To me, Skyrim feels absolutely tiny. After reading the books, playing Daggerfall, ect, it just feels too small.

Technically it should be possible.

1. As SevenDragon says, the Cyrodiilx2 and Cyrodiilx3 (and there was even a downloadable 4x) weren't meant to be replacement mods, just successful proof of concept experiments (done about 3-4 years ago). I was curious whether the game could handle such a thing, how would it look, how would it feel, then threw the playable world out there to everyone in case anyone was serious about taking it on - and giving them a monumental headstart in doing so. It was entirely programmatic upscaling - nothing was hand placed:

http://www.projectmanager.f2s.com/morrowind/Tamrielx2/index.html
http://www.projectmanager.f2s.com/morrowind/Tamrielx3/index.html

There was a (now also dead) 2x Vvardenfell (Morrowind in Oblivion) project that came first and was scaled and converted the same way (there were no crash problems with an upscaled Red Mountain btw - there would have been a minor issue with a 2x TES3: Morrowind though as it would not have been able to display the peak of Red Mountain - but it was visual, not enough to cause a crash). Oblivion can render land miles high, 1x Red Mountain is only 1/3 the height of Oblivion's tallest mountain:

http://www.projectmanager.f2s.com/morrowind/2x2/index.html


2. For those questioning why the static meshes were also upscaled; it'd look awful not to start that way; nothing will join - buildings would be made of fragmented walls, pieces float up in the air, clutter would be airborn, tree roots would be the wrong height and so mostly underground - some things wouldn't even show up above ground level, likewise rocks etc. When scaled up, LOD statics are in their correct places. And the wilderness looks fine - with the FOV distortion of the game 2x scale trees don't seem out of place at all. Landscape textures But 2x scale towns, ruins etc are easily replaced by copying and pasting the render from the original worldspace; then they can be improved upon. 1x scale meshes was always intended to be the final solution (for settlements and ruins at the very least) - scaled was the visually correct starting point because you could instantly appreciate the overall world better.


3. Someone said just half the scale of the player; this achieves nothing but changes the visual size of your character when in 3rd person mode, the game still plays the same, your field of view remains the same and the same amount of land still visible. Doubling the size of your character might solve the visual height problem in a rescaled world, but creating a much larger area was always the goal.


4. Oblivion didn't have a problem with 3x scaled landscapes. It was just that the CS had problems generating the DistantLand LOD meshes. But someone now has a solution for that game with a mesh generator which produces better LOD meshes for the vanilla engine, and doesn't have the height clipping issue of the CS.


5. Hundreds of miles of upscaling; please forget doing that with the current TES game engines; they're too limited. Whilst you can load such a heightmap and play on it, it takes many minutes between loading each game (4x Cyrodiil which is 1500 sq miles took 1.5 mins to load up), you'll have dreadful animation jitters the deeper you stray in to the wilderness (bug has been there since Morrowind), and trying to fill it, region generate it and fix bugs, the rest of the world would be playing TES14 (Morrowind III ) by then on a newer more amazing game engine.


6. Expanding the world map instead and doing the other regions; Bethesda will always be doing the same, and probably beating the amateur teams to the deadline. Whatever wonders the modding team creates, the Bethesda will be the standard one the vast majority play. e.g. I wonder how the teams of modders who were working on a Skyrim feel atm, and those doing Cyrodiil (for Morrowind) just as Oblivion came out?


7. "7000 steps". When you scale the meshes at the same time as the landscape, then the steps already look perfect in their original positions. If the steps are too steep for the player to walk up (or you actually want to get more steps in) remember that on a scaled landscape the gradient is still the same - so it's easy to snap 2 or 3 of the 1x scale meshes together and have extended length steps.


Enlarging Skyrim

It's possible, and best done soon if there's a chance to sway the culture of modders towards an enlarged land rather than vanilla Skyrim. I don't want to project lead, but I can probably provide a technical starting point, a completely scaled exterior world, maybe more.

