narsis mk2

kingfish · Post by **kingfish** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 7:23 pm

unfortunately prom never finished this city, so now i'm taking it over...
i'm doing my best to salvage as much as possible, but also paying attention to FPS, which was a major issue with the previous version.

so far i had to cut off some areas, change others and cut out a few "exterior_interiors" [those are saved in int. cells and apropriate exteriors are placed instead]

more info in a few days...

Majra · Post by **Majra** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 9:47 pm

bless you kingfish

Post by **Haplo** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 10:12 pm

The biggest problems were the many custom meshes he used, as well as the gardens and fountain/water areas he added.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 11:05 pm

If you need to repair the tower meshes, send them my way and i can help. If i remember correctly, they were extremely high poly when they didn't have to be.

kingfish · Post by **kingfish** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 7:52 am

thanx morden, it's an offer hard to resist

anyway, if you could, please take a look at the attached models, they all look like way too high poly ones...

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 2:39 pm

Ok. Thanks kingfish. I'm working on making some low poly versions right now. These are extremely high poly models. They may not look as nice when i'm done, but Narsis will definately perform better.

Zalzidrax · Post by **Zalzidrax** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 3:13 pm

Awhile back I took a look at the Narsis file for my own personal edification to see what caused the framerate problem and if anything could be done to fix it.

The major problems were, as mentioned, the custom meshes which need major polycount reduction, but also the prolific amount of plants everywhere. There are several places where there are planters jam-packed with the higher polygon MH plants. Thinning those out to one plant per small planter while still making it look nice, and reducing the number of grass meshes under the trees will help tremendously. Also, that side fountain packed with plants, if you just take out most of those plants, it will help a great deal. And really in any other garden reducing the number of random plants and making them have more of a set theme makes it look better and increases framerate. The only problem I couldn't figure out was the main fountain thingy, that was the biggest drag on the fps, everything else would be fine if the above steps were taken. I have had some issues with x2 animated particle effects causing undue stress on the framerate, but I think I tested it, and the waterfall mists didn't seem to be the problem, but checking to make sure wouldn't hurt.

Anyway, good luck with getting this to work Kingfish!

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 4:21 pm

I believe sounds cause a major hit to FPS.. so it could be the waterfalls which contribute to the problem.

Zalzidrax · Post by **Zalzidrax** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 4:34 pm

Well, if it is as easy as replacing the waterfalls with soundless ones then addinga single waterfall sound, then that's very nice.

kingfish · Post by **kingfish** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 5:20 pm

zal, i know about the plant-related problem, but thanx anyway.

actually, if you guys recall anything else that may help, post it here, i'll see what i can do...

i'm still not sure what to do about the main fountain though, i've removed 1/2 of it's refs [incuding the mists], but it still lags like hell. i'm close to removing it completely.

for now i'll wait with FPS-optimizing for morden to reduce the models' polycount to see how much those models hit FPS.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 5:28 pm

I'm now considering the possibility of completely remodelling the narsis tower mesh. Prom's idea for it was good, but the mesh is proving difficult to work with. the corners aren't symmetrical in many places, and its so high poly that it would probably be faster to rebuild it, then to continue reducing the faces.

The original mesh was 2975 polys.. so far i've reduced it to 2542, and i'm only on the very top platform.

Yeah.. i think i'll start from scratch, and try to stay as close to Prom's ideas as possible... but also keeping the poly count in mind. I'm shooting for 1800 to 2000 at the most.

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 6:24 pm

Something that is a real problem is the statues. I know they probably fall under the "custom meshes" umbrella, but are they really necesscary? Narsis is the only city to make such extensive use of statues, and each one is unique. Is this really appropriate for the Hlaalu capital? Perhaps for the religious Indoril, or maybe even the imposing Dres, but not Narsis. I would replace all the statues with something more appropriate. The Hlaalu-style roadmarkers always looked cool to me. They have an awesome Egyptian monolith look to them, and since they are activators, they can simply be used as glorified markers for the different areas.

Zalzidrax · Post by **Zalzidrax** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 8:02 pm

Statues as an ostentatious display of wealth are perfectly fitting for house Hlaalu- the art of the Renaissance was fueled by rich merchants wanting to show off their wealth, not by the church.

