OdysseusB

I wonder if he used the older upload, which had the texture folder set up wrong. I'll take another peek at his upload.

Glad to see another familiar face - welcome to the Alliance! These forums are pretty darned nifty, if I do say so myself

I was gonna offer to test, then I remembered I had waaay too much to do these upcoming weeks to test properly. If you still need testers week after next, though, I'd be glad to help.

Well, I was going to say hi back to ya, but I was too busy stealing the batteries to the red remote. Welcome to the alliance! I'm pretty new here myself, but it's simply a wonderful place.

I'm glad you made a thread here - I never quite got around to it I'm going to have that newly textured version by the end of next week, if all goes well.

I'm glad you're picking up on the egyptian architectural themes. Drawing on the final Sands of Time trilogy game, I've tried to make the architecture a mix of Babylonian and Egyptian styles, with the necropolis area leaning more towards the Egyptian side. In fact, the courtyard around the necropolis is directly drawing from the Pylons and courtyards to several known Egyptian temples. I should probably texture that part before I do any more requests. Oh, don't underestimate my laziness Although I guess it's more of wanting to work on a lot of different things at once rather than genuine lack of wanting to work (although that happens at times too, just part of being an artist). Also, the real secret is that the buildings haven't taken that long to model - I'd estimate less than four hours per building (and it shows! I need to touch a few of them up), with around the same amount of time to texture. I've seen your "My Rival" before, and it looks like something I'd love to see in my game. Your plan is quite bit more awesome and a lot more complex - from what I can tell, it's more based the Rival being a fully living, breathing person and somebody you are companion to. My characters are just quest dispensers gussied up with personalities and cool skills (but don't tell anybody, it's a secret). They're generally completely static until you get to them.

