Landscapes of Skyrim

Landscapes of Skyrim



This thread deals with how you, me and others imagine Skyrim's Landscapes.

It is supposed to serve as a possible source of inspiration for our landscaper's. I hope that Lestat and other Exterior-Builders will read this thread and extract helpful thoughts from it, without feeling constricted in their options.

Particularly, those ideas should be given attention that are either innovative or have a good chance for positive reception. Moreover interesting or frequent requests for Skyrim may be quoted, many of wich can be found in the bethsoft-forums nowadays. Fotos or screenshots are also welcome. Please link or thumbnail them instead of filling the whole screen with large panorama's, as I did above

Everyone having time or notion is invited to stay around here for a while and contribute to the discussion

To start with something I'm going to quote a few fan-thoughts for TES V (Skyrim). Let's have a look at that:

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IF the next game is set in Skyrim I really hope they still manage to give it that mysterious feeling Morrowind had. I'd much rather have lots of small built-up areas in diverse locations than have large open snowy vistas which lack any sense of magic or mystery.

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We've already seen Nord influences twice in two games and they both amounted to the same bland and generic landscapes. ..... Soltheim and the Jerall Mountains are directly influenced by the Nordic culture in the game.

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Tall peaks would make for a beautiful view.

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i would love to see mountain sized mountains with passes through them and mines built into them.

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I'm really hoping that Beth goes dark with TES V Skyrim (assumed that is what they're doing). By dark, I don't mean ooh creepy dungeon where I can't see a thing in front of my face because the lights turned off dark. I mean you're travelling down a path through a forest on the back of a carriage lit by a lonely candle displayed over the carriagemaster's head, bathing the area around him in a small, shallow glow of orange light. The surrounding wood is black as the grave with a seldom peak of light through the myriad trees. The only thing piercing through a shroud of a kind of quiet that would bring the bravest of men's legs to quaking with fear is the squeaky cobble of the wheels of the carriage rumbling along on the dirt and gravel road. Overhead, the canopy has eclipsed the sky entirely as well as choking the wind from this silent glen, leaving the air stagnant and mild.

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Skyrim is not all snow and ice. Wheat can grow there, and wheat requires temperate environments to thrive. Meaning there are valleys that are perhaps as temperate as the great forest region. I'd suggest that "The Reach," which is the western segment of Skyrim, is moderately mild, whereas the rest is rugged, snowy, icy, mountainous, etc.

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Embrace the snow! If done well it could be groundbreaking and beautiful. I want to run across endless glaciers, I want to hunker down in caves to escape brutal blizzards.

Linked below is a site with some interesting approaches regarding landscape and culture of skyrim.
http://ladyn.tamriel-rebuilt.org/Skyrim.php

I'd love some more alien wildlife, like we saw in Morrowind.
I'm not sure what would fit in though... once I get a new scanner I'll do some sketches.

I think some z-axis abuse would be great for skyrim, with large drops and craggy slopes, though I think some statics would need to be used for this in places.
I see Skyrim as an area with dense mysterious forests, inhosptiable areas, deep caves in mountains, creature dens scattered around, that sort of stuff.

As far as I see it, the landscape can be what you want it to be, some pictures of the kind of stuff ythat I think would look cool in skyrim: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Btw, I hereby claim the awesome pirate emoticon, it's mine now, no one else touch it.

What would be important for me? Unique Flora for each Landscape! I personally would be disappointed if the herbs, flowers etc. I've modelled for Skyrim would show in each Region. A container plant should only show up in one region or perhaps in two, but not more. This is how it is on Vvardenfell and I would like some biodiversity in Skyrim too. So when the plants are referred to in books or dialogue there can be things like "The Dragynia is a scrawny and tall flower endemic in the Glades of the Reach..."

Of course, some more models would be needed, but we certainly have the time to make them. Maybe a few of the Oblivion plants growing at the border to Skyrim would make sense too.

I agree with you, in morrowind, certain plants only grow in certain regions.

