Claim Zero - the Height Map is finished

[exilehunter]

Originally posted by Ysne
I believe that RA has all the resources prepared and ready to go regarding trees and structures.

I agree that this needs to look different from vanilla.

Does anyone know where the Ocean mod resources are stored? Their underwater flora definitely falls in that category. They do have an interesting house structure that might work for the scholar.

I'm not sure where the Void's stuff is stored either, but we should be looking at that as well.

(Is kicking herself for not somehow managing to get back here earlier than August).

We really do need to find kodama. I'm absolutely sure he holds all the keys to almost everything we need later and perhaps for this island. As for tang mo architecture, i dont know how much Ra has done in this department.

Deeza, thanks for providing a much clearer idea on what we're dealing with. The pacific island landscape is quite sharp and jagged at times so i'll try to emulate that into the heightmap without making it too exaggerated. The trees should be a somewhat easy job for speedtree'ers (i dont have speedtree and hence, can only assume its as easy as it sounds). The bamboo forest will be a challenge, trying to optimize performance with visuals and atmosphere. The new flora intrigues me. Any idea what pacific islands have bamboo apart from Japan and China?

[Deeza]

Originally posted by exilehunter
The new flora intrigues me. Any idea what pacific islands have bamboo apart from Japan and China?

Bamboo is found pretty much everywhere in the pacific except in Australia.

Pacific islands also have palms, tropical rainforest and (on the high mountains) pine trees. All of these have already been made for Oblivion by somebody (they're in Koniption's flora resource pack).

But what I was really thinking was that we should create more of a unique look for these islands (this is a fantasy game after all) - a mixture of tropical rainforest and bamboo would look very interesting and give players that elusive "this is something new" feeling.

And regarding the Tang Mo huts, he did finish them:

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f68/ra...Tree02.jpg

We're a bit short on clutter and unique items for them though (we have TONNES of Japanese-style tuff for Tsaesci, nothing for the Tang Mo or for the Ka'Po - as I understand it anyway - I thought the Ka'Po were going to be vaguely indian, but if we're going to make them vaguely japanese as well, then they're done too)

[exilehunter]

Thanks for that Deeza!

As for the heightmap, i tried making the volcano have lava (i know we agreed on static mesh for lava but i wanted to test it out) but that just screws up.
This worldspace is BIG! It took me alot longer than i thought it would to just cross the mainsland. I'm still finding where the kinks are and attempting to correct as many as i can. The southern volcano rises a fair way up (as expected) but i feel it is too high. i still have to create an LOD just to see how high it really is. I will try to get this version out soon and then someone else can have a crack at whatever alterations they think are needed.

[Deeza]

I know. It's about ten times the size I thought it would be.

But this works to our advantage. As well as the main "war" storyline we now also have enough space to include lots of caves, (hopefully) Tang Mo sites and lots of quests.

We can now also expand the original story to include multiple missions and battles (such as going out with a squad of Legionnaires to attack a Tsaesci defensive position, etc.). This will be much better because it means we can get away with using fewer NPCs in each stage of the campaign (large battles will slow the FPS).

Of course, the final battle will still be epic, but now that the landscape is bigger we can spread the battlefield out much more so that there's less of a performance hit.

The more I think about this project, the more excited I get! This could potentially be a classic!

[nick_op]

I've noticed that lava as a static mesh has ben mentioned several times in this thread, and would like to offer what I believe is the best solution:

There are several properties within .nif files that afect how the .nif appears in game. The one we want is the NiMaterialProperty.

While most people know that this can be used to affect diffuse/ambient/specular/emmisive colours on the mesh, what most don't know is that naming the material property in certain ways gives different effects. Calling it 'skin', for example, makes the mesh use the skin shader.

If you call the material setting 'lava', the mesh will use the water shader and the water settings of the cell that it's placed in. Therefore, it's possible to create water at any height without changing the 'water height' setting in the CS.

It should be possible to have the lava mesh cause damage via a script.

Here's the thread I got most of this information from.

If anyone wants me to elaborate more on this, let me know.

[DarkAsmodeous]

I don't understand the concern with having the player run through or under the mesh looking odd since it can be invisible? However it's done, it definately seems doable.

Just how large is this land? :eek: I'm scared for LOD, completability, and just excess.

[exilehunter]

Yep, i already know about the nif texture trick but since the island is using standard water, it wont work (i tried it out but when you see lava in one cell, all distant water turns to lava and vice versa. I might make the lava sit beyong view and see how that works). It will have to be a texture with perhaps, animations.

Here's v1.12 of the heightmap. Its quite different to the previous one with more lakes and better coasts and a more structured volcano. If you feel any major areas need changing, its better to do so in the main file than in a claim. I dont feel like doing anymore heightmaping at the moment so you'll need to either have a go yourself or find someone else.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=G6XKNK4U

Just a quick run on the heightmap editor for people willing to have a go. First go to CSwiki-
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/ind...ap_Editing
and have a look at what tools are available. The noise tool is best at generating interesting landscapes but you'll want to lower the intensity alot to avoid unrealistic mountains and valleys (try different values out).
Smudge is your best friend for cleaning things after noise. It really evens things up. Use smudge after major edits and you'll see how useful it is.

I really dont want ot get into any serious modding at the moment because of other commitments but i'll be here to support you guys and provide my knowledge when needed.

[Ysne]

Thank you exilehunter. I am truly grateful for your help and support. I will just keep trusting that someone else can finish this up. As I said earlier, that part of my brain just does not work, which means I cannot do heightmapping or texturing. I can use the CS for doing other things though.

[exilehunter]

Here's the current heightmap, as seen in the Cs heightmap editor.


I think we need to cut up the pic to show the claims or regions (both if they conflict), so if someone (looks at Ysne and Deeza) could do that, we might get some movement in the project.

[Ysne]

How would I do that? If someone can provide step by step instructions, I will give it a shot.