Leafy Morrowind Readme
======================

Version:  1.0
Author:  Max

In Tribute To
=============

To my wonderful wife, without whom no game would be worth playing.  

What is Leafy Morrowind?
========================

Leafy Morrowind is the second phase of an overly ambitious, insanely large project called 'A Tale of Twelve Houses', set one thousand years after the defeat of Dagoth Ur.  Vardenfel has changed a great deal in those one thousand years, with formerly nasty ashlands and lava flows being replaced by verdant greenery and lush forests following the dormancy of Red Mountain.

To avoid the 'WIP is another name for vaporware' syndrome, and in recognition that this project will most likely never see completion, I decided to do 'A Tale of Twelve Houses' in stages, starting with those that are compatible with the regular Morrowind game.  That means that even if the project is abandoned at least some useful bits will come of it, both to players and to modders.

Leafy Morrowind picks up where Green Morrowind left off, replacing nearly all of the Morrowind trees with player-made models.  If you want to know what was done with Green Morrowind, the readme for that phase has been included in this zip file.

What Exactly Was Done In Leafy Morrowind?
=========================================

All of the trees and tree-like objects in Vardenfel have been replaced with player-made models, with the exception of those in the Bitter Coast.  No player-made models were available which were 'swampy' enough to look right in the Bitter Coast area, so the original Morrowind trees were retained here.  But that isn't a bad thing, as the Bitter Coast trees are actually pretty nicely constructed.

For those counting, this means that approximately ten THOUSAND objects were replaced, modified, or deleted, in addition to the thousands already modified in Green Morrowind.  The project was far too large for a single person to attempt, and I think clear evidence that I'm not running on all thrusters.

In addition, a large number of texturing 'errors' were corrected along the way (those not caught when I did Green Morrowind), as well as adjustments to rocks, plants, ferns, etc.  I also turned off the ash storm weather conditions.

How Do I Install This Mod
=========================

Unzip the file you downloaded to your /morrowind/data directory.  *NOT* your /morrowind directory, but your morrowind/data directory.  Make sure you check the 'Leafy Morrowind.esp' file the next time you start your game and you're off to the races.

I Hate Your Mod!  How Do I Uninstall It?
========================================

Well, you unappreciative lout, it's rather simple.  Aside from unchecking the .esp file the next time you start up Morrowind, you need to delete the followind .dds files from your /data/textures folder:

TX_ashlands_04.dds
TX_ashlands_06.dds
TX_ashlands_07.dds
TX_ashlands_08.dds
TX_MA_crackedearth.dds
TX_MA_lava.dds
TX_MA_lava02.dds
TX_MA_lava03.dds
TX_MA_lava04.dds
TX_MA_lava05.dds
TX_MA_lava06.dds
TX_MA_lava07.dds
TX_MA_lavacrust.dds
TX_MA_lavaflow.dds
TX_MA_lavarock.dds
TX_MA_rock04.dds
TX_MA_sulphur_rock01.dds
TX_MA_sulphur_rock02.dds
TX_MA_sulphur_rock03.dds
TX_MA_sulphur_rock05.dds
TX_MA_sulphur_rock06.dds
TX_MA_sulphur_rock07.dds
TX_MA_sulphur_rock08.dds
TX_MA_sulphur_rock09.dds
TX_MA_rock_02.dds


This will remove all of the changes I made and restore your nasty grey and black landscape.  At least it did for me and worked just fine; I make NO GUARANTEES it'll do the same for you.  If something gets screwed up don't go crying to me because I won't help you; you should've backed up your save beforehand and avoided the hand-wringing.

You did back up, didn't you?

What Does This Mod Conflict With?
================================

Unlike Green Morrowind, Leafy Morrowind required moving a number of trees some small distance from their start locations in order to avoid 'bunching' or occlusion with other objects.  This should have little affect on the normal Morrowind game; however, it's possible that you might find a tree growing out of your favorite house mod, or that a new NPC is now stuck inside a tree.  This could either be insanely hilarious or annoying, depending on your point of view.  Also, although none of the trees in the game occlude random encounter ninja monkeys and so won't affect newly generated creatures, 'old' creatures in save games wander - and might now be stuck in trees, at least until the game removes them and generates new random creatures.

