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About this mod
A mix of open and closed cantons and some additional cool features for Vivec:)
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Donations
As of lately, modders have been very creative at overhauling the cantons of Vivec, and now we have many options:
- Open cantons
- Closed cantons
- Glass domes
- Openish cantons (atmospheric plazas)
But, every option has some drawbacks. I want to share my thoughts with you about them
Closed Cantons
Default vanilla option. They are fine and look pretty good but:
1. The lighting in the plazas is miserable considering their shape
2. Open cantons were probably the original vision Bethesda had for Vivec
Open-ish Cantons: Atmospheric plazas
A great alternative that's very "vanilla plus". Improves while not changing too much. Possibly the best option.
Open-ish Cantons: Glass domes
A variant of Atmoshperic Plazas that implements MWSE weather mechanics to fix some of the shortcomings of Atmospheric plazas. If you like it, this is a great option.
Issue is, these glass domes have a strong steampunk feeling to them and are a huge departure from vanilla aesthetics.
Open Cantons
This was likely what Bethesda initially wanted to do. Open plazas are amazing and seamless but bad for performance and if you open every single canton everything is a bit too square and boring to look at.
While scrolling on deviantart I also found this, which made me realize how beautiful the vanilla canton actually is.
For these reasons, getting rid of the classic closed dome completely is not an option.
SO?
Seems like every option has pros and cons. But what about some sort of mix?
MY PROPOSAL
This mod has open cantons but keeps Arena, St. Delyn and St. Olms closed.
These three closed cantons are not left untouched though, they use MWSE mechanics developed for Glass Domes and models from Atmosheric Plazas.
If you're confused read it again, it's not that complicated.
This way you get:
- Visual variety
- Cool open cantons
- Iconic vanilla domes BUT cool lighting for the plazas
- Decent performance as half the cantons are closed and the open ones have been greatly optimized by darkfri01
Why those specific cantons were kept closed?
1. Performance: the arena has some cool mods you can install that are borderline impossibile to run with open cantons and St. Delyn and St. Olms are close to the temple and there's a lot of heavy mods you can install for the temple canton.
(On the contrary, The Foreign Quarter has the smallest plaza of any canon, which means the performance cost of having it open is also the lowest).
2. I think these cantons can thematically work as interiors. I woulnd't have the foreign quarter canton closed since it's a commercial hub with a lot of traffic, for example. And I woulnd't close one of the Great Houses' cantons either as otherwise I'd have to close all of them for coherence.
ANYTHING ELSE?
Actually, yes. I've already said I consider Rethinking Vivec to be the best Vivec mod out there. In the past, I alredy worked on it to take some cool parts out of it and published it as a standalone plugin: concept art Vivec ports.
In this mod, I did the same. Features of Rethinking Vivec that have been ported over:
- Combined Upper and Lower waistworks for the Foreign Quarter.
Since I also wanted the new combined waistworks to be compatible with Vivec Waistworks expansion, a feature unique to this mod are the merged lower and upper waistworks from Rethinking Vivec made compatible with waistworks expansion.
This makes the Foreign Quarter waistworks feel like a truly massive interior that's fun to explore and get lost in :P
To clarify: this already includes Vivec Waistworks Expansion so you don't need it.
- Expanded Library of Vivec with books from Tamriel_data added to it
- Briricca Bank branch in the foreign quarters
- New ports: "Concept art Vivec ports" has been merged into this so you don't need it either.
Other recommended mods for Vivec
In my opinion, Vivec is already beautiful and original and there's no reason to go overboard with clutter and decorations, considering also the FPS are really bad even without mods.
That being said, some great additions that I highly recommend, are:
- Concept Art Palace
- Meteorite Ministry
- Passage of Prayers
- Palace of Vehk
- Dramatic Telmple Canton
COMPATIBILITY AND LOAD ORDER
Due to how the "interior as exterior" flag works, this needs to load AFTER any other mod editing the plazas.
To make things easier, I added an optional esp (09 folder) that you can load just before merged_objects and multipatch (or as close to the end as possible) that will fix any issues regarding the "interior as exterior" flag.
If you use True Light and Darkness, make sure to use the "No Vivec Plazas" version.
The content of the 02 folder is actually NECESSARY. Pick only one version (either MWSE if you're on vanilla engine, or OpenMW version if you're on OpenMW).
