Morrowind, seven years later

[Lance-Corporal Jones]

Here are some screenies I took for my debate in the fight club, and I thought I might as well post them here.

I'm using, basically, the MGE, some minor visual upgrades, a blueish palette, speedtrees by Vality, animated grass, and a graphics enhancer designed for GTA but which gives me water reflections, blur, motion blur, anti-aliasing and such.




Vivec on a rainy day...



Vivec seen from a few hundred feet up in the air...





Solstheim, seen from the West Gash region (also, several hundred feet up in the air), do note the dwemer ruins in the foreground



A murky evening in Suran



The road to Caldera, do note a glimpse of the ghostfence on the right



Good morning, Balmora



A part of Gnisis, a small egg-mining town



The bitter coast seen from Hla Oad



Balmora from above



The Ascadian Isles, near the Fields of Kummu

Nice, isn't it?

[Danny_K_1]

Indeed.

Pretty good for a 7 year old game.

[Gobbledigook]

Wow, that makes me want to reinstall and play right now

Sadly my disk is scratched, and I cannot. However, could you post what mods you used so that I can use them in the future?

[Celsius]

Im sure this game was good. I just cant play it after playing Oblivion

[Lance-Corporal Jones]

Sure mate!

First you get yourself MGE (Morrowind Graphics Extender) and use Distant Land -- go through the whole process of generating the distant land, statics, and such. If you've got a powerful machine, make it intense! If you want animated grass, you'll have to get a mod (you can find it on the Bethsoft forums, too lazy to look for it right now ) and then integrate the grass with the MGE. The good thing is, you can choose how much grass density you want. I use about 50, which is already taxing on resources.

Get ENBseries for San Andreas v.0.075. This is tricky to use, but it allows to use different palettes (I use a blueish palette to give things a murkier feel) and everything is completely customizable: you can add motion blur, distance blur, anti-aliasing, reflective water... Also, get Vality's Bitter Coast mod, Vality's Hlaalu textures, Vality's Balmora mod and Vality's Ascadian Isles mod. You can improve the lot with mods like Connary's Landscapes.

Finally, play around with the settings and see what suits you best.

(Oh, and don't forget to get other mods as well! Better Bodies, head replacers, texture packs, NPC schedules...)

Cheers

[Inhuman One]

are there mods that improve combat animations and such? and show sheathed weapons?

[Lance-Corporal Jones]

are there mods that improve combat animations and such? and show sheathed weapons?

Try Combat Enhanced It enables combos and such. You'll need Morrowind Enhanced to run it. From this page you can also get manual blocking control and such.

As for sheathed weapons, I think I recall something that gave you a scabbard for your weapon or something. I'll have a look

EDIT: Here you go: Weapon Sheaths Ultimate

[Lith]

Woah, that looks incredible. I reinstalled Morrowind a couple months ago, but couldn't get it looking anywhere near as good as that.

I'm defianetly reinstalling with the mods you've listed, hopefully I can get it looking like yours does.

Any SS from the Ghostgate area?

[Lance-Corporal Jones]

Sure thing mate, I'll get you some screenies as soon as I can! Any other requests, btw, anyone? Curious of how something looks? Just ask old Jonesey and he'll be happy to oblige!

[Nole4694]

Could you get a few close up images of NPCs, and enemies? That'd be pretty nice.

[Lance-Corporal Jones]

Sure! Though I don't have any clothing replacer mods installed, mind, only the better bodies and faces. Still, will do mate

[Lance-Corporal Jones]

Right! Here's a few piccies, as promised...

*Click on the thumbnails to enlarge*



Some Nord bloke



A slave trader and her wares



Shameless eye candy



Moar shameless eye candy



Ghostfence seen from veeery far away, surrounding Red Mountain



Red Mountain seen from above old Dagoth's house



Ghostgate



Travelling towards ghostgate

[TheTrainee]

Shameless eye candy

Ah! The nostalgia I have for MW's art direction. MW is more creative in its landscapes and architecture. Sure, Oblivion has that whole Imperial problem, being in Cyrodiil, but c'mon. Well, I am a MW fanboy.

[Lith]

Thanks for the pictures! Red Mountain looks soo much more evil now. The texture pack I downloaded had new textures for Ebonheart as well, but they all were in like full-bright mode or something, it looked terrible.