You can fix any normal Morrowind NPC and most player-created NPCs with a simple console command:

- open the console (hit the ~ key on the keyboard)
- in the console type:  ra.  This stands for 'reset actors', and will move NPCs back to their start positions.
- close the console by hitting the ~ key a second time.

If a mod puts the start position of an NPC in the exact same place as a tree, this obviously won't work.  You can, however, disable any tree via the console and that will solve the problem (by erasing the tree from the game).

It's possible that if you aren't starting a new game your character might be in just the wrong spot when you load up this mod, and she will end up in a tree.  In that case you can either:

- unload the mod, load up the game, move out of the way, then load up the mod
- use the no clipping command to get out of the tree (tcl)
- or use the command:  fixme  in the console, which will move your character out of the tree.

The 'reset actors' command won't work for creatures, only for NPCs.  That means that if you find a creature 'stuck' in a tree either you'll have to wait for the game to regenerate creatures for that particular cell, or you can just kill the creature yourself and use 'dispose of corpse' to get rid of it.

Finally, some mods put down new ninja monkeys in Morrowind.  It's possible that some of these ninja monkeys will now be in trees, which means that newly generated creatures resulting from these mods might end up stuck no matter what.  Again, you can fix this just by deleting the tree via the console.

What Kind of Bugs Are in the Mod?
=================================

If you want a full report on texturing, be sure to read the 'Green Morrowind' readme included in this zip file.

For the trees themselves, the most likely error you might encounter is the 'floating tree'.  For reasons beyond this mortal's ken, every single replacement tree regardless of size or collision area ended up floating some distance over it's replacement spot.  Which meant that I had to position each and every tree in the game *by hand*.  Yep, all ten thousand plus objects, every single one done by hand.  I told you there was a screw loose someplace.

In any event, although I visited every freakin' cell in Vardenfel with a test character looking for mistakes, I found a grand total of just three 'floaters' I failed to position properly.  Now it beggars the imagination that of ten thousand trees I managed to miss only three; there just have to be more around.  Unfortunately, I didn't find them.  

The easiest way to deal with a floating tree is just to disable it via the console and forget about it.  You could correct it the in CS itself if you like, but there's hardly any point.

Any Non-Bugs I Should Know About?
=================================

Yes indeed, there are.  The first is simple:  I tried, in most areas, to leave enough separation between various trees so that creatures could effectively chase after you without getting confused.  I say, in *most* areas, not all.  This seemed to work okay for me, with the creatures dodging through thickets without much problem.

The exception to this was flying creatures.  Flyers have a heck of a time with dense tree cover and will often get stuck on branches.  Due to poor pathing they rarely manage to correct themselves and end up sitting ducks for missile fire or magic.  This means that the savvy player can dodge underneath a tree, let a flyer get stuck, then pepper it with missiles without fear of retaliation.  Cliff racers and gasbags are now much less threatening to low-level characters.

On the other hand, the trees themselves can in certain places act as cover for other creatures.  In the normal Morrowind game there's no chance of being ambushed since you can see long distances in all directions; the same is not true for Leafy Morrowind.  It's quite possible for a creature to be hidden by tree trunks, only to jump out and ambush you just when you think the coast is clear.  This happened to me several times when I was running around looking for mistakes; the first time the creature was on me from behind before the combat music started (an alit) and I literally jumped out of my seat.  It's one of the few times I've ever been startled or surprised in Morrowind.  I think this makes the game more interesting, but you might view being ambushed by something large and hungry in another light.

While I tried to put enough distance between trees for all the creatures in Morrowind to navigate them, it's possible that creatures from some mods (e.g., Giants) will be too large to move through some areas.  Nothing I can do about that.