Remember that fractional scales are also possible (e.g. 2.5x) - but whole numbers are psychologically nicer. We might discover new game engine issues we weren't aware of with an upscaled landscape which is why we need to see how it looks and feels ... though I think we'll be fine as Oblivion coped pretty well.

Such a project must be started with scaled statics as a reference point: Most mountain profiles have are mostly static rock meshes; without them appearing in the right place and size then LOD mountains will be reduced to the more curved style of oblivion. Waterfalls and distant trees the same. Just as it was if anyone had taken up the mantle with a 2x / 3x Cyrodiil, they'll have to replace the 2x/3x scaled building render with that from the original Skyrim - but that's a trivial, though tedious, copy and past job. Then interior<->exterior doors will have to be relinked with the original Skyrim interiors. There's a world of AI and scripts that need doing too; that is if the plan is to scale up everything in the existing world (and not just start with new quests in redesigned towns).

My current version of TESAnnwyn should be able to rescale a textured Skyrim landscape already. But I don't have a working version of TES4Scale anywhere atm, I haven't worked on it for nearly 3 years; I was turning it in to an all singing all dancing thing to upscale scripts, re-link interiors to exteriors, scale regions etc; to all intents and purposes upscaling the entire Oblivion.esm and any TES4 mod file programmatically. Then my virtual PC (I developed on Linux) went belly up and I couldn't work on it anymore. And I never had a working version to go back to. Shame because it would probably have been simple to apply it to Skyrim too. I'll have to dig it out (will have to wait until next week as I'm throwing a big party this weekend) and see what progress I can make saluaging what's left.

Here's some sort of initial plan, which is all quite doable:

1. I'll scale up Skyrim in to a new worldspace using TESAnnwyn at 2x and 3x.

2. When I can get TES4Scale going, I'll shift the static co-ordinates (including scale) of meshes to fit on to the new landscapes like I did for Cyrodiil.

3. Hope to hell the Construction Set (when it comes) has a decent LOD landscape generator, and not that appalling slow (takes days or weeks) one that was provided with the the GECK (Fallout3). Otherwise hope that the new improved LOD generator someone's written for OB can be extrended to Skyrim's system (I've had some contact with the author and he is curious).

4. People will have to playtest the 2x and 3x landscapes. Naturally there'll be disagreement of which to go for. I think we should be reasonable and go for 2x (4x the mod area), but hey ... 3x looked and felt more real in TES4: Oblivion. It's no good if people are put off by the sheer daunting scale of the thing.


After that some sort of project could be formed based on it, and agreements on how far to go; whether people want to re-link all the existing Skyrim interiors to exteriors. Preserve existing quests (in which case exterior AI and scripts need recalculating for new positions). path grids should be redone. And how far to go - reproduce Bethesda's Skyrim game (i.e. quests) on a larger landscape, or start with a fresher world?

Lightwave, will there be a way then, regardless of the CK and game engine, of forcing a larger than current map into Skyrim. If so how would the map be developed? The heightmap editor wasnt perfect but with effort it was workable and the region editor, with much trial and error, provided the same.

I would also love such a mod. The environments are great and they scroll past way too quickly.

Seems like it would be easier to leave everything as is and just extend everything outward and add new cities. It would seem overly complex to just stretch the map. Better to add to it imo.

Wouldn't it be possible to leave Skyrim as is, and add the rest of the provinces enlarged? Just imagine that Skyrim is a much smaller province than the rest... The border regions would have to be adjusted accordingly, and it might not look perfectly lore friendly, but I fear that readjusting everything inside Skyrim to another scale might be a massive job that might never be completely finished... In the new provinces all has to be added new anyway...

I'm not sure I should project lead this. Even though I'm trying to stir interest, reasonably I know that I shouldn't project lead but rather support this project (by working on it and helping where I can). The reason being is my real life has too many first priorities and the responsibility of leading this project might need to fall into more qualified hands. However I would love to assist this in any way I am able.


