[RELZ] Castlevania: LOS for Skyrim

Post » Mon Sep 17, 2012 8:09 am

[RELZ] Castlevania: LOS for Skyrim
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http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/24177

http://www.sendspace.com/file/b4km4c

http://www.sendspace.com/file/kdinin

http://www.mediafire.com/?592vs5mh2mmw5ya

http://www.mediafire.com/?rl2k8yic6flvpev

DESCRIPTION:
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This mod adds to the eastern mountains of Skyrim an epic citadel inspired by, and borrowed from, the game Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.
I made this mod as an homage to Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and the rest of the Castlevania series, which I have loved since I was a child. When Dawnguard came out I was delighted to see that it was an expansion devoted to Vampires, and I felt that the Bethesda team had excelled once again. Harkon's castle is a suitably imposing vampire fortress, however after playing LOS I found that I missed the epic scale of the vampire castle from that game.... so I decided to recreate it in Skyrim. I am quite happy with the results.
Veterans of LOS will notice that I have made significant alterations to the models in order that they should work in Skyrim. This was necessary, as LOS is a much more linear game than Skyrim and as such I have had to completely rebuild most areas that were not focal points relevant to the LOS story. In Skyrim, a character can go all the way around a building, and so the modelers must create the entire building. Not so with LOS. Most areas are only partially complete from a Skyrim perspective and so had to be rebuilt. Also, Skyrim does not have seamless indoor/outdoor transitions, so any such mesh had to be rebuilt as well. Finally, I had to divide the models into chunks so that the Castle could be more easily rebuilt in the CK, and so that the Skyrim engine could better manage the highly detailed models. As it is, most of the meshes are somewhat larger in terms of file size than Skyrim's meshes, but I am able to run the mod with few issues from an under powered POS 32 bit XP system.
The scale of the rooms in this mod is accurate to how Gabriel is scaled to the LOS castle, which is almost so large that you'd think it was built and inhabited by giants, which to me is part of the appeal. I meant for this to be a vampire player home after all the enemies are cleared out, but the amenities like player bookshelf, player armory, etc need some work. The levels are divided up to match the original Castlevania series where convenient, or where it made logical sense.
The Castle is in the mountains to the east of Windhelm. Take the road East past Holly Frost farm, up past Traitor's Post and Refugee's rest, and you should come to Castlevania Gate. Enjoy.

BUGS/ISSUES:
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This is a beta version. It is the static structure of the interior and exterior of the Castle itself. There are no new animated creatures/NPCs/enemies, but I did use some enemies from Dawnguard to enhance the feel. There are a few bugs with collision and Navmesh, although I was able to get my follower to accompany me from the dungeons all the way to the topmost tower. There are some (mostly) minor holes in some of the meshes, as well as some floating parts that I didn't properly remove or alter. As with many buildings/dungeons in Skyrim, the interior layout does not perfectly correspond to the exterior structure. I did the best I could, but ultimately found it impossible. Nevertheless, it more closely fits than the original LOS castle, which followed a loose physical structure that was altered to suit the storytelling needs of the game, and gave no real weight to architectural integrity.

REQUIRED MODS:
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Dawnguard is obviously required.

MOD CONFLICTS:
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I placed the Castlevania Gate at 42,9 in the Tamriel worldspace so anything there will cause a conflict. Other than that, should be smooth sailing.

INSTRUCTIONS:
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Copy Castlevania.esp and Castlevania.bsa into your Skyrim data folder.
Make sure you put a checkmark in the box next to Castlevania.esp when starting Skyrim
Play!

TROUBLESHOOTING:
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If you get an error about missing content or if Castlevania Gate is not at 42,9 when starting the game, then you may need to add the bsa to your Skyrim.ini like so:
ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR FILES BEFORE EDITING THEM!
[Archive]
sResourceArchiveList=Skyrim - Misc.bsa, Skyrim - Shaders.bsa, Skyrim - Textures.bsa, Skyrim - Interface.bsa, Skyrim - Animations.bsa, Skyrim - Meshes.bsa, Skyrim - Sounds.bsa, Skyrim - Castlevania.bsa
sResourceArchiveList2=Skyrim - Voices.bsa, Skyrim - Voicesixtra.bsa

FUTURE PLANS:
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I must return to RL after spending too much time on this. I might possibly do some bug squishing if enough people are interested. I am not a scripter/programmer, so I am hoping that there are other talented modders out there who can flesh the castle out with some entertaining scripting/traps/quests.

CAUTION:
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USE THIS MOD AT YOUR OWN RISK. I take no responsibility if the mod causes your video card to melt and burn a hole through your floor. This mod is graphically heavy, and will be a burden especially on lower end PCs. One of my test machines is running 32 bit XP with a 1 GB GTX 260, and I get the rare occasional CTD when running through the castle, especially in the areas with the largest rooms. (Of course on this system I get the occasional CTD without the mod as well, but I am sure that the mod is a contributing factor). Another test machine is running 64 bit Windows 7 and has a 2 GB card, and seems to have no issues. I am not a professional game developer, and while I have done considerable research to ensure that the mod runs as smoothly as possible, I am sure that it is rife with stupid design mistakes.

CREDIT:
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I would like to thank my family for their support and for enduring the months of neglect that I imposed upon them while I worked on this mod.
I would like to thank Bethesda and their team for creating Skyim. Thank you for supporting the mod community for all these years.
I would like to thank the LOS team for their beautiful work on Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. I am looking forward to LOS 2, coming soon. Please support modders!
I would like to thank the brilliant developers of the many tools that I have used to create this mod. I will not name them all to save them the bad publicity in case this mod is not well received by the modding community, or Bethesda or Konami. If they all forgive me then I will give credit where it is due.

FINAL NOTE ON PORTING CONTENT:
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This mod is intended as an homage, and I thoroughly recommend purchasing and playing the original Skyrim, Dawnguard, and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow in all their original glory before playing this mod. I went to considerable expense in terms of time, effort, and money to develop the mod, and will not be receiving a penny for it. It has taken several months of my time to develop. As stated above, The 3d models have been altered significantly, and the textures have all been painstakingly converted to a format compatible with Skyrim. Does that mean they are in IP violation? I don't know. In terms of digital similarities, comparing the streams of 0's and 1's between the files of this mod and LOS would probably yield no hits, but I did everything I could to make the textures look as beautiful in the Skyrim engine as they do in LOS. IP enthusiasts will probably yell and scream. I am not a lawyer and I am not going to waste my time worrying about IP rules that seem to benefit publishers, not artists. I hope the artists forgive me and appreciate what I have done with their beautiful work. I have done this with the intention of enhancing the video game art form, the player experience, and the exposure to both Skyrim and LOS. If anyone feels that I have detracted from their artistic creation by releasing this mod then I am truly sorry.
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Carlitos Avila
 
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Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2007 3:05 pm

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