Fearabbit

I'm actually thinking about releasing mods as soon as possible. Because I've noticed that many ideas I had were really good, but there was just no way to beat the old bull in that modding area. And when the first overhaul mods come out, I'd like them to have to think about compatibility patches instead of me. I guess that sounds a bit selfish, but it's not meant like that. For example, I'm thinking about a mod that adds classes back, in a very simplistic fashion. I think that if that idea catches on, then it might inspire some better modders to look in that direction, and maybe release their versions of this idea. And so when Sotobrastos' Skyrim Superfix comes out, it'll have to consider that many people have already grown accustomed to mods that change the gameplay in a fundamental aspect. I always had the feeling that it got more and more difficult and tricky to get your mod into the game if it affected gameplay. Take Low Post's Lost Skills, for example, which will bring back Unarmord, Axe, Blunt, Short sword, Long sword, Enchanting and more. Does anyone even know about that mod here? It's still in development, but I fear it'll never become truly popular. If it had come out in 2006, it would have been huge instantly, but now the whole system has grown unflexible, and there's no way to fit Lost Skills into it without making major reconstructions, which simply won't happen at this stage.

I'm using InkScape in the institute I work as a student job. It's very easy to use and great for sketches, and if you use the snap-to-grid function, it's very easy to create symmetric sketches and the like. For swords and stuff like that, the bezier curves / straight lines are probably the only tool you ever need, although circles do come in handy. By the way, Vince, from your opening post it reads as if you were trying to create an arc or a section of a circle by using bezier curves - that's not necessary, you can do it directly with the circle tool. When you create a circle, there are three "editing points", one of them is round. If you move that one around, the circle either turns into an arc, into a "Pacman" or into a circle where one bit is chopped off, like a filled "C" where the ends are connected with a straight line (it all depends on whether your mouse is inside or outside the circle while moving the point around).

Okay, I've tested the meshes a little bit. grond, your second mesh is great for the use on the outside of the IC buildings, like I guessed it fits well into the alcoves on the second floor. The first mesh, however, is a little bit problematic, because it doesn't align with the IC Basement set at all. My current solution is that I'm using doorways in combination with your mesh for the exterior, but it doesn't look very good... so another solution would be preferable. What I noticed is that the stones around the window look nice on the exterior, but for the interior it's not really necessary. So I'm thinking, if you could take a wall from the IC Basement tileset and then make a window-shaped deepening in the middle of it, then that would be all I need for the interior. You wouldn't have to mess with the UV that way (I wouldn't mind if there was a little bit of stretching on the sides of the deepening), just the basic model would have to be changed. However, I guess that's not that easy to do, am I right? I can imagine that this is more difficult than it sounds like to me, and if it is then you really need not bother.

There are hundreds of mods I wished to create but haven't... I think I'll restrict myself to those I actually started working on. 1. Better Imperial Palace District I've always wanted a Palace District that seemed like a lot of political stuff is going on around there, and that looked really imposing and magnificent. Basically, I wanted there to be government buildings, embassies, maybe some sort of representation of the various guilds mentioned in the lore. After adding all that, I would've gathered a team to make some quests revolving around the new buildings - political quests, where Council members, influential noblemen and ambassadors of other provinces intrigue against each other. I still have this picture in my head of making an assassination of a Council member somewhere in the Arena... either while he's watching a fight, or at night in the bloodworks after luring him there with the promise of making it worth his while. 2. Thieves Guild Jobs I've always hated the Independent Thievery aspect of the Thieves Guild. Stealing items can be fun, but doing it because there's a quest for it is so much MORE fun. I mean I really enjoyed Thievery in the Imperial City, even though many of the jobs were something I could have done without a quest. There weren't multiple stages or anything, just "steal this and that from this and that location". However, there was dialogue involved afterwards and before, and journal entries, AND it was part of a questline. That's what made it fun. So what I wanted to do was to create some Thieves Guild hideouts in the major cities, or maybe even in a village/inn outside in the wilderness, and add a questline for each of these locations. Nothing special - really only quests like the ones from Thievery in the IC or from the Morrowind Thieves Guild. The twist would be that stealing an item as part of a quest would also count towards your Independent Thievery, and that by a larger percentage than if you were simply selling them (because the quest giver would already have a client). The ultimate goal would be to completely get rid of the Independent Thievery aspect by offering a cool alternative. There were others, but these are the ones that come to my mind right now because I really like the idea behind them, and I might someday get back to working on them.

