Skyblivion Newsletter
May 20, 2021
Image of the month
Bravil Gate by TheLootist A sneak peak into the work being done on the cities of Skyblivion, keep an eye on our YouTube channel as the upcoming Dev Diary will have a feature on the city of Leyawiin.
General Development
Departments Working Together
Welcome, everyone! In this newsletter issue, we will feature some of the monthly work of the many artists that do their best to bring our project to completion. The different departments can only achieve that by working together. For this reason, we’d like to show you our current progress on the Dark Brotherhood assets.
The Dark Brotherhood is one of the favorite factions of Skyblivion. A mysterious and deadly cult, its sole purpose is to assassinate people in the name of the Night Mother and Sithis.
The 2D department worked hard on new designs that are worthy of the faction’s lore and importance. Here we feature lovely concepts of the DB Sanctuary from Hinomoto and the clothing by Gees. The Shrouded Armor by Spyros, the Rose of Sithis, and the DB door by IxShadow are just samples of the work that was realized by the 3D department.
While our Implementers are implementing the assets and dialogue into the game, their greatest challenges are the quests and mechanics of Oblivion. Not every feature can be brought into Skyrim directly, but we’re willing to try different solutions for all problems.
Our level designers are still waiting for the necessary 3D assets to recreate all Dark Brotherhood locations, but when they are available, new concepts for the locations will be waiting to be brought into the game.
Level Design
It’s summertime! To honor the occasion, we want to show you some summer-themed progress from our level design progress this month.
Here we can see some mudcrabs enjoying the dusk with a nice picnic.
Our beaches are already finished. Inviting the player to cool down and relax after a long day of fighting Deadra.
Landscaping
The lush colorful forest by TheLootist between Bruma and Chorrol fills everyone with feelings of joy while ClefJ has landscaped the domain of a rather peculiar mudcrab in paradise. In the future, the Landscape and Interior departments will be tasked to shape Bravil city, the Blackwood shoreline, the Leyawin city center, and paradise.
Concept Art
Another productive month has passed in the 2D department. This month we want to feature a rather overlooked portion of concept outfits, shoes. They come in many different shapes and sizes, armored or unarmored, plain or decorated. Here we feature a small collection of footwear that was concepted this month by Gees, Hinimoto, Beriault, and Peculiarperson.
Other than that we worked on armors, statues, unique objects, and as you saw footwear. The main focus for the next months is the clothing and the deadlands. The Arena will receive a complete redesign.
Interiors
This month we feature a collection of interiors that were finished or are being worked on this month. We still have to finish a lot of caves and city interiors and there is always a need for new members helping out in that department.
In the Shadow of Bravil
First, we have the living area above The Archer’s Paradox in Bravil by Krieger. His level design greatly shows the poverty and poor living conditions of the inhabitants of one of Tamriel’s worst cities. Since the last newsletter, we have nearly claimed and finished every Bravil interior.
The lovely parts of Cyrodiil
Next, we have some beautiful living areas in Bruma by Carrot. Even though it is far from the Imperial City or Anvil luxury, it still has a noble and cozy feeling. Nothing is comparable to the luxury and noble spirit of the Imperial City. Carrot was able to create an environment fitting for this city.
3D
Tileset and Architecture
It’s no easy task to build an environment that is lively and immersive for the world of TES IV while giving it our unique touch. Most of our architecture consists of tilesets, divided pieces of structures that can be used by our level designers to create limitless variations of buildings and interiors. A great example is the Imperial City sewer set by IxShadow or the Ayleid ruin set by McCarthy and his task force. Other structures, such as Weynon Priory or the white gold tower, are being built as one singular model.
Unique Assets
A fair amount of unique assets were created this month by our 3D artists. These assets are created with especially higher detail than other models as you will not encounter them often. Borx finished the beautiful Gray Aegis and several familiar statues were modeled by Cynthia.
Implementation
Our Implementation department is working day and night to optimize, convert, and implement all finished assets for the next merged build. As of writing this, another merge is imminent and many sets/individual pieces have to be added to the build. One of those sets is the potion set.
The Worth of Good Topology
To prevent the build from being overly large, we need to control how we use high-resolution textures, having them in appropriate places, and keeping the vertice count of models to a minimum. The amount depends on the object, size, and quantity of that asset. A unique object that wont be seen often is more likely to be given leeway with it’s poly count than a common item found in households. This will keep the file size small and the FPS numbers high.
Spell Crafting is back on the Menu!
One of the most anticipated features of our mod is the spell crafting system. Yeeb has made great steps towards its completion this month and shared a video about it in our Discord Server.