Also, if you're a player who likes to cheat, er, fly about Morrowind, you'll find that tree cover makes the ground impossible to see in a number of areas.  This is especially true around bandit strongholds/sixth house bases/whatever, as most of these had trees right around their entrances.  The normal Morrowind trees don't mask the entrances but the player-made ones do.  So if you are one of these no-good cheatin' types you'll find locating an object on the ground to be a challenge.

Finally, Leafy Morrowind vastly changes the terrain in Red Mountain, the Ashlands, and the Molag Amur.  While Red Mountain is pretty constricted, some part of the Ashlands and all of the Molag Amur are not.  What this means is, well, do you remember how easy it was to get lost in the Molag Amur when you first played the game?  Think that, only worse.  It's darned easy to lose your way and not have a bloody clue where you are.  I found it considerable harder to keep my bearings in the Molag Amur than I did in regular Morrowind, in part because the trees are denser and in part because the land is so completely transformed all of the old 'landmarks' either no longer exist or can't be seen.

Where Do I Send Bug Reports?
============================

Thanks, but I don't want any bug reports.  If something is just killing ya, fire up the editor and make the adjustment yourself.  It's very easy to do and I can't really see why I should do it when you can do it on your own.  If this offends you in some incomprehensible way, remember that you get what you pay for.

Where Do I Send Complaints?
===========================

Send all complaints to /dev/null.  Unfortunately this only works for Linux users; those of you enslaved to Microsoft will have to use Billy G's equivalent, the 'Recycle Bin'.

Seriously, if you want to complain don't bother me about it.  I am not your whipping boy, your employee, your serf, your personal tech support, or your slave.  I owe you *nothing*, and that includes my time.  If you ignore my wishes and send me email with a complaint, criticism, or a demand for aid I'll just delete it and add you to my banned list.

Anything a Modder Should Know?
==============================

Yes.  Don't ever try to replace all of the trees yourself.  It's a very stupid thing to do.  Only a died-in-the-wool masochist or a complete idiot would ever take on a project of this nature solo.  

How Was This Mod Created?  (Only of interest to modders)
========================================================

Again, read the 'Green Morrowind' readme to see the notes on retexturing.

For the trees, one of the hardest parts was initially selecting which ones I'd use for the project.  After searching every mod database I could find, I settled on sets by LadyE, JDooby, Drakus, and N'Dib, all retextured or altered by Ayse.  Not that there weren't other nice trees, but all of these artists had done large sets, and I needed sets, not singles.

After this initial selection I quickly realized that although all of the trees are very well done and look quite nice within sets, they couldn't be mixed between sets.  That is, if you plop down trees from each artist in the same area the mix looks terrible.  So, only the trees from a single artist could be in any one area.  At that point I had to choose which of the sets would be most appropriate for the mod, and that was tough.

In the end I went with JDooby's trees, primarily because he had the largest and most varied set, and because his trees were the closest to the original Morrowind textures.  The exception to this was in the Grazelands, which are entirely composed of Drakus' trees to make the Grazelands stand out as a unique area in Vardenfel.  I need to stress here that LadyE's and N'Dib's trees were just as well done, but in comparison to JDooby's they were too noticeable.  I wanted trees that blended with Morrowind, not trees that distracted the player.  I would also have liked to use more of Drakus' trees but the leaf coverage of his models is immense and can only be properly positioned in open, flat areas; anywhere else and they clip through everything.

For the modder this is actually a good thing.  Because LadyE's and N'Dibs trees are distinctly noticeable, they can be used as landmarks or to compose special areas which a player will be hard put to miss.  An example:  if the player is given directions to head east through a forest in the Molag Amur until she reaches a gnarled old oak, you can toss down one of N'Dibs trees in the middle of that forest and the player, upon reaching it, will immediately think 'aha!  that must be the old oak that decrepit Dunmer fool was talking about!'.  Or if a player is told to go west through the Ashlands until she reaches the Silver Wood (or whatever), you can construct a forest of LadyE's trees and the player will know that this must be the Silver Wood she was told about, since it's distinctly different from the other forests she's seen.