I have a suggestion... I think more carriable lights would be great. I believe in Morrowind you could pick up any candle holder and equip it like a torch, and the variety was nice. A house owner who hears footsteps at night would more likely light an oil lamp or a small candle to see what's going on, instead of opening his old adventuring chest and igniting a torch. Silverware in Morrowind - Apart from looking superior to Oblivion's silverware, it has this very nice candle holder. An oil lamp. More oil lamp types at Wikipedia. Also, and I'm not sure if this is the kind of "clutter" you were thinking of, but Morrowind had these chairs for Imperials. They look like medieval versions of Roman chairs, which is great. On another note: A candle holder I always found fascinating is the Jewish Menorah (Wiki link). These candle holders look so dignified and lordly without the aid of any religious symbols which would ruin the immersion. For a thief, they'd be the main target of a burglary. They are great for shrines, cathedrals and homes of rich (religious) people. (Since it'd be a candle holder only used for special purposes, it wouldn't have to have candles in it or anything, it'd just be a valuable miscellaneous item.) Basically, much of the Jewish culture is a great inspiration for a fantasy game, because there aren't many easily recognizable religious symbols (or rather, they aren't depicted anywhere nearly as often as the Christian Cross). And the close similarity to Christianism means that your fantasy culture will instantly remind you of the stereotypical picture you have of the Middle Ages. (A medieval synagogue is basically like a Christian church with slightly different, i.e. more interesting architecture. It will remind you of medieval religious practices and a powerful Church, but not of Christianism.)

Well, I'd love to get both of those .nif files! The first one looks as if it's part of the original tileset, something that I can position by using the CS grid, so that is great. And the second one looks as if it might fit the alcoves in the second floor of a typical IC building perfectly, which is exactly where I'd have placed the windows anyway.

I'm really sorry I overreacted. I guess it's really just too much going on in my mind sometimes, and I perceive things the wrong way. Just to explain what went through my mind (I wonder if someone'll model a spiral staircase for me if I keep doing this!): I asked if someone could make models for me, and unrelated to that, I also asked for available misc objects resources I might have missed. In response to the second question, I get a list of resources, to which I reply that I know them already. Then grond says "If you know everything out there already, you might have to start modeling yourself" - as a general statement in response to my requests. There's a twist in that: Suddenly the problem inherent to my second request (looking for resources - can't find any) is assumed to be the problem inherent to my first request, and the answer to them becomes the same (might have to make it yourself). That answer is completely fine, and in a number of occasions I'd agree - for example, numbers 2 and 3 of my list. If I made this thread solely for them, the only appropriate answer at this stage of development would be "make it yourself, Fearabbit!" For the doorframe and the window, I had higher hopes that a modeler might think "hey, those would be useful resources indeed". This is why the problem inherent to this request is different - it is more like "I know there isn't anything around like that - but many people would benefit from it, so maybe I can find a modeler who'd be interested!" In that sense, it made more sense to ask for help first, and look for other solutions after that if necessary. And because of that, I overreacted, because it seemed to me that grond's response was actually a response not to my initial request, but to a request far more complicated and specific, and I didn't want my request to sound complicated and specific. (Also I thought that grond kind of did this on purpose. Like I said, I definitely overreacted.) grond - that looks fantastic, even better than what I had in mind. I can either put a window inside the hole (this is something I *can* do - taking a plane mesh and putting a window texture on it), or I can choose to leave it open, which is great. For the outside of the building, it would still be nice to have attachable windows, but that's not so important for me. And they're quite high above the ground anyway, so I can use one of the window resources from MORE and nobody will know

Well, the intention of this thread was to ask other people with more experience in modeling or mesh editing if they might want to help me out... not to get a list of other things I could try. I don't want to sound rude, I'm just not a modeler, and I never will be. I'm just a guy making a mod who's now asking if someone could make a resource everybody could benefit from. Something many people have done before me successfully. I don't know why you're being so harsh.

Thank you, but I'm rather well acquainted with lists like that I have already gathered a lot of stuff, but there isn't a lot that would fit the Imperial City well. When I was asking for general resources for the Arcane University, I was more looking for... niche stuff, resources that aren't really worth mentioning if you want to give somebody a general overlook of what is there, but if that person is looking in a very special direction, they might be just what he's looking for. To give an example, Better Cities has this statue of an imp holding a bowl. I think Hel Borne made it; anyway, it is in its style very appropriate for the Imperial City and especially for the Arcane University, but it's small enough that most people wouldn't mention it. So I thought, maybe there are some resources that people would love to see in a bigger Arcane University, a resource they've been waiting to see in the game... I could name a few resources like that. I also know about those windows - unfortunately, there isn't one in the Imperial City style.

