Morrowind Downloads

In this page I have useful meshes and also some Morrowind rendering tricks I have discovered or have been submitted by others.

For your reference: The almighty NIF importer from Mayday works on Max 5. The official TES exporter for max 4 works on max 5 for any objects that DO NOT REQUIRE morph. Many reports of crashes or models that have weird results, and can never align. I am a witness to the last one.

UPDATE Jan/13/2004:

There is a new importer available! Dave Humphrey has created a new importer with more functionality than the previous one created by Mayday. Since Mayday won't be working on his anytime soon (he's involved in a TC) and Dave has done such a great job, let's encourage him to continue further development of this new plug for max. Thanks Dave!! This link downloads from his site

Good news! Elrihn found a workaround that allows to use physique in max 5.1 and export without problems. From his post in TES forum:

" A lot of people (i was one of them monthes ago) ask for the compatibility of the Tesc Exporter with 3dsMax 5.0 ! Ok i have been using 3dsmax5 for 5 monthes and i can tell that the exporte v4.x works fine EVEN WITH PHYSIQUE !!!

I didn't know about biped but as it works with physique , it should be fine ! However there are some limitations . Here they are :

--1 -- You won't be able to use any kind of morphing animation ! Morphing from max 5 is just not compatible

--2 -- you'll have to change the Default controller settings of Max5 to avoid export crashes while animating: the Position controller are to be set to either TCB , BEZIER or LINEAR instead of the default 'x,y,z positon' ... Rotation controller same thing ( default is EULER X,Y,Z) , and same thing for Scale controller (default is already bezier , which is fine)

--3 -- For PHYSIQUE : i highly recomand to use Linear controllers for Position and Rotation instead of TCB or BEZIER ! These two last will work but some anim and placement corruptions can occur ! With Linear , no problem should be seen ! Moreover animating with linear is far more simple , mainly on long and complicate anims as for creatures ! The only drawback is that linear anims can be alittle bit Robot like animations , a bit harsh in fact ; but you can dimish the effect by playing with your key frames (too long to explain here , just try to desynchronise your several parts ; ie : if the body and arm should move at frame 100 and stop at frame 120 , try starting moving the arm 5 frames before and stop 5 frame after the body...)

Linear controller is fine with sequenced anim for the same reasons...

--As for material i didn't see any incompatibility ! Just try not to play to much with material anims of a TESC shadded material ! If you want to anim a material prefer a blinn shaded one...else it will work but any calling of the material keyframe property will crash max..

That's all i see for now...

If you upgrade, be aware that you may lose other plugs that work only on version 4 (or 3) and you will need newer versions. Note that max 4 plugins should work in max 5, according to discreet, unless they are version locked or the creators made undocumented calls in the programming. According to discreet you can install both max 4.2 and 5.1 together in the same PC. I can certify that, as I am running both versions in my PC. The instructions are in their web site. Also, max 5 does nothing for the stability of the importer plug. It's still prone to crashing (hey, it's still work in progress) Thanks to Mayday for this plugin.

Scroll down for links on my first edition of the beginner's guide to Modeling in 3D Studio max for Morrowind. Thanks to all who collaborated in the creation of this document.

Added SceneImmerse and MaxImmerse programs to the Utilities page as these are no longer available from the Netimmerse web site. I don't know if this will step on some toes, so if they ask me to take down the link I will. MaxImmerse is for Max users only. The SceneImmerse viewer is for everybody, including Max users. Go to the utilities page to download it.

Added DDS tools from the nVidia site, as many people don't know what to download (nVidia's page is a little confusing). All in one file for download from the utilities page. Also, if they complain I'll take the link down.

As released by one of the developers:

Bow Template - Original animated max file.

Crossbow Template - Original animated max file.

Torch Light - Original torch file with light (make objects that have light in game.)

Animation Blanks - Set of 3 original animation files (make custom animations)

Thank you Maverique!

For your reference also:

Armor Collection - Compilation of original armor meshes from the game. 1 of each armor class - 3DSMAX v.4 format (will open in 5)

Weapon Collection - Compilation of original wepon meshes from the game. 1 of each weapon class - 3DSMAX v.4 format (will open in 5)

These files cointain objects that have been imported from the game using the NIF IMPORTER. Since the importer is alpha, no textures or animations make it into max. Use these files only for reference or retexturing. Re-positioning will have to be done manually before exporting to TESCS.

Here are the files in other file formats. Some programs won't be able to input the max files, so I am posting the files in the old 3ds format, and others. More will be added as I find a way to convert them. Note that .3ds file format will truncate the textures to 8.3 DOS names in a bad way, it just deletes the characters beyond the 8.3 limit, so you might end up with a lot of same name textures. It may also swap coordinates. Cosmicdebris and I found that an imported nif converted to 3ds and imported to Lightwave will swap the Z and Y axis (X remains in the right place)

Armor Collection - Exported to .3ds format (most programs open this type of file)

Weapon Collection - Exported to .3ds format.

Note that the following files have been through 2 conversions and the axis might need rotating.

Armor Collection - Exported to .3ds format and saved in Poser format.

Weapon Collection - Same as above. Poser format.

TEXTURES

Now this is a Tutorial, but I figure it belongs in this section. This is a TEXTURING tutorial by Lady Eternity

3D Studio Max 5 now offers texture baking. This feature was created with the game developer in mind and allows to create a texture map already unwrapped and sized to powers of 2 (you don't have to do any UVW unwrapping). You can generate it out of bitmaps, or better yet, out of procedural textures that look very realistic (does away with creating 2D textures in Photoshop, especially if you are not talented in this area, like myself)

More on that as I get more insight on how to take advantage of it for Morrowind.

Need to put some runes in your creations? daedric runes font you can find it in you 2nd CD too.

ANIMATION

These tutorials belong here too, because they are for 3D Studio Max.

Physiqued Animation, by Lady Eternity

Segmented Animation, by Lady Eternity

Finally got around to do this part. I am compiling a guide about modeling that works in Morrowind. Most of this information comes from "pinned" threads in the MW forum and several tutorials read in different sites, others from PMs I sent to some modders that were nice to answer with the info needed. This guide is not complete and I will be adding more information as I get it. Credit is given to all sources in the guide. People in the forum have been asking how to make certain things in max, so here is my stab at some of them:

1- Glowing Runes. Leiawen started with the glowing runes a while ago, before the official exporter came out (done with the BLINN shader, no doubt). This effect made me research more on my own, since I didn't get a reply to my posts. These are examples of what they look like. Download the guide on how to create this effect and others here. (Acrobat 5 PDF) Parameters on the runes can be animated to obtain pulsating runes. They can also be sequenced to achieve changing rune text.

2- Fidel's Hammer Explained (PARTICLE EFFECTS)- Fidel was very nice to send me the instructions on how to make the hammer with the particle effects. He got the original instructions from a post in the MW forum. Credit goes to Dangleberry on this one. Pictures are captures from what the hammer looks like in 3dsmax. Credit goes to Fidel for sending me his hammer's max file for further study and the instructions describing the procedure. I believe particle effects and glowing runes make up for a better "enchanted" magic weapon look than the boring "plastic" look of MW magic weapons. Here's how to add this effect to MW objects. (Acrobat 5 PDF)

This is the original max file from Fidel. This file is not to be posted anywhere without Fidel's permission. Here's the link to his web site.

5- Animated Textures - Part 1 - Now part of the guide. Credit goes to Killgore Killack for providing the information on how to get this done and experimenting a lot.

6- Animated Textures - Part 2 - Credit to Killgore for helping me with these. In this update you'll find: