Carved by the legendary Oddleifur, personal craftsman to Olaf One-Eye, the Great Portal of Dragonsreach was created to humble even the mightiest of warriors who came to beg an audience with the powerful Jarl of Whiterun. To this day, it remains one of the Wonders of Tamriel, and a highlight of any visit to Skyrim.  

                       -Mikael the Bard, Wandering in Skyrim

   



This mod is a revamp of my earlier Great Portal of Dragonsreach that, due to popular demand, moves the monumental carving of the great door of Urnes Stavkirk to the wall behind the Jarl's throne in Dragonsreach.

It is as close as I could get to an exact copy of the Great Doorway of Urnes Stavkirk (stave church) in Norway, carved c.1130AD; one of the finest surviving examples of Nordic wood carving. NB: There is no Christian iconography, so it is lore friendly.

In order to make it fit behind the throne I had to tweak the mesh to be symmetrical, and make some minor modifications to the dais that the throne sits on.

There are several options available for the wood colour, as well as two versions of the mesh: high-poly (~290,000 triangles) and low-poly (~4200 triangles). The high-poly mesh uses only a flat wood texture so that it responds solely to incident light sources. The low-poly mesh uses pre-rendered shadows and highlights, but includes a high resolution normal map that also responds to incident lighting conditions.

I've included a couple of comparison shots below to show the 2 mesh options, and a whole bunch of screenshots to help you choose the right wood colour for your lighting setup. All screenshots were taken with Vanilla lighting and textures only.




The resources in this mod are entirely mine, and are free to use as a modder's resource in non-commercial mods. Feel free to add your own screenshots or even your own tweaked textures, as long as you credit this mod. I am happy to supply my Blender files on request.

Check out my other decorative mods:
Nordic carved wallbaskets
201 Stained Glass Lanterns