So, what are you working on right now?

[JackFarmer]

A leap back in time to Abby of St. Adrian in 2017:

Fast forward, Abby of St. Adrian, 2025:

The statues with the battle axes left and right are monuments commemorating St. Adrian. He is one of the great martyrs of my Builder movement and was known for his cruelty, especially towards the Undead. Truly, a daredevil!

Finally finished with Mission 1. Mission 2 will revolve around the pagans. I will only use certain motifs from that section in HHI and reinvent the rest...let the battle of the patches begin!

Edited December 30, 2025 by JackFarmer

[Cambridge Spy]

Definitely a vast improvement.

[Bikerdude]

On 12/30/2025 at 9:42 AM, JackFarmer said:

A leap back in time to Abby of St. Adrian in 2017:

Just some feedback on those windows, IRL single glass panes of that size would collapse. You would need way more support/s and much smaller panes.

Edited January 18 by Bikerdude

[JackFarmer]

1 hour ago, Bikerdude said:

Just some feedback on those windows, IRL single glass panes of that size would collapse. You will way more support/s and much smaller panes.

...and so the world breathed a sigh of relief in 2017 when I decided to quit my job as an architect!

[JackFarmer]

...deep in the forest on Blackstone Island:

For this forest area, I once again used dragofer's skybox from “Down by The Riverside.” I bordered many of the “outdoor spaces” with prefabs consisting of two-story cascades of vertical patches (rocks) with horizontal patches (forest floor) on top. This can be seen in the background of the second picture. Here and there, I positioned large boulders above the second level. I also had to place the latter at many room transitions to break up the view list.  Here and there are large ruined facades, behind which you can at least make good use of the hide_distance function. I'm now back down to 2,500 DCs in the long, open passages.

I often wonder how the developers of Skyrim and similar games with these open worlds actually do it. It's all a mystery to me.

However, I think the worst part of this project is now behind me, as the rest of this mission will take place underground and the third mission will be my interpretation of Cragscleft from Dark Project, which, as we all know, begins in a lake (yes, there are even lakes on islands, I have looked it up) surrounded by high clifs and then immediately goes into the mountain...

 

[jaxa]

18 hours ago, JackFarmer said:

I often wonder how the developers of Skyrim and similar games with these open worlds actually do it. It's all a mystery to me.

I've heard that Gamebryo/Creation Engine used in Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim is optimized for making it very fast and easy for artists/designers to drop in and arrange assets. And you could experience that yourself by using the Construction Kits.

Bethesda was among the first to license SpeedTree for generating foliage (for Oblivion): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpeedTree

[datiswous]

On 1/18/2026 at 2:27 PM, JackFarmer said:

...and so the world breathed a sigh of relief in 2017 when I decided to quit my job as an architect!

What are you doing now?

[chakkman]

Professional TDM fan mission designer.  

[Petike the Taffer]

Something I started preparing back on Saturday evening, just a few days ago. 

This is largelly something of a practice exercise, but I do plan to incorporate it into one of my FMs.

A town hall (or city hall) buidling. It's based on a real world building and I'm trying to make it as similar as possible.

You can guess which real world building I've used as a very direct source of inspiration. I'll only reveal it goes back to 1505.

[Geep]

This is an invitation for anyone fluent in a non-English but TDM-supported language to review in the next 4-5 weeks how well AI LLM did in translating a small mission into your language. Details and link just posted at...

Thanks!

[Geep]

On 2/3/2026 at 1:56 PM, Petike the Taffer said:

You can guess which real world building I've used as a very direct source of inspiration. I'll only reveal it goes back to 1505.

Google will give it away with "Famous Slovakian building from 1505" 

[Petike the Taffer]

On 2/12/2026 at 11:24 PM, Geep said:

Google will give it away with "Famous Slovakian building from 1505" 

Specifically, it's the city hall in the middle of the central square in the Old Town section of Bardejov, in east Slovakia.

Part of the local UNESCO World Heritage site, consisting of the Old Town and its beyond-the-walls, adjacent historical suburbs.

"Corbin, be reasonable. Stay out of this. You can't fight city hall..." "You're right. Of course not. It's a building..."  

[grodenglaive]

Mission 2 is getting closer. Just added some moon beams to the church window. They are actually parallel - the camera perspective makes them look fanned out.

[datiswous]

On 10/28/2025 at 1:34 PM, ERH+ said:

I have a bunch of weird things like that, but they collect dust in a drawer. It is time to make some use of it. I will try to keep it small and finally release something.

How is that going @ERH+?

[Bikerdude]

So while doing a minor cleanup of my FM's folder I came across this little gem, that's clearly been on my to-do list - 

"Tea Table by (c. 1907) Designed by Carlo Bugatti (Italian, 1856-1940)

CC0 Public Domain - https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/199145-table-and-tea-service-475426f525de4a55a4ba5540ea0fbdd1"

I think the original model uses PBR textures, as is it looks like its made from bone but should be reflective metallic.

Edited April 1 by Bikerdude

[JackFarmer]

@Bikerdude

I really could make good use of these four objects in the pagan level in my next campaign:

[joebarnin]

1 hour ago, JackFarmer said:

my next campaign

Yes! I like the sound of that!

[Bikerdude]

5 hours ago, JackFarmer said:

@Bikerdude

I really could make good use of these four objects in the pagan level in my next campaign:

As they are, or with a metallic look as per the original CCO asset..?

[Wellingtoncrab]

@Bikerdude 180,000k triangles with tons of curves and mesh detail? No offense and I hope you succeed but doesn’t look like it is going to be easy to make practical for the game and I know some others have already tried with this exact scan.

[Bikerdude]

56 minutes ago, Wellingtoncrab said:

@Bikerdude 180,000k triangles with tons of curves and mesh detail? No offense and I hope you succeed but doesn’t look like it is going to be easy to make practical for the game and I know some others have already tried with this exact scan.

Yeah the table is the worst offender.

[Wellingtoncrab]

I don’t know man - these are also pretty dense. It’s easier to picture the low poly, but still looks like a total remesh with new uvs and then rebaking everything to me.

[Bikerdude]

So tried a simple decimate, 65k down to 6k in 2 steps, doesn’t look to shabby imho - 
 

Edited March 29 by Bikerdude

[Arcturus]

You can add shadow mesh with even less polygons.

[Bikerdude]

Just now, Arcturus said:

You can add shadow mesh with even less polygons.

Indeed, I will try to do just that.

[Bikerdude]

9 minutes ago, Arcturus said:

You can add shadow mesh with even less polygons.

Smesh is 1.6k