Dumac [Finished]

[TheImperialDragon]

Claimed by Seniosh!

This is the thread for progress on the Dumac region . Dumac ruin is going to be the largest Dwemer ruin in our mod by far. Seniosh is in charge of its development.


Click for a larger image

[Seniosh]

Well, in the other thread, you were correct in stating that i know what the region should look like, but i haven't been able to find a good tutorial for the region generator.

Can anyone point me towards a good guide, ect? It'd probably be a good idea to have a link to one in the region generation info. The CS can be quite counter-intuitive sometimes, and i'm wrestling with the bitter coast preset, trying to figure out why some models dominate, and others don't appear at all.

Also, are we trying to make the bitter coast look like it did in TES3? Because the Latrys North region preset i copied and have been playing with doesn't really have the same density of nice green vegetation as the old bitter coast. (haven't been able to get it to that density unfortunately, cause i'm still figuring out the region generator)

Basically, any help would be appreciated . I'm going to try and get this done quickly so that we can focus on the ruin itself.

Another small note- Dumac is going to require me to make at least two separate presets, probably three. I looked in TES3, and there isn't really a region for dumac. Instead, the four surrounding regions (Ashunor Valley, Steadhelm, The Bitter Coast, and the Velothi Mountains) just come together, and the ruin is right at the meeting point. Thus, i'll need many presets. How would you like to handle this? I could do separate ESPs

[TheImperialDragon]

The CS wiki description might be worth a look. I think sandor also posted an introduction on our FAQ board a while back. Once you know how to generate an object onto the landscape, it's pretty easy to figure out how the rest works. If you have specific questions, post them here. I'll try to answer, but my own region generator is a little bit messed up so I might not be able to try things out myself. We'll see.

Our Bitter Coast looks very different partly due to the limitations of the region generator. We can't generate muck pools (or scum pools, whatever you want to call them) onto the landscape, so they will have to be hand placed. There are a lot of hand-made tweaks that will need to be done. The trees are also very different. hrug: We might get new trees, but that's still in the works and I'm still thinking about if and how we'd replace the old ones that were already placed. I don't know if that answers your question, but you are free to tweak your version of the preset as you see fit.

TES4 will have a region for Dumac (it was a part of the original TES4 region concept map), we're doing that bit differently than TES3. This region should be mostly rocky mountain, with a little bit of a transition on each side of the mountain. The map from the other thread looked appropriate. How you want to do this is up to you, but we're doing this in steps. See the Region guideline (which outlines the order of the steps). Send me (or post) a generated sample for each of the presets you're going to create, and I'll look at them and tell you what I think.

[Seniosh]

Ahh, thanks for that CS link. I'd searched for "region generator" with no success. That actually helped a ton. I'm a person who needs to know exactly how everything works.

Yeah, i'll start tweaking things. I think i'll just use the existing presets and make it so they thin out a bit. There'll be a lot of hand-tweaking i think.

Also, should i check "hand-changed" on the cells that i have, in fact, hand changed? I thought i read that that option was to keep the hand-changed cells from being auto-generated.


[edit]

I do have one specific question though - and this is for anyone good with the region generator. Why are there so many of the tree "SilgradBlackGumBcDead07"? The density is set to 4.0, and it doesn't have an unusually small radius or anything. It's THE most prevalent tree in the region, and i think it contributes a lot to the lack of greenery and such

[sandor]

Originally posted by Seniosh
Also, should I check "hand-changed" on the cells that I have, in fact, hand changed? I thought I read that that option was to keep the hand-changed cells from being auto-generated.

Yes, that's correct.

[blackbird]

Originally posted by Seniosh
Ahh, thanks for that CS link. I'd searched for "region generator" with no success. That actually helped a ton. I'm a person who needs to know exactly how everything works.

Yeah, i'll start tweaking things. I think i'll just use the existing presets and make it so they thin out a bit. There'll be a lot of hand-tweaking I think.

Also, should I check "hand-changed" on the cells that I have, in fact, hand changed? I thought I read that that option was to keep the hand-changed cells from being auto-generated.


[edit]

I do have one specific question though - and this is for anyone good with the region generator. Why are there so many of the tree "SilgradBlackGumBcDead07"? The density is set to 4.0, and it doesn't have an unusually small radius or anything. It's THE most prevalent tree in the region, and I think it contributes a lot to the lack of greenery and such

I don't know either. That tree is the largest of them all, but it's appaers much. I didn't search toroughly for the perfect region preset, because I thought some time ago that nobody wanted to use that. And to be honest, I didn't know the BC rocks either. I only knew which were the big ones.

I don't think that someone can generate swamps, so don't expect much of them, but I created some swamps and mini lakes (handmade) by myself in lathrys north, but there aren't much of them.
I've also requested extra textures (especially rock related) for the bitter coast, but I didn't see anything.

[Seniosh]

Well, using some of Sandor's advice about radii, and using children/parent relationships, i think i've managed to make it a good deal better.

Auto-generation of swamps isn't completely possible per-say, but i think i've come pretty darn close. By making trees child objects of the Cypress Knees, i can get a group of trees around a central point (with some dark textures added in there). This makes it easy to make swamps. You've already got your groups of trees around the Cypress Knees, just lower the landscape and add water.

I have also been able to achieve extreme variety, by making different types of trees the children, and then playing with the radius and density.

One thing i haven't been able to do is generate Draggle Tails and Ampule pods nicely. They just don't behave the way i want them to. Either they don't appear at all, or they form this dense ring around their parent object. any ideas?

[edit] i'm a bit confused about the guidelines for region generation. Do i create the actual region and a test region? or just a test region, and then i make the actual region after it's been uploaded ?(

[TheImperialDragon]

Originally posted by Seniosh
One thing I haven't been able to do is generate Draggle Tails and Ampule pods nicely. They just don't behave the way I want them to. Either they don't appear at all, or they form this dense ring around their parent object. any ideas?

Can you post a screenshot?

Originally posted by Seniosh
[edit] i'm a bit confused about the guidelines for region generation. Do I create the actual region and a test region? or just a test region, and then I make the actual region after it's been uploaded ?(

You generate a small 6*6 area in an ESP and you upload it. Don't do anything else yet.

[Seniosh]

Well, with the vast majority of settings, the Draggle-tails and Ampule pods don't generate at all. Nothing. But, when they do generate... well look at the screenshot. It's like a crop-circle.

And in that instance, strangely enough, that was the only place where they even generated. They're extremely weird for some reason.

Also, in the CS i saw MuckTiles in the environments section, which appear to be for Deepen Moor. They sound like they'd be great for the Bitter Coast, but unfortunately the models are not there, or contain errors. Is this going to be fixed? It would make swamp-building a whole lot easier

[TheImperialDragon]

Originally posted by Seniosh
Also, in the CS I saw MuckTiles in the environments section, which appear to be for Deepen Moor. They sound like they'd be great for the Bitter Coast, but unfortunately the models are not there, or contain errors. Is this going to be fixed? It would make swamp-building a whole lot easier

kingevil posted the ones that were for Deepen Moor in the Warehouse.

There's also the StExComMuckpoolSheet model, which goes with the StExComMuckpool. I'm not sure how long the pool model has been there (my computer tells me it goes as far back as 2006), but I must have been missing it somehow. You might just be able to use that as a placeholder swamp scum/muck pool. Create a separate ID for the muck pool and sheet.

(I'm finding out a lot of things I didn't even know about before! :eek: )