It's certainly beautiful. However, it's a shame that you had to make the grip this much longer. Would it really hurt our preconceived notions of what a sword should look like that much if you would just left it short as it is in the original Sword of Saint Maurice?
Sorry, I think I've gotten a bit confused. Admittedly it's been a while since I last played Skyrim, so I'm sorry if I'm making an obvious mistake. To clarify:
The base stats for this (one handed) sword are currently 10 damage 10 weight, slightly higher damage than the steel sword's base stats (8 damage 10 weight) which I used as a base.
The character used in the screenshots was only level 2, with no one-handed perks. After leveling him up and giving him perks the swords damage increases.
You're all asking me to lower the weight but looking at the UESP (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Weapons), it looks like 9 - 10 weight is normal for a sword like this. Am I missing something here?
I'm happy to make the changes if you want them. I still plan to increase the damage - does 15 sound better? And would anyone prefer a daedric-level version?
Again, thanks for the feedback. I'm sorry for the confusion, this is my first mod and I'm still learning. Thanks for being understanding.
For the weight, you can set it to realistic weights instead of following Bethesda's attempt at pseudo level requirements via massively overweight weapons. A sword of this size would be 2.2 to 3 pounds, real world scale. The damage is entirely up to you. Using what Bethesda sets their weapons to is fine, and as you said, the damage scales up the better you get with it. Downloading now to take a look at it. This was the first thumbnail shot I've seen in some time that actually looked like a realistic sword.
EDIT: Okay, first thing that you will absolutely need to change is the texture pathing. Never use the purple flower to pick textures. Always manually type the texture path in. The purple flower adds the full texture path starting from Users.
You don't actually need vertex colors for the weapon, so you can double click it in NiTriShapeData to turn it off, then double click the shader lines in BSShaderLightingProperties and uncheck it. If it remains in the shader properties, then it needs to be set to yes in the Trishape data or the item will turn black. Vertex colors don't need to be turned off, and can be left on without causing any issues.
If you change the cubemap to shinyglass_e you will have much more dramatic lighting reflections.
In the textures, if you make the specular map, alpha of the normal map darker ( image- adjustments- brightness contrast negative 65 contrast and negative 36 brightness ) , then make the environment map brighter ( Same as above but +36 contrast and +58 to 68 brightness ) it will also increase the dramatic lighting reflect of the weapon.
If you'd like a custom cubemap to mess around with, throw me a PM.
Thanks for the feedback, it was really helpful. I've changed the file paths and also made the nif and texture changes you suggested. The sword looks a lot better now, like it's actually made of metal. Thanks
Sure thing. I had hell to pay early on with metals and this game just because I was using a bright specular map along with their vanilla cubemaps. A lot of items looked like plastic in the vanilla lighting and looked just barely passable with RLO installed. It wasn't until I got sick of the reflections looking bad and made some new cubemaps that they came to life . The vanilla shinyglass_e is great, but shinybright_e and the others just don't cut it for quality reflects.
I've updated the mod - the sword now does more damage (the same as an Elven Sword) and weighs slightly less. I've also updated the description to be a bit clearer. Thanks again Chris for letting me use your screenshot as the background image.
Thanks for all the feedback, I really appreciate it. I'm glad you like the weapon model. I'll lower the weight and increase the damage as suggested (does 15 damage and 6 weight sound better?)
A lot of sword mods seem to be designed for high level players and require better smithing perks, so I wanted to make a sword people could craft early on. If you want, I can make an optional download that gives it much higher stats (like daedric-level)?
Thanks for those great screenshots, Chris! Do you mind if I one as the hot file image? I'll give credit to you in the description.
I really do like it. Nice to see something that looks like an actual weapon. If you fix the stats to be somewhere around iron-, steel-, maybe even skyforge steel sword it would probably be viable throughout the game.
nice sword! Its nice to see that not all of realism has left Skyrim modding! If you are interested I could make some screenshots of the sword, because the presentation is the half dead
The main thing I admire about this weapon is the simplicity. It's not every day you find a sword so smooth unlike the thousands of other weapon mods with carvings which make no sense. The one thing I do recommend is balancing it out slightly; the damage to weight is very.. off course. Otherwise, great work.
Love the look, but slightly under-powered and over weight. 4lb. for one hand, 6 for two is about right. I can live with the damage, and if you lower the weight, I will use this. Regardless of the above, thank you for sharing. As I said, it looks great, much nicer than the steel swords in the game.
15 comments
The base stats for this (one handed) sword are currently 10 damage 10 weight, slightly higher damage than the steel sword's base stats (8 damage 10 weight) which I used as a base.
The character used in the screenshots was only level 2, with no one-handed perks. After leveling him up and giving him perks the swords damage increases.
You're all asking me to lower the weight but looking at the UESP (http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Weapons), it looks like 9 - 10 weight is normal for a sword like this. Am I missing something here?
I'm happy to make the changes if you want them. I still plan to increase the damage - does 15 sound better? And would anyone prefer a daedric-level version?
Again, thanks for the feedback. I'm sorry for the confusion, this is my first mod and I'm still learning. Thanks for being understanding.
The damage is entirely up to you. Using what Bethesda sets their weapons to is fine, and as you said, the damage scales up the better you get with it.
Downloading now to take a look at it. This was the first thumbnail shot I've seen in some time that actually looked like a realistic sword.
EDIT: Okay, first thing that you will absolutely need to change is the texture pathing. Never use the purple flower to pick textures. Always manually type the texture path in. The purple flower adds the full texture path starting from Users.
You don't actually need vertex colors for the weapon, so you can double click it in NiTriShapeData to turn it off, then double click the shader lines in BSShaderLightingProperties and uncheck it.
If it remains in the shader properties, then it needs to be set to yes in the Trishape data or the item will turn black.
Vertex colors don't need to be turned off, and can be left on without causing any issues.
If you change the cubemap to shinyglass_e you will have much more dramatic lighting reflections.
In the textures, if you make the specular map, alpha of the normal map darker ( image- adjustments- brightness contrast negative 65 contrast and negative 36 brightness ) , then make the environment map brighter ( Same as above but +36 contrast and +58 to 68 brightness ) it will also increase the dramatic lighting reflect of the weapon.
If you'd like a custom cubemap to mess around with, throw me a PM.
Thanks again Chris for letting me use your screenshot as the background image.
A lot of sword mods seem to be designed for high level players and require better smithing perks, so I wanted to make a sword people could craft early on. If you want, I can make an optional download that gives it much higher stats (like daedric-level)?
Thanks for those great screenshots, Chris! Do you mind if I one as the hot file image? I'll give credit to you in the description.
The one thing I do recommend is balancing it out slightly; the damage to weight is very.. off course. Otherwise, great work.
I can live with the damage, and if you lower the weight, I will use this.
Regardless of the above, thank you for sharing. As I said, it looks great, much nicer than the steel swords in the game.