I would like to see a dark forest of huge trees. Why would it be dark? Because the trees would be huge enough to block sunlight. You only see massive trunks going up into the darkness, and nothing would grow under there. Just rotting needles... Imagine you or an NPC walking there, their torch or lamp light occasionally flickering betwixt the treetrunks... Spruces naturally.

Of course trees don't grow very big in the north, but this one time I could ditch realism

Redwood forest would be more epic could make a redwood forest with no light and then a village in the trees!

I have hoped that the forests in Skyrim would have looked http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll54/pero_lozhach/P9170121-800x600.jpg...

Ztree, have you seen Vurt's Solstheim trees? They are animated iirc.

I'm confused - is this a REQ or a WIP?

Yep, that's 'woodland edge' effect. Beth have always neglected to include it. Basically, there's so much light available on the edges of woodland and forests that their borders can grow really think with branches, leaves, sub canopies, shrubs, and ground flora, giving the appearance of a solid wall of leaves. Inside that woodland, just a few meters in, it'll completely open up. It's only dense on the edges.

The MERP team did a fantastic job with woodland edge in their Oblivion mod. It was so good I jumped straight out of the game, into these forums, and thanked them for it in their thread. If anything Skyrim is a step backwards in woodland/forest realism from Oblivion. There isn't really any forest, just scattered trees over large areas in the south. There also aren't any fjords or large rivers. Just streams and small rivers. I still love the game, but the tiny scale has really held it back. Frustrating, because the concept art for Skyrim is clearly drawn with a large scale in mind. If they don't at least quadruple the size of TES:6, I'll be disappointed.

I think at this point it's kind of a "general observations and muttered swearings" about tree replacement.

I'm looking forward to what comes of it. Skyrim needs real primeval forests.

Yeah, I have seen Vurts Solstheim trees but the new nif format of Skyrim doesn`t allow for import at the moment, unfortunately.
I mean, I would also totally love to see new trees in Skyrim, since I am working on some myself: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/845/46204139.jpg/ --- http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/6/34257813.jpg/ --- http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/717/89217084.jpg/ --- but without animations it just isn`t the same and additionally I have this weird thing with the shadows: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/16/89579940.jpg/ --- http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/20/45991516.jpg/ ---> leaves have no shadows . The baking of shadows into the ground isn`t really an option (at least in exterior cells) because of the dynamic shadow system of Skyrim, which would clash with static shadows on the ground.

I am relatively new to modding TES myself, so how long did it take for Oblivion to be able to import everything and anything? (btw, to those working on it: thank you, thank you so much for your tireless efforts )

It seems a little weird that planes with alpha textures wouldn't cast shadows. Maybe you need to tweak some settings?

Aren't there such parts in vanilla meshes? Maybe some thatched roof's overhang or plants? You could compare your static meshes with those.

Hey Washington, you are completely right! I feel embarrassed that I didn`t try this before myself...Thanks for giving me the right hint.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/23/78205256.jpg/ <---- shadows at last

But now slowly again: I just opened the ivy.nif from the meshes/architecture/farmhouse folder and copied the settings from the bslightingshaderproperty block - specifically from the shaderflags 1 & 2
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/29/13789840.jpg/ and the ingame lighting is rather nice, I`d say. Which means that we are one step further on the tree workaround plan. Now, if we find a way to "fake" the leaves animations, we are on the same level as original Skyrim trees.

Really fantastic to see this being done. Skyrim is visually great but as previously stated, its a bit bland for a modding platform. Oblivion had much more diverse environments and I was becoming a little dismayed at ever having proper diversity in forests, landscape etc that could open Skyrim wider than its nordic theme. As usual a few heroes pop up when youre not looking any hey ho, there is progress.

Is there difficulty getting the new trees to render LOD? LOD is woefully bugged so third party tools seem to be the better way (and often the only one) such as Oscape and Tes4qlod etc.

When the max and blender exporters are better devloped and doing need so much of a workaround I will do some unique rocks and changed texture rocks also, along with stalagtites etc.

The lod for the new trees would be the same like for other static architecture objects, so I hope the lod system in Skyrim itself is not too bugged. But like you said, thekarithian, third party tools will probably help at most problems.

On the issue of animations for the trees, I heard that it is impossible as of yet to import any animations into Skyrim? Maybe it is possible to create some sort of textures that give the illusion of movement? Similar to gif pictures. I know that Skyrim uses dds textures, so that is probably a hindrance. If anyone has some ideas, please tell.

AWEsome work so far. My heart actually skipped when I saw this! I'm planning a large add on and badly wanted a different feel.

ztree, that looks pretty awesome. Keep up the good work! Would love to see trees made by you in a new world mod

Thanks.
yeah, I am currently part of the merp team so if my colleagues there like my models, resources are going to be included in middle earth. But I am also planning to create a tree resource pack for anyone who is interested. Right now I have poplar, beech and possibly maple. But they are all WIP at the moment. And of course I am waiting for improvements in the blender export field (animations).

What type of trees are currently demanded by the modders? I guess palms would be nice for southern climate zones.

I would love to see oak trees (with cool, mighty branches) and perhaps a few more variants of pine trees that are more "thick/dense". Vanilla's pine trees are so weak and you can see through them so easily.
Maple would be awesome btw

Also, I'm not sure how these things work, but I'd LOVE to see actual snow pine trees with snow on them. Skyrim's snow pine trees are just flat with painted snow. It would be so awesome if you could make snow pines trees with bulks of snow on top of them, like these: http://photoeverywhere.co.uk/west/winterholiday/snowy_trees2041.JPG

We're all proud to have you as a team mate ztree, you're doing awesome work! And not only on trees...

Hey Maeg, good to see you here. It seems like we are very close to finally getting new custom trees that are comparable with beth trees.

And yes, ancient epic oaks are a must have. I also expect that other 3D modellers are just around the corner with awesome tree models, it`s just implementations that`s holding back. And some real snow pines like in the pic are a great idea in my opinion.

I'm glad that I could help. The trees look great!

Awesome, ztree. Can't wait to see all sorts of custom trees available once these issues with animations get sorted out.

Any news on custom trees etc? The landmass bug has been sorted and the LOD and region generation stuff gradually being worked out, custom trees will be a desperate need.

I'd love to see an area like Wistmans Wood modded in: http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=wistmans+wood&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=3uFbT4edIsTL0QXwsLjNDQ&ved=0CEIQsAQ&biw=1599&bih=827#q=wistmans+wood&hl=en&sa=X&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=63c722e586ca3313&biw=779&bih=794

For my part, I am still waiting for a solution on the implementation of animations of the leaves, before I can release any of my tree models (now they would be just inclomplete).

Several planes with slightly different leaf textures animated to appear and disappear in loop sequence?

Sounds very interesting. Is this possible to do in nifskope at the moment? And if so, how?

Where's mah Mahogny and Bamboo, damnit!
I want those.

On a serious note, how many treetypes are there in Skyrim? I see very little Oak here, and Scandinavia's pretty much the same climate.