Furnishing the rabble

Well I haven't really posted much here in the past week and that's because I've been knee deep in modelling furniture and messing about with Nifs.

Trying to make furniture room by room and so far not doing too bad.

Here are a few of the items made already (there are more i.e. a piss pot!)

I did also play with nifs a fair bit (wasting my time instead of modelling really) and came up with sort of a mirror....



Well that's just a few things done in the past week for the project. Much more to come this week....I hope :D

A really hard time...

After seeing the wife off to work where she will look at peoples backsides and then tell me all about them later over dinner I can finally sit down here on a Monday morning with the intention of moving forward on Caldera. A weekend of toil and turmoil with many incarnations of interiors makes me feel like giving up at times but I've never given up on anything in my life. 

Great ideas from the community over on Discord keep ever coming and attempt to side track me into leaving what I am doing and playing with the new suggestions but, I had a plan and, I shall stick to it.

My plan has been slightly thwarted by the indignant light bug and forced me to split some interiors into separate meshes (which turned out more work that I perceived) and the very dull task of finding and creating textures that not only look good, but fit in with the Morrowind style.

The video I made in my last post included some very lazy texturing indeed. I just used the exterior textures and repeated the same pattern for the interior. Not something that worried me of course because the whole point of making the models was to get them viable and into the world. Do they work? Yes indeed. Were the textures bloody ugly? Yes indeed.

It does appear that from the vast response I receive in my emails, reddit PM's, Moddb PM's and my Discord PM's that "Witcher" is the style that people want.

Having not played Witcher or indeed, even seen it, makes things very difficult for me to assess.

I have, through a friend, managed to get my hands on some of the concept art for Witchers interiors and, sadly, they appear to be nothing more than wattle and daub as expected.

The above is a concept model of a room of one of the larger houses in Caldera. I've been told that the wood panelling looks old and shagged out so it would be good for the poorer look? I like the rustic feel to it but I can't help wondering why the plaster (this is the vanilla texture) here would be stained so badly as Caldera is supposedly a new town.

This is another room I quite liked and may still use with a few saturation tweaks.

This model will be used for sure. (after a few faces have been removed that you will never see of course).

So far, the few interiors I am happy with I have managed to use all the NPC's belongings from vanilla and just transfer them directly to their new homes. The entrance markers etc have stayed the same but of course the interiors are very different so if any mod places an item in them it will be more than likely have to be patched or float they will!

Let us see what the day brings....

One down.....

One down, many to go. The first house is completed with new interior tile set (the video uses vanilla furniture - for now)

Interior tile set for one of the houses of Caldera

After several versions I finally settled for this one. The set also includes interior windows for placement to match up with the exterior. The interior is 1:1 with the exterior. Something Bethesda didn't appear to believe in....

Static has taken on the job of texturing the furniture and I'm sure it wont be long before the vanilla items in these interiors will be replaced with new models.

Fingers crossed! All going well up to now.

Texture Artist Wanted!

It's no secret that since computers got more than eight colours my ability to make textures has gone completely tits up and pear shaped.

My absolute need to make new furniture for the Caldera Experiment has left me with a dilemma. What I really need right now is someone that is willing to work with me and my models to create a medieval style touch to the interiors.

I could just slap a wood texture on them and have done with it but I want something more.

Most medieval furniture had carvings and markings like this;

Click to enlarge

Now I know this can be done with stencils, a good eye and time but as I am now alone on the project I just don't want to spend the time needed to create the textures as I am already immensely busy on models, planning scripts, possible quests and figuring out how to make everything slot together.

If you think you can help me out on the texture side then please let me know. The right person needs to be available, willing to stick it out for every piece of furniture and most of all, someone that wants to see their textures in the living world of Morrowind.

You can contact me on any of the following;

Email; grisco.services@gmail.com

Discord; The Caldera Experiment

 Or right here through the comments section of this blog.

I will need the artist to start soon so please, please click those links and get in on this project.

Thanks in advance

RM

The Caldera Candle Company

At long last I have removed the thorn in my side! All those damn candles everywhere on Vvardenfell and no one that makes them. That had to be fixed. Now we have another reason for the Dreugh wax and one more thing that doesn't leave you wondering "Where the .... do they all come from"?

We may just see a brewery next or something else I've always wanted to see in game.

Remember. If you have ideas or suggestions then you can drop me a line or even bang something in the comments below..

The Caldera Experiment Discord

Five minutes of fame...

If you have ever wondered how British I was here is your chance... A really long interview of me by DarkElfGuy where I prattle on about not liking RPG's, how thr community is full of nerds and the best of British culture...




Aside from that I did manage to make a new model today and add it to the game.

Since this snap shot it's received a door overhang and a hand rail at the top of those stairs.

So what's left? A little slum area for commoners and non other than the Caldera Candle Company which I am looking forward to making.

Thanks all for the great ideas (mostly for quests) that I've received, you really surprised me with the amount I got!!

I would love to use them all but maybe I will at some point but, for now, I will be very happy to finish all the models and start on the interiors - they are challenging.

Blacksmith of dooooom!

After seven incarnations of Holismod's blackmith I buckled down today and made a final model. Piecing together lots of ideas from medieval smith's yards and again some influence from Age of Kings I managed to design something I was happy with at long last.

View in Nifskope

In game view

And I couldn't resist a quick video;




That's it for today. Tomorrow I will do a few needed tweaks on the model that I didn't notice until it was in game and possibly then I can move on to the final exterior models.

Also today I added a WIP page to ModDB - The Caldera Experiment

Thanks to Trancemaster I finally figured it out :D