Road claim: North of Steadhelm to Ebbedin lighthouse

[Razorwing]

Full map (left); Clarifying map of this road claim (right)

[title]Background[/title]
One of the goals of our next release, Silgrad Tower 3.0, is to complete a basic road network across our lands. The main purpose is to connect our cities and major villages but beyond that a road network is also great for connecting trails leading to dungeons, tombs, mines and other quest locations. Parts of the network are already claimed by certain core members, while other parts remain open. Given the workload the road network entails, and given the workload already on those core members, we decided to open parts of the road network to claiming.

[title]What would I need to do?[/title]
Study the detail map and, if need be, the full map as well until you get a sense of how your stretch of the road network will be outlaid on our land.*

In this claim the road stretches from north of Steadhelm up to the lighthouse, and also includes a fork in the road going eastward right around where the peninsula makes a bend. The southmost part starts in the cell 50,33 or in other words just north of where the existing road and generated landscape ends. The eastward bend goes to 61,34 while the long road to the lighthouse ends at 61,64 or in other words just southwest of the cell "EbbedinLighthouse 62,65".

The modding phase is divided into two phases, of which the second phase is optional but highly appreciated.

What you need to do initially is to paint the landscape texture StSrSHRoadStone01 along the path shown in the maps and then mark the cell as being hand changed. I trust you know how to do the former if you're considering this claim, but you may be unfamiliar with the latter. To do that, find the cell in the list of the Cell View window. Right-click on your cell and choose "Edit", and you'll get a popup window called simply Cell. The option is found at the bottom of the only tab. It's important to tick the checkbox for each of your road cells because this keeps them intact when a region is generated around your cell.

Your road should have the same layout as the road shown in the map but it doesn't matter if it differs a few cells, just as long as it doesn't start going the wrong way or veer far from its course.

Once you've painted the road texture and set the cells as being hand changed please submit your plugin for review by attaching it to a post in this thread. Once it's been greenlighted and merged to the esm the next phase of modding the road can begin, if you so choose. In that phase you'll add vertex shading to the sides of the road, paint additional landscape textures in your cells, and make the road more interesting by adding rocks and flora. The rocks are of Bitter Coast (BC) type, while the flora are everything in the category Flora > ST > Flora > BitterCoast. You can also plant our own shingle oak trees by the side of the road, as well as black locus and white pine from the main game.

* To clarify matters further you could check out the worldspace overview. To do so, choose the menu option "World > Heightmap Editing", then select "SilgradTowerLand" in the list and click OK. Don't check out the overview while having a plugin loaded as it may corrupt it - instead close the CS, restart it, load Oblivion.esm + Silgrad_Tower.esm and then you can check out the heightmap. Don't worry, you won't have to do any work on the heightmap - in fact, we insist that you don't - it would only be used for reference in case you need it.

If you're interested in the job but have questions, please go right ahead and post 'em =)

[SACarrow]

I was looking at this claim and I have a question. Why is the road to be built before that region is generated? I'm very new to this but landscaping a little ol' 1-cell island in an already-generated region was time-consuming. If I understand correctly, once "hand-changed" is ticked, that landscape will stay blank and featureless until manually done.

Wouldn't it be simpler to set this as a region claim and after that is satisfactory, then set up the road landscape claim? I bet I speak for most when saying that modifying the landscaping for 50-odd cells after region generation would be much less daunting than manually landscaping those 50 cells in their entirety.

Very confused here,
Steve

[blackbird]

You have a point, but my opinion is that you are less restricted if no cell has ben generated. You still need moving and retexturing some parts of the cell

[SACarrow]

blackbird: You have definitely done much more of this than me, but I personally would rather re-do a road cell slightly once generated than do it from scratch with the road already in place. But that's me; any other landscapers care to chime in?

Steve

[blackbird]

I have made something by myself, but I don't know if I'm going to continue with that road claim.

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by blackbird
I have made something by myself, but I don't know if I'm going to continue with that road claim.

Could you explain a bit about what your esp does?

[blackbird]

I'm sorry, it just has a road texture between the northern end of the steadhelm region and the imperial lighthouse. Nothing more than a road and some cells marked with hand changed.

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by blackbird
I'm sorry, it just has a road texture between the northern end of the steadhelm region and the imperial lighthouse. Nothing more than a road and some cells marked with hand changed.

Ok. Well at least folks can find their way there now, that's more than they could before, and I'm sure the road will be a good reference point for future modders working in that area.

[sandor]

Originally posted by blackbird
I have made something by myself, but I don't know if I'm going to continue with that road claim.

Should I merge the file?

[blackbird]

If the file is clean and errorless, then you have my permission.