Hello again. I'm still working on my little Arcane University Overhaul, and I notice more and more often now that there are some models I really need, but which unfortunately don't exist. So here's a request, and I would really appreciate it if someone could help me out here. The main building of my university is a large structure that has many corridors inside, which I make with the IC basement tileset. I've already retextured it to my needs and everything looks great, but there are a couple of problems: 1) There are no versions of the tiles with windows on them, and I don't know of any attachable windows in Imperial City style. 2) There are no "room" versions of the tiles 3) Certain areas of my interior would require a corridor that isn't rectangular to the other parts, but that is at an angle of 45 degrees. 4) Since I'm incorporating the original interiors of the Spellmaking Center, the Enchanting Center etc. into my main building, I sometimes need to add doorways to those normal interiors, even though there isn't a suitable spot. I'd need a doorway, much like the Architecture\Castle\CastleDoorway01.nif - something you can attach anywhere. It should fit the usual Imperial City doors, however. Point 1 and 4 are the most important ones. For number 1, it would be great if someone could make a window mesh that I can simply place on my walls - just like the usual Imperial City windows, or maybe even a bit more "arcane". Visually it would probably look best if there was an arch of stones around the window, as is the case in normal IC interiors where there is a window, but that is not necessary - I'd be glad about anything I could use. For number 4... I don't know really. The aforementioned mesh describes what I want best - Just an attachable doorframe that looks really typical for the IC, and that can be used in interiors (so I don't want a full-fledged Imperial City building entrance like the one Hel Borne made). It would be good if it was very deep, so that one could use it on uneven walls too without getting clipping. So... I'd be glad of any help I could get in this area. [Also, I'd be really happy to get as much resources for my interiors as possible! If you know anything a decent Arcane University interior could need, don't hesitate to point it out... (I already have all of meo's and JDFan's resources and the static scrollsets, though)]

Alright, then 2 it is. It's my favorite option anyway because it seems like the most intuitive way of handling such things. It's just that you can never be sure; often with the CS, the most intuitive solutions are also the ones that secretly cause the most problems. Out of curiosity, Arthmoor: Is that the way you do it in Open Cities, too? By the way, the exterior will be redesigned, so leaving the doors and adding teleportation pads instead is not possible.

This is a problem that really slows me down right now, because whenever I start to do something, I always think "maybe this way of doing it causes problems; I should wait until I know more about the subject". Basically, I want to edit vanilla cells and their teleport doors. I'm working on an Arcane University overhaul mod, which completely restructures the AU. Part of this is that e.g. the Spellmaking Center (yes, I'm also going to get rid of those stupid pseudo-Latin names that nobody can understand!) will be a room inside the main building of the university, instead of being a building of its own. That means that I need to replace the doors that lead to the exterior of the AU with doors that lead to my new interior cell. As far as I can tell, there are several options: 1. Delete the original doors and put my own doors in their place, which will link to the proper cell 2. Simply edit the original doors so that they link to the proper cell 3. Move the original doors out of sight and put mine in their place 4. Leave the original doors alone and instead put my own doors right in front of them I don't know a lot about this area of modding, but I've heard that deleting vanilla objects isn't a good idea because it might lead to CTDs in combination with other mods. I also know that doors are persistent, so moving them will also require me to make a script that makes sure they are in the correct place, AND a script that puts them back to their original position in case the player wants to disable my mod. Concerning option 2 and 4, I have no clue what the downsides would be, but I bet there are some. So... does anyone here have any experience on the subject? How can I keep my mod as compatible as possible? And in any case, what should I do with the other doors, the ones in the AU worldspace? Should I remove/move/edit them or leave them alone?

Yay for me! Let's see... and... WhoGuru, did you just eat my welcome cookie? (oooh I like these smileys) Thanks for the warm welcome.

Hello hello, some might know me from the official forums. I'm Fearabbit, and I'm from Germany. I'm an Oblivion modder, although I haven't released too many mods yet, and most of them are... well, kind of "underground". Many of them bring back features or visual aspects from Morrowind, and lately I've been trying my hand at making quests and editing cells as well. I read a couple of times that people here are friendly and helpful, and you have this "Modding School" thing going here, which is a nice idea. In the last few weeks, I've often thought that I could use some help with the stuff I'm doing - and in the official forums, you rarely get a lot of help when you have a problem. So that's why I'm here now (and also because I want to try out being in a normal community instead of that marketplace that is the Oblivion mods forum). Looking forward to being here.