However, there could stand to be fewer statues just for polycount purposes.

I wonder what makes that fountain so much of a drag? It has about 53k faces, which is about the same as some of the denser sections of the city that don't cause as many slowdowns. Maybe start taking out different pieces until it works nice, like try it without water or without statuary, or another thing, and see if there is any one culprit...

Also, I noticed that the fountain sprays at the top from mournhold still had the fabattackdisabled script, if you haven't already corrected that, kingfish.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 3:21 am

It's probably fountain's animated texture which causes so much lag.

Vernon · Post by **Vernon** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 6:26 am

It is the whole bloody city- not separate parts. Narsis is just one big FPS-chewing beefcake monster of a city. It will need some pretty serious all-over polygon/sound/anim reduction. Good luck kingfish - I know you are more than capable. :)

kingfish · Post by **kingfish** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 6:59 am

after 3 days of reducing the amount of refs and such i gained about 40% increase of FPS! that means i'm getting really close to balmora FPS and it's already a bit better/the same as in a snow storm on solstheim!

there were cells with over 1.1k refs which i redused to about 700.

so far i noticed that the main FPS killer are trees and other flora - i even deleted all the new prom's meshes [excluding statues], but it didn't help much, so it's not the problem.

what really shocked me was when i discovered how prom made those little water tanks [little square of water here and there]: the sides that "hold" water in place were roof of building_15, the rest of building was buried. -talking about a waste of polygons!

my plan how to improve it a bit more [or don't make it worse]: i'll make the river quite wide, because it needs less statics than regular wilderness.

edit-
to give you the exact numbers:
balmora - 15fps average
southern solstheim - 11fps average
northern solstheim [no storm] - 18fps
narsis [not looking to palace] - 17fps
narsis [looking to palace] - 10-12fps

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:08 am

Oh BTW don't forget one thing. Balmora's 15 FPS include NPCs...
And one more thing. There's arena in Narsis which is an exterior. I think it must be turned into interior.

Vegor · Post by **Vegor** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 9:27 am

That would probably be best. Although the tranparent dome looks great, it has a huge polycount and surely puts a drag on FPS. Beth didn't seperate interiors and exteriors for no reason.

Kasan Moor · Post by **Kasan Moor** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:24 pm

Stalker wrote:And one more thing. There's arena in Narsis which is an exterior. I think it must be turned into interior.

kingfish wrote:so far i had to cut off some areas, change others and cut out a few "exterior_interiors" [those are saved in int. cells and apropriate exteriors are placed instead]

I think he is already working on the arena...

Majra · Post by **Majra** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 1:21 pm

I'm sorry, I will continue to harp on this point.

The dunmer would never, ever, I dont care how closely they are tied to imperials, ever build GINORMOUS statues of dirty argonians. These statues are huge. Dunmer wouldnt even build tiny little 1 ft statuets of argonians. Other than those statues, the general number of statues need to be reduced greatly, and the size of the statues as well. I think the problem was Prom is from Italy, where he sees statues everywhere. In morrowind this would not be the case, the empire yes, morrowind no. So... thats my, and a lot of the cores opinion on Narsis.

Zalzidrax · Post by **Zalzidrax** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 3:27 pm

.... Argonian statues? Funny - I don't think I spotted any when in the version I downloaded awhile ago - of course it might not be the newest version...

But keep some of the major statuary, Kingfish. There are a lot of superfluous little ones, but House Hlaalu is not nearly so reserved as the other houses, and probably has more imperial sensibilities.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 3:31 pm

I think than Dunmer will build Argorian statues but only like showing them enslaved for example (only with another Dunmer holding the cahin for example which is bigger than Argorian). But such cases would be really, really rare and scarse. Probably near the gate to Argonia to inspire the slave raids...

Starcrunch · Post by **Starcrunch** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:33 pm

I'm pretty sure Prom. removed the Argonian's toward the end of his time with us (after enough people sided with Majra and co. on this issue). I have not however seen a download without them. I do remember a huge number of posts (some of them quite terse) being exchanged over those statues.

