Glass Domes of Vivec - Performance-friendly Open-ish Cantons

2024 Edit:

Sorry for abandoning this immediately after releasing it. I've just learned that it apparently doesn't work with recent versions of Project Atlas - if you're hellbent on using it despite that, please see the comments here and on the Moonrain Edition (which is slightly less outdated) for ideas on how to fix it.

Also, do bear in mind this is a bit of a compatibility nightmare - I significantly moved the interiors of a few cantons, and if anything reverts those changes you'll probably end up underwater. And the interiors will be dark if you've ever entered them before on your save file (I have seen a few comments with workarounds for that).

One day I'll revisit this. Maybe in another four years. I'm sure eventually something like OpenMW will allow for a much less hacky implementation, too - maybe it does already, I haven't checked recently.

Original 2020 Description:

I highly recommend the Moonrain Edition!

The vanilla game's closed Vivec canton plazas are very depressing. Open cantons are a big improvement, especially since we know from concept art and Molag Mar that they're Bethesda's original vision. But even 18 years after Morrowind's release, I can't run open cantons with a heavy modlist or something like Dramatic Vivec without my performance dying. So this is my compromise: glass domes of Vivec.

Now, all the cantons except the Arena and Temple have glass tops. The interiors have been marked as acting as exteriors, a la Mournhold, so they're lit by the sun through big mostly-transparent glass domes, and react to the weather and time of day. The Saints statues are visible from their respective plazas. The exterior domes are also transparent, but much less so - this is because I've grossly stolen gratefully adapted the hard work of Atrayonis to place a few prominent statics into the exteriors to create the illusion of peering into the plaza itself, with minimal performance hit. It's very similar to the crude LOD models used by newer, levitationless Bethesda games, but hidden by a big sheet of murky green glass.

Overall, I hope this mod brightens the mood of the plazas without affecting performance.

Requirements:

You'll need a Vivec/Velothi Atlas texture from Project Atlas; Intelligent Textures or similar, since my canton meshes exclusively come in the atlased variety.

Installation:

Use your preferred method of getting the .esp and loose folde