2025

Bye, last year. Goodbye, last year’s calendar with Statham, which was one of the sources of inspiration for the Morrowind Screenshots calendar. Hello, unknown future. Happy New Year to everyone!

For the next month, I turned off the repost of old shots in Morrowind Screenshots, so I will simply have to prepare new screenshots so that the group does not remain without daily posts. This was the case at the very beginning of the project — each shot was new, and the screenshots could only be repeated in the compilations, which gave their publication a new meaning. Later I softened the rules and the old shots began to appear in the feed again, because they were well forgotten, and new subscribers simply did not see them. But then there were too many of them. Old shots, of course, periodically deserve new attention, but the project should not be based only on them, as it has been lately.

A week after the start of the sale of calendars, I would like to summarize the interim results. Most of the first edition has been sold out, with only a few pieces remaining. Some calendars have already reached their recipients. The most difficult thing at this stage is to make cursors and pack calendars, especially when there are a lot of orders at once. And sending by mail is the most inconvenient because of the work schedule, queues and technical problems. The rest of the delivery services are clever. Sending abroad increases the cost of the calendar three times due to duties and commissions. But I am pleased that in general I was able to give the opportunity to order a calendar from abroad. One of them has already gone to Latvia - I am watching his fate with trepidation. Two more calendars were taken by the subscriber personally - it was a short but pleasant meeting. Now that everything is in order, I can breathe a little. It seems that the idea with the calendars was successful.

Here’s the last thing for the calendar — a magnetic cursor made of wood. Thanks to @valentyfire and my wife for helping me make it. Everything else is ready. The edition is in print.

I printed a second test copy of the calendar, this time in English. Working with color and high-density paper dramatically improved the print quality. I think the difference is noticeable even in the photo. I am pleased with the result and am going to print the first small edition. And I need to solve the packaging issue so that the calendars can travel safely.

I was too optimistic sending the calendar layout to print as it was. First I had to make a color proof, and then print the first copy. But I did it the other way around, and the screenshots on the print became too dark and pale, and some were extremely dark (as in the left column). But the first copy is needed to catch different mistakes. Now, having done a color test, I know how to better prepare the layout for printing. At the same time, I corrected the month of Nerevarine’s landing on Vvardenfell.

Here is the result of my idea, which you could have guessed from the teaser: the Morrowind Screenshots wall calendar for 2026, the first and so far the only one of its kind. Let me know in the poll below if you want one too.

I decided to make one thing. Here’s a little teaser - a cover layout. What do you think this is?

autumn leaves

I started by compacting the list of parameters on the Morrowind Screenshots website. Left — before, right — after. I’m worried that the project has been on autopilot for a couple of months, without new screenshots. I need to fix this.

I had a creative vacation. But not a vacation for creativity, but rather a vacation from creativity. That is, if you call my pet projects creativity. It’s just that at some point I felt that I needed to take a break and return to everything later, with a fresh head. And now I feel that it’s time to continue.

dacha tv

peterthefirst nizhniypark

Once upon a time, I was very impressed by the performance of the song “Blood Type” by the Korean band YB (Yoon Do Hyun Band). Here is a completely different sound, different vocal presentation, the text is in Korean, but this version is as beautiful as the original.

the performance of the song “Blood Type”

the original

The angle and the moment of time change everything. Vivec brings rain. Vivec raises the sun. Vivec holds Baar Dau. Vivec is confused. And I’m sure these are not all the meanings that can be given to this statue in a shot.

There is a AI that can zoom in on a piece of an image, much like forensic scientists in Hollywood movies zoom in on a surveillance camera image to any infinite resolution. I decided to check how AI would zoom in on the statue of Saint Delyn from a recent shot. There is an old theory that Lenin is a mushroom. Now we know that Delyn is a mushroom too.

old theory

I taught Morrowind Screenshots to work with stories in Telegram. I checked the auto-post on this channel, and it worked. However, boosts and a Premium subscription were really needed here. In the future, we will see if it is worth it. In general, why do I bother with stories so much? Oddly enough, this is due to septims – small coins with the image of the Emperor. Septims appear on the site for all posts that are published in the project channels. The idea is that everything that falls into the Posts or Extras sections should be published and get its own septim. But some of the planned types of posts from the Extras section are not very suitable for the usual feed, and they need to be published somehow. The format of stories for them – just right.

