he Silgrad Tower team has created thousands of new models since we started work on our Oblivion mod, which as I'm sure you all know is about bringing back the atmosphere, ambience and visual impressions of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (but set in a wholly different part of the Morrowind Province than the game was). Our modelling work usually entails studying the 3d designs of the old game and then recreating it in more detail and higher resolution.

Ropebridge from TES3

There are a number of models that remain to be created however. One of these are the famous rope bridges from Morrowind that were used to span large chasms in the wilderness. There's several reasons why we haven't gotten around to making these particular models yet, but the most important one is that our work has mainly been focused on a) modding cities and b) generating wilderness - while these bridges will become most useful when we focus on c) modding wilderness.

I'm happy to say that the rope bridge job is no longer unclaimed, as our talented team member BusterWolf has picked up the job. At the time of writing this the work is in the concept stage, with sketches and preliminary 3d designs created. Follow his work on the rope bridges in the development thread to see this next component of Morrowind come alive again - in the Silgrad Tower mod.

BusterWolf's sketches

s I'm sure most of you know the Silgrad Tower mod takes place on a part of Morrowind's mainland. Great House Redoran controls the northern part of our landmass while Great House Hlaalu controls the south part. There's several differences between the Redoran and Hlaalu culture, of which not the least is their wildly different architecture. The Hlaalu prefer blocky structures with a strict, clean design while Redoran architecture is rounded and often resembles the shape of insects.

You'll get to experience both cultures in our upcoming release Silgrad Tower 3.0, and unlike the preceeding releases there won't be any division between a public and private version - the mod you'll play will look as good as we can possibly make it. We're making good progress towards the goals we set out to accomplish before releasing 3.0. Basically all of our regions have modders working on them, ensuring that no part of our landmass will be a 'blank canvas' like it was in 2.5. Personally I'm (Razorwing) engaged in an effort to divide Soluthis into child worldspaces which will make sure all players have top FPS in any part of the city. That work is about 50% done at the time of writing this. Future plans include modding roads from Soluthis to other towns and settlements.

The new oval home

The old oval home

But to get back to the subject of architecture, Great House Redoran - who controls the city I'm working on, Soluthis - has about ten different house types ranging from the smallest huts to the largest manors. As you can imagine the huts are the most common types of buildings. They come in two sizes, the smaller round home and the larger oval home - although small and big in this case is just about the base area because the smaller round homes can have basements, something the oval homes cannot.

The origin of the interior model used by oval homes is a 3d design by Caligula Superfly, whom also created the 3d design of most of the exterior house models. I say 3d design because Caligula Superfly did not texture or map the models. I didn't have much experience myself back when I was working with him on the interiors, so they came out looking rather poor. I've been meaning to rework them for ages, but to be honest - the work of creating the Redoran interior models took months and was a rather draining experience that put me off working on those particular models for a long time. I've done some work on them since then but nothing as extensive as the rework of the oval home I completed the other day.

We have maybe a dozen open claims for modded houses using the oval home interior model, so if you look at the screenshot above and think: "Man, I know just the kind of NPC that would live there!" - head on over to our forum and find a claim :D

ne of Morrowind's most memorable creatures was the kwama, with all their different casts. From the lowliest worm to the mightiest warriors these beasts captured the bizarre and wondrous feeling of the province we all love. I'm happy to announce that these insect-like beings are well on their way to becoming a sight in Silgrad Tower, as we've recently been joined by the incredibly talented modeller The Modax Jago. His breathtaking work on the kwama can be seen to the right.

By creating extremely hi-poly models in Zbrush The Modax Jago is able to create equally extremely detailed normal maps that fool the eye into thinking the creatures use hundreds of thousands of polys. The effect is so staggering, evident through the composite images, that one isn't so much led to believe that this is a creature that might be seen in an Oblivion mod but rather that it's leaked dev photos from The Elder Scrolls V!

All is not well however because as many of you know, rigging and animating a creature for Oblivion is incredibly difficult, mostly due to the lack of an official exporter. It's not impossible though, and it has been done before. So, we put our faith in finding one of the few persons out there whom have the technical skill and knowledge to pull it off. If you are that person, or you're interested in knowing more about the kwama's development, head on over to our forum.

he "Bitter Coast" is a region of Morrowind that can best be described as a salty marshland. It's dirty, soggy, and the ground is so permeated with salt that none but the most hardy of plants can grow here. Few people inhabit the region, and those that do survive by fishing, hunting, or a combination of both. A part of the region is situated on Vvardenfell, as you might recall if you played The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, and another part on the mainland where our mod takes place, both for TES3 and TES4.

The region is home to many types of mushroom. Two types, Luminous Russola and Violet Coprinus, grow in frequent clusters on the soggy ground. Two other types, Bungler's Bane and Hypha Facia, are so-called shelf fungus that grow on trees.

For a long time we used placeholder textures on these mushrooms. They're problematic because they're tweaked versions of textures from TES3, and in the long run we can't use those kinds of placeholders. It's an issue I plan to solve across the board for our next full release, and revising the Bitter Coast mushroom textures is a part of that overall solution. I revised the groundgrowing mushrooms a while ago after a teammember of ours, Stilgar, created new textures for them. You can check out a few examples of the Violet Coprinus here and here. Lately I also revised the shelf fungus, using textures I edited from freeware photos found on the internet, and the result is shown to the right. Note that I lessened the specular intensity after these shots were taken.

In our upcoming release Silgrad Tower v3.0 you'll be able to find these mushrooms growing from Ebbedin in the north to Steadhelm in the south. We haven't set a release date yet, but most likely it will be sometime later this year.