Cupa Jango's Showcase

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 3:14 am

Hi

This is my morrowind showcase, a castle for the player to live in. It is found south of Maar-Gan and has a map marker.

I am good mat making interiors and not bad with exteriors.
I can also wright books for morrowind.

However, I am not sure how to wright scripts and don't have any 3d moddeling programs.

jonarus_drakus · Post by **jonarus_drakus** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 3:30 am

>generic welcome greeting<

Someone more knowledgeable with the Morrowind CS will give you a review shortly. In the mean time i figured I'd do my 'greeter-bot' impersonation

. But yeah, always happy to add new members to the team

.

If you want to get into 3d modeling/texturing for TES games, then google "Blender" and "Nifscope". They are both freeware (at least they were last time i checked). Those are the two biggies, if there are any other recomended programs, i dont know them.

JD

cire992 · Post by **cire992** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 3:54 am

^ NifSkope is a must for ES modeling. XSI Mod Tool and Blender are both great freeware modeling programs, and Maya and 3d Studio Max are pretty much the industry standards (very pricey, however).

Hi Cupa, welcome to TR. I'll take a look at your showcase in a moment.

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 4:41 am

I'll have a look for blender and nifskope, I have heard of them before. I would eally love to learn how to make 3d modles!

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 4:54 am

Just as a matter of intrest,
could you tell me how I make book art for morrowind?

cire992 · Post by **cire992** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:01 am

^ To answer your questions:
Do you mean book covers or pictures in the book?
Learning to model is no easy task, start with tutorials and very simple objects. Make sure you check out tutorials on Blender's layout as well, it's always easier to model when you know where things are.

Alright, here's looking at the interior:

- File is clean, very good.
- Unique dialogue for your castle is a great touch.
- No Northmarkers, you're gonna need those.
- The interiors had default cell lighting, if you browse to World->Interior Cell, you can change the ambient and sunlight to something more fitting.
- Most objects in your interior were floating. You usually need to hit the 'f' key multiple times to get an object on to the floor.
- Your interiors are very empty, they need more clutter.
- Mixing styles, you have common/imperial (com_) objects mixed with dunmer objects (de_). This is appropriate for personal modding but in a TR showcase you need to be able to prove that you can mod within our guidelines.
- The catacombs (and other places using cave tiles) are really lacking in rocks and detail.
- The throne room is really neat.
- The stacks of crates in the keep are bleeding into the pillars.

This plugin would be great for making a mod with, but it really isn't suited for a showcase. Most of the interiors we do here at TR are fairly mundane... houses, shops, caves etc. If you can make a regular home in any style using the skills you've already learned and the feedback I've just given you, you should be in good shape.

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:11 am

Ok, I'll fix the problems with the castle, then have a go at a house, I havea made houses before, but usualy not fully furnished. I didn't know about the "f" key thing, so that will help alot.

And by book art I meant pictures in the book.

cire992 · Post by **cire992** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 5:32 am

Here's the code:

Code: Select all

<IMG SRC="CupaJango\MyBookArt.dds" WIDTH="240" HEIGHT="120">

The 'WIDTH' and 'HEIGHT' terms are the size of the image that will be created in the book. CupaJango\MyBookArt.dds goes in the Morrowind/Data Files/BookArt folder.

You could jump into right into the house if you like without fixing the castle, we'll end up judging that as your showcase if you end up making it. It's up to you, really.

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Mon Oct 05, 2009 11:49 pm

i am going to be away from the internet for about a week so I thought i would make a small fishing village as my showcase.....
I have fixed the castle

cire992 · Post by **cire992** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 12:41 am

^ Awesome, post the castle when you get a chance.

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 6:04 am

Well, I have finished my new showcase. it is a village called Tayodril that can be found to the east of Seyda Neen. It is a small fishing village that also has a farm, a guar pen and a tavern. But... I couldn't test the dialog that I gave the npc's as for some reason I can't talk to any npc's! Dunno why.

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 6:06 am

just so you know, I think I am getting the hang of scripting!

Ooh... cool emoticons!!!

cire992 · Post by **cire992** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 1:13 pm

Could someone take a look at this? I'm out of town atm.

Kiteflyer61 · Post by **Kiteflyer61** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 3:47 pm

I'll check it out laterthis afternoon. Gotta job (RL) to do first.

Edit:
Ok, Got rained out on the job.

First off I'm only promoted for interiors (but I'm working on getting promoted for exteriors too) so I'll only do a general review for your exterior.

Exterior:

First of all, to get promoted for exteriors you should make a small island off the coast somewhere so that the reviewers can tell what you've changed apart from the vanilla stuff.

There is no vertex shading on the stuff you added. You should use vertex shading around everything you place in an exterior to simulate shadows and such.

Your door markers bleed into the doors which can cause problems when the player exits the interiors.

Your farm plants are placed a little close to each other and bleed into each other. If you can't tweak the rotation to get them not to bleed, you'll have to move them apart a little.

Overall I like the work you've done. You show a good eye for detail, placement, and clutter. The file shows modification to cell 1,-11 but I'm not sure if this was intentional or not. If it wasn't it makes the file dirty. this is another reason to make your exterior in a wilderness cell as it makes it a lot easier for us to tell if it was modified intentionally or not.

