[FCG] Deshaan Plains

SamirA · Post by **SamirA** » Wed Nov 03, 2010 6:05 pm

I really like the feel you have created there Myzel, it is very nice. That irrigation system is also nice YanShun

Lutemoth · Post by **Lutemoth** » Sun Nov 07, 2010 9:37 pm

Almilexia wrote:Oh, i see, well i didn't knw Dres were so odd people, lol.

and the Dres is the essential stereotype of what the rest of Tamriel thinks of when they imagine traditional Dunmer. Much like how the rest of the 20th century imagined all First Nations looked like [url=http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_hdNok1XWgP0/SyWvOz5fwmI/AAAAAAAAAaI/Avmf61VQxd0/s320/Indian_Chief_with_Head_Dress.jpg]this[/url]

whenever I think of the saltrice crops, I imagine them thriving amongst pools of sulphuric water/chlorine (hence the great need for efficient irrigation). Fresh ivory coloured flora and plainsgrass that looks as though one were looking through an [url=http://webecta.com/images/2009/11/125-Supreme-Examples-of-Infrared-Photography-43.jpg]infrared image[/url] (just colour it with tints of grey, ivory and khaki as people've been doing already)

JulZ · Post by **JulZ** » Tue Nov 23, 2010 6:22 pm

[url=http://s3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/M-JulZ/?action=view&current=deshaanplantation.jpg][img]http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62/M-JulZ/th_deshaanplantation.jpg[/img][/url]

Quick sketch of how I imagine a plantation in Deshaan. Basically, huge fields consisting of single rows of saltrice divided by irrigation canals, which the slaves have to wade through, with causeways for the guards to patrol on.

Kieren · Post by **Kieren** » Thu Nov 25, 2010 9:38 am

Wow Julz...that picture is pretty f'ing cool - I love how the taskmaster looks with his whip

In any event, I like your depiction with the plains...just hoping there will be a few more features to the landscape when it finally makes it in the mod.

Myzel · Post by **Myzel** » Sun Dec 19, 2010 9:28 pm

Three flora concepts. Excuse the picture's dirtiness, it's mostly the scanner's fault.

[url=http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/646/trdeshaantrees.jpg][img]http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/646/trdeshaantrees.th.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/9403/trdeshaanflower.jpg][img]http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/9403/trdeshaanflower.th.jpg[/img][/url]

Whraven · Post by **Whraven** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 12:42 pm

Here's how I see an approximate landscape map of Deshaan plains.

http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/1453/deshaanmap3.jpg

Yellow are irrigated parts. Green are normal plants. Red are some Dres buildings. We can see irrigation canals, somewhere there are so much of them, that smaller rivers are completely dried up. The plain itself is bordered by salt terraces.

There are 4 main ladscape types.
1 - irrigated Dres plains
2 - the delta of the river, that looks kinda like ascadian isles
3 - the beginning of the river, where plains slowly turn into black marshes, there should be some different plants
4 - salt plains and terraces that are not covered by plants. Not that they have no plants, but they are thinning and probably become smaller.

Myzel · Post by **Myzel** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 2:38 pm

Hey Whraven. I'm glad you're putting some effort into this region but I don't think this map is very helpful. You've missed some vital parts of the region concept.

Deshaan is one of the most fertile regions of Morrowind but, paradoxically, it looks very arid and brown. The plains are dotted with salt flats and strange salt formations. White grasses pale the landscape, and most other plant life has the same prevailing paleness.

White and brown with some pale colors for plants will be the defining colors for the plains. We've decided we definitely don't want ascadian isles 2.0. The salt flats are too defining for the region to have them only at the edges, and the plains will probably be much larger than your map suggests.

Whraven · Post by **Whraven** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 2:54 pm

Nah, it was just a concept. I didn't mean ascadian isles 100% I meant with other plants and different terrain. But small islands covered with various plants.

The main part was actually having a river in the middle of the plains and irrigation canals. I read previous conversation and I wanted to know whether this should be the overall picture of plains.

