Prometheus models

Zarkis · Post by **Zarkis** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:25 pm

Hello there!
As some of you may know, the Silgrad Tower team is currently in the process of gathering all Morrowind related Non-Bethesda models to transfer them to Oblivion, so the community is able to at least create parts of the province of Morrowind with the new game engine. I recently asked Prometheus if he would donate some of his stuff for this project. He told me that we can use everything he created for TES III, which is more then I asked for. Only problem is he doesn't have any backups of his stuff. He pointed me to TR. Hopefully you still have his models somewhere and can help us in this issue. Even the untextured models would be enough, since we have to retexture them for OB anyway. Please contact me.

Zarkis

Mr. Sorry of Balmora · Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:33 pm

i would love to help you out but i have no clue....

i really think that ST an TR should get back together but diffrences, sometimes, cannot be compromised....

prometheus · Post by **prometheus** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:46 pm

I allow everyone to use freely all the models I have created for Morrowind , Just ask a credit for this ...of course if are still reperible somewhere ....

Mr. Sorry of Balmora · Tue Jan 31, 2006 6:56 pm

i think we were talking about someones modles not to long ago which we couldn't find and the guy's comuter fried so there were no backups....

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 7:37 pm

Odds are, if they aren't in OoT (and I don't think many are), nobody around here will have them. See if you can find Noir on MSN, there is a slight chance he may still have them.

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 8:14 pm

which ones? i have a bunch of ancient stuff lying around my folders, i should have all the narsis stuff for sure...

Zarkis · Post by **Zarkis** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 8:31 pm

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 8:36 pm

holy fucking fuck....

ill try to find them on the morow. if i dotn come back, think well of me, for i will be drowed in the sea of my data files...

some of those are in OoT, im quite sertain... but the others i will try to find

Mr. Sorry of Balmora · Tue Jan 31, 2006 8:57 pm

wow! so the hype has gone down and there's a fear that you might drown? hope you findit all without too much trouble Lady N

Macar · Post by **Macar** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 8:59 pm

Lady Nerevar wrote:holy fucking fuck....

Never seen someone react so strongly over data files.

Zarkis · Post by **Zarkis** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 9:03 pm

Thanks Lady! To ease your pain: The statues and the Hlaalu/Narsis static models are the most important for us. The banners and the Nord models we don't need.

Edit: Just checked OOT. There is one statue which may be Prometheus work: tr_ex_statue_ss01
But I am not shure.

Eraser · Post by **Eraser** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 9:17 pm

Honestly, I don't think its a good idea at all to transfer non bethesda morrowind meshes to Oblivion's engine. OB has far more complex models, and higher resolution textures(and all those SM3.0 mappings) and alot of the existing morrowind meshes still use bethesda textures.

Lud · Post by **Lud** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 9:20 pm

Eraser's right. It's probably still a breach of copyright to use a model which relies on textures found on the Morrowind cd. This means you probably wouldn't be able to use any models which are continuations of Bethsoft sets.

Zarkis · Post by **Zarkis** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 9:25 pm

Eraser: Hard to say before OB is out. Simple statics should work. We will apply new high res textures with bump mapping and everything...at least our texturers/modellers told me so...

Razorwing · Post by **Razorwing** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 9:47 pm

prometheus -
Thankyou so much for your permission. I hope your work can live on this way.

Lady Nerevar -
Thankyou for your kindness.

Eraser, Ludovic -
Between stock Oblivion textures and the various Morrowind texture replacers, I don't see that there'll be any problems at all for us.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Tue Jan 31, 2006 10:00 pm

Prom's Narsis models are probably the only ones you'd want to use for Oblivion. They were originally modelled for a very high poly count. Unfortunately too high poly for the Morrowind engine, but on OB they'd probably work fine.

As for the rest I'd say that your best off modelling from the ground up, and using the existing models as references at most. Taking a low poly model and subdividing the surfaces won't get you a good poly structure. They'll need to be remodelled anyways. Obviously something like a barrel isn't a big deal, but as soon as you get into anything complex you'll have mess. But I guess you'll find out what works when the big OB hits.

Arthmodeus · Post by **Arthmodeus** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 1:08 am

OB has been confirmed to be using NIFs for models so there are no worries.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 1:41 am

File format aside, we're talking about taking a low poly model and making it look like it belongs on a next-generation game engine. It's easy to make a high poly model into a low poly model, but doing the opposite is more work then building from scratch. Here is a very basic and crude example:

I have a low poly Morrowind table. The four table legs are made from elongated 3 sided objects (not including the ends... so its a long triangle) and I wish to make each of these legs into an nine sided cylinder so that they look round in OB. Even if I manage to select each side face of each leg and subdivide them, there is no garuntee that they'll divide in the right place. I can also try selecting each face individually and split them one by one, adding more polys to my model. What a grind. Providing I was able to split all of these flawlessly, adding another 6 faces to each table leg, I would then be required to manually 'pull out' the new edges, giving my table leg a cylindrical shape. Furthermore, this doesn't include the stylistic updates and details that would be needed for peice of furniture to look nice on the new engine.

This can be a lot of work, when by contrast, creating a table leg from scratch only involves clicking on the cylinder tool and hitting the '9' key for the number of sides you want. Make it the right size, add some style/taper, ect, duplicate it 4 times and you have your table legs.

Post by **Haplo** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 1:50 am

Prometheus also made at least one balcony (some sort of Velothi style), because I ran into it several times while fixing map 4, and it's not in OoT.

