Atmospheric Loading Screens, the
Oblivion mod I created back in
January 2007, has received a long overdue update.
Vacuity, who took over responsibility for most of the mod last year and released two updates, developed the substantial update. I provided some minimal support: updating the readme, gathering new quotes, and approving new loading screens.
Version 4.00 brings
Atmospheric Loading Screens into
2011, with a new widescreen loading screen frame and
2011 loading screens. Over
400 new screens were created, with some replacing original screenshots that were lost or unable to make the transition to the new frame for other reasons.
Lojack, a contributor to
Wrye Bash, also deserves a lot of credit for adding a command line feature to
Wrye Bash allowing the
Atmospheric Loading Screens ESPs to be procedurally generated. Now the new ESPs can be made in a matter of minutes, replacing the tedious grind previously required and allowing more time to spent on creating new loading screens.
You can read a summary of
Atmospheric Loading Screen's features below, or the
full thread at the official Bethesda forums, and the mod can be downloaded from
TESNexus. Albums of the
first 1000,
second 1000, and
extra 11 loading screens are available on
Picasa Web Albums.
Replaces the original loading screens with over 2000 unique DarkUI-style loading screens focused on the environment, using personal screenshots and screenshots contributed by community members. There are no "action shots," character portraits, etc. Any loading screens with characters in them are not focused on the character. As of version 0.99, loading screens for the Shivering Isles are included.
No Text - Over 2000 screens with no text. The loading bar will still be moved to the top, however. If you want the bar to remain in its original position, use the XML from "Dark UI Loading Screens" by Darkbirdy instead of the one included with this mod.
Original Text - Over 2000 screens with the original Bethesda text. A few loading screens related to the main quest will only display in their originally intended areas, but the rest will display anywhere. Recommended for people that still want or need to read Bethesda's lore, hints, information, etc. Loading screens showing the entrance to the Shivering Isles will only display in the Shivering Isles in this version, unlike the other two versions, where these screens can display anywhere.
Random Quotes - Over 2000 screens with random quotes. Currently includes quotes from H.P. Lovecraft, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Benjamin Disraeli, J.R.R. Tolkien, Friedrich Nietzsche, Immanuel Kant, Aristotle, William Butler Yeats, Thomas Moore, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, Rene Descartes, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, C.S. Lewis, Orson Welles, Aesop, George Orwell, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, John Calvin, Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Peter Abelard, Blaise Pascal, Winston Churchill, Horace, Sun Tzu, Juvenal, George Bernard Shaw, Ansel Adams, William of Occam, M.C. Escher, Plutarch, Plato, George Herbert, Tom Stoppard, Ambrose Bierce, Sophocles, Samuel Beckett, Moliere, William Faulkner, Euripedes, John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, Linus Pauling, Marie Curie, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Homer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Miller, Christopher Marlowe, Virgil, Alexandre Dumas, Aldous Huxley, Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, George R. R. Martin, Elie Wiesel, J. K. Rowling, Joseph Conrad, William Golding, Daniel Defoe, George Eliot, Robert Loius Stevenson, Julius Caesar, Charles Dickens, Emily Dickinson, Epictetus, Epicurus, H. L. Mencken, Lao Tzu, Albert Camus, Benjamin Franklin, Arthur Conan Doyle, Bertrand Russell, Buddha, Maya Angelou, T. S. Eliot, Galileo Galilei, Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Pythagoras, Archimedes, Carl Friedrich Gauss, Johann Kepler, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Xun Zi, Mencius, Francis Bacon, Herbert Spencer, Annie Besant, Jeremy Bentham, Democritus, Heraclitus, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Muhammad Ali, Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Abraham Maslow, B. F. Skinner, Antisthenes, Hypatia, Diogenes, Theophrastus, Xenophanes, Menander, Pericles, Solon, Nelson Mandela, and Thomas Jefferson.
"The beliefs, messages, thoughts, values, and quotes of the aforementioned authors do not in any way reflect on the beliefs, messages, thoughts, and values of the author of this mod."