Interior:

I'm only going to give an overall review because of the number of interiors you have in this file.

Your file shows two interior cells in Caldera as being modified. This makes your file dirty since I couldn't find anything that you had placed in those cells (the references were to two rugs). Always be sure to clean your file with Tesame or the CS to keep this from happening.

All your door markers bleed into the doors. Same as the exterior. As I said before this can cause errors.

The interior you did for the inn is too large to fit the exterior. You also have windows inside that aren't on the outside. This won't look right in game and is considered an error. If you would like you can look at my interior (I did the exact same one for my showcase) to get an idea of making it fit right.

I have to say I LOVED the fish shack (except for the bleeding doormarker). It shows a great imagination and very good skills with the CS!

The other interiors were very nice as well except for the doormarkers, however I'd like to see you do more with scaling things and rotation. Read the tutorials on the main page for these. You'll be amazed how much better your interiors (and exteriors) will look.

After all is said and done, you show great potential and with a little polishing and tweaking of those skills you should be well on your way to a promotion.

You should probably do seperate files for each area you want to get promoted for. It makes it a lot easier for the reviewers.

For interiors I would suggest a small Hlaalu interior that fits one of the exterior pieces. Most of the interiors we are working on right now are for that tile set. You don't need to link it to the outside.

For exteriors, a small island off the coast (as I said before). You don't have to do interiors for your exterior showcase so it will save you a lot of work.

Quests and dialogue could be tried for with this file so maybe one of the modders in that section will look at this file for that stuff (I suck at quests and dialogue so I can't give you a review on those).

Anyway, good luck and keep on moddin'!

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 9:21 pm

ok, thanks for havin a look at it.
Last night I suddenly thought HELLS TEETH!!!! as i had forgotten to make one of the interiors!, but I have decided to try to and make a hlaalu house like you said, if I do will i need to make an exterior for it???

Kiteflyer61 · Post by **Kiteflyer61** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 10:33 pm

If you are trying to get promoted for interiors you don't need to link them to exteriors. If you are trying to get promoted for exteriors you don't need to do interiors for the buildings you use. I would suggest doing one at a time but you technically don't have to.

BTW, in my review I forgot to mention you need to have your showcase dependent on bloodmoon and tribunal. You can't mod for TR without them. Also, you can use TR_data.esm to give you more choices for things to put in your showcases. It's in the public download thread.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

Keep on moddin'!

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 11:09 pm

ok, so I am going to try to get promoted to do interiors, do I not need to put a door or anything to get into the interior?

Katze · Post by **Katze** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 11:19 pm

You definitely need to place a door (and doorjam), but it does not need to link to any exterior.

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 4:06 am

Heres my new showcase, a Hlaalu style house with the name "Cupa' Jango Land, Nebiar's House"

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:08 am

Hey, I'm having this glitch where fi I activate an NPC nothing will happen! This means I can't talk to anyone!!!
They still say the things like "Quickly outlander, I havent munch time"

this sucks as it make exploreing Vvardenfel and TR map 1 and 2 a bit boring, cause really all I can do is go roung and kill stuff, but thankfuly I can still explore and find new places

However, killin stuff is still fun!!!

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Mon Oct 12, 2009 5:43 pm

make sure you didnt accidentally remap your activation/talking key.

Kiteflyer61 · Post by **Kiteflyer61** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 12:46 am

Ok, Here's amy review of your interior.

First of all, interior modders for morrowind don't add NPCs. You should remove her as well as the ownerships. We have modders who specialize in NPCs (and quests) who do all the NPC placement.

-Light settings are way too high. Generally they should be in the 30-50 range for ambient and should be 0s for sunlight unless the interior is set to behave as an exterior.

-While they are placed properly, the de_lamps shouldn't have a radius of more than 128. Yours have 256

-Exquisite_pants_01 floats

-both bookends float

-the books could be slightly closer to each other. It makes them look better.

-light_de_candle_12_64 floats slightly.

-The desk and bookcase are a little under detailed.

-The cushions on the floor are too perfectly aligned. Vary them up a little to make them look more natural.

-The shelves in the kitchen are are a little over done with detail and look too crowded.

-The stack of plates isn't a good idea. If the player grabs the bottom one, the rest will be hanging in mid air. Same goes for the cutting boards. The cutting boards are also com_ pieces so I'm not totally sure they're acceptable in a de interior.

-The cookbooks are imperial pieces and shouldn't be in a de interior (especially a de_p one)

-the books on the bookcase either float or bleed (depending on which end you look at). de_p furniture has uneven surfaces that you have to account for by rotating things slightly.

-the crates and vases in the storage room bleed into each other and the com_sack stands on a point. sacks and pillows need to be bled slightly to make them look right. You should also rotate the crates a little so they don't look so much like the same static. Resizing also does wonders for the visual effects. With them all lined up perfectly it looks unnatural. The same goes for the silverware. It's too "perfect" and doesn't look right.