At least, this is how I plan to use LadyE's and N'Dib's trees in my own mod.

After the selection came replacement, and I started with the Ascadian Isle region.  After two false starts I hit upon a replacement method which was both methodical and boring, yet had the most chance of catching errors.  What I didn't really realize, until I finished the Ascadian Isles and did the Western Gash, is that you not only can't mix trees from different sets, you can't put lots of different trees from the same set in the same area.  If you heterogenously mix trees it looks, from a player perspective, like you just amateurishly threw down random trees as you went, without regard to how anything looked.  This is exactly what I *didn't* do, but because I didn't fully comprehend this fact until the Western Gash the Ascadian Isles are plagued by this very heterogeneity.  I intend to redo the Ascadian Isles in the next phase of the project, but for now you just have to live with it.

This isn't to say that you can't use a wide variety of trees.  What it means that you can't use a wide variety of trees *in the same area*.  You could, for instance, use two or three 'Ascadian Isle' tree types in and around Vivec and things will look nice, then switch to two or three *other* Ascadian Isle tree types in the Pelagiad/Suran region.  Regional heterogeneity is fine, but for best effect you need to practice local homogeneity.  I believe I got this right when it came to the rest of the project, especially with the Molag Amur.  I used to hate the Molag Amur and now I love it; I spent hours just running around looking at the difference in this area (well, and getting lost - I did a lot of that as well).

After all of this I replaced the trees, cell by cell, over and over again.  First one 'Western Gash' tree type, for every WG cell; then another WG tree type, for all the cells again, etc. etc. etc.  Dear lord, but I nearly died of boredom.  And I swear I will never do anything like this again unless I'm getting paid *very* well.

How Long Did It Take?
=====================

Much longer than I thought it would.  Much, much longer.  Way too long.  Too long!  Too long!  Fire!  Fire!

Will You Do Anything Else With This Mod?
========================================

Assuming the medication kicks in, the third phase in the project is 'Forested Morrowind'.  This takes 'Leafy Morrowind' one step farther by putting forests down in various places around Vardenfel.  'Forested Morrowind' will also be compatible with the regular Morrowind game.

Files Changed
=============

See the 'Green Morrowind' readme.  Apart from that, all of the trees except those in the Bitter Coast were replaced by player-made trees, as were all of the giant mushrooms outside of the Sheograd/Azura's Coast area.  Original game files weren't changed; others were added.

Credits
=======

Credit goes to Jdooby, Drakus and Ayse for the trees you see in the game.  LadyE's and N'Dibs trees aren't in the game, but are included in the mod for use by modders.  Also included is a plant set by N'Dib which I ultimately ended up not using, but is quite nice.  You can find their work at:

jdooby
http://thelys.free.fr/jdooby.htm

Frederick Nicholas Zazulka  (Dracus Dragani)
Morrowind Dimesions http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~fzazulka

Lady Eternity's Mod Resource 
http://www.proudfootimaging.com/ladye/

Eric Henry (Brillo / N'Dib)
N'Dib's Twilight http://cu.imt.net/~ehenry/mods/ndib/

ayse_morrowind@hotmail.com
http://freett.com/varvarvar/


Copyright
=========

The tree models are copyrighted by their creators.  N'Dib has released his models under the Creative Commons copyright, which you can view at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/1.0/.

As for the mod itself, there is no copyright.  Since I included no original material of my own of any kind, but rather just rearranged what others had done, so far as I'm concerned there's nothing to copyright.  Therefore I'm releasing the mod itself into the public domain.

If you use the mod you don't have to give me any credit.  I don't really care one way or another.  If you claim the work as your own and I find out about it I might decide to make a fool out of you on a public forum, but other than that you have nothing to fear.

While you don't have to give me any credit, you do have to give the tree modelers credit just as I've done above.  That's the only catch to using this mod - just give the extremely talented modelers their props and all will be well.

Finis.
 


