The Harvest Moon Consortium

Izk The Mad · Post by **Izk The Mad** » Tue May 05, 2009 12:55 am

Hello, all!

Wow, has it really been that long since I was here last? Jeez! You'll have to excuse me. Reality took major priority for a while, and nearly drove me sane. However, I'm too far into the rabbit hole, here. I eventually found my way back.

I had to share a new WIP, The Grotto Cave Sky. For those familiar with Lovecraft, it was inspired by the grotto beneath Exham Priory in "The Rats in The Walls".

In-game screen:

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... tureid=454[/IMG]

The actual texture (day):

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... tureid=455[/IMG]

It was made from a couple CSP skies, as well as a photo of a natural stone arch. The cave mouth looks much better in-game, BTW. It's also my first attempt at day/night transitions, which was another learning experience. Apparently, I failed to line up the landscape images in the cave mouth perfectly, which causes everything to look like crap during the transition phases.

I've started to organize my skies for a release soon (and I mean it this time). No sense in abandoning all that work. I'm finding some fine-tuning that still needs to be done, like reworking those blasted seams in the "Fountain" sky. Hopefully real life won't try to de-rail me again. Wish me luck. Hope all is well with everyone here. During the last several months I found myself sorely missing the exchanges I had with everyone here.

-Izk

Dragonstar · Post by **Dragonstar** » Tue May 05, 2009 4:22 am

Very nice!

Estelindis · Post by **Estelindis** » Wed May 06, 2009 12:03 am

That is some seriously pretty work! :love: I adore the range of colours.

I really do hope you release your stuff and don't let it languish on your HD. It deserves to be used!

Izk The Mad · Post by **Izk The Mad** » Wed May 06, 2009 4:59 am

[quote=Estelindis;14187]That is some seriously pretty work! :love: I adore the range of colours.

I really do hope you release your stuff and don't let it languish on your HD. It deserves to be used![/quote]

Thanks, Este. I hope so, too. It's encouragement and compliments like yours that keep me coming back to this stuff, despite the curve balls real life keeps tossing my way. That, and I just have too much fun doing this stuff.

Izk The Mad · Post by **Izk The Mad** » Wed May 06, 2009 8:04 pm

I think Estelindis must've inspired me. No work today, so I've spent all my time on my skyboxes, organizing and renaming everything with an "izksky_" prefix. I've built a CSP compatible 2da, with a CSP prefix on the CSP entries, just to make things easier for builders who may or may not have CSP installed. I even put those names in quotation marks, because I wasn't sure whether the 16 char. limit would apply there otherwise, and it allows for a space after CSP. I'm also going to follow Chaos Theocrat's example and make a 2da only hak, for those who need it.

Right now, I need opinions about my "Fountain" sky, the first one I made. Is it worth bothering with these blasted seams? It's a little more obvious in-game:

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... tureid=114[/IMG]

I've even included my odd experiments, like the brick interior sky, for example, and my reference sky. Someone might find them useful. I still have to tweak the alignment of my Cave day/night transitions, and I'm going to make day/night versions of that City Wall with the CTP sky background. That should be all that's left to do.

I also learned something new recently. I've always used WordPad, only to find out that NotePad has a find and replace option. That made all that model renaming sooo much easier. Wish I had known that last year when I made all these skies and my horses!

Oh, and one last thing. I've included a true black skybox .mdl using the plc_black00 texture. The Bioware model doesn't seem to exist, or at least I couldn't find it in the XP2.bifs, so I made one that matches the model name in the 2da. It allows for different fog colors while maintaining that black interior sky. It looks a little odd in-game, which makes me wonder if they removed it. It still has some potential, though.

Kalindor · Post by **Kalindor** » Wed May 06, 2009 10:43 pm

This fountain sky looks like it might be good for giving the impression of a desert which is perpetually submerged in a raging sandstorm. I would at least give it a try if the time commitment isn't unreasonable. (Easy for me to say as I just make mods and have no visual editing skills.)

Izk The Mad · Post by **Izk The Mad** » Wed May 06, 2009 11:07 pm

[quote=Kalindor;14200]This fountain sky looks like it might be good for giving the impression of a desert which is perpetually submerged in a raging sandstorm. I would at least give it a try if the time commitment isn't unreasonable. (Easy for me to say as I just make mods and have no visual editing skills.)[/quote]

You haven't seen the front of it, then, which is waaay back at the beginning of this thread. But here it is:

[IMG]http://www.rpgmodding.com/forums/pictur ... ctureid=78[/IMG]

Kalindor · Post by **Kalindor** » Thu May 07, 2009 2:09 am

Oh, that one! I really like that one for the purposes of a celestial-type area. It looks great to me, but everyone is the strongest critic of their own work, I know. :thumb:

morikahn · Post by **morikahn** » Mon May 11, 2009 11:59 am

There you are.

Izk The Mad · Post by **Izk The Mad** » Tue May 12, 2009 9:51 pm

[quote=morikahn;14246]There you are.[/quote]

No matter where I go.

Hello, Morikahn! Yes, I finally resurfaced, so to speak. I was dealing with a few reality checks for a while, but the checks bounced due to insufficient funds (been saving that one!). Truthfully, I just couldn't let all my projects go unfinished. I have too much time into them, and I enjoy it too much.

I had planned to contact you eventually. I apologize for disappearing right as things were getting interesting last year. Are you still interested in skyboxes?

The Harvest Moon Consortium

First Celestial Skybox!

Back from The Abyss...

Progress!