Obviously we don't have resources to launch that big overhaul for all regions, neither we need it.

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Post by worsas »

I forgot to mention that I like this plan very much. Let's do it!

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Post by berry »

Update. Foremostly I worked on removing burried/colliding grass claim-wide, then focused on the area around -110,10 cell that used to be badly underdeveloped. Now it looks like what we are aiming for in this region, I'll be trying to adjust other cells to suit that bushy look.

The natural cave in -110, 10 is now finished and ready for review, if anyone feels up to it. I combined the original concept of underground Dragynia grove with a Reachmen burial - seemed fitting, given the overall sacral character of the valley. The cell is named "Sky_claim_berrial" (bad punning must go on).:P

I'm close to finishing the Direnni tunnel as well - some minor miscellania detailing and tinkering the scripts for locked doors is all that remains here.
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Post by worsas »

This is really an excellent update, especially with regards to the interiors included, but I like your tweaks on the landscape aswell.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/223 ... dstuff.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Post by berry »

Yeah, I regret this didn't came up earlier, so I could make rest of the area look more like this. But everything feels rather consistent too as it is now.

Update
  • did lots of general detailing everywhere
  • all 3 interiors are now finished (Sky_claim_berrow having been reviewed already by Roerich) and ready for a review. That table with lockpicks and a light in the Sky_claim_berry_tunnel is there just for testers'/reviewer convenience and should be removed.
  • the clifftop village received yet another brush-up, but it finally feels village-ish enough and fits surrounding landscape
  • renamed all exterior cells to denote the region they belong to and the number of adjacent claim they could be dragged into
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worsas
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Post by worsas »

I'm addicted at this exterior claim, so going to download it once more, as always. :geek:

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Post by berry »

Heh, what a dedication. :D Thanks, Worsas, I really appreciate your ongoing support here. The truth is though I feel burned out by this claim, after all these months, so here's the approach we could take with completing it, if that's fine with everybody:
  1. Fist, I will focus on completing the area stretching from -109, 6 Forsworn village of my first claim, through the ruins and the valley, including then Worsas' road cells and ending on the -110, 12/-109, 12/-108, 12 axis, i.e. around the Haimtir-Dragonstar crossing and the Breton tower atop the mountain. These areas are almost finished now, I could make this section review-ready in a few days at most. Both yet unreviewed interiors I created belong to these cells too, though it may in a better taste if I upload them on their own, I guess? Works for me either way.
  2. I will get on working on the remaining cells then, to Karthgad-Falkirstad crossing and the clifftop village of -109, 16. They are largely finished by now, but it will still take me the rest of the September at least to wrap them all up.
  3. Now, I have the only real problem with the road/forest parts of -108,16, -108,15, -109,15 and -109,14 cells. I have no idea how to approach these, I don't "feel" them and pretty please, do not make me work on them. :P I can work on the cliff/village part of these cells within the boundaries of step #2, and maybe then we could divide those between claims #9 and #11? I might be able to revisit at least some of them after a break if nobody feels like grabbing them, but for now I'd rather get some actual work done on some different cells of upcoming release area, instead of struggling here fruitlessly.
Soo, that's basically it. I'm sorry for the trouble, guys. How do you feel about it?

--

Ah, and what the heck, I'm posting yet another update :D I worked solely on -109,9 cell this time, so it's basically finished. Forgive me this brag, but there's the coolest exterior cave I've ever made included; use Shift + C and look for a beaten path texture. There are lots of other major improvements too.

Cheers
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Post by worsas »

I think that it will be hard to make the areas outside of your claim match your claim in complexity by now. Don't overdo it. I think that your claim could already pass as completed, if you wanted to. The forest cells and that one farmlands cell still need to be worked on, of course, either in a future claim or within this one, however you wish.

I hope I'll find time to do some exterior work myself again, between all the model needs.

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Post by berry »

Yeah, I keep forgetting I throw in too much stuff in my exteriors. Still, I think I made a big improvement in that field, when I recall my first claim. And on a second look, there isn't that much work to get done here. I'll suck it up and get this claim finished, though the border cells will need revisition in adjacent claims.

And hey, I'd love to see some more exteriors by you, Worsas!

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Post by berry »

Finished. :o (I promised myself I'll post this video whenever I finish that bastard :P damn, I forgot how crappy that movie was. I like the tune, though)

Still requires some fixing, when it comes to floating/bleeding grass especially. I'll see about it after some break, if no one grabs it until then.