Thanks for the response and the interest in this Lightwave. Your tools are invaluable to this proposed project if it has a chance to get off the ground, you're making it possible. Thank you very much


This all sounds excellent. I think that when these proof of concepts get done and other modders can walk around and see what things look like it will be easier to stir up interest. As of right now the mod is still just a good idea yet. Thanks again for your interest


I am personally inclined to want the x3 or larger, but will ultimately favor whichever one has the better chance of being completed and like you said which one has a better chance of being loved by others. I would hope that others will actually enjoy the feeling of a very large map. With fast travel in the game it's hard to imagine they wouldn't be, but we won't know until it's tested.


I would like to first rescale all existing objects to properly fit the world (as that is the easiest and most attainable next step). Then after releasing that version for people to play in, systematically try and "fix" all of the questing. I would like to mention that while rescaling, it would be nice to reposition interior/exterior doors and the like.

I am however open to ideas and suggestions. I would like this mod to have the spirit of immersion with it.

I think I'll end this post here for now, I need to reply to others in the thread which I will try to get to today but I'm pretty busy atm. Sorry for the delay.

Keep letting us know you have an interest modders Thanks.

:/ Seems nuts that this thread would die after some kind of discernable 'progress' was made. Bumping for everyone elses attention!

As for me, I think 2x will be more than enough to keep me happy. At the end of the day i'd rather a feasible project be adopted by the community than a huge incomplitable mess that never works in any form.

I'm also for 2x. I can't wait to see what it looks like. Depending on the timeline, I might be able to help with the downscaling of buildings etc in about a half a year. I'd post ideas for after the basic landmass and cities are done, but I don't want this project to get too far ahead of itself, such that it doesn't even start.

I like the current progression idea:
*Upscale everything
*Downscale objects
*Fix (enlarge?) cities
*Fix AI/pathing
*Fix quests

This will give people real things to play around with as the project progresses.

This is something I would LOVE to see completed. Especially early on therefore allowing modders to take advantage of it and it becoming a "staple mod" or must have.

While I love the idea of a x3 I think x2 would not only be easier, but probably more widely accepted. If it were to become a must have mod it has to appeal to just about everyone, or at least a large enough base to demand a modding community building off the world. If it becomes too large for most people (x3/x4) you risk the fact that not nearly enough people will be into it and thus a base of modders using it would shrink.

However that all hinges on how quickly this can be accomplished. If it takes more than a few months to release it will have missed it's chance as mooders set to work on their projects and large projects on a small Skyrim.

I'd be willing to lend a hand myself in the scalling down and placement of city bits should this take off. Beyond that I wouldn't have the skill to do anything. However the CK is little issue for me, I released a mod of my own for Oblivion called Finishing Touches -Bravil. I also have a considerable amount of time I can spend working, likely in comparison to others.

Either way I'd love to see this mod happen

-edit- stupid auto correct.

I am fully supporting this mod quite frankly hope some Devs pitch in some idea or help out ( I know it is not going to happen ).
I have a few concerns and suggestions.

Before anything is said I must say that I am not a modder, am novice at 3D modelling and have very basic knowledge of programming.

1. If anyone is going to expand the scale isn't it better to go for a largest size realistically possible. I don't know if an estimate of the size of Skyrim is given but consider the following calculations ( It may be flawed but it is just for consideration)
It takes appox. 23 hrs( ingame ) to fast travel from Markarth to Narzulbur.
Considering the standard jogging rate to be 1.5m/s. The width of Skyrim Appox is 1.5*(23*60*60) =124200metres which is very small.
Hence I believe 10x or larger is a good scale ( My opinion)

2. I believe the texture may not be the problem for such a large scale since modders are already pumping out higher resolution ones and only the Landscape will require re-texturing since everything else remains original scale.