I'm a bit lazy, so I'm just gonna copy and paste from the respective Bethesda forum threads for now: First, Bevy of Heroes: What is this mod? Bevy of Heroes is my attempt to extend the Oblivion experience. While it will be playable for characters of all experience and type, it's aimed at the higher level characters that have gotten past a lot of Oblivion's challenge. The main focus is quests and characters - Bevy of Heroes currently adds in around 10 unique personalities that will lead to exciting adventures, and more will likely follow after the first release. Of course, the idea is less "quests" in the traditional sense of the word, and more "experiences". Bevy of Heroes is also the framework that will be driving any future story-based mods I do, like The Wayward City. It will include many base resources, NPCs, and areas that these future mods may draw upon. This explanation needs work - it's kinda complex and more exciting than it sounds. So it's a quest mod? Well... Kinda? There are quests in the mod. But they're just a part of telling various stories. I'm not quite getting you. Can I see an example? Certainly! We'll use an example from the demo. One of the characters added is an old Nord bard named Vigunn. He's not very interesting, at first glance - his most fascinating tale is of a legendary cheese farmer. But that's because he doesn't know you. If you're famous enough, he'll befriend you and join you on your adventures (although not every Bevy of Heroes character will be available as a companion). He's not that great in a fight (tough old guy, but not the best with a sword), but he's wonderful out of a fight. Being a bard, he knows a lot of the lore, legends, and stories of Cyrodiil, and has comments on some Vanilla quests. More importantly, he can tell you tales that will open up new quests for you. Here's an example of one (mild spoilers): So you can see a few things - multiple paths, character relationships, and a whole new branch of gameplay. Not every quest is quite that cool - some are very simple, and some are even bigger. But I think it gives you a good idea. Woah. That's a LOT of work! Yep. Good thing I have a lot of it done. Or, to be specific, a lot of what I have in mind for the first release done. I'm only going to have two to three major storylines in the first non-demo release, so it's really not as bad as it sounds. The other characters will become involved in your life as releases come. Oh, and as Campaigns come. It's crazy ambitious, I know. So we'll see if it gets done. If not, I'll release any work that I think other modders could use to the public, so at least you'll get something out of it. Campaigns? Bevy of Heroes is gonna have quests, but it's also gonna have BIG quests. That have lots of new visuals. Or at least it's going to have one - see the link at the top of this post. These are going to be expansions for the main file, introducing you to Bevy of Heroes characters that previously would have little to do with you and new locales. See The Wayward City for more details on the first campaign. Voice Acting? Unless I find an actor I really like for a character (or two characters) with a good amount of time, I doubt it. This mod already has a LOT of dialog. If you don't like it, that sucks for you. I'd be completely open to partial acted dialog, though. Release Date? When it's done! But the demo might be out before the end of 2009. It will feature Vigunn and a few of his tales (but not the extensions of those tales, so probably not necromancy). Lore friendliness? It's fairly lore friendly. I derive a lot of stuff based on Daggerfall and Morrowind, so some of it may seem unfamiliar to people who have only played Oblivion. For instance, necromancy is largely based upon information in Morrowind, and the first campaign takes place in a (former) city of the Illiac Bay. But you don't need to learn the lore to enjoy it (I hope!) or even get it (unless it's fundamental to the experience, in which case it will be explainable) Screenies? Most of the work currently done can either not be captured with a screenie or uses Vanilla items, so I suggest checking out The Wayward City thread to see pretty pictures with lots of new meshes, textures, and (soon) animations. I could post some pictures of the Bevy of Heroes characters at some point, though. That being said, here's one screenie of a quest-important character (uncertain if he'll ever join forces with you or not, though). Yes, this is mostly vanilla mesh editing, for saving time and keeping a consistent look with the rest of the game. And yes, the textures need to be re-worked: Tonwyll - he's certainly a character A super WiP helmet for a special enemy Ok, I'm just a liar now. A New Nordic House (Bruma Textures) From the Benirus Quest From the Benirus Quest, Super WIP Ditto Could you tell me about the characters? I'll tell you about one as an example and update it with more information for time to time, but being spoiled could ruin parts of the story for this character. Next, The Wayward City: UPDATE: The City is Pothago from the Illiac Bay! And it will have a House of Dibella Bevy of Heroes now has it's OWN THREAD! Check it out! I also plan to have a resettling option for the Docks, Temple, and possibly Market districts. What is this mod? The Wayward City is two things. First and foremost, it's the introductory campaign area (for lack of a better term) for Bevy of Heroes. It's goal is to create a brand new area to explore, aimed at higher level characters, in addition to introducing a few members of the Bevy of Heroes cast. Secondly, it's a chance for me to show off my 3D skills, generate a demo-reel, and learn more about 3D art in general. Wait, what's Bevy of Heroes? You want to click me to find out more In addition, I plan to release Bevy of Heroes as a master file. This will allow me to release "adventures" in pieces, rather than having to do it all in one go. As such, the Wayward City is the first adventure planned and will be released concurrently with Bevy of Heroes. Is there any kind of plot? Why yes there is! I don't want to reveal too many details at this point in time, but it involves going on an expedition with Augurius Pontius, his two apprentices, and a couple of other characters. During the Warp in the West, a few towns and cities were lost. Augurius believes that one of them, the city in question, was not destroyed. He believes that it was merely... misplaced. Of course, there's a reason he's hiring extra muscle. On a more technical note, I'm going to be using this plot as an experiment for story telling within games. The story is all ready completely finished - it's how I'm going to tell it that will take some development. Unique character animations are a must for this, so you can expect to see a lot of new movements. What are you using from the community? Currently, nothing. I'd love to get some help on textures, and at some point I may ask for some help on World Building and scripting. But at this point in time, I'm doing all the models, textures, animations, scripting, world building, lighting, and dialog on my own. What about voice acting? To be honest, I don't have any significant plans for VA. It's hard to get good VA talent, and it's not that essential to the mod. However, if you're willing to help me out, I can send you a few lines. If I think it fits well with a certain character, then we'll see about having a voice acted version. Woah, this is a lot of work! I don't expect to see this project finished I don't expect it to be a quick release. If it does get to a stage where I can release it, it's going to take a long time. Not only that, but I'm also a full time college student, so expect to see significant slow down when the school year comes around. That's all right - this mod project is for me to learn from as much as for people to download. If I get to a point where I see that I cannot finish it, I'll release the various models, animations, and even junky textures as a modder's resource (I plan to do that if I finish as well). While I model and animate quickly, it takes me a LOT of time to texture. If I got somebody to help me with a few textures, the mod release might arrive much sooner. So how big is this city gonna be? Not entirely certain. The "main" quest for the campaign setting (at least for this volume) will feature at least two districts - a temple district and an undetermined one. The temple district also is the house of the entrance to the necropolis, an underground district of the dead. This is the first district you see coming off of the docks and where the first part of the story takes place. Other than architecture, what other meshes will this feature? It will definitely feature a lot of new weapons. I hope to include new armor and clothing, although how new it will be will depend on how my skills improve. Aside from a nice npc/critter retexture, I also would love to make a new creature type, though that is a huge task. Finally, there will be oodles of new animations (not really a mesh, I know) that help to tell the story. Enough talk. I need pictures! Certainly. In-game shots of the new models: Architecture: City Limits The temple and some houses The temple from the front. Statue on right needs new normal map Part of the entrance to the necropolis in game An Obelisk Gate Underneath Detail District Walls From another angle A scenic shot of the temple Weapons: Desert Wind Desert Fang Desert Flame Desert Thunder Tranquility (Tentative Name) Enemies: A potential enemy type, will use new anims if I do it And some poorly sorted WIP renders from 3ds Max 2008: Most up-to-date image of the first district layout (temple) with models but no textures

I'm OdysseusB from the official forums (in case you couldn't guess). Aside from doing the occasional mesh request for people, I have a few projects going on: -Fable II inspired houses for LazyGhost -Lots of animations for HeX_0ff's Unnecessary Violence (and I mean lots. Too many to list, and I don't remember them all) -Two of my own projects, which are linked (search the official forums for Bevy of Heroes and The Wayward City, which are character-centric quest mods with lots of new meshes and other graphical joys) I really like the way this site is set up, so I plan to upload a lot of the requests I do to it. And maybe I'll release the demo to Bevy of Heroes here, too.