[WIP] Azjol'Nerub

[Allifeur]

Hello everybody !

I do not post a lot of Show-Offs here, this has to change ! So I decided to post some of my last works ( even if I don't work regularly ).

This Show-Off is about Azjol'Nerub, not as an instance, but as a whole aera. This is far from being done, but I will update this post as often as possible, this could at least give you an idea of the atmosphere.


#1 : 15th January 2014

This first part is about the sundered monolith, the fortress where live the tribe Azjol-Anak, last nerubians to fully fight against lich king army from the underground. Even if they do not like strangers from the surface, they are wise enough to understand that they can't beat undeads with their small army, that's why they tolerate some help. (But those who are not strong enough will be eaten).
The fortress is divided in 5 levels, the stronger you are, the deeper you go.
The level -1 is reserved to soldiers and to people from the surface.
Level -2 to -4 are for workers.
Level -5 is for viziers and lords.
Level -6 is for the queen.

Now that you have this little lore-preparation, let's put screenschots !

The entrance of the area








The Inn








Another building





It's not easy to see with distance, but the floor is full of spider. But do not crush them ! Spider is a sacred animal here, if you touch one, you'll get into troubles !



There are webs everywhere, but most of them are not used in order to catch bugs : There as used in order to travel faster, that's why there are everywhere, even at the roof of the cavern.



Some places around the monolith.











Let's go deeper now, at the -2 level, where some jormungars are trained, where some workers are mining, with some eggs of low species.







Deeper again !



Level - 3, were cristals are mined. They are used as a protection against undeads, they are able to attack them after being enchanted at level -5. At the natural state, those cristals shine when living humanoïds are next to them.





Then, Level -4. There are two windows in the tunnel going there used at as strategic points of view capable of seeing the majority of the place. In Azjol'Nerub, enemies can emerge from everywhere at anytime, so it's always necessary to have nerubians keeping the place. This level is by far one of the most important one, it's the one where the food is stocked, and there are not a lot of it : Because of the Scourge, most of the surrounding animals are now undeads. All nerubians from the monolith, and mainly workers, go there in order to eat.





The view from one of the windows

Closer...


Yet there is still a part of the cave which is hard to see from the windows. ( it's better to have some when you want to make quests )


At every food stock, there are packs of nerubians eating savagely




Windows, when you see them from the other direction.


The tunnel going to the next level.


Azjol'Nerub being an underground area, I wanted it to have several places over the other zones. But I can't make two floor at the same time, so I make them with legos and WMOs : Textures are only for the most important places, and they are also the ones that ask me the more time at the creation (80% of my working time is about ground texturing...). Those are secret places with well hidden entrances made for adventurous players.

This one is broodmother cave.

She is an enormous spider blocked in this cave and she has been making eggs for centuries. She only gives birth to non-nerubian species, but though, you should better not kill her.. Or even go close to her.

All her eggs are under the web. When they are grown-up, spiders come back here and give some food to their mother, isn't that cute ? Here, have a part of the tunnel we have to take in order to join the mother.


Another secret room, a lost nerubian mausoleum

A cool place in order to fight a corrupted vizier.


What is following WILL CHANGE a lot.
I reskined a dwarf tunnel for the next tunnel. I still have to change the doodads and turn the light to blue.


I started to work on a new mountain style that I like : I guess I will reuse it for the other parts of Azjol'Nerub. I will also use the mountain style of the level -4 in colder areas.

Other things from this stage are not good enough yet; but this level will be way more bigger than the previous ones.

Another element : a custom WMO (firstly made with lego-work) that will be used later.



I hope you liked it !

[Augury13]

Nice man! looks like a butt ton of work! +repps

[Allifeur]

Thank you ! It sures asks a lot of time to make that, and being very perfectionnist I put a lot of works in details that you'll never ever see. ^^
Plus there are all the work that can't been seen here, about lore, technical issues, etc.. I even made a nerubian dictionnary.

While I'm at it, for those who would like to know : I do not sell this map; it was made for the french server Shadow-Storm.

[spoutnik]

This is really beautiful !

[Allifeur]

Thanks you ! But I think that the most beautiful parts are not made yet. Before ever starting to make the area, I had a big amount of mental pictures or sometimes real pictures that I wanted to make real, and yet I didn't made so much of them.

For instance, the little tunnels from the first underground are inspired from this concept art :


(which looks like this place for instance : http://imageshack.us/a/img31/7109/dgy8.jpg )

There will be other caves like that, and one of them should look more like the one of the picture. I don't know if there will be murlocs though.
As you can see, the result is always different from the model, and that's also the interesting part : Even if I'm perfectionnist, I don't want it to look like exactly like in my imagination : I like to see the difference from what I wanted and the final result : sometimes it makes something even better than what I expected. It allows me to discover it myself and to see it with the player's eye and have a better judgement.

I already imagine several landscapes, like a big mushroom forest in a very deep cave and a hight roof with gosth bats flying all the way around, bridges from platforms stuck with webs, nerubian cities, destroyed places (because of the faceless ones); or a cold aera; a magmatic aera with a big volcano in the center and a red-nerubian civilization ! And so on. I already have a precise image of what I want for those, I'm sure it will be awesome.

There are a lot of concepts arts that I would love to be able to reproduce in game, like this one for instance :


But who knows what it will become ? The only thing I can say, it's that it'll be awesome ! More awesome that what I showed you.

[MrCaju]

Very cool! Looks like the entire thing can fall over your head and then the nerubians would come out to eat your head haha

There is any chance of having an underground underwater zone with lots of tiny suffocant caverns to explore?

[Allifeur]

There is any chance of having an underground underwater zone with lots of tiny suffocant caverns to explore?