3. The main problem is going to be the landscape. i.e. The paths, the 7000 steps etc. These will look too big. and have to be rescaled back to original size. This especially in case of the 7000 steps mean relocating a few places.

4. The Holds, towns and other locations are really not a problem since all one has to do is just scale up the relative distances.

5. I really don't have any knowlege of modding any TES game so I am assuming a few things like caves, rocks,paths etc are built into the landscape and not just placed once the basic landscape is modelled. In this case scaling these things back to original size will be a problem.

1.5 m/s (= 5.4 km/h or 3.35 mph) is a standard walking rate. Jogging is at least double that speed.

There is no such standard. That is why I said "consider". The value was randomly put there without any research. My bad.
Anyway, considering your value Skyrim is around 334km. It is still too small.

You're right. The http://www.westernite.org/datacollectionfund/2005/psu_ped_summary.pdf is actually closer to 1.4 m/s.

Well, as amazing as x3 might be, x2 is the size that actually stands a chance. Anything above that and I fear it'll be way to big for most modders to dedicate time to. Anyone seriously looking to expand the cities will likely say, "I can do something near twice the size, that city was too small anyways," but at x3 they'd be thinking of the hours they'd have to put in. x2 is just a more comfortable number to fit in the brain, really.

In regards to the 7000 steps, there won't be a problem unless the player can't walk them. They don't seem grand enough as-is, anyways.

Once again I will list that I am no modder but irrespective of the scale it will be the same amount of work. Everything you have to do for 3x scale will be done for 10x. Infact there is no difference at all unless the Engine presents a problem.
Hence better to do it as large as possible.
While for a single modder 100x the original area may seem large please take into consideration the amount of mods Oblivion has just for landscape and structures. I spent more time in choosing which mod should take a spot in Oblivion over the other more than even playing the game after a point of time. If a very large area is provided then maybe a compromise b/w modders can allow for many things to co-exist at once.

I don't mean to sound rude, but no, it isn't. Rebuilding the land around locations will take more time, if you're just talking as far as initial work. The expectation when it comes to the land being bigger is that most cities and towns well be taken on to be expanded, and while it seems much more plausible to double or triple the amount of unique buildings, the amount of work that would have to go into redoing only one city at 10x would take a months, at least, likely much over a year, with a team of dedicated people. There is more than one town.

Keep in mind, 2x quadruples the game area. With 10x? That's ten squares for every one square in the game, and might bring Skyrim to even larger than it would be lore-wise.

No, you are not sounding rude as I understand what you are trying to tell. I guess I didn't convey properly what I wanted to explain.
The people who do this don't have to expand the cities. That can be left to others. I am sure not one person here will complain if the cities are left as it is since the groups objective will be only to accurately scale the land. All this group needs to do is provide extra land for other mods to do feasible work on.
The best part will be that the lands beyond Skyrim will scale along with it and since no work other than the landmass has been done it will be easier and better for mods using those space.

Edit: What is the size of Tamriel or any province for that matter according to the lore ? I didn't know that they had mentioned it somewhere. Did they mention it indirectly by giving the distance b/w two places ?

Yeah, but my point is not enough people are going to jump at expanding them, so there'd never be a really playable version. What's the point of putting your new places on a map nobody plays with? The major towns being reconstructed (along with reconnecting all the doors, redoing quest markers, whatever else needs to be done) are the minimum amount of work required before the mod is used by any significant amount of people.

As far as size goes, I'm not to sure. I can't do the math without the proper numbers (which I don't have) and just making a little guess.

It is always tempting to propose massive mods, but a huge amount of work is required, and technical limitations will always crop up. Enlarging the existing worldspace makes a lot more sense to me than adding in additional provinces, both in terms of achieving a more believable scale, but more importantly because it involves working with existing assets rather than having to develop the basis of a whole new province - including a best guess at lore for the time period. Its nice to think 'it would be great if we could do this, that and the other' but after the beginning idea modders have to step back and think 'what is a more practical, achievable version of this?' (why do you think Bethesda didn't make the world space larger in the first place? Its about practicality). 2x is a reasonable, achievable goal for any Enlargement Mod that would more than suffice, and I would be very grateful to anyone who works to make it happen. I might sign on myself, if I become experienced enough to be an asset rather than a liability.