I implemented and tested the auto-posting of stories from Morrowind Screenshots to VK. It wasn’t difficult. I’m not sure that anyone will see them there, but it will be possible to avoid overloading the main feed with secondary content. It seems that Telegram stories will be more difficult. Here, either a Premium subscription is required for their publication, or the channel needs to collect votes. Please help me check how it works, using this channel as an example: https://t.me/boost/dhlight

I was impressed by the fresh tech demo of The Witcher 4 and Unreal Engine 5.6. Among the highlights: Ciri pushed a man with a box of apples, and they scattered, the merchant and the buyer at the market very cleverly handled the fish, the one-legged man naturally limped on a crutch, and one man was thrown into a puddle, and the puddle made a splash. It was interesting to see how the new 3D/voxel vegetation works. It looks very natural. Maybe I just rarely watch this, or maybe it’s really a new level of graphics, animation and interactivity. Now the question is what of this is scripted, what will remain in the game, and what Bethesda has prepared for us in response to all this.

fresh tech demo

Glory of Cyrodiil from the Oblivion soundtrack, reworked by AI.

Today I tested a new algorithm for Morrowind Screenshots, which generates pictures from posts just like this. I want to use it as a single form for publishing stories in the project channels. The first story of this kind was posted on Instagram today. All that remains is to teach the project to automatically publish stories in other profiles.

All automation for Morrowind Screenshots was fixed at the end of last week, and everything has been working properly for a couple of days now. Posts are posted to all profiles, the site is updated like clockwork. Along with this, I’ve got an attitude to make new shots. There should be a lot more of it now.

dacha flowers tree sky

These shots are separated by only a couple of minutes. First, a completely black Masser emerged from the clouds, hovering over Vivec with its bulk. Wow! Then it appeared clearer, gained color and hovered over the statue of St. Delyn, keeping him company. Years go by, and Morrowind is still able to amaze with its graphics.

Tenhi has always been perceived as a company of forest spirits wandering through the dense Finnish forests and singing about what they see. For the most part, this is a mysterious studio project, but they also have live performances. This video captures one of their rarest performances, but it seems that no one in the hall appreciates it. Stop making noise, this is a historic event!

This video

Last year, I created the Morrowind Screenshots website and automated the posting of screenshots across the project’s channels. This allowed me to spend less time on its preparation and publication, and more time on the creative part. And it really helped to plan the release of posts in advance when I wasn’t online at the right time. Now these well-established systems are ceasing to function one after another. The site continues to update only once in ten times, despite efforts to fix the problem. Now Instagram and Telegram also periodically and unpredictably crash. So far, only VK has not failed. I continue to deal with the causes, and for now I do part of the work manually. Of course, this situation spoils the development plans a little, but in general, it is a great experience of how to support a project from so many related parts.

Sometimes I remember this funny comment to my interview about Morrowind Screenshots, which was published last year. There is a grain of truth in every joke. Do you know what insanity is? Insanity is when you photograph Morrowind for 15 years in a row, posting a new screenshot online every day!

Recently, the voice assistant wished me a good morning and turned on All’s Well from the Oblivion soundtrack, announcing that flowers grow well in the garden to this music. I guess I agree with him.

All’s Well

There is a house in the Skaal Village that persistently gets into the frame, and it is impossible to throw out this shot every time.

Looking at how artificial intelligence is developing and what tasks it is learning to solve, I increasingly want to appreciate what only humans can do. The spark of reason, the divine error that is always present in his work, still allows us to distinguish one from the other. But every year it becomes more and more difficult to do this, and someday we will completely stop seeing the differences. Then everything in the world will turn upside down, and man will have to find something else that only he can do. But there is no need to worry: even our smaller brothers can do what we cannot. We live in an amazing time when a person has a chance to finally become a domestic cat under the close supervision of AI.

