As many of you had likely guessed, I am no longer supporting this mod; any recent posts you have seen me make are simply a result of me stopping in to make this announcement; I will follow up on any of the posts I have made, but no more than that. I also have no plans to port Arvak over to Skyrim: Special Edition. Simply put, I have spent more than 5 years working with Bethesda's ancient engine watching it creak and strain under the weight of both I and the rest of the Nexus modders have done to it over the years, and I'm dome with the original game. However, Tooneyman has bravely volunteered to bring this epic mount to SSE on both PC and XB1.
Its pretty sad that modders have to take up all the slack Bethesda leaves, taking up much of their time without being paid, when Bethesda game developers are being paid and yet they do such a sh*t job.
Perhaps you don't appreciate just how massive Skyrim really is and how much effort it takes to create this much content in 4 years with only 100 or so employees.
No matter how hard a team works on such a massive game, there will always be small flaws - which will be mocked and criticized relentlessly by people who have no concept of game design.
There is no game that couldn't be improved in some way. The only difference between them and Bethesda games is that Bethesda games have a framework that allows players to correct flaws themselves.
Honestly, I don't think it has anything to do with competence, but rather timing. There's a lot I've found in the game's files since 2011 that has suggested how rushed the development of Skyrim was, whether we're talking about the main game, or the DLCs.
Arvak started life as part of the Game Jam done by Bethesda in the week after release (so the original was thrown together in only a week), and I think (though I don't know and have no way of knowing for sure) that it was added to Dawnguard at the last minute. That would have meant a rush to get the content ready for release, which is why it looked as slapped-together as it did; the models for the bonemen, mistmen and wathmen use vertex lighting and model shaders on top of a shared texture, but that takes time to put together, and modifying a texture that will only be used once in the game is infinitely faster and easier (in fact, the relative time and difficulty involved in vertex painting the model is the reason I never used that approach when I made my mod 4 years ago).
Giving Arvak a "horse skin" made of flames was a neat idea and effect, but was a bit too flamey for my tastes, as interesting as it looked. However, the classic version is almost exactly what I was looking for. I will endorse as it looks very nice and has worked well so far. Thank you very much! (Looking at some of the comments: if anyone doesn't want so many flames on Arvak, use the Classic version, instead.)
Your comment is very old i know, but thank you so much. The extra flames made it look terrible in my honest opinion i really just wanted retextured bones.
Hi ! I used this mod for a loooooong time and I still find it perfect but I have an issue (maybe it's just the last update), the saddle doesn't appear anymore. I've seen that some people wanted to get rid off it by deleting the esp or something but my esp is still here.. Do you know why the saddle is missing ? Thank yooou
Odd. The only reason for the esp in the first place is to enable the saddle. Did you accidentally turn it off? Also, have you tried re-installing the mod?
I tried to uninstall and re-install many times.. And the esp is enabled. Anyway I equipped the saddle through the console and it worked for a time, the only problem is that I need to equip it again each time I conjure him.
I've got some great news for everyone. This mod will be ported to Special Edition and Xbox 1.. However, the special edition will be sometime later this week and Xbox 1 will require some work on my part since there are certain condition that have to be met before I bring it over to Xbox One for everyone to use. Please be warned it maybe a little bit, but I'm going to test the living crap out of the mod first to make sure it works properly.
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There is no game that couldn't be improved in some way. The only difference between them and Bethesda games is that Bethesda games have a framework that allows players to correct flaws themselves.
Arvak started life as part of the Game Jam done by Bethesda in the week after release (so the original was thrown together in only a week), and I think (though I don't know and have no way of knowing for sure) that it was added to Dawnguard at the last minute. That would have meant a rush to get the content ready for release, which is why it looked as slapped-together as it did; the models for the bonemen, mistmen and wathmen use vertex lighting and model shaders on top of a shared texture, but that takes time to put together, and modifying a texture that will only be used once in the game is infinitely faster and easier (in fact, the relative time and difficulty involved in vertex painting the model is the reason I never used that approach when I made my mod 4 years ago).
Endorsed
Thank yooou
For some extra variety, perhaps in the future you could create a version that uses a black smoke effect.