The Distant land makes it look really different too, I'd just installed Oblivion again with an NPC levelling mod to see if it helped, but with these ss's I might just go back to Morrowind, I miss it

[Lance-Corporal Jones]

Thanks for the pictures! Red Mountain looks soo much more evil now. The texture pack I downloaded had new textures for Ebonheart as well, but they all were in like full-bright mode or something, it looked terrible.

The Distant land makes it look really different too, I'd just installed Oblivion again with an NPC levelling mod to see if it helped, but with these ss's I might just go back to Morrowind, I miss it

I've ended up leaving most textures as they are. I've installed Connary's landscapes, Vality's bitter coast mod, vality's ascadian isles and Vality's Balmora mod. It's more than enough.

You're right, most other texture mods make everything look too bright, even I daresay artificial. I always end up sticking to the originals.

And yes, the Distant Land is the best thing that could happen. It makes the world look breathtaking and much more realistic; so much so, that it seems as if the world was designed to have distant land!

[Lith]

I've ended up leaving most textures as they are. I've installed Connary's landscapes, Vality's bitter coast mod, vality's ascadian isles and Vality's Balmora mod. It's more than enough.

You're right, most other texture mods make everything look too bright, even I daresay artificial. I always end up sticking to the originals.

And yes, the Distant Land is the best thing that could happen. It makes the world look breathtaking and much more realistic; so much so, that it seems as if the world was designed to have distant land!

So are the textures you have there for the Vivec cantons and the Gnisis buildings etc included in Vality's mods? Also how effective is the blur effects etc, if I didn't include them or the palette would it make much difference?

[Lance-Corporal Jones]

So are the textures you have there for the Vivec cantons and the Gnisis buildings etc included in Vality's mods? Also how effective is the blur effects etc, if I didn't include them or the palette would it make much difference?

I think Vality's mods are only for the Hlaalu style buildings, so Vivec or Gnisis aren't included. You can still get some decent mods for those places, I bet.

The blur effect and the palette make up 50% of the beauty of these screenies, especially the blur. Also, you've got some nice bloom and glow effects, as well as lens flare and such, which add to it greatly. The other 50% is from the speedtrees, reflective water, and distant land.

The palette isn't all that important, but I like it, it gives everything a gloomier feel, and it makes the nighttime darker (thus making torches and lamps more useful).

Remember how the game used to look? I should say these things are pretty important.

In any case, they tend to be too high on standard, so I have the blur, motion blur, and such pretty tuned down.

Here's the code I use for the ENB series, these are pretty good settings IMHO:

