Interior for Relto

Shorah and howdy!

In what little free time I've had lately, I've been working on an interior area for Relto. It will be accessed through the Relto hut (whenever I finish that; I haven't done any work on it in quite some time). You'll start out with a basic but large room with a few necessities and some decor. However, you can unlock rooms and special items (such as a vampire coffin) by finding the corresponding Relto Pages. An example is shown below (note that nothing is even close to complete yet; I haven't even finished adding ceilings haha).

The "kitchen" area you begin with is just a fireplace with a cooking pot and some decor.

Once you find the Relto Page for the kitchen, the fireplace goes away and is replaced with a door.

The door opens to the kitchen...I won't show detailed images yet because I don't want to spoil it too much, but I may upload some down the road when it's more complete.

There will also be rooms for Enchanting and Alchemy, a master bedroom, an extra bedroom for adopted children etc., and probably some kind of mass storage/display room.

Here is an image from part of the master bedroom:

I'll spoil a little bit more for the Enchanting room; the first image is currently just some decor, the second image is something I'm working on that I might try to make activate-able for some small temporary buffs or somesuch:

And I guess I might as well show the current state of the library area since it will be there by default:

Also a little conceptual update: I will be attempting to add a music player of sorts since Relto in Uru: Ages Beyond Myst had a music player you could add. It will start off with just 3 or so basic songs (I haven't decided yet if I'll use some of the Skyrim bard instrumental music, or if I'll make my own), and I'll add a Relto Page that will replace it with a more advanced music player that has lots of Skyrim music to choose from. I'll probably put one music player in the exterior, and one in the interior location. If I make my own music to put in there, I'll put instructions so that people can easily replace them with their own songs if they wish by simply replacing those sound files with files of identical name and filetype...in theory at least, as I'll have to test to make sure this works.

And as a closing thought that I think needs to be touched on: there is currently a major controversy over the Steam Workshop monetizing mods. I just want to state that Relto for Skyrim will be free, because 1) I never intended to sell it, I am making it for my own fun and for others to have fun; and 2) since a lot of the ideas and names are from Cyan's game Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, it wouldn't be legal for me to make money off of it anyways.

Happy exploring!
Katelin

Relto Hut

I am slowly but surely creating the Relto Hut!

Not an exact replica by any means. I may change the design over time depending on how it looks in Skyrim, but I like this shape as it is in Blender..

The modeling is pretty simple, but in the past I was never able to successfully get models into NifSkope to make them Skyrim compatible. I won't give up though!

Texturing might also be a bit difficult for me, but it will get done after some time. I'll probably have to start off with some really simple placeholder textures though so I can see how everything works.

Happy Exploring!
Katelin

Squabbie and Some New Linking Rules

Howdy and Shorah!

There is now a new resident on Relto Island: Squabbie! Everyone give a warm welcome to Squabbie!

 
Squabbie is intended to reference the Quabs in Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. In Skyrim she is a mudcrab retextured pink. I do hope to someday create a model for her that more closely resembles a Quab, but it will be a long time before that happens, if I ever am able to. She is an animal companion follower that can carry 100 Skyrim Weight Units and will help you fight enemies, although she does not do very much damage.

I have also made a few changes to the script for the portable Relto Linking Book. As before, when you use the book in Tamriel (or any non-Relto location), it will Link you to Relto. Now, it will save that location you Linked from. Then, if you use the book again while in Relto, it will return you to that location. This was done for convenience (so that the player does not have to travel back to where they Linked from upon returning to Skyrim), and also as a safeguard (in case the player Links on accident while in a place they cannot return to normally). Another new rule is that the player will only be Linked to Relto upon reading the book if they have a Relto book in their inventory. This way, if the player accidentally drops the book, they will be able to pick it back up without it linking them away before they can (since Skyrim forces the player to read books that are sitting out in the world).
I'm actually still trying to make a better safeguard for that but I'm not a scripting expert by any means :D

I also have some ideas for little hidden puzzles that might be part of Relto Island, but I won't say anything else about that for now because 1)  I want them to be difficult to discover and 2) I have no idea if I have the ability to do these puzzles the way I envision. So for now, they are entirely conceptual.

Happy Exploring!
Katelin

Relto Pages Video

Here is a video to show how Relto pages work:

I assume the text I put in the video is probably blurred to high heaven so here's the (more detailed) info: I'll be making lots of Relto Pages and hiding them throughout Skyrim. When you read a page for the first time, it adds the items for that page to Relto, which weren't there initially. In the video, the Blacksmithing page adds a forge, smelter, and other items to a previously empty area. You can read it again if you don't like the items to turn them off (not shown in the video); then later if you decide you want them back, you can read it again to turn them back on, and so on. Currently, it's set up so that the Relto Pages cannot be activated while in Relto so that players don't accidentally activate something where they are standing, which might kill them.

Happy Exploring!
Katelin