Concerning size. For example, I thought that where buildings were mentioned a mansion or a small town should be.

It wasn't much effort, just 1 hour of thinking. So this time I'll put more details and things that you've pointed out.

I've also wanted to say "In the south, the Deshaan Plains slope gently into the stinking pits of Black Marsh, where underground gas vents cause the water of some rivers to flow uphill, bringing one of the main supplies of fresh, richly organic water into Morrowind"
That means that in the southern plains a different approach to the terrain is probably required. Is that so?

Whraven · Post by **Whraven** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 4:58 pm

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/4254/deshaanmap23.jpg

It's a new one. Red dots are probable Dres buildings. It's mostly topographic.

How to change and what to add?

Katze · Post by **Katze** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 10:14 pm

Sorry, but I'm not sure topographical maps are what we need for this task.

An FCG is an attempt to visualise a currently unmade area, and so what is required are atmospheric art depicting the kind of vistas that would be in such a region, unique flora closeups, interesting terrain formations, basically all the kinds of things that the modelers will need to create in order for the exterior modders to be able to create the region. There are examples of this throughout the rest of the thread.

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 7:05 am

It was always my intent that the Deshaan plains would fill the majority of Dres territory, basically all of it except the Argon Jungle and the area around Tear.

Lutemoth's description should be followed to the last detail.

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 7:11 am

this was written by lutemoth when he drew the picture posted earlier in this thread

Lutemoth wrote:Yellow chlorine pools crusted with sodium chlorate puncture the surface on their meander to Black Marsh. Ivory grass which greys the landscape like a dry tundra. Tiger-striped guars roam here, and have become iconic to the western Eyes. Saltrice is sporadically farmed, but salt from the earth must be raked from the ground to provide irrigation for this staple food, lest the cultivated plants die from acidic flooding. This can be seen by the pyramids of salt that dot the thin, near-pointless roads, too poisonous to be consumed or sold. Argonians are the perfect slave to accomplish this type of plantation, as the Black Marsh trade is adjacent to the South, and a free-running lizard won't make it far in the chlorine clouds brushed up by winds. An Argonian putrefying in a shallow pool is not uncommon a sight, and keeps the slaves in line.

Whraven · Post by **Whraven** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 7:00 pm

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/6100/deshaanhouse1.jpg

Made a picture of a house. How is it?

Nemon · Post by **Nemon** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 7:13 pm

Sload wrote:It was always my intent that the Deshaan plains would fill the majority of Dres territory, basically all of it except the Argon Jungle and the area around Tear.

I thought the Shinpal Shin would extend a little east and north east into the Dres territory, but if there are reasons not to that can be done. I want to have a complete and simple world map with rivers, roads, cities, towns, settlements, house borders and regional borders ready before we even touch any map 6 claims. Thanks to the trump-thing I think that will be very easy.

As of now the Alt Orethan and Lan Orethan region strecth into Dres territory to the Oronyon Bay. Some of these areas are more than good enough to keep, although some house changes must occur. Most of the areas west and south of the Oronyon Bay must be completely redone however. But now I'm veering off road here, gotta get back on track.

Sload wrote: It was always my intent that the Deshaan plains would
Lutemoth's description should be followed to the last detail.

Yeah, but it does leave some questions. Since this region is supposed to be filled with rivers, what kind of rivers are we supposed to make here? In the trump river map I don't see any rivers running into the Black Marsh from the Deshaan Plains either. But of course that can change, we've got at least half a year until this is even remotely becoming priority exteriors wise.

Thrignar Fraxix · Post by **Thrignar Fraxix** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 7:15 pm

Architecture for this region will be in the style of House Dres, so unfortunately we can't use that concept either. Flora and terrain are the things we need concepts for.

SamirA · Post by **SamirA** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 7:18 pm

Cool concept though. Now lets see you try something like TF stated, I have a feeling we will see something interesting.