PS: For some reason Majra's comment made me laugh for the first time in a while. My thesis advisor is German and say GINORMOUS all the time in the greatest accent ever (though he's often talking about the entries of the zero field tensor for a simulation and not Argonians).

-Starcrunch

Majra · Post by **Majra** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 5:20 pm

why would they waste resources and time to build statues of argonians even if they were being enslaved. 2 things wrong with that... they would never want to show off how cruel they are in such a grand form (being hlallu) not to mention the hlallu dont even support the slave trade, and the only culture that would, the Dres, would never waste their time building basically a shrine to argonians suffering. They keep it much more low key.

Post by **Haplo** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 6:02 pm

Most, if not all, of the argonian statues were in the main bridge that serves as the main land entrance to Narsis.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 6:39 pm

[url]http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/index.php?picture=Narsis_03.jpg&p=screenshots&map=6[/url]

kingfish · Post by **kingfish** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:04 pm

calm down, there are NO statues of argonians, and i've redused the total number of statues down to about 8 in the whole city, ok?

edit:
actually, you know what, i've already PM'ed koth how to solve this whole narsis isue - i'll make a version as best as i can and THAN you all will have a chance to judge it [lore or FPS wise], so until then, just constructive ideas please...

Nemon · Post by **Nemon** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:07 pm

Majra wrote:I think the problem was Prom is from Italy, where he sees statues everywhere.

Great point... 8 statues will do, and less clutter to keep fps at an acceptable level.

Post by **Haplo** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:57 pm

Is the high-res and low-res versions idea still up? As in will there be a good version for better PCs and a toned-down version for older PCs?

kingfish · Post by **kingfish** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 4:13 am

most likely not, this city isn't all that important to recieve a special treatment - we don't have any add-ons for other cities, so why to have one for narsis?
besides, from my experience , the morrowind engine isn't much faster on new machines...

Hermit · Post by **Hermit** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 5:32 am

I second what Majra said. Besides, Narsis would look just as great with a little fewer statues. I'd be for keeping the fountain as it is as much as possible, but we can do without a statue on every corner of that city.

Thanks for making the effort, Kingfish! Someone had to do it, and I am glad it is you, one of our most capable modders.

Vernon · Post by **Vernon** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 6:00 am

Please can someone post the original Narsis? I have never been able to take a look around and would like to see how it was before I see kingfish's work on it. :)

kingfish · Post by **kingfish** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 6:21 am

you can d/l the latest prom's file here: http://prometheanlands.tamriel-rebuilt.org/ , but be aware it's almost 30MB...

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 10:22 am

Another HUGE issue I have with Narsis is Azura statue...and the towers. I think they don't fit Hlaalu style very well. Hlaalu buildings are all straight while towers are curved.

kingfish · Post by **kingfish** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 12:33 pm

progres report:
i'm done with the basic city redesing. i don't want to detail it much before my version gets accepted. the only thing that needs work now are the new models.

so, take a look and let me know what you think

first pic - current map [you can find old maps in the other narsis thread]

second file - my latest .esp, you still need to d/l prom's version [see my previous post] to get the models&textures; but use my esp...

Nomadic1 · Post by **Nomadic1** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 6:02 pm

Nice

You managed to keep much of the feel of Prom's work. The most obvious deletion looks like that forbidden island. I take it there is still a temple somewhere (you won't get any trade if you don't cater for the religious beliefs of others so there would be (a somewhat larger than normal) one). Is the palace still there? Cause the Duke needs his residence and the House their Council hall.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 7:54 pm

It looks great from above kingfish.

A lot less clutter, i like that.

The tower model is on its way, but it might take a while to get the UV mapping right.

Nemon · Post by **Nemon** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 5:32 am

Awesome screenshot... I hope you'll be able to keep the majestic feel Prometheus created, keeping fps at a decent level!

kingfish · Post by **kingfish** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 9:33 am

i've had enough of hlaalu architecture, i'll change tho whole city to imperial set...

Kasan Moor · Post by **Kasan Moor** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 9:58 am

You'd better hide.

Tamriel Rebuilt

narsis mk2

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