CREDITS
Atrayonis, Cemkey and DonnerGott: Rethinking Vivec/No-Frills Open Vivec
tewlwolow: MWSE weather module
hollaajith: Atmoshperic Plazas
AutumnBramble: Waistworks Expansion
- Open cantons
- Closed cantons
- Glass domes
- Openish cantons (atmospheric plazas)
But, every option has some drawbacks. I want to share my thoughts with you about them
Closed Cantons
Default vanilla option. They are fine and look pretty good but:
1. The lighting in the plazas is miserable considering their shape
2. Open cantons were probably the original vision Bethesda had for Vivec
Open-ish Cantons: Atmospheric plazas
A great alternative that's very "vanilla plus". Improves while not changing too much. Possibly the best option.
Open-ish Cantons: Glass domes
A variant of Atmoshperic Plazas that implements MWSE weather mechanics to fix some of the shortcomings of Atmospheric plazas. If you like it, this is a great option.
Issue is, these glass domes have a strong steampunk feeling to them and are a huge departure from vanilla aesthetics.
Open Cantons
This was likely what Bethesda initially wanted to do. Open plazas are amazing and seamless but bad for performance and if you open every single canton everything is a bit too square and boring to look at.
While scrolling on deviantart I also found this, which made me realize how beautiful the vanilla canton actually is.
For these reasons, getting rid of the classic closed dome completely is not an option.
SO?
Seems like every option has pros and cons. But what about some sort of mix?
MY PROPOSAL
This mod has open cantons but keeps Arena, St. Delyn and St. Olms closed.
These three closed cantons are not left untouched though, they use MWSE mechanics developed for Glass Domes and models from Atmosheric Plazas.
If you're confused read it again, it's not that complicated.
This way you get:
- Visual variety
- Cool open cantons
- Iconic vanilla domes BUT cool lighting for the plazas
- Decent performance as half the cantons are closed and the open ones have been greatly optimized by darkfri01
Why those specific cantons were kept closed?
1. Performance: the arena has some cool mods you can install that are borderline impossibile to run with open cantons and St. Delyn and St. Olms are close to the temple and there's a lot of heavy mods you can install for the temple canton.
(On the contrary, The Foreign Quarter has the smallest plaza of any canon, which means the performance cost of having it open is also the lowest).
2. I think these cantons can thematically work as interiors. I woulnd't have the foreign quarter canton closed since it's a commercial hub with a lot of traffic, for example. And I woulnd't close one of the Great Houses' cantons either as otherwise I'd have to close all of them for coherence.
ANYTHING ELSE?
Actually, yes. I've already said I consider Rethinking Vivec to be the best Vivec mod out there. In the past, I alredy worked on it to take some cool parts out of it and published it as a standalone plugin: concept art Vivec ports.
In this mod, I did the same. Features of Rethinking Vivec that have been ported over:
- Combined Upper and Lower waistworks for the Foreign Quarter.
Since I also wanted the new combined waistworks to be compatible with Vivec Waistworks expansion, a feature unique to this mod are the merged lower and upper waistworks from Rethinking Vivec made compatible with waistworks expansion.
This makes the Foreign Quarter waistworks feel like a truly massive interior that's fun to explore and get lost in :P
To clarify: this already includes Vivec Waistworks Expansion so you don't need it.
- Expanded Library of Vivec with books from Tamriel_data added to it
- Briricca Bank branch in the foreign quarters
- New ports: "Concept art Vivec ports" has been merged into this so you don't need it either.
Other recommended mods for Vivec
In my opinion, Vivec is already beautiful and original and there's no reason to go overboard with clutter and decorations, considering also the FPS are really bad even without mods.
That being said, some great additions that I highly recommend, are:
- Concept Art Palace
- Meteorite Ministry
- Passage of Prayers
- Palace of Vehk
- Dramatic Telmple Canton
COMPATIBILITY AND LOAD ORDER
Due to how the "interior as exterior" flag works, this needs to load AFTER any other mod editing the plazas.
To make things easier, I added an optional esp (09 folder) that you can load just before merged_objects and multipatch (or as close to the end as possible) that will fix any issues regarding the "interior as exterior" flag.
If you use True Light and Darkness, make sure to use the "No Vivec Plazas" version.
The content of the 02 folder is actually NECESSARY. Pick only one version (either MWSE if you're on vanilla engine, or OpenMW version if you're on OpenMW).
CREDITS
Atrayonis, Cemkey and DonnerGott: Rethinking Vivec/No-Frills Open Vivec
tewlwolow: MWSE weather module
hollaajith: Atmoshperic Plazas
AutumnBramble: Waistworks Expansion