Cephalopod

vorrheis · Post by **vorrheis** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 7:40 pm

Lurking the oceans is a new terror. Commonly called the Telvanni Squid, or simply cephalopod. It is in fact not a squid. However, it shares many physiological traits.
Squids have ten tentacles. This creature only has six. Also, squid eat fish with a beak. This creature lives on blood, that it seperates from the water with it's complex mouth parts. It extracts blood from it's victims with the horrible hooks on it's tentacles.
Highly aggresive and mobile, this creature is prized by bonemold artisans for it's beautiful carapace.

Without further ado:

[url]http://www.cuneo.us/tesmw/images/vorrheis/cephalopod.jpg[/url]

It has been physiqued, and I will animate it by Monday. Hopefully, I'll be able to post it for playtesting at that time.

Majra · Post by **Majra** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 7:51 pm

thank god you are back vorrheis

I love it, and it explains a ton of lore

Liliath · Post by **Liliath** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 7:55 pm

Yikes ! Maybe I shall take the boat instead...

Very nice. It's just what I was expecting when writing [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/f_t/viewtopic.php?t=1123]this thread[/url]. Thank you.

Liliath.

Hermit · Post by **Hermit** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 9:03 pm

Whoa! Vorrheis comes back with a bang! Could you post it from more perspectives? I'd like to see the sides.

Anyway, a cool new monster, especially where we most direly need them - under water.

Asylum · Post by **Asylum** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 9:08 pm

really nice one, i'd love to come accrous these suckers
great work vorrheis.

Liliath · Post by **Liliath** » Thu Aug 26, 2004 9:33 pm

really nice one, i'd love to come accrous these suckers
great work vorrheis

Gees, I hope I won't...

Liliath.

Gleb · Post by **Gleb** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 3:14 am

I could easily see this latching onto a Telvanni slave's head, and squeezing and squeezing, then the skull caves in

. Of course, I'm just being wishful about having these as pets for Telvanni.

Spider · Post by **Spider** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 3:51 am

Very nice! I feel sorry for the poor slob who makes a living catching these things to make helmets out of them, it doesn't look like it would go along very peacefully to become Telvanni head gear.

Juhazar · Post by **Juhazar** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 7:51 pm

That looks nice! What about Telvanni quest where you have to go and kill some cephalopods and bring them to helmet-maker!

Arthmodeus · Post by **Arthmodeus** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 1:42 pm

Holy crap. CEPHLOPOD!!! MY LIFE IS COMPLETE!!!!!!

vorrheis · Post by **vorrheis** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 4:20 pm

Thanks everyone,

I've just finished the animations and I'm sending the meshes and esp to Yinnie. She should be able to post them here. I was hoping that somebody would be willing to play-test him and make sure there are no glitches in the animations. Any critique would also be welcome.

Vorrheis

Arthmodeus · Post by **Arthmodeus** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 5:49 pm

OOOH! OHH! ME! ME!! *waves hands*

Gooblecakes · Post by **Gooblecakes** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 5:50 pm

me too! me too!

Meer-Sei · Post by **Meer-Sei** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 8:00 pm

Yo, can I playtest it as well?

Arthmodeus · Post by **Arthmodeus** » Sat Aug 28, 2004 8:54 pm

It would be an honor to actually work for the almighty master of monsters, VORRHEIS!

Gooblecakes · Post by **Gooblecakes** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 1:48 am

well said, arthmodeus... well said

Marauth AlaÃƒÂ-RaÃƒÂ¡n · Sun Aug 29, 2004 2:12 am

V. cool, looks more related to an octopus than a squid to me with the head slanted back from the tentacles rather than being almost in line and the tentacles being quite thick, in general very octopus shaped, not saying I don't like it it's an excellent addition to the bizarelly underpopulated MW seas.

On the subject of such nautical creatures would a giant squid break lore rules? I don't believe giant sea bound monsters have been ruled out. I just read this article about giant squid sightings and how it accounts for the medieval tales of the Kraken that the vikings claimed pulled under their ships. The largest proper sighting by a crewman on a trawler during WWII was from the stem-to-stern of the ship - over 52m that's around 175 feet

now that'd be scary if you were too cheap to pay for a boat to the mainland

vorrheis · Post by **vorrheis** » Sun Aug 29, 2004 5:00 am

First of, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who wishes to playtest. The more the merrier. That way we are more likely to catch glitches. Yinnie said the post should be up by tues. Just open the esp in the construction set and place the ceph off the nearest coast.
As for a giant squid, totally cool. I read a few things about squids before making this. I agree that it is more octopus, but it is from the cephalopod helmet. I didn't know that octopi were of that family. Calling it a squid is more of a thing uneducated people in the game would do.
I want to make the squid thing that Spider drew up. That would be cool as a giant.

Vorrheis

Marauth AlaÃƒÂ-RaÃƒÂ¡n · Sun Aug 29, 2004 1:01 pm

They're both cephalopods but squids and octopi both are spread through several different orders and sub-orders. There's even something called a vampire squid - vampyroteuthis infernalis, though it isn't a vampire, it just looks really evil with a black body and red eyes.