I once wrote that, as a rule, the player never appears in the frame in Morrowind Screenshots. But there are always exceptions to the rules, and here are two more. One of the screenshots is an old one, where the player came to inspect his growing wizard tower. Here the player is needed for the plot. The other shot is new and not mine, where the hands of the player praying to the Sixth House are visible. Without hands, there would be no prayer.

Morrowind Screenshots sometimes publishes thematic collections of four screenshots that have already been published on the channel. This is a new look at the old shots, enhanced by their combination. I am considering the idea of supplementing this format with selections of screenshots that have not previously been published on the channel, but seem too weak to be published separately. It’s a pity to throw them away altogether, but together they will look stronger.

I want to share the song The Nightwatchman by the Irish band The Duckworth Lewis Method, who write music inspired by cricket. You can’t say that about the song itself - it has a romantic night mood. By the way, nightwatchman is the name of one of the cricketers, but I can’t say exactly what he does in the game. To do this, you need to understand cricket at least a little.

The Nightwatchman

Lightning flashes in Morrowind have always made an indelible impression with their sharpness, brightness, and ruthlessness to the eardrums. I have long wanted to capture the moment of a flash, which is what happened in this shot. Of course, there is no visible lightning in the sky, but it flashes brightly for a moment, illuminating everything around. The role of the “reverse lightning” here was performed by a brightly lit tree in the background.

In fact, there is nothing surprising about this, but if you go to the folder with Morrowind textures, you can find 32 files with water textures. If you put them together in order, you get a short looped animation of the water surface. And when all the modern water shaders are disabled, the game just plays these 32 textures, repeated many times on a translucent surface stretched to the horizon. The result is water.

There is such a term in programming as legacy code. It’s when a piece of code is poorly written or outdated, but you still have to work with it and write just as bad code next to it, because rewriting everything takes too long. Today, having started to expand the old barn at the country house, I realized that the barn is crooked and the extension will also have to be crooked, otherwise it will not be possible to connect them together. So I learned what legacy is in the real world.

I’ve heard rumors that this skeleton hanging by its legs in the ice cave from Bloodmoon is a reference to Star Wars.

sochi

Morrowind Screenshots news. The “Last News” and “Last Redrawing” blocks have been added to the home page. The display of news still clearly needs work. The site now also takes into account posts from the Extras section in the authors’ statistics. The problem with uploading new screenshots to the site, which I wrote about earlier, is partially solved, although periodic problems with updating it still remain. In the meantime, the first post of the “Wallpaper” type has been published on the channel, and this is a screenshot made by the new author of the project.

I remembered an unusual case of discovering a musical band. Some time ago I read a book on 3D-modeling. The book was accompanied by examples of finished models for individual lessons. One of the examples was a speaker model, which started playing a song when the animation was launched, and the speaker itself vibrated to the beat of the music. I liked the song right away, and I got a collection with the band’s discography, where there were a lot of great tracks. This is how I got acquainted with Dire Straits.

a song

For several days now, I’ve been struggling with a bug that prevents new screenshots from being uploaded to the Morrowind Screenshots website from the project storage automatically when they are published. But it looks like the solution has already been found — I just need to implement it. Sometimes it’s a pity that technical issues take time that could be spent on taking new screenshots.

Jeremy Soule has made a huge contribution to how The Elder Scrolls series is felt in the mass consciousness. He literally breathed his soul into these games with his music. Unfortunately, Jeremy disappeared from the radar several years ago due to vague accusations against him. There is still hope that he will triumphantly return with the new part of The Elder Scrolls, although everything suggests that this will not happen. But we remember him and hope that we will still hear his new works.

