t's been awhile since "Silgrad Tower v2.0" was released. Some of you may be wondering what our mod team has been up to since then, so I thought I would post a video and some screenshots of one of the larger jobs we've undertaken recently -- that of developing a moldcave system exclusive to our mod. If you're unfamiliar with the term, "moldcaves" are what Bethesda called their rocky caves in The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Players of that game likely explored countless caves like those, and players will eventually be able to explore countless caves like these in the Silgrad Tower mod. Right now only one has been made, the progenitor of moldcaves which acts both as a fun adventure for players and as a practical example for other modders on our team as they start to create subsequent caves.
     Over 250 new models were created as part of this job, whose development was chronicled in a thread on our Visual Development board. At the heart of the set is the tunnel and small room building blocks, which actually go above and beyond what TES3 offered in terms of variety. The large room building blocks are completely modular, enabling modders on the Silgrad Tower team to assemble rooms of any height - even to the extent of varying the room height within the same room. It's even possible to have tunnel entrances on the mid levels, and the extensive natural bridge tileset enables walkways at different levels.
       And to make all of it look natural and varied there are over sixty rocks, boulders, stalagmites and forms. Some of the boulders can be picked up and carried with you, to act as a stepping stone if you need to get up higher - or why not rolled down a slope to hurt something?
      I hope you'll like the way the moldcave turned out, and that you'll have a great time crawling through some of them in the next version of the Silgrad Tower mod. :) And now, without further ado, here are the video and screenshots:

VIDEO
- View streaming from Youtube or Filefront, or download the hi-res video from Putstuff.com or Badango.
The five-and-a-half minute video shows the sights of Autumnwater Caverns. From fighting off spiders on the approach to exploring the cave to investigating waterfall and the giant crystals.

SCREENSHOTS
1. The player will be able to pick up a quest in Soluthis that sees him going on an expedition to Autumnwater Caverns - the progenitor of moldcaves in Silgrad Tower, created during the cave set's development. Your job is to find sources of Adamantium ore for one of Arthar Ghaltan's personal smithing projects. Knowing that the caves are very dimly lit, Arthar sees fit to lend you a couple of carryable torches which will feel familiar to TES3 players.
2. The Autumwater Caverns are designed for lower-level player characters, and infested with cave spiders graciously borrowed to us from the guys behind Lore Creatures. As you approach the mouth of the cave, situated some distance north of Soluthis, a couple of them scuttle up to greet you.
3. Much like was the case in Morrowind, there'll be a wide number of cave entrances sharing the same mesh but differing in texture to fit on most terrains. Likewise you'll get to see these kinds of caves all across our mod. It might seem strange to only use one mesh, however two reasons played into that decision; one that we went to great lengths to make this entrance remind of the one from the old game, and two that our modders will customize all entrances with freestanding rocks anyway (just like Bethesda did in TES3) to give them a unique appearance of a rock mound that make sense and fits in with the local terrain.
4. The theme of Autumnwater Caverns is that it is infested with spiders, so you can imagine it has a ton of cobwebs in it. Not just cobwebs from Oblivion stock, but also two cobwebs Lady Eternity created for the Morrowind scene years ago which we ported to Oblivion format. The "Hermit's Crook" is a rarely-seen plant in our mod that only grows near entrances to caves. The alchemical properties of its ingredient can be distilled into a potion useful to the imminent dungeon crawl.

5. The player character is armed and ready to dispense with the spider infestation in search of the ore. Even when carrying a torch the cave is very dark, and the vines hanging from the ceiling obstruct your view and can give a claustrophobic sensation of being trapped...
6. ...so imagine you're in a damp cave, it's almost pitch black, vines and rubble surround you and you hardly know what's up and down much less forward and back, and you hear the scuttle of spider legs growing shriller and shriller - and then, you fall down a shaft where half a dozen spears await you. And more spiders await you, too. :D
7. The Night-eye spell is always useful to have, and especially in these caves. The huge chasm in these screenshot is a life-saver if you fall down one of the shafts elsewhere in this room... if you're acrobatic enough to traverse it that is, otherwise I suppose you're screwed :P

8. Giant crystals grow in certain places, and emit mysterious sounds. Much like in the old game, Luminous Russola and Violet Coprinus are sometimes drawn to these crystals and serve as a natural source of light deeper down into the cave. Sometimes they help illuminate hard-to-find passageways.

9. The moldave has it's own specific kind of cave mushrooms, apart from the Luminous Russola and Violet Coprinus you might see here and there. The Drogo mushroom is a collaborative effort between Dairon (original model), Razorwing (optimization and texture-mapping) and Lady Nerevar (textures). They're not huge, so you would need to keep an eye out for them if you need the alchemical properties they provide for a mid-game potion in your dungeon crawl. Here and there you might also come across Black Lichen, which for those unfamiliar with TES3 is a mold growing on rocks.