They're all more commonly called molluscs, though few species still have shells and those are considered the primitive brethren of the much faster octopi, squid and cuttlefish

Yinnie · Post by **Yinnie** » Tue Aug 31, 2004 3:01 am

Vorr darling,

http://yinnie.tamriel-rebuilt.org/downloads/cephalopod.rar

Yinnie.

vorrheis · Post by **vorrheis** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 5:18 am

Yinnie playtested it. Has anyone else had a chance? I've playtested it a few times now, and haven't noticed any major problems.
I just want to make sure this thing is up to scratch before I release anything else.

Arthmodeus · Post by **Arthmodeus** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 12:18 pm

I havent had time to playtest it because I have 3 hour band practice from 5:30-8:30.

vorrheis · Post by **vorrheis** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 6:15 am

Did anyone else want to playtest this?

I'm not going to release anymore monsters until I get at least two more people to playtest this. The reason being, I hate having to go back and fix something small when I'm already two creatures ahead.
Anyway, sorry if I'm being rude, It's just been up for a while.

Eyeball88 · Post by **Eyeball88** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 10:03 am

There's a tear in the mesh on one of tentacles, mirrored on each side.

[img]http://www.cuneo.us/tesmw/images/Eyeball88/cephtear.jpg[/img]

vorrheis · Post by **vorrheis** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 4:56 pm

I looked for the tear in mine and I couldn't find it. Which means it's not on mine, cause it's a little big to miss. I've experienced files becoming corrupt during export to nif, but I've never seen differences in nifs between computers. The only thing I could think of to do was make the maps two sided so that any holes that occur aren't as obvious.
Did this occur during a specific animation?

Are the animations good? I'm wondering if there are any stutters or pauses. The game engine sometimes makes creatures skip a little between animations, but I want to make sure there aren't any major problems.

Greybeard · Post by **Greybeard** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 5:19 pm

OK, Vorrheis, if no one has any bugs to report, I'll get this baby put in her place. Like you, I don't like to redo these things too often. It takes me a couple of hours per creature, plus the time to find or make some decent sounds.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 5:28 pm

I'll give it a test in a few mins and tell you what I have found. Give me a minute.

EDIT: Tested it. First of all I haven't found any "holes" in the squid. Second, I think that squid's moving anim is kinda strange but maybe it's because of the high movement speed. Otherwise no glitches and bugs.

Greybeard · Post by **Greybeard** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 5:45 pm

What ingredient would you like?

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 5:48 pm

Cephlopod (or what's-it's-name)

The material. Or maybe his tentacles. Plus give him a special ability - release a cloud of smoke which will blind the player. Just like real squid.

vorrheis · Post by **vorrheis** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 5:52 pm

Greybeard,

I made an ingredient for the cephalopod's shell to be used in cephalopod bonemold. I'll dig it back up and add it to the zip. If you want to set up the sounds, I'll compile a new zip with the new mesh and the ingredient. As per Stalker's results we should reduce the speed to 40. Nothing should be that fast underwater, except maybe minnows and smaller fish.
Anyway, I'll set the stats in the esp and you can just merge it with your esp and add sounds.
By the way, I'm really happy you are back, I got a little worried that you might have dropped the project.

Vorrheis

Garriath · Post by **Garriath** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 6:01 pm

Add that to like one poison damage for the effect... that would look impressive.

Greybeard · Post by **Greybeard** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 6:18 pm

Well, call me half-back

. Anyway, the poison cloud would have to be meshed and scripted separately. Vorr, who scripted the plant and the mummy? Maybe he'd like a shot at this also. I think I'll work with the sounds from the sea crab.

vorrheis · Post by **vorrheis** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 6:48 pm

I just sent the file to Yinnie, so it should be available soon. The file contains the ingredient (cephalopod's shell) and the icon for said ingredient. Feel free to change the effects of the ingredient as you see fit.
In the esp I made the ceph comparable to the dreugh. It does more damage, but is slower and less resistant to magic (lower wisdom). I also made a 2x version that is higher level and more dangerous. We can use that one for a deep ocean list.
To effect an ink cloud, we could just give the cephalopod a unique spell that does area effect poison and high percentage blind. I didn't give the ceph a spell cast animation (or many magic points), so it will probably default an attack animation for the spell. That should look alright.
Greybeard- use whatever sounds you like (crab, dreugh, water, slaughterfish, etc..). Once you merge the esps you only need to make sure the meshes and icon are in the correct directory, then make sure the paths are correct in the esp. Then add soundfiles and any spell you think we should have (and add spell points). I don't think this thing needs any scripts, but if so, we'll do that later.

EDIT: Actually, we should drop the speed to about 10. That walk animation is a little too fast for underwater.

Yinnie · Post by **Yinnie** » Wed Sep 08, 2004 1:04 am

http://yinnie.tamriel-rebuilt.org/downloads/cephalopod_v2.rar

And here it is, dearest.

Yinnie.