A significant part of the work on creating the Extras section for the Morrowind Screenshots website has already been done. Some of the old project news has already been added to this section, as well as all the redrawings of screenshots by artists that were previously in the main section. In the future, it will also include mentions of the project from other sites, funny remakes of screenshots from subscribers, polls with results, etc. Some posts from Extras will get into the project feed, but at a different time of the day, and will not replace the main posts. A separate important category will be the collections of screenshots that were not included in the main section due to violations, or not interesting enough individually. More authors will have the opportunity to publish their work.

I dug out my screenshot from Oblivion, made back in 2007. It served me as a desktop wallpaper for a long time.

Usually I try to capture the scene without making any changes to it, that is, the way any player would see it (except for an unusual angle, of course). But if there is not enough light in the scene, sometimes you can improve the situation by giving the character a torch or a lamp, thus highlighting the foreground. The light source itself is not visible in the frame. But here is a rare case when the added light source is visible right in the frame, and it becomes part of the composition.

I have an idea to remake old Morrowind screenshots published by Bethesda itself during the promotion of the game. At least those of them that are not too different from the final version.

When you are waiting for TES VI, but you get TES IV again. A prophetic frame from the “Moonlighting” TV series.

Music in games has always been of great importance to me, as well as movie soundtracks. Here are some basic properties of good game music:

1. Atmosphere (unity with the game)
2. Memorability (it is remembered outside the game)
3. Melodicity (contains pronounced melodies)
4. Unobtrusiveness (does not distract from the game)
5. Self-worth (sounds great on its own)

There is a special moment in Morrowind when the ash storm is about to end, or vice versa, it is about to begin. At this moment, you can catch an unusual purple sky with red flashes.

Phil Collins — a drummer who once began to sing.

sing

I ran yesterday’s shot (the second) from Morrowind Screenshots through AI. A bit of uninvited horror. The guys in the last photo look the most menacing.

In recent weeks, I have been exploring Tamriel Rebuilt in order to better understand what I am dealing with and where I can shoot. The impression from many cities is about the same: these are all the same familiar models and textures, sometimes modified or arranged in some new, interesting form. There is a strange feeling that the original game lacks content, because you can make even more interesting towns, and you will still feel like you are in Morrowind. But completely new models and textures often tear you out of this state — they are selected worse. Now it’s interesting to explore which new models still managed to capture the right spirit and how.

To capture this phone wallpaper, I had to put the monitor on its side and run Morrowind in portrait mode. This gave an interesting new perspective on the game, expanding the view in an unusual direction. I will definitely do more shots in this format.

If you need to design a shelf, or plan a repair in an apartment, use SketchUp. I have never seen such speed, simplicity and accuracy of modeling anywhere, and I have something to compare with. There is a small entry threshold in the form of an unusual approach to modeling and several basic tools that you need to learn how to use, but then the program reveals itself in full. This knowledge would save me a lot of time, I wish I had it earlier.

When I need to ponder something, I often listen to the atmospheric soundtrack from The Talos Principle, composed by Damjan Mravunac. This music was created to accompany the solving of puzzles with a philosophical undertone, and it fits perfectly. It mentally immerses you in the ruins of ancient civilizations, where there is no concept of time. You have an eternity to think about something. The game itself is also wonderful. There is a sequel, and the recent remaster of first game.

soundtrack from The Talos Principle

From similar screenshots taken at the same time, in the same place, I always choose one. But sometimes there are shots from the same place and from a similar perspective, separated by years. This happens almost unconsciously, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. It’s even interesting to re-capture the same place with the accumulated shooting experience. It’s like a remaster.

I made a timelapse of changes on my website. You wouldn’t see three engines rewritten from scratch, a large list of projects and works of varying degrees of completion, a section for screenshots, which later became a separate website. But it wasn’t right, and the cobbler was without boots. At some point, I just threw everything away and made a minimal website from scratch, choosing that boot as an icon. Since then, the site has been slowly developing, and I like this process. Although so far it’s more about form than content.

kudykinagora zmeygorynich

I wondered what I would do with the Morrowind Screenshots project if the same remaster for Morrowind came out tomorrow, as it did yesterday for Oblivion. If the project was worthy of attention, I would just start taking screenshots there too, marking them as “remastered”. I could also make interesting comparisons of the old and new graphics. But I’m pretty sure there won’t be a remaster like that. Morrowind is too different from modern games. Rather, a remake.

