#mwscr

One of the recent posts unexpectedly garnered a large number of likes. This is a record to date. At the same time, the screenshot itself isn’t even new and has already been posted for the second time.

Lately, there have been nothing but problems with the Morrowind Screenshots infrastructure, which has caused disruptions in the publication of posts. Sometimes GitHub stops seeing the screenshot repository, sometimes they stop being displayed on the site, sometimes dependencies don’t download, sometimes one social media platform goes down, sometimes another. You fix one thing, and another breaks.

The world is unstable, which is clearly reflected on the internet. Servers are increasingly losing sight of each other, and services are tightening up their APIs. And we have to somehow navigate through all of this.

Today, I seem to have reached a point where everything is working again all at once. For how long? Certainly not forever. But this is the way.

I’ll turn the calendar over and… make another calendar. I’m starting work on the Morrowind Screenshots calendar for 2027. There are no changes planned for the design. The main task is to select 12 more screenshots, each of which you can look at for a whole month without experiencing pain. If you like a screenshot on the project website mwscr.dehero.ru/posts more than other, please send the link in the comments. It might be included in the 2027 selection.

Until recently, the Morrowind Screenshots integration with VK worked like clockwork: posts were published quickly and with virtually no technical glitches. This was one of the most hassle-free integrations in the project—compared to other services where it is present, VK had a relatively straightforward API.

However, the company then suddenly decided to prohibit the use of the wall.post method for posting on walls via the API for almost everyone, except for a select group of large companies. And all they offered in return was RSS, which can be imported into a group at a specified frequency. Even setting aside the fact that this is not a replacement for a full-fledged API, this format works extremely poorly with images: the image in the post turns into a link to the website and is crudely cropped. It’s completely impossible to create a collection of images using this method. And I wouldn’t want every post in the community to look like just a link to the project’s website. In short, this format is completely unsuitable for a photo community, not to mention its other drawbacks.

I still can’t wrap my head around how you can prevent an author from publishing posts via the API in their own community.

I decided to recreate some pre-release screenshots from Morrowind in a higher resolution. I found the location, set the angle, picked the time of day, weather and weapons for the first such shot. All that remains is to call the opponent.

Bethesda seems to have done this once too. The last frame is from an earlier build during development, which they clearly recreated for the release.

What if a follower sent a great screenshot for Morrowind Screenshots, without any violations, but it does not fit into the square? The project has rigidly defined and familiar proportions of posts, part of its identity: square shots, square compilations, horizontal and vertical wallpapers… Each aspect ratio has its own type of post.

I thought about this question for a long time, even postponing the shooting of new screenshots. And the solution was finally born and implemented. It’s simple: each post type now supports more than one aspect ratio. But you can always understand what kind of post it is by the proportions of the image. As before.

What has changed for the content? There is a new 3:2 format for regular shots. This is what is needed for many of the followers’ works. Previously, they had to be ruthlessly cut to a 1:1 square, losing details around the edges, or compromise, believing that we are not looking at an ordinary shot, but a desktop wallpaper. Now it is much easier to preserve the author’s idea and the harmony of the frame in such cases. A vertical 9:16 format for clips has appeared, which is not yet used, but it provides a basis for the publication of reels in the future.

Well, the wallpaper is now universal: you can lay out both a horizontal landscape 16:9 and a vertical one for a smartphone 9:19.5, and all this is one type of post. In addition, the collections have become more logical: if earlier they were strictly square, now they can be of any of the available aspect ratios, which allows you to create collections not only of ordinary shots, but also wallpapers and clips, if they are all of the same aspect ratio.

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?

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.

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

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.