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 7:20 pm

All those regions I always figured would be on the periphery of Dres. I imagined the Deshaan as roughly the area bounded by 6-1, 6-30, 6-34, 6-42, and 6-44.

Rivers in the Deshaan flow north and converge at Aldemmar. The point of these rivers is that Dres saltrice is shipped down them to the Inner Sea or to Narsis.

Adanorcil · Post by **Adanorcil** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 8:28 pm

Sload wrote: Lutemoth's description should be followed to the last detail.

I'd like to say I fully agree with this.

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 9:18 pm

Seriously, guys. I wish I had the kind of mind that I could have come up with something like that, especially in as short a time as he did. I mean, chlorine fog? He went above and beyond in that thing.

greendogo · Post by **greendogo** » Wed Jan 26, 2011 10:57 pm

Cool concept. A Salt "Flat" if you will....

Katze · Post by **Katze** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 8:03 pm

The Fire Spike (Flame Spike?):

[url=http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/1373/firespikecoloured.jpg][img]http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/1373/firespikecoloured.th.jpg[/img][/url]

Alternatively, the plant could make a nice replacement for the Red Fire Flower already existing in TR_Data, which is currently a cheap ripoff of the stoneflower.

immortal_pigs · Post by **immortal_pigs** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 7:53 pm

Some random concepts that may fit in the deshaan.

smoofy42 · Post by **smoofy42** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 2:37 pm

Hi there! Ive been lurking around this forum for a bit and I thought I'd throw my hat in! I imagine Deshaan to be rather arid and rugged, with interesting rock formations, dotted with pools and scrubby grass in the center. Anyways, I did a quick doodle of what I think the basic shape of the valley looks like, minus the vegetation

Nalin · Post by **Nalin** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 2:53 pm

smoofy42 wrote:I did a quick doodle of what I think the basic shape of the valley looks like, minus the vegetation

I like the heavy shading on this, reminds me a little of [url=http://www.trollshop.net/trolls/kittelsen/askeladden.jpg]Theodor Kittelsen's stuff[/url], which I happen to like muchly.

That said, we're looking more to focus on details for the area in this thread rather than a general overall feel, plants, rock features etc.

Nice start though, welcome to the forums!

Whraven · Post by **Whraven** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 10:59 pm

Here, I've made a few new concepts.

The first one is actually very close to a real desert plant, it's leaves are very long and very hard (defensive mechanism).

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/5369/deshpl1.jpg

The second one looks more a savanha type.

http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/8150/deshpl2.jpg

The idea of the third one is to change from day to night. I know, that's probably too hard, maybe just make two versions of the plant.

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/3313/deshpl3.jpg

I have a few other ideas. Will draw more.

Myzel · Post by **Myzel** » Thu Feb 10, 2011 10:46 am

Nalin wrote: That said, we're looking more to focus on details for the area in this thread rather than a general overall feel, plants, rock features etc.

Just a quick correction: good atmospheric art is as useful and welcome as object concepts.

Katze · Post by **Katze** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 12:13 pm

Would some barges for transporting crops and minerals to the Thirr be desirable?

Myzel · Post by **Myzel** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 11:22 am

I would say yes.

Tyrion · Post by **Tyrion** » Thu Feb 17, 2011 8:11 pm

We already have boats and skiffs... but a big flat-bottomed riverboat that gets poled along, gondola-style, would still be cool.

