City Fortifications visual redesign

[Doublefelix]

Ever since I started making the castle I knew that the city walls and tower won't fit the keep with their simplicity. I will be starting this issue now since I made first step in visual overhaul for Luftahraan fortifications, but will continue it at a later date (right after I'm done with the keep).

Basically I was just testing out if exporting works correctly and wanted to finally see some of my work with in-game lighting. I took a relatively basic component of the keep (straight wall connecting front and middle towers that I created just today). It exported correctly to CK and pleased with the result I fiddled around with it, copied it and made some sort of structure from it.

This resulted in a prototype for the city gate (and tower module along it's fortifications). Made a few notes in the pic, if anyone have any thoughts to share, please do : )

Merry Christmass everybody : D

[Go0nzy]

oh..oh my g..talos..wow. This is the best present ever, Merry Christmas Felix

[Arkaash]

That looks really good Felix. It gives the city a very Gothic feel (they look like 14/15th century Teutonic fortifications) which matches well with the Vampires in Sovereign Hall and the darker theme of the city.

You may want to discuss this a little with Tepa, though, as you are stepping on his toes a little here.

As mentioned in more detail in your other issue, you may need to adjust some of the buildings in the city to match this new style. Some of the houses near the Keep, and Solrin's Tower, for example.

[Yurtex]

Make gates a bit wider. Thou don't make such towers everywhere, More models=better even if they look dull.

[Tepa00]

I really don't care what happens to those tower/wall models of mine, I'm not too happy with them anyway so it's just better if you can do something that looks this much better, but I would keep the general shape/positioning of the current walls.

Also they are needlessly huge, makes the gate look too narrow and everything else too small.

[Arkaash]

Yeah, Yurtex and Tepa do make valid points I think. Might be worth narrowing the towers a little bit, although I'd try and keep the design similar to how it is already.

[Wheeze201]

That looks fucking amazing. And yeah narrowing the towers would be better imo :)

[Doublefelix]

New towers for upper fortifications. This time I wanted to make a wooden top to get myself into mood for future house modelling. I might went a little overboard with it thou. To me it seems the top part is only missing a door and a chimney from being a cozy mountain cabin instead of a defense structure :P

Anyway there are of course some minor issues to work out with the new mesh as well as a making some variations of the design (so far each of the 5 towers is identical). There are two stone walls with holes in it. These are there to break the monotony of stone texture as well as provide a clue to the city's rather messy history (it seems that rebel uprisings are a recurring theme there).

[MorganRobinson]

:o beautiful!

[Wheeze201]

That looks pretty sick, GJ felix. But what about performance? Is this not high poly count perhaps?

[Doublefelix]

Its' 20K triangles, which is same amount as previous fortification (which wasn't nearly as detailed but had overly dense wireframe, propably to give an organic feeling to it (more dense means more flexible surface),. However I do have some worring issues- ingame when looking at certain angles, some objects dissapear like its too much for the game to visualise or something. It might be only my skyrim's issue, some enb magic (rly, there are enb presets that make some game assets invisible) or a real problem with the engine. As I am going to redesign the houses in the market street, maybe this problem will dissapear when clusters of 3d models will become more unified structures.

[Arkaash]

That's looking great Felix, I like the unique design of the towers! :)

One thing I did notice though, is the damaged stonework exposing wood (easily seen in the third from last screenshot) seems to be on all the towers. It looks cool as a weathered/worn effect on one or two, but might look a bit odd on every single one. Are there/is it possible to have two or three different versions with and without this?

Are you planning on using these towers to go with the front gate, or will you be using the big gothic ones from the first post?

I think we've mentioned this before, but we'd like to put a second gate just after the main one where the stairs leading up to the little square with the Talos statue. Do you think this could use its own model or can something be put in there with the models you've already done?

[Tepa00]

However I do have some worring issues- ingame when looking at certain angles, some objects dissapear like its too much for the game to visualise or something. It might be only my skyrim's issue, some enb magic (rly, there are enb presets that make some game assets invisible) or a real problem with the engine. As I am going to redesign the houses in the market street, maybe this problem will dissapear when clusters of 3d models will become more unified structures.

This is completely because of Occluder Planes (PlaneMarker in CK). You have forgotten to resize them or you don't even see them in CK as shown below. They should get visible once you press M to show markers. These occluder planes are fitted in the insides of the towers and thus don't create any problems, but as your new models are thinner, these get exposed and that generates the issue described above.