[PROXY]
EnableProxyLibrary=0
InitProxyFunctions=1
ProxyLibrary=
[GLOBAL]
UseEffect=1
AlternativeDepth=1
AllowAntialias=1
BugFixMode=0
SkipShaderOptimization=0
QuadVertexBuffer=0
EnableShaders_3_0=1
AdditionalConfigFile=enbseries2.ini
[EFFECT]
EnableBloom=1
EnableOcclusion=1
EnableReflection=1
EnableMotionBlur=0
EnableWater=1
EnableShadow=1
DepthBias=0
EnableDepthOfField=1
[INPUT]
KeyUseEffect=123
KeyBloom=120
KeyOcclusion=121
KeyReflection=122
KeyCombination=16
KeyScreenshot=44
KeyShadow=119
KeyWater=118
KeyShowFPS=106
[REFLECTION]
ReflectionPower=15
ChromePower=10
UseCurrentFrameReflection=0
ReflectionQuality=0
ReflectionSourceSpecular=50
ReflectionSourceTFactor=50
UseAdditiveReflection=0
ReflectionDepthBias=0
UseLowResReflection=0
ReflectionSinglePass=1
UseEnvBump=1
EnvBumpAmount=100
EnvBumpOffset=100
ReflectionFlip=0
[BLOOM]
BloomPowerDay=20
BloomFadeTime=2000
BloomConstantDay=5
BloomQuality=0
BloomScreenLevelDay=60
BloomCurveDay=3
BloomPowerNight=25
BloomConstantNight=5
BloomCurveNight=3
BloomScreenLevelNight=20
BloomAdaptationScreenLevel=80
BloomAdaptationMultiplier=20
BloomAllowOversaturation=1
BloomMaxLimit=100
[SSAO]
UseFilter=1
OcclusionQuality=0
FilterQuality=1
DarkeningLevel=30
BrighteningLevel=30
IlluminationLevel=30
AdditiveIlluminationLevel=30
UseAmbientOcclusion=1
UseIndirectLighting=1
FadeDistance=50
UseForAlphaTest=1
UseForAlphaBlend=1
[COLORCORRECTION]
DarkeningAmountDay=10
ScreenLevelDay=60
ScreenLevelNight=20
DarkeningAmountNight=-20
GammaCurveDay=0
GammaCurveNight=3
ColorSaturationDay=0
ColorSaturationNight=0
UsePaletteTexture=1
[WATER]
UseWaterDeep=1
WaterDeepness=20
WaterQuality=0
[SHADOW]
ShadowFadeStart=40
ShadowFadeEnd=80
ShadowAmountDay=60
ShadowAmountNight=30
ShadowScreenLevelDay=60
ShadowScreenLevelNight=20
ShadowQuality=0
UseShadowFilter=1
FilterQuality=2
ShadowBlurRange=30
[ENGINE]
ForceAnisotropicFiltering=0
MaxAnisotropy=8
ForceDisplayRefreshRate=0
DisplayRefreshRateHz=60
[MOTIONBLUR]
MotionBlurQuality=1
MotionBlurVelocity=1
MotionBlurRotation=1
[PERPIXELLIGHTING]
SpecularColorMin=0
SpecularColorMax=100
SpecularColorMultiplier=100
SpecularGlossinessMin=0
SpecularGlossinessMax=100
SpecularGlossinessMultiplier=100
[DEPTHOFFIELD]
DOFQuality=0
DOFNumberOfPasses=2
DOFFocusRange=50
DOFBlurinessRange=5

[Inhuman One]

I have a texture mod that covers most things I think, I didnt mind the white imperial forts, I thought it made them look more Roman and less medieval.

I have two questions regarding consistency, where are the Imperial trading company and the Imperial Cult in Oblivion? did they just disappear? After playing Morrowind a short while today I realized Oblivion was even less consistent than I thought it was, I thought it was just the terrible mistake to make the Imperials suddenly greek instead of roman inspired even while they have roman names.

Is there a mod for Oblivion that changes the Imperial Guard armor to look like the Morrowind version of Imperial armor? Maybe also versions of the knight armor for palace guards?

[Lance-Corporal Jones]

I have a texture mod that covers most things I think, I didnt mind the white imperial forts, I thought it made them look more Roman and less medieval.

I have two questions regarding consistency, where are the Imperial trading company and the Imperial Cult in Oblivion? did they just disappear? After playing Morrowind a short while today I realized Oblivion was even less consistent than I thought it was, I thought it was just the terrible mistake to make the Imperials suddenly greek instead of roman inspired even while they have roman names.

Is there a mod for Oblivion that changes the Imperial Guard armor to look like the Morrowind version of Imperial armor? Maybe also versions of the knight armor for palace guards?

Not that I know of. There is a bonemould armour mod and an ordinator armour mod though.

And yes, the consistency is ridiculous. They've eaten up half the factions and given the Imperials a ridiculous revamp. And the "Roman" names are ridiculous compared to the ones they had in Morrowind. Kantus Jerall?!? I mean, the Romans didn't even have the letter "K"!

Already that they crammed the Imperial Cult into generic cathedrals is bad enough (and it's no longer a faction), but they also ate up the Legion completely! Where do those patrolling legionary types have their base? There isn't a single operational fort in all of Cyrodiil! Massife inmersion-kill.

[Inhuman One]

I also noticed that Morrowind had actual Orcs and not those sissy things from Oblivion. they looked a lot meaner in morrowind, a bit more savage. It suited them better.

While Kajits and Argonians improved quite a bit in Oblivion, most other races look worse. Nords without dye and beards are just slightly bigger imperials, and redguards look terrible since they always seem to have several skin colors and their eyebrows are weird.
That many races share the same voice set is not helping either. Orcs and Nords shouldnt sound the same and all elves definatly should not sound the same.