The forest and farmlands cells should be further adjusted from proper claims, but I think they can pass as finished too.

Left Stalhrim as it was for now, if anyone has any idea for replacing it, feel free to give it a shot.

Remember to check this together with Dragonstar and ref file for full overview.

I cleaned the file with TESAME.
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roerich
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Post by roerich »

Damn, can't wait to check this out.
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worsas
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Post by worsas »

This claim looks fantastic. My only concern is that it has got a very high amount of references in some cells. But fuck it, it looks great.

Adjacent claims can soon be worked on, I guess?

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Post by berry »

Glad you like it. :)

Sure, the bordering claim should be cool to go now. I think I could find time to take some wilderness areas from Skyrim_main, perhaps #11 + those 3 cells above it from #9? Joining this road with Karthgad and then Karthwasten should be our priority now.

I'll have much, much less time to work on the project now, but I wouldn't mind a small claim to tackle with in my free time. :P Just point me what's most urgent.

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Post by worsas »

For #11, #12 and #19 we should not work based on the landmass file, but the updated Vorndgad forest file with the updated and re-npced Karthgad, when Yeti makes it available.

For the coming release we'll need to deal with the above-listed ones and #20, #25 and #26 (6 claims in total). It might make more sense to deal with these three aldkarth lowland claims first, because we can work based on yetis latest karthwasten file.

For some reason the fish creatures used in the karth river have never been added to Skyrim_Data and still need to be added, so they won't disappear from the exterior, when it is cleaned from dirty entries.

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Post by Yeti »

The most recent file in the Karthwasten NPC thread can be used for updating the landmass. I hope to finally get around to updating Karthgad in the near future, so someone can claim Karthwasten in the meantime.

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Post by worsas »

Yeti wrote:The most recent file in the Karthwasten NPC thread can be used for updating the landmass. I hope to finally get around to updating Karthgad in the near future, so someone can claim Karthwasten in the meantime.
Thanks for letting us know, yeti.

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Post by berry »

Ok, great with me, but can anyone provide me that latest Karthwasten file, please? :P I don't think the plugin itself has ever been uploaded to new forums - I can't find it at least - and I don't have permissions to download it from old SHotN boards.

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Post by roerich »

I think this is the latest uploaded file, from the old forum. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
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Post by Yeti »

Oh. It looks like I didn't upload the file here. Silly me. I'll do that later today. Roerich's version is older than my most recent one.

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Post by roerich »

I thought so, I just grabbed the latest one in the old thread.
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Post by berry »

I divided this claim into two files, in accordance to this concept:
  1. the smaller one, Sky_druadach_#19 contains these 2 cells adjacent to the forest of claim #19. They should be used together with Karthwasten file and Skyrim_main when working on #19. My Direnni tunnel belonged to one of them, so it's here too.
  2. the bigger one contains the rest of my cells (including two more interiors), minus the ones grabbed for #25 claim - they were pasted in Karthwasten file.
Unless something went wrong all od sudden, all these files mentioned here tile with each other.

Cheers!
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Post by berry »

I'm sorry for taking so long to reply. I hope it wasn't a big inconvenience, as there was no work being done on this area.
worsas wrote:After some thinking I'd like to voice the concern that we have grown the bad habit of changing changed areas over and over again. I know, I said myself it would be a good idea to move the village to a different place and let's keep doing it, but in future we should make it a habit to call our reworked exteriors finished when we are through them and prevent ourselves from making further major changes. I feel we should try to be a bit more merciful to our own creations. If we had kept the village where it is or not, the final result would have been great eitherway.
Yeti wrote:What Worsas said. Let's not get too caught up with nitpicking our work.
Well, I generally agree with that, of course, but I think in this case the bulldozing would be beneficial to the project rate. Instead of a bunch of interiors to do and a dozen of NPCs to flesh out, we will have to get just one interior done, and I'd love to do it myself. And then, when Luxray finishes the nearby goblin cave, we will have the vast of exterior cells finished. It's not like we are scrapping the village, but just moving it up the mesas, and I think those areas could use such head start. Plus the tower looks really cool. :P

Here's the file with the tower, if you'd like to check it.
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Post by Scamp »

This claim is in Sky_Main, approved.

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