Overall it's a very nice interior. I'd suggest you read the tutorials section on scaling and rotation. The chairs at the table are too precise. Even a 5 degree rotation makes a huge difference in making the interior look more natural. Tone down the light settings and fix the other errors I mentioned and you should be ready for a reccomendation.

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 2:41 am

Thanks for the reply
I'll change the interior around a bit and rotate things a little (and read that tutorial)

And I havent changed my activator key as I still open crates and whay not with it. But i think it is a problem with a mod I have pluged in...

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 4:27 am

I'm so gald to hear that I dont need to make an NPC or any ownerships as I HATE doing ownerships for loads of things

and I wonder why Bethesda did'nt make the damn bookcases straight!!!

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 5:56 am

Heres the fixed up version of the Hlaalu house I made, I had a pretty good look around it and nothing really stood out to me.

Katze · Post by **Katze** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 6:25 am

Review time:

-You should remove the NPC you created using TESAME, even if you didn't place him. He's not being used in this interior, so the existence of this NPC is a waste of kilobytes.

-misc_de_bowl_white_01 was standing on its point. Some bowls in Morrowind have pointed bottoms (I don't know why) which you should sink into the table they are sat on if they are to rest naturally.

-No items have been rotated to account for the poor furniture, some float as well. We're not Bethesda, and so not under time or budget constraints, so we do things properly and with due care and attention. You'll want to rotate items on poor furniture (the bookshelf and all but one of the tables are the worst offenders) so that they rest perfectly on those horrible uneven surfaces.

-Items on shelves (bottles, flasks, jars and the like) all face in the same direction. These items weren't placed by a robot or OCD sufferer, they should be rotated randomly around the Z axis to reflect this. It helps prevent shelf arrangements from looking strange when you ctrl+d copy items, and makes such things look much more natural.

-Exquisite clothes in an interior using poor furniture is a little strange. I'd advise replacing them with common clothes, or replacing the furniture with de_r or de_rm (from TR_Data) versions.

-bk_BlackGlove is a faction book. It is generally only found in Morag Tong guildhalls. Probably best to remove this.

I think that's everything, other than these errors it's a well designed interior. Keep at it!

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Tue Oct 13, 2009 7:10 am

I think I'll replace the furniture with the TR_de_rm stuff cause this current furniture really buggs me!!!

I did nt know that the Black Glove book was for the Morag Tong so I'll remove that too, and rotate the items, that was something I noticed in the game a few minuets after putting it online here!

Beave · Post by **Beave** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 12:26 am

Cathartis wrote: the existence of this NPC is a waste of kilobytes.

You inhumane monster! (Just kidding

)

To make this post relevant, I'll add this: Cupa Jango, FYI - you can select multiple items and then double-clicking one and adding ownership > Apply to Selection (or whatever it is) will add the specified ownership to all previously selected objects, and a message should appear saying how many objects were affected.

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Wed Oct 14, 2009 3:57 am

Hreres the showcase, again.
Same interior, I just changed all the furniture around with the TR_De_RM stuff, It look pretty good, I had an exra good look to make sure nothing was floating and removed the npc with TESAME and cleaned the mod

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Thu Oct 15, 2009 7:54 am

Thanks Beave, that aply to selection thingy helps ALOT with something in another mod I have been making

cire992 · Post by **cire992** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 8:24 pm

The house looks pretty good, file's clean and all the technical stuff is in order.

- The round table on the bottom floor is a bit barren.
- The table between the round table and the stairs is floating. You'll probably want to reposition the rug it's on top of.
- The plates on the shelf which are leaning against the wall on the bottom floor need to be pushed a little closer to the wall.
- The barrel in the storage room is floating slightly.
- The de_lamp at the top of the stairs is floating slightly.
- 3 of the tapestries on the top floor are bleeding into the ground. Scaling them down should fix the problem.
- The back legs of the bed bleed into the wall.
- The piece of paper on the desk can be lowered just a little more.
- The clothing pieces on the drawers are floating a little.
- The closet is floating.

And that's it, just the usual mistakes we make all the time. Make those fixes and I'd say you're promotion-worthy!

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 8:44 pm

I fixed all the problems that needed fixing in the showcase and here it is!!!

cire992 · Post by **cire992** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 9:34 pm

I noticed some of the tapestries on the bottom floor were bleeding, but aside from that and one or two other floaters and bleeders I think you're all set. This interior just awaits an admin.

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 9:39 pm

Great! thanks, I'm gonna fix the tapestrys on the first floor as I think I'll use this cell as my character's new home!

Thrignar Fraxix · Post by **Thrignar Fraxix** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 9:57 pm

Looks good. I actually pressed the buttons beforehand, so once I submit here, you will be promoted to TR Modder.

Congratulations, if you have any questions send me a PM, or post them here.

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Sat Oct 17, 2009 10:05 pm

Great!
Suppose I'll go make my first claim...

Kiteflyer61 · Post by **Kiteflyer61** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 12:12 am

Congratulations! Welcome to the team.

Katze · Post by **Katze** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 1:12 am

Congrats on the promotion! Always good to see new modders joining the ranks =]

Cupa Jango · Post by **Cupa Jango** » Sun Oct 18, 2009 2:16 am

I have started on my first claim!!!!