Well why not, I don't know exactly where I will put it, but I do think that there will have one someday, maybe near the the mushroom swamp (So I could start it after I finish the monolith). I don't have so much time to work on the map these days, but I hope I could do it soon. I don't think it will be something big, just some caverns. There are not so much things we could do there, and I don't want to make a pure copy of Vashj'ir. Even if there are some objects from there that could be interesting, those for instance :


[ Blizzard's map, not mine !]

That would end up like that... maybe... With more glow-worms.



At Azjol, they are supposed to be water tables. I don't know what kind of creatures would live there yet, but I don't think I should put to much things, like if it was the sea. Maybe you have some ideas ?

[MrCaju]

At Azjol, they are supposed to be water tables. I don't know what kind of creatures would live there yet, but I don't think I should put to much things, like if it was the sea. Maybe you have some ideas ?

Hell yeah! I am not a native english speaker so let's see if my vocabulary can do it.

Personally I think that water can give a lot of diverse atmospheres. My first idea was to caves that need to be swum below to access different ground areas and since I don't know if the nerubians can really swim, these areas would probably be used as a refugee for other inteligent species seeking safety from the spiders of the undeads (murlocs and shit) or even as separate spaces dedicated to act as sacred shrines or something.

like this

ty Bob Nieboer

And that could go on foverer with a single stream of water having multiples grottos like and the grottos would have they own grottos.

But don't forget that we are underground, so the roof could be sometimes very close to the water (same as the walls) and it could sometimes be further so we can create a very wide space.

Like this one and the other one.




Finally I feel that to avoid the same dark theme with shiny crystals and mushrooms, there will be this one large area without a roof so that the sunlight could hit it directly and so a more verdant vegetations could be formed and a lot of waterfalls much like the Heart of River in Schozalar Basin.



Made a map to be more practical

[Allifeur]

Ok I see what you want. (I'm not an native english speaker eather, so I don't mind if you don't express your ideas well)

This could be cool, but, as you described it, it would not fit so much Azjol'Nerub, I don't want to make something that has nothing to do with the global theme of the map. Like abandonning mushrooms and stuff ?! Never ! xD The same goes with the sun, it would be quite difficult for some technical issues, or at least logical issues, I can't do it at Azjol'Nerub which is very deep in the ground. If I do it, I would betray the spirit of the map and this is not what I want.

But I like the idea of a roof close to the water though. Thank you for your nice pictures. I could try to reproduce some of the things I like, but I will do it with the Azjol's way : The sun will be maybe replaced by a big crystal or some lighting eggs ? The render will be different of course, but this is part of the fun about creation.

Sorry if you wanted some more accurate caverns, but I can't change the artistic rule of the area on a whim.

[SwordOfTruth]

Allifeur, mushrooms can grow in the absolute darkness. They are not plants and they have nothing to do with sun light

MrCaju, can I contact you somehow? I have a suggestion for you. The conversation won't take you long.

[Allifeur]

Allifeur, mushrooms can grow in the absolute darkness. They are not plants and they have nothing to do with sun light

Yeah, I know that. Maybe I was not very clear in what I said, but I never wanted sun light anywhere in Azjol'Nerub in the first place. When I talk about light, it's mostly for player in fact, because I like when people are able to see the map. It wouldn't be that much interesting if all you were able to see was obscurity.

[MrCaju]

Allifeur, mushrooms can grow in the absolute darkness. They are not plants and they have nothing to do with sun light

MrCaju, can I contact you somehow? I have a suggestion for you. The conversation won't take you long.

Sure, pal. Although I havent had much time lately I'm anxious to see how Azjol'Nerub will ending look like!

Ok I see what you want. (I'm not an native english speaker eather, so I don't mind if you don't express your ideas well)

This could be cool, but, as you described it, it would not fit so much Azjol'Nerub, I don't want to make something that has nothing to do with the global theme of the map. Like abandonning mushrooms and stuff ?! Never ! xD The same goes with the sun, it would be quite difficult for some technical issues, or at least logical issues, I can't do it at Azjol'Nerub which is very deep in the ground. If I do it, I would betray the spirit of the map and this is not what I want.

But I like the idea of a roof close to the water though. Thank you for your nice pictures. I could try to reproduce some of the things I like, but I will do it with the Azjol's way : The sun will be maybe replaced by a big crystal or some lighting eggs ? The render will be different of course, but this is part of the fun about creation.

Sorry if you wanted some more accurate caverns, but I can't change the artistic rule of the area on a whim.

I admit I've been thinking and thiswould look better in a context of more generic underground area (could look AWESOME in Skyrim I guess )

[SwordOfTruth]

Sure, pal. Although I havent had much time lately I'm anxious to see how Azjol'Nerub will ending look like!



I admit I've been thinking and thiswould look better in a context of more generic underground area (could look AWESOME in Skyrim I guess )

So, can I contact you on skype, icq or anything else?

[swot]

Will u add the faceless? Or not?

[Allifeur]

Will u add the faceless? Or not?

Of course I will, they are part of the modern nerubian lore ! During the spider war, the nerubians digged too deeply and liberated the faceless ones, so there will be a whole destroyed nerubian city with only faceless. Though I don't know yet if I will make another part under Azjol'Nerub itself. (Because there are two other bigs levels under it, with only faceless)

Though, as I said you'll have to wait, because making maps takes a lot of time. Moreover, working for a project, I must sometimes work on other aeras, for instance, right now I'm working on an island.
http://s28.postimg.org/wi9dutbos/Wo_...914_224159.jpg
http://s28.postimg.org/bwum2wu3w/Wo_...914_223643.jpg