I enjoyed the Oblivion 2x proof-of-concept, I think 2x would be the most sensible choice, not 10x which while it sounds great, is just too excessive. Don't forget that it's not just towns which after scaling back down would leave massive amounts of open space around them to be filled. Villages would have the same problem, and even lone houses/huts in the wilderness. You can see an example of this by loading the TES4 Construction Set, finding any one building (go with Roland Jenseric's cabin) and rescaling it to 0.1 - then imagine that this new scale is the actual size of the building, and take a look at the area of land around that building which is completely empty, which the building used to cover. This is what you would get with a 10x rescaled world. Every single individual building, in fact every single barrel or crate even, would leave a large area of empty land needing to be filled with something.

And that probably wasn't even an accurate example. If 2x makes everything four times larger (double the X and double the Y so 1 by 1 becomes 2 by 2 which equals 4) , then 10x is actually 10 by 10 which equals 100 times larger than vanilla. Presumably then, the objects have all been rescaled up by 100, so the equivalent down-scaling for Roland Jenseric's cabin is in fact 0.01 - try that in the CS, then take a look once more at the empty landscape needing filling all around it.

Now rescale Roland's cabin to 0.5 0.25 - and that's what you have to work with for a 2x Skyrim. Much more manageable, but still plenty of work.

And also, while you trying this (for anybody who actually bothers to give my example a go!), did you notice the two barrels, the two doors, the ten door steps and the roof overhang which also make up Roland's cabin? They all need rescaling down too, but you do that, and they're no longer in the right locations. You not only have to downscale all of them, you also have to reposition them all so that they fit together again the way they did at the original scale. More work. And finally, the land texturing. The cabin is nowhere near that stone path which lead up to the door, and of course that stone path is massive compared to the cabin itself (even at 0.5 0.25 scale) - plus the darkened NoGrass texture which was beneath the cabin now stretches out quite a distance from the cabin in all directions. It all needs retexturing to make things look good again, and to rescale the footpath to match the smaller cabin.

Simply put, the higher the rescale, the more work will be required. So if you do this, be sensible, stick to 2x or you'll abandon the project in frustration before you've done even 5% of the total required work (disclaimer: percentage picked at random, accuracy may vary from person to person)

EDITed to correct the mathematics

2x would be wonderful According to the math calculations up above, Skyrim is, what, 334km across, or about 207 miles. If you square that to get the (roughly) square milage (again, according to this logic of ingame time = size), then you have a size of about 61,000 square miles, which is twice as big as the area of Austria. Considering Skyrim is only one province in the continent of Tamriel, I don't think we need to do 10x. 2x would be great.

I would go with 2x as well, and that comes from the experience of several months of building a huge 14x14 heightmap.

The only thing that bugs me about this, is the fact that there's also this promising new project of several teams going to work together to create all of the provinces in the default Tamriel worldspace, connecting everything. It would be in direct conflict with this Skyrim enlargement mod, while both projects have a chance of becoming a standard to make new mods on. Such a split is a real shame in my opinion.

I don't think it's possible to merge these two projects, since it would mean forcing the province-teams to build everything at a 2x scale as well, and most of them probably don't want that. If I had to choose between them, I think the province project has more potential. Perhaps it's a better idea if the community focusses on creating one new standard for new mods to be build on, rather than two that would be in conflict with each other.

@Maegfaer


I don't see why a more realistic project like this should be sacrificed to suit more ambitious guesswork province mods. There is nothing wrong with incompatible mods coexisting.

should be easiers making the player and NPC all smaller (i havent read all the posts)