Project status: On hold
First initiated: 11/28/05
Last known update: 01/28/06
Progress: 15% complete

Background info

The Burmecians In Morrowind project was started in order to bring Burmecians out of FFIX and into the video gaming world at large. Specifically, this project seeks to introduce Burmecians as a new race into The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind (TES: Morrowind, or just Morrowind). This will require, at least, the creation of a set of meshes for the race, a set of textures to "wrap around" the meshes, and the accompanying work in the TES Construction Set (TES: CS or CS).

Burmecians, Cleyrans, and their kin are, collectively, are a race of rat-like demihumans appearing in Final Fantasy IX. This race, although making up a major fraction of the population of the FFIX planet, was largely relegated to a supporting role in that game. This despite that one of its members, the illustrious Freya Crescent, was a player character. Square-Enix has elected not to make use of the Burmecians in their products following FFIX-the Final Fantasy series is known for creating an entirely new world with each revision of the series, but very often those worlds have references to the other games in the series. No product beyond FFIX makes significant reference to Burmecians or Freya Crescent. Furthermore, the Burmecian presence on the collective mod scene for other video games is minimal at best: some work has possibly been done for Neverwinter Nights, and some work has been done for the Civilization series, but there is little beyond these scant few offerings.

TES: Morrowind was chosen for this project because it offers the best modding platform by which to bring Burmecians into another fantasy world. The TES: CS is relatively easy to use, coming packaged with the framework needed to create a "plugin" (a Morrowind mod) that will introduce the race to the Morrowind system, to be used as any other of the game's races. The CS offers a highly adaptable drop-in interface that will spare us the need to create animations, models, dialog, and so on for each individual Burmecian, instead allowing for a race to be created on the whole, and individual members modified as needed to create expressive and memorable NPCs. Better still, the CS comes with the framework for digitigrade races such as Burmecians, allowing for a still more faithful reproduction without requiring overwhelming effort. Further, we intend to allow the player to create a Burmecian player character, one having familiar skills and attributes to those exhibited in FFIX.

The BIM project seeks to integrate the Burmecians into Morrowind on a similar scale to that accomplished with the well-known Mog Mod. This is a rather tall order, as that mod and its add-on mods have included an entirely new playable race, weapons, armor, quests, and even moogle mercenaries; the Mog Mod and its subsequent revisions and inclusions have established moogles as a noteworthy presence in the Morrowind mod scene. And as far as we know, the BIM project is currently the largest collective effort to bring Burmecians into another game. In order to accomplish this "port", we intend, at a minimum, to produce each of the following:

• Models of the Burmecian race. These will be 3D meshes in the .NIF format used by Morrowind. The models will be as faithful as possible to those used to represent Burmecians in FFIX. Attempts will be made to make these models compatible with other popular Morrowind plugins.

• Textures to be wrapped around the meshes. These .DDS format images make up the "skin" and fine details of the models. We intend at first to include the standard "blue" or "grey" Burmecian seen in FFIX; Morrowind will allow for simple and streamlined integration of other possible colors.

• A plugin file in the .ESP or .ESM format. This contains the necessary information to allow Burmecians to appear in Morrowind. The minimum requirements here are: a player should be able to create a Burmecian PC with according skills and attributes; and any player character should be able to interact with any Burmecian NPC that may be later included in a manner similar to that of NPCs of other races.

Morrowind allows for a much richer level of interaction than that put forth by the points above, however. Later project revisions may include:

• Burmecian classes. PCs and NPCs in Morrowind have a "class" (similar to a "job" or "class" in Final Fantasy) that defines the types of skills and attributes they favor. Familiar Burmecian classes-e.g. Dragoon-may be created.

• Weapons. In FFIX, Freya uses a variety of spears as weapons. These, in addition to fan-created Burmecian weaponry, may find their way into future releases.

• Burmecian sub-races. In Morrowind there exist over-races with similar features-e.g. Humans, who all share features that make them similar to real humans, and Elves, who all more or less are similar to the standard fantasy elf. These over-races are further divided into sub-races. Humans, for instance, are divided into several races based on common physical and social features and, more telling, geographical origins: Redguards have dark skin, an independent temperament, and are geographically associated with the Hammerfell region of the game's nation of Tamriel; Nords are a fair-skinned, aggressive people usually associated with the wintry Skyrim region. In a similar vein, Burmecians as a race can be divided into at least two sub-races: Burmecians and Cleyrans. The former hail from a swampy region of the FFIX game world and are thought of as fair war-hawks; the latter are grouped into a small desert community, where they carry out their peaceable protest of the Burmecian warrior-state. The initial plugin will include the bellicose Burmecians, but further revisions may include the magically-oriented Cleyrans, and possibly fan-created sub-races.

Images and files

Concept art by Dame Freya

Early weapon model of Freya's spear
Early weapon model of Fratley's polearm

Both of the above weapons are in their Version 1 form and will be improved upon before release.

Prototype Burmy head and ear in progress
Prototype Burmy head with texture applied
Finished Burmy tail
Finished Burmy ears

Burmy head MKII
Burmy head MKII showing the wireframe

Burmecian hands test concept with modded hand on the left
Burmecian armor WIP
Burmecian sword model

More images and information will be produced as the project grows. If you would like to contribute to the BIM project or provide us with suggestions, please contact any member of the team below.

BIM Team Members

Agent 47 - Meshes and textures. Created the prototype Burmecian head. First person to tackle the BIM project.

Midnight - Meshes and textures. Created the prototype Burmecian tail.

Wilson - Meshes, plugins, and scripts. Also the technical writer for the BIM project.

Dame Freya - Concept art for the BIM project. May expand her role into meshes and textures if time allows.

LancerZero - Testing, testing, and also testing.

Nivalis - Meshes, textures and project assistance.

Job openings

The BIM project is looking for an animator with the skills and software needed to apply the base Morrowind animations to a biped model.

If interested, please contact Nivalis or Declan with the following details:
- Your name
- Any previous work
- A short description of yourself and why we should hire you
- A piece of work to show us your skill