Gators Aided by Morrowind

About a month ago, I got an e-mail from University of Florida instructor Dave Small regarding a “Game Design” class the university is offering this summer. For the class, Small is using the Game of the Year edition of Morrowind for its construction set (as well as other games) to help implement their game ideas. For those considering looking for a school with game design classes, check out the syllabus for the class. There’s also a discussion about the course within our forums, including participation from one of Small’s students.

Despite being jaded towards UF for making the BCS title game over my beloved Wolverines (even though they deserved it), this sounds like a cool opportunity those looking to get into game design. I’m a bit jealous, though I did get to take a blow off class that dealt with films of the 1990′s and gaming my senior year. It was the easiest class this side of Volcanoes and Earthquakes.

Via e-mail, I asked Dave for a little more information about the class. Click below for more details…

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New Texture Mod on Gamer’s Hell

Gamer’s Hell has uploaded Qarl’s Texture Map III for an improved visual appearance within the game. The mod adds new textures and maps that aim to make Oblivion “more photorealistic, while at the same time still very close to the original feel of Bethesda’s intentions.”

Download the mod here…

A Mod that Sucks (Blood, That Is)

Actually, this is quite interesting. Yesterday on The Elder Scrolls Source, a new mod by Tyler Cobb went up that makes being vampire in Oblivion more “in line with traditional vampire lore while maintaining all the original features that came with Oblivion.”

To download and read more about the the mod, click here.

Force Push ‘Em Real Good

Over on Planet Elder Scrolls, which has tons of cool mods, I came across one this morning that I found particularly interesting. Looks like your hero will now have the ability to use the Force Push technique that the Star Wars prequels decided to overuse.

Only bad news is that Liam Neeson didn’t agree to add some Qui Gonn dialogue for the game. Anyhow, check out the mod here.

Better Homes and Goblins

As TES fans know, you’re probably not going to find a home for your Oblivion character searching through Craig’s List. What you may not know is that the modding community has created a helpful real estate resource called Oblivion’s Real Estate. The site is described as, “A site dedicated entirely to houses that Modders have contributed for the game Oblivion. All the houses that re listed here have been categorized to enable visitors to find the house just right for them without the time consuming effort of downloading and trying each one…”

Sounds cool to me, though I’ll admit my Dark Elf is a bit of a squatter.

House hunters, begin your search here…

Importing 3D Stuff into Oblivion

The folks at Digital Urban have a pretty cool two-part tutorial on how to create models in 3D Max and import them into Oblivion (officially, “Importing SketchUp/3D Max into the Oblivion Engine for Architectual Visualisation,” which sounds much more important and academic-ish).

Part two of the tutorial is now up (Part one can be found here) and shows how they went about converting a model of the Quad at University College London and viewing it in game. Never been to University College, but it looks pretty darn good to me. They provide info on all the tools they used and where you can find trial versions of things like SketchUp and 3DMax so you can give it a try yourself.

Great info for anyone thinking of tinkering with 3D models for Oblivion, and perhaps some tips for the experienced modders out there. Also, check out the related video here…

Bethesda Blog

Category Archives: Modding