The Oblivion remaster is officially out. The graphics and game mechanics have really been reworked. The engine is based on Unreal Engine 5. The music, at least in the trailer, is partially old. New details are emerging. I don’t plan to touch the project in the near future, but I’m curious how Bethesda handles its classics.

is officially out

Who is D. Bryant, whose ashes are kept in the urn captured on this shot? He was a regular at the old The Elder Scrolls forums who died during the development of the third installment. The developers decided to immortalize his name in this way. To be buried in Morrowind is a luxury that cannot be bought.

Pompeya - 90. A magical song that never gets old. By the way, the tempo of the song is exactly 90 beats per minute.

Pompeya - 90

The main character was visible in a couple of shots published at the very beginning of the Morrowind Screenshots project. That’s because the first screenshots were gameplay ones, and the idea of publishing them was born just in the process of playing. But from the very beginning it was clear to me that my character should become a photographer, not the hero of the frame. He never appeared in the frame again.

Today there was a funny case. I picked up the car after the repair, arrived home, and they call from the car service: “Our auto mechanic can not remember whether he tightened the nut or not. Please come back, otherwise he won’t sleep at night.” I had to go back. It seems that the nut really was not tightened. Now everyone will sleep peacefully.

Today I watched an interview with Mark Eydelshteyn, a young actor who recently, together with Yura Borisov, broke into the world cinema with the film “Anora”, which won an Oscar. I haven’t seen the film yet, but I’ve already seen Mark in the film “One Hundred Years Ahead”, where he was likeable and memorable. The interview leaves a bright feeling, Mark seems smart and sincere. I wonder what awaits him next.

an interview with Mark Eydelshteyn,

spring

In addition to the question “Why is this necessary?”, there are a lot of questions regarding today’s leak of screenshots from the Oblivion remake. Why did the style and mood of the game change so much? Will the plot, quests and game mechanics change in any way? Will the music remain untouched? What engine was used? If this is a new engine for the series, will the experience of creating a remake affect TES 6? Will the remake be compatible with the Creation Kit or some other modding tool? Will it be possible to make mods at all? If not, can it be considered a full-fledged remake? Is the same fate awaiting Morrowind? There are a lot of rumors, but we should find out soon what it really is.

I visited a few more cities added by Tamriel Rebuilt. The overall impression of the project is not perfect, but good. I feel like you can really capture something interesting there, and there will be some kind of Morrowind spirit in it. Therefore, I decided that the main section of the Morrowind Screenshots site will still have a place for a project that is quite careful about the lore and the general style of the game. Such posts will be marked as unofficial content with a tag containing the name of add-on. And they will be released less often than the official content. I think we should expect the first such post this week. And the Extras section, which is under development, I will leave for something else.

In 2017, in one of the screenshots made on the OpenMW engine, I noticed a problem with the texture of dwemer ruins after the publication. Out of curiosity, I decided to compare the original engine and OpenMW at the same time of day and from the same angle. In addition to the broken texture, there is a difference in lighting, for example, the original engine rendered the clouds at sunset more saturated. The texture has since been fixed, but I haven’t looked into the lighting. I need to organize another comparison.

krasnayapolyana

One day, I went outside, looked up at the sky, and froze. There was something very familiar and native in these shades. This is the sky from Morrowind! For comparison, here is one of my screenshots with a similar sky. It’s a pity that in reality you couldn’t see everything to the horizon.

So, Tamriel Rebuilt. At the moment, I visited the city of Necrom, which confused me with the quality of its models, and the city of Andothren, which I rather liked. The latter is largely based on models and textures from the original game and more or less accurately complements them, which causes much less rejection. I even managed to take some decent screenshots there, and I want to take more. But I’ll take a closer look at the first city as well. It remains to be seen what place all these pictures can take in Morrowind Screenshots. I think I need to visit more new places for this.