But obviously in Skyrim, how many different regions will there be

And looking at the Data files (ie. meshes and textures and whatever) for the mod, i can see they need alot of sorting and making to a set standard, for example, all of the meshes and textures should have "SKY_" at the begining, this would help increase workflow as you would be able to access everything much quicker and know that everything is one place

Really wanna see this project spring to life

That true, definitly we need more specific plants for the different Holds...we have 9 Holds on Skyrim: Haafinheim, The Reach, Falkreath, Whitehold, Northshore, Winterhold, The Rift, Eastmarch and The Pale.

The Rift, The Pale and Falkreath are near the Jerall Mountains, so we could assume that some plants that grow near the Jerall Mountains in Cyrodill we could also find on the Skyrim side.

Every Hold will have a different flora and achemie plants.

We need also some roots and tubers.

Maybe Muspila, SGMonkey and me could meet on Skype and talk about that.

P.S.:

SGMonkey - Welcome to the Team

Welcome, SGMonkey! Nice to see a new member around.

I see, we already have a few 3D-modellers among us.
So what if we try to make Skyrim as unique as possible in the terms of landscape, architecture, wildlife, culture etc.? Of course, we can't make everything from scratch. We will need to use a lot of things that are already there. But, you know...

I always tell Lestat how much we need new and unique artwork for Skyrim. It's a repititive subject of mine.
But a distinctive style can't be achieved only by new models. A basically different color-scheme, another style of terrain-building and different themes not only incorporated into 3D-models but also into the way things are arranged in the landscape.

Tamriel Rebuilt is a good example of how a unique style can be achieved even with rather few new 3D-models, only by using existing 3D-art in an inventive way.
Then again we need to take care that the work of different modders fit into the common Skyrim-style which still needs to be defined for many parts.
Although the Nords are obviously similar to vikings, we don't need to make them throughout viking-like. I would prefer making them distinctive in many cultural aspects, perhaps having some tribes whose culture even hardly resemble viking-culture.

Speaking of 3D-models:
How about if we make a register of the 3D-Art included in Skyrim_Data.bsa or whatever our collection of skyrim based stuff will be called?

Hello Muspila glad to be onboard

What you said about not neccesarily making tons of new models is true. I think the only reall important things we need to model are plantlife, a few different sets of trees, maybe 3-5 different breeds if you like, and buildings.

I personally think alot of the house models need a slight overhaul and making a bit more morrowind like and less generic, that is what will really make Skyrim stand apart. Also, landscape will really help, we need mountains...

Some inspirational images XD
http://www.dhealing.com/graphics/mountain04.jpg
http://www.chnpress.com/tourism/img/Golgraphy/Sabalan%20Mountain.jpg

I want to see some pretty nifty landscapes, bumpy terrain, after all this is Skyrim, it doesnt want to be so bubbely like Morrowind is

And as ive said to Lestat, the models/textures/icons folders need a giant overhaul, i cant stress how important i think that is It would just really help increase workflow, and if people still want other to know that they created that model, they could put there initials at the end of the filename, instead of them being in a seperate folder, if that makes any sense

And yes, a bsa would be a good idea eventually

EDIT: Oh and Muspila, do you think you coulc have chosen a more phallic image for the opening post XD

If ye want phallic images... this way -> P

Agreed that it's not priority to find a replacement for each single plate and knife in each house. Still I think it would be good to have as many new and fitting models as possible. Again there are lots of things far more important to do, though.

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I personally think alot of the house models need a slight overhaul and making a bit more morrowind like...

Morrowind-like? Aren't we going to build Skyrim? I guess you mean "stranger, more exotic", do you? Until now I've always tried to turn Vvardenfell-models into distinctive Skyrim-style-things. This is what I've been doing with some of Lestat's models that were basically retextured Vvardenfell-meshes. In my opinion we should neither try to make things morrowind-like nor viking-like. Something new, unseen and yet fitting is what we should try to achieve.

One of my approaches regarding plants was to make them more rank, bushy than Vvardenfell-flora. Trees having more branches and a denser foliage, herbs and flowers having more and smaller leaves. Moreover the leaves always having a blue tint. Nevertheless, the low saturation of Morrowind-textures should always be be kept for any texture.