Katze · Post by **Katze** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 4:21 pm

Are there enough plant concepts here to form our first Deshaan plains model claim? 5-6 plants is definitely enough for such a claim, we can make more such batches as and when we need them. I just want to poke our creating of map 6 content in a more productive direction, is all

Myzel · Post by **Myzel** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 9:45 pm

I'd rather not rush this one. I want to make sure my designs are actually supported internally, and I haven't gotten feedback from the people that matter. I'll try and discuss this with Adan next week.

daedriclord · Post by **daedriclord** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 2:36 pm

There are practically no plants around salt lake areas, salt kills them ( [url]http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01939.htm[/url] ) but some plants adapt to such conditions, I think that it would be interesting if we have such plants in Deshaan Salt Plains, I drew a few examples (with a cut view also)
[url=http://s1142.photobucket.com/albums/n608/daedriclord/?action=view&current=Watercarryingtree.jpg][img]http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/n608/daedriclord/th_Watercarryingtree.jpg[/img][/url][url=http://s1142.photobucket.com/albums/n608/daedriclord/?action=view&current=Watercarryingtree2.jpg][img]http://i1142.photobucket.com/albums/n608/daedriclord/th_Watercarryingtree2.jpg[/img][/url]
those trees carry water above the ground in special tanks (cut-view picture) only roots are in the ground

Why · Post by **Why** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 5:49 pm

daedriclord wrote:There are practically no plants around salt lake areas, salt kills them

We're not bound by real-world stuff here. There's no reason there can't be abundant flora in this environment (and according to the description, there should be!)

daedriclord · Post by **daedriclord** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 6:11 pm

There's no reason there can't be abundant flora in this environment

heh

, in my opinion I offered unique, strange and mysterious trees for salt area, um not saying that there should be no flora

Why · Post by **Why** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 7:34 pm

Your sketch is nice, just gotta keep in mind that this region is supposed to be the most fertile region in all of morrowind.

've been playing around with Google Sketchup myself a bit. Here's what I made:
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t141/WhyAreWeFighting/Parasol.png
http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t141/WhyAreWeFighting/Parasol2.png

The idea is that it's a big towering mushroom thing, that catches and focuses light through its translucent caps (I'm obviously too n00b at this to make anything translucent, but ideally you sould be able to see through the caps in-game and they would reveal an intricate pattern of fibers and veins within them, leading into the stem). It uses this extreme energy to power chemical reactions involving the chlorine, salt, ash, and organic black-marsh material in the Deshaan Plains' soil to create the steel-like bark it uses to grow so tall.

Not sure if it's of any use, I mainly made it because the program intrigued me, but here you have it anyway

Myzel · Post by **Myzel** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 8:03 pm

Daedriclord: I like the way that tree looks. The only thing I think I should remark is that while the water-carrying trunk idea might seem like an interesting concept, such a thing would not be visible on the model.

Why: Those are mushrooms.

A note: thinking up cool biomagical properties for your plants as a background story thing is nice and of course completely allowed. It's also a little useless though, in that a concept cannot rely on that. That which makes a concept interesting must be in the way it looks.

Why · Post by **Why** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 8:46 pm

My description was just as much concept as the art accompanying it, I'm bad with art so rather than making it semi-translucent I described that it should be semi-translucent and what one should see looking into it

and I thought fungi were "not neccesary" here rather than banned. Anyway, as I said, I didn't exactly expect this to be that useful, but with the multiple branches in both the roots and the stems and translucent caps, I figured they'd be sufficiently unique to not be just-another-mushroom.

daedriclord · Post by **daedriclord** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 1:30 pm

thx for the reply

Myzel wrote:A note: thinking up cool biomagical properties for your plants as a background story thing is nice and of course completely allowed. It's also a little useless though, in that a concept cannot rely on that. That which makes a concept interesting must be in the way it looks.

Myzel you are absolutely right

Myzel wrote:I like the way that tree looks

^_^

Why wrote:Your sketch is nice

thx

A little experiment with a strange plant(Haste-painting

)
[url=http://img215.imageshack.us/i/deshaanplants2.jpg/][img]http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/8002/deshaanplants2.th.jpg[/img][/url][url=http://img820.imageshack.us/i/deshaanplants.jpg/][img]http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/3760/deshaanplants.th.jpg[/img][/url]

Myzel · Post by **Myzel** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 6:57 pm

Looks pretty good. Nice work.

daedriclord · Post by **daedriclord** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 7:08 pm

Thx, soon I'll draw some new sketches