Vernon · Post by **Vernon** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 2:44 am

You can find his water meshes in OoT, iirc. Razorwing, I've linked you to his Nordic meshes - check your PMs.

Sniper4 · Post by **Sniper4** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 4:37 am

I think I have all the meshes and such on my PC. They are in my bethesda files as a neat little file called "Narsis." I just found it in the folder with the meshes. The textures will be a problem though. I don't have a neat little "Narsis" file for textures...

I don't have the freetime now to go through every last file in there to weed them all out. If I do get some freetime though, I will try to help here. In the mean time, if you just need the meshes and not the textures, then just tell me, and I'll upload/send the file.

Zarkis · Post by **Zarkis** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 6:36 am

Sniper4

Great! That pack should contain most of Prom's models. We don't need the textures.

kingfish · Post by **kingfish** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 9:52 am

i should have all the narsis models, give me some time to colect it and post it here...

Razorwing · Post by **Razorwing** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 11:29 am

Morden: Since you mention the term "subdivide" I'm guessing you're used to Blender or Milkshape (I forgot where it's from)? I don't know about those programs, but 3D Studio Max has several tools that can be useful when trying to make a low-poly model look better, and gives great control over how to go about that. So I don't see any problems, and if it turns out TR likes the edits made to them you're free to use them if you want.

Vernon: Got 'em, thanks! They look really sweet indeed, superb quality. Three Bloodmoon textures are in use, and I have those, but going by the filenames the collection also seems to use seven textures from Tamriel Rebuilt. I searched the OoT archive but couldn't find them. If it's possible then they would be great to have, for reference.
TR_Gold.tga
TR_nord_rooftexture3.tga
TR_Nord_woodcarvinga.tga
TR_Nord_woodcarvinga3.tga
Tr_Tx_wood_oldwoodbrown.tga
Tr_Tx_wood_oldwood.tga
TR_wall_ancientnordstone.tga

Vernon · Post by **Vernon** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 1:34 pm

Here are the textures. I couldn't find TR_Gold.tga I'm afraid.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 2:12 pm

Morden: Since you mention the term "subdivide" I'm guessing you're used to Blender or Milkshape (I forgot where it's from)?

I use Softimage XSI 4.2
http://www.softimage.com/home/

Its an extremely comprehensive program... I spent a lot of time with it when I was into Halflife 2 modelling, but before that I did use blender and milkshape. Subdivide is a pretty standard modelling term.

But like I said, that was a 'basic and crude' example I gave about the table legs and I tried to make it as universal as possible.

Razorwing · Post by **Razorwing** » Wed Feb 01, 2006 7:19 pm

Vernon: Thankyou again, they worked perfectly.

Morden: Yeah.

Razorwing · Post by **Razorwing** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 5:06 pm

Sniper4/kingfish - were you able to find the Narsis models? =)

cougar · Post by **cougar** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 6:54 pm

I probably found the Narsis meshes. Hope, that helps...

@Razorwing or Zarkis: Please confirm the download of the files. I'll have to remove them soon, because my quota is almost used up...

EDIT: removed the link to the download, because I removed the file. I am eager to see, how the meshes will look like in OB.

Zarkis · Post by **Zarkis** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 9:02 pm

cougar wrote:I probably found the Narsis meshes. You will find them [url=http://www.ee.ethz.ch/~mhediger/tr/Narsis_Meshes_Textures.rar]HERE[/url]. Hope, that helps...

@Razorwing or Zarkis: Please confirm the download of the files. I'll have to remove them soon, because my quota is almost used up...

Downloaded them. Thx a lot! Hope you will see some of this stuff in OB.

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 10:18 pm

hm, in case something was missed in that DL, i hava the files originaly atached by prom to the city. along with teh old alpha if any one cares. i knew tehre waas a reason i never threw aything out....

Razorwing · Post by **Razorwing** » Fri Feb 03, 2006 11:54 pm

Thankyou Lady Nerevar and cougar! - between you I think you covered everything Prom's ever done, and I'm really looking forward to checking them out! Thanks!

Razorwing · Post by **Razorwing** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 2:56 pm

I've investigated Prometheus' models while setting up textures and maps on them. The design is sound, and most of them are very beautiful, but they seem underoptimized. Especially in the way they have redundant vertices.

Take the "TR_Narsis_ fountain.NIF" for example; it has 2330 vertices, which for arguments sake can be equated to about 776 polys. After doing a vertice weld on the whole model with the usual 0,1 threshold it was suddenly down to 554 vertices - just by removing the redundancies. Further I added an Optimize modifier (with auto edge ticked), which brough it down to 474 vertices (158 faces/polygons). And it looks exactly the same.

Theo · Post by **Theo** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 6:28 pm

That's handy as Narsis suffered from great poly count. Would you be willing to share these optimized models with us (these without maping which are still TES III compatible)?

Razorwing · Post by **Razorwing** » Wed Feb 08, 2006 8:44 pm

Theo wrote:That's handy as Narsis suffered from great poly count. Would you be willing to share these optimized models with us (these without maping which are still TES III compatible)?

I bet it did.

As I have Max v8.0 I can't work directly with Morrowind models, and as I use the Windows x64 os I can't install the old max versions that are compatible with the Morrowind exporters. But I can optimize the .3ds models I was supplied with and give them to someone here who can then do the final stage and export them to NIF.