Posted by: Thepal in News
Ultima has a long tradition of putting faces of Origin employees, friends and fans into the game. In continuing that tradition, I have decided to start creating characters that look like fans of the Ultima series. If you want to be a part of this, simply send in photos of your face to thepal@etherealsoftware.com.au . Include any recommendations or requests for who you become in the game. If you want to alter your face and apply for more than one person, then that is fine too (as long as you actually look different). I won’t be too strict with people looking like the original characters (though I will try to find matches). This is our game. We can alter it a little (and besides… 80s hairstyles are so… 80s). Also, let me know what you would like to be put in the credits for you (eg, ‘John “MyName Dragon” Smith’, ‘MyNickname’, ‘John Smith’), and also if you are ok with me putting up before and after pics of you and your character (ie, showing your photos and the end result on the website).
I need the photos to have neutral expressions (don’t smile/frown/raise eyebrows/etc), with a few different angles including front and a couple of sides. For the side shots, it is helpful if I have one that is at an angle where your nose just doesn’t go past your cheek (shot 2 below) and another from a bit more of an angle where your nose does go past (shot 3). More angles are always helpful as well, if you want to go to the effort. Try and keep in a neutral white light with no shadows (Shot 2′s lighting is a little poor compared to the others).
Here are some example shots of what I need (shaving for a cure is optional):
While I’m at it, I might as well ask… Decent hairstyles for Oblivion are somewhat lacking (even in mods). If anyone is a modeller and wants to donate some hairstyles to the cause then that would be awesome.
Posted by: Thepal in News
With any project like this, one thing that seems to always occur has finally occured to this project…
My hard drive died.
The lucky thing for me is that in an effort to make more space on the drive that died I recently moved everything to a different hard drive.
Except my mods.
Since this is something that has happened before I do have a backup of Serpent Isle (I learn from my mistakes), but I’m not sure exactly how much I’ve lost. Fawn is done in the last backup. I know that. Hopefully Moonshade and the Great Northern Forest are as well. All work on snowy lands to the north will be gone however.
In the interests of speeding things up, I’ve decided to take a page out of Origin’s books. One of the more time-consuming parts of this mod has been making the faces for the characters. I have to choose a model, and attempt to find photos of good enough quality, with the correct facial expressions, facing the correct directions. Instead, I will be opening this up to the community… Why not star in our favourite game?
I’ll be looking for people that at least somewhat resemble characters from the original game first, but a few changes wouldn’t hurt. So, if you are interested (or happen to know/date/stalk someone that looks like an Ulima character), keep an eye on this space and I’ll let you know what I need (basically, neutral expression from front and sides, with decent lighting and preferably minimal shadows)
Hmm… actually… if anyone here happens to have some nice tattoo art and wants to model for Lydia, that could help too… So far the designs I’ve done all… well… suck.
Posted by: Thepal in News
For those checking in, don’t worry, the project is still alive. Work is resuming, and I’ll see if I can throw some new updates up in the near future. It seems strangely cold for summer… I might need to put on some fur clothing…
Posted by: Thepal in News
I’m taking a little hiatus from this project to play Skyrim and work on a couple of other things. Work should resume sometime next month, for a hopefully early 2012 release.
Lately I’ve been playing Fallout New Vegas, and all my Serpent Isle modding has been dark caves and basements. Today I started creating my first outdoor location in a while, and when I went to test it in-game I was just blown away by the sheer prettiness of the Oblivion engine. It’s so bright and… pretty. Anyway, since it has been a while, here’s a screeny:
(I’m going to try to cut back on the number of screenshots I put out so people don’t see the entire world before it is done)