The Gayana - Kingdom album, along with the beautiful song of the same name, passed me by when it was released in 2016. But recently, I still was lucky enough to come across it. At first, it seemed like some unfamiliar gem from the 80s, but it’s actually a modern take on 80s music. Thundering drums, sparkling synths, female vocals with melismas, echoes of the Terminator soundtrack, the overall vibe of that time - this is not something that should have worked, but it did. I recommend it.

Imagine that someone bought a piece of land near a small river, built a city of wood, stone and concrete, with bridges and arches, hung paper lanterns everywhere, opened shops and taverns, put guards to keep order. The city was named Balmora. Would you like to visit it?

I added a filter by official expansions to the Posts page of Morrowind Screenshots website. The list includes Tribunal and Bloodmoon.

Once I decided to draw a set of stickers with a cucumber character, a little inspired by Pickle Rick. But after a few variants, things didn’t go any further.

The avatar and the first post in Morrowind Screenshots were literally taken from the same screenshot made on the Dren Plantation.

Two steps closer to Tamriel Rebuilt appearing in Morrowind Screenshots in some form. The first step: I started developing the Extras section for the site, where, according to the concept, any materials that are not vanilla posts can be published. This section can also contain screenshots that violate the basic rules of the project (like TR), but are interesting in some way. Step two: I downloaded the latest version of Tamriel Rebuilt.

lastchristmas

Screenshots from Tamriel Rebuilt will not appear in Morrowind Screenshots for the time being. First, I don’t want to destroy the current feed with unofficial inclusions - this will violate the concept of the project. I will have to find a neat and explicit way to publish them. Secondly, the map and list of locations on the site do not include what has been added to TR. To add such screenshots to the project, I need to expand the map and the list of locations, or somehow do without them. Thirdly, I need my or someone else’s desire to make interesting enough screenshots from TR for the project. I still can’t say that I catch the TR vibe. But I need to try.

It’s a beautiful summer spring day to start another channel, right? 😅 I dump all sorts of weird pictures from my phone that have no place anywhere else into Screenjoe channel. Please avoid it at all costs.

I wonder how smart the NPCs will be in The Elder Scrolls 6, given how artificial intelligence has developed in recent years. In some interviews, game developers say that too smart NPCs cause a lot of problems during development and testing, but still it would be strange not to use progress in this area at all.

Notice anything unusual? The shot called Red Passage was taken near Red Mountain. Apparently, in the process of shooting and then publishing, I was so merged in the process that I didn’t notice that the player was also “submerged” underground. At the bottom of the frame you can see a little bit of the underground part of the world. The shot was published in such a defective form, and now it’s in the project’s archive.

electriclines houses fog

I asked AI to create several variants of Playing Tag shot. The first picture is the original, the second one conveys the general meaning of the original, and the rest are the funniest of the generated ones. The last one is even a little sentimental: bye-bye, netch…

An old video from the Tenhi musicians themselves, featuring an excerpt from Veden Elein.

I almost sent this shot to the trash. It seemed not very balanced in illumination, somehow secondary and empty. But I still decided to publish it, and this post unexpectedly became one of the most popular in recent times. Has this changed my attitude towards the shot? Not much. But this is a small reminder that sometimes it is worth giving something a chance.

Recently I came across an unusual section of the sidewalk. Outside, the temperature was above zero, and some of the tiles thawed, while others did not. My theory is that white tiles don’t heat up as much in the sun as dark ones, so they thaw out more slowly.

I recently implemented video playback in all video posts on Morrowind Screenshots. Previously, it was possible to watch long videos through the built-in YouTube player, and short videos - only by going to Instagram, but I wanted to be independent of external platforms. Now both long and short videos can be viewed directly on the site. So I’m gradually preparing to return to shooting video for the project.

One of the most important music albums of the past year for me was the long-awaited new album by Tenhi - Valkama. It was released back in 2023, but it was not immediately possible to fully listen to it. I especially recommend listening to Veden Elein. I just enjoy the intertwining of guitar parts and the rhythm in this song.