What I think should overall be achieved is a good mixture of generic skandinavia-viking-style things and a good bunch of alienness (yet fitting, of course).

Are you on windows messenger atall? Thought it would be good to arrange a group chat sometime so we can discuss some things in depth

Sound like a good idea?

Why not? I don't have a MSN-account yet, but making one won't be a problem. My pidgin supports most kinds of chat-protocols.
But beware, I'm not a native speaker. It can take ages until I've written anything!

We probably should make a new thread where we can arrange chat conferences and the like.

That actually makes me feel bad, here i am chatting away speaking my only language as fast as i always do, and there you are

And yeah, maybe we should make thread about timeswe should chat and whatever, and lestat too, obviously, not heard anything from him in a while

Hi Mate,

don't worry, everything is o,k...just Real Life Stuff cost to much time the last days...and I've started to rename the NIF's for an Overhaul.

That's good, was gonna start having a look round at them myself.

They need putting into the corresponding folders as well as naming accordingly.

A for armour
B for bodyparts
C for clothing
D for doors
E for magical Effect

And yeah you get the idea ha ha

Cant wait to see it all categorised, ive started playing around with the castle tileset to find exactly which peices need fixing, and i should have it mostly sorted by the end of the day

Double Post - New Info

OK so I started modelling a house last night, similar to Lestat's, just with about a third of the polygons
Nearly got that finished, just sorting out texturing, and im using the same textures from before cos they're fine Lestat

Today im planning on designing some plantlife, as many variations as i can so that you can all say yes or no to whatever i make

Watch this space

Nice. I'm, definetively, looking forward.

Regarding plants, it would be nice to see roots, mushrooms, bushes and the like, perhaps less flowers.
But don't feel, in any way, constrained. I'm only suggesting.

post some picture of the sort of things you imagine would look good, and ill get on it

I'm not at home in the moment. I don't have an exact idea of what plants you could make either.
What I can say would be in any case useful is bushes. Bushes are really helpful for detailling exterior-cells.

SGMonkey, model some plants, and we'll get an idea of what fits in and what doesn't.
Can't wait to see what you whip up, what program do you use?

Also which area are you modelling these plants for? Stuff like roots, plant shoots, seeds, needles will probably be in the coldest areas, whereas I guess somewhere like the reach could actually have anything, fruit even.

I use 3ds max 2009

And at the minute im modelling some plants that Lestat sent me some images of, got one set of four done, just need decent textures

https://2img.net/h/i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm449/DDevilMonkey_666/SKYRIM/CornusArcticSun7249_0607.jpg
https://2img.net/h/i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm449/DDevilMonkey_666/SKYRIM/Morrowind2009-11-1713-45-26-56.jpg
https://2img.net/h/i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm449/DDevilMonkey_666/SKYRIM/cornusarcticsun.jpg

They look ok so far, but like i said, they need darker textures

EDIT: At the moment though im working on making pine trees, i can't stand the gact that the vanilla models are only slightly taller than you, they shoould be three times the size atleast

And just resizing them wont do, im making them look better too, more like a tree instead of a peice of crap sticking out of the ground

I use max 2009 too.

I like that plant, it'll look awesome in skyrim.
Btw, if you use max, that means you can also use tree[d] if you want to give it a go, with the
b3d importer
It makes really nice trees in minutes and you can get really nice low poly trees with it.
I prefer it over ngplant.

Better pine trees would be awesome.

Excellent approach. Looks very fitting so far.

I'm glad you like them, still not finished mind you, need a few tweaks, better texture like i said, need to look more natural, might make a ground peice for them, not sure yet

Not had a chance to do any modelling since yesterday so ive nothing to show yet, but later tonight im planning on finishing that model then moving on to the next type of plants, gonna try and make some known skyrim plants, so keep your eyes peeled

https://2img.net/h/i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm449/DDevilMonkey_666/SKYRIM/FG2.jpg
https://2img.net/h/i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm449/DDevilMonkey_666/SKYRIM/FG1.jpg

Just started on this set of plants

Never tried making transparent textures for morrowind before though, so im experimenting

If anyone know how to do this, let me know