The PlaneMarkers that I am talking about:

Also Arkaash, the hole you are talking about is only in the first and the last towers of the "chain", so only in the end pieces. Felix confirmed this in TS after meeting.

[Arkaash]

Ah, fair enough. Thanks, Tepa :)

[Doublefelix]

Ooooh ok : P I saw them in Ck and diddnt touch them, though they are for simple collision. What are they for anyway?

I will be redoing the main ghate models bercause Im not enitrely satisfied with them. I will be aiming for an older/gothic look like ther are now but I want to add little more detail, give them a more unique shape. I will ask around my college if someone can draw me a simple concept art for the city's history inscription. For the second gate I haven't done enough models yet to make a reasonable structure, so Im going to make it in 3ds max. It will be a lot simpler than first gate of course.

Now about the inscription, I have went thorugh the city's lore and it's a very rich history. I only don't know what parts of this lore is suppoused to be common knowledge and what is meant to be secret. If I understand correctly, at one point Luft even tried to invade Skyrim (: O) with an animated dragon no less. I would like some bullet points of events to put on inscription, max 5 I think.

[Tepa00]

For the exact same thing you said was an issue, they occlude stuff behind them so the game desn't have to render stuff that is not visible. Just as you explained yourself ;D

[Wheeze201]

Well all minor issues, awesome job felix! Looks amazing. Can't wait to see what the public thinks :)

[Doublefelix]

Following Yurtex suggestion to make variations for newest towers so they won't all be identical, I created 4 new ones. They differ enough to claim that each is unique, yet they also share similiar characteristics so not one feels out of place. Or at least that's what I hope for. The stone base is using windhelm stone brick texture as well as whiterun brick inside the arches. Weirdly enough the contrast between them is much less noticable ingame. It also seems that the stone windows blend too much (light grey on dark grey (..gray?)) so I will have to either change them or the wall. And one tower is missing corner decals - -". It seems there always have to be at least a minor issue :P

I assigned each tower it's own number so you can tell me easily if one should be scrapped or modified, or switched places with another in-game. Don't be shy to tell me if there's something wrong, I can always use these meshes for something else. Collectively they amount for a 3K poly (tris) increase from amount of previous tower compilation. Also thanks to Tepa one more time : D, the occlusion thingies were indeed source of the trouble.

[Yurtex]

The Fattiest one (D) should be removed, its imerssion breaking. Left one on the first pic (Is it A or E?) is the cutiest; That small "house on house" is cute too.. Also I think you should tone down that idea with huts one top, its pointless from defencive stand point and can be only usefull for better conditions of those who do observation from the top.

Speaking of textures, i think they are great and over all textureing is right.

PS: Isn't there a bit to much towers per m^2? It could be like (A+ flat roofed in the middle + E or C)

[Arkaash]

I think Yurtex has a valid point with the houses on top - especially with D. If I were going to build a primarily defensive tower but with some allowance for the guard's comfort (it is cold in Luftahraan, after all!) then I'd probably have a small (probably circular but I guess that might be harder) interior room at the top with a balcony - maybe crenelated - around the outside for the guards to stand and fight from.

[MorganRobinson]

aww i like the little houses

[Doublefelix]

Thanks for feedback everyone : D I will throw out the D tower, it doesn't look at all like what I had in mind when planning it. It's true that the towers stand too close together, I was simply replicating the placing from previous incarnations, but then it wasn't as noticeable. I guess the place where B tower stand now can be scrapped to just a wall. Thing with circular tower is that while it makes more sense to build those, that form would greatly contrast with design of the keep that I wanted to compliment. The idea behind the huts is that indeed it's presumably super cold here. Towers stand high on already elevated cliff, cold breeze/wind comes directly from the sea here and of course we are located in northern region of Skyrim. When I first saw this structure I thought it's less about defense and more about observation of threats and protection for the market street from chilly wind. So on that note maybe I will add roofing on the wall (just roof and beams). Also whilee were on the subject of cold, isn't there too little snow in the city? I think earlier incarnation of Luft was much snowier but maybe I'm mistaken.

Anyway thanks for good criticism : D It's really helpfull

[Yurtex]

Earlier Luft fully snowed, like windhelm, but then it was decided that its to much, also there might be some kind of like golfstream.

[Arkaash]

Yeah, that's a valid point about the circular towers, Felix. A square version of my idea would still work, but I'll leave it up to you as to whether you want to try it or not.

As for the snow, it just didn't really look good. Luftahraan is also pretty low, and the same latitude as Solitude, so it isn't that strange that it doesn't have snow.