The Summerset Isles

[FireDrakeArchon]

Okay, under Razorwings rule, the Summerset Isles thread has been restarted here. -FiredrakeArchon

Alright, I think that the link for our new board needs to be posted here, so as to let people know where it is:

http://z3.invisionfree.com/The_Summerset...index.php?

now, we got off topic on the last thread, how I cant remember, so lets discuss only Summerset Isles related stuff here, okay?

-FireDrakeArchon

[Hidden]

Well, I wish you good luck with this mod, though seeing as how this mod has already been abandoned three times, I'm not putting my hopes up. This is not an easy project, and if you, as project leaders, don't mod it, nobody will. I've seen hundreds of projects like this both in and outside of the Oblivion community and as far as I can remember, very few ever made it anywhere. Even fewer were completed, with only several glitches needing to be fixed.

My suggestion, you need a good plan and you need to know how to use most of the stuff the Construction Set can do. If you look at what approach my team took with our mod, we first decided what things we would put in the mod for the first public release. We decided to drop most quests, most cities of Vvardenfell, and almost all Vvardenfell dungeons. We decided to drop many stuff of Mournhold, while focusing on Solstheim.

We then made a list of specific objectives, each one having a percentage of how much of it has been done. (*see my topic in this forum) This helps us keep track of everything that needs doing and makes our work more organized. It also helps the public know what we're doing and how fast. We have updated this list with new objectives during development time, but only stuff we were sure we could accomplish. Like recently, when we decided to add a Mana Burn spell. Sometimes we split a single objective into more specific objectives.

We lacked many models, so we settled either for stuff that looked somewhat similar from what's available in the game or in modder's resources. They're not permanent, if someone comes along and makes a model, we will remove these placeholders. I'm not sure how many new models you're planning to add, but you could consider this to speed up development.

You should decide what the gameplay will be like. Will you add level scaling in this region as well? Will you add "essential" characters or "quest" items? Will you add, I dunno, stuff like graverobbing, Mana Burn or simply stick to what Cyrodiil had to offer? Whatever you add, your team needs to be consistent. It doesn't make sense to make one important NPC unkillable but not another equally important NPC. If you add essential NPCs, you should consider removing that tag once the quest has been completed. I think you shouldn't add any essential NPCs but that's me. Most people here don't like not being able to kill everyone, but you should add a ton of new spells, since it's the land of the Altmer.


Before you start working on the .esp/.esm, you should have a completed heightmap. Then you should split it into regions, including seas, name them, give them ambiental sounds like birds, insects and other sounds and decide the climate for each region. If you want the same climate everywhere, it's best to edit the climate of the entire worldspace instead of each region. You should also set up a square border around the isles, so players don't get too far from shores. Make sure all the "sea" cells the players will ever see are put into a region. Any region. If they're not in any region, the players will not see water there, just a giant empty square pit.

Right, now it's time to decorate the islands and seas with rocks, trees, sand and other stuff. Rather than trying to manually add every single rock and tree, which was almost impossible and inefficient even for the game developers, use the region editor to generate content for the new region. Best to make it so that it randomly places creatures and creature spawn locations as well. You can edit if afterwards and remove stuff you don't want.

Next you should generate pathgrids. This helps characters and creature move around much easier without bumping in trees all the time.

Dungeons cannot be generated, so you'll need to make them manually. Dungeons also need pathgrids and they need to be manually placed as well. You can't automatically generate interior pathgrids.

Now it will be time to make cities and villages. Make sure the law enforcement works. The Altmer guards will need their own dialog and you'll need to make working jails as well. Each time you edit a cell, don't forget to update the pathgrid you generated, otherwise you might see NPCs bumping into their houses trying to get to their destination. Makes sure the players have a way to get there by boat or by magic.

And finally, add quests. Best to make them more challenging than the vanilla ones and the journal should just record game events from a 1st person perspective, not tell players what to do.

Of course, these are just my suggestions. Feel free to do it another way.

[FireDrakeArchon]

wow dude, thats really good advice. I had always wondered why in some of my home(not released)mods that had a worldspace with an ocean, why there were big holes in the ocean. but i dont exactly know how to find, or use a region editor/generator. but i couldnt find out why even land thats next to you, sometimes when loaded, would basically do this:




_______ ________


__________

weird, right?
hey, just curious, do you think you might want to help with the Isles?
ive been trying to make a heightmap on my own, but every time i go to save it, the cs crashes. im thinking of moving up to my parents computer, which is almost new, and try it there. OH dang, the bell is about to ring(im at school)well ill get back on later.

thanks for the advice, Hidden.

-FireDrakeArchon

[Hidden]

I don't know what's causing that crash... low memory? Yes, it would be a good idea to try it on another computer.

You should give me a few more details about how you're making the heightmap. In the past, I've imported heightmaps made with heightmap-generating software such as Geo Control. With the SoVvM team I also learned how to move one heightmap from one plug-in to another and even how to merge two heightmaps (Vvardenfell and Solstheim) from two different plug-ins. That was months ago and our team no longer needs to do any heightmap editing or importing, but I might still be able to give you some advice.

What is the size of the heightmap compared to one quad? (32x32 cells) If it's less, you should put in all in one quad instead of putting it in the middle with the center cell (0,0) because that would waste 4 quads and it would be impossible to generate distant land correctly. Distant land always looks ugly where the quads meet so it's best to avoid that if you can.

You should read the CS Wiki on landmass editing. It's good enough to get you started I think. It explains all the basics pretty clearly.

I could help out a bit, but remember that I'm already working with a team on a huge project, so that doesn't leave me much time. If the CS continues to crash, I'll try to see it myself. If you already have the heightmap, I could import it in your plug-in file and then send you the file back.

By the way, you might want to consider adding a prefix to all of your new IDs, something like "zx". One of my team members suggested we use it and it has helped us because we always find our own spell, items, topic and everything lese at the bottom when they're arranged in alphabetical order. So instead of just "ManaBurn" or "SuManaBurn" you could call it "zxManaBurn".

[FireDrakeArchon]

okay, i experimented with it a bit, and i found out what i was doing wrong. i had the worldspace in question open on the render screen when i was doing the heightmap, resulting in a crash. now that I've found the problem, and am being careful to avoid it, i have a basic heightmap of the east isle to work with. and on the way of scale, i might be doing it wrong, because the way i do it is i take my concept map of firsthold, make a test landscape, and see if that size works. if id seems good, like it did on about the 5th try, then ill use the landscape shading tool and draw the city onto the landscape, and firsthold worked quite well.

What project are you working with now, just curious?

-FireDrakeArchon

[Hidden]

How does that landscape shading thing work? Never tried it as far as I can remember.

I'm part of the SoVvM Team (well, co-leader actually) and we're recreating the locations featured in TESIII, in Oblivion's timeline. You'll be able to visit Vvardenfell, Solstheim and even Mournhold.

http://postalmodding.proboards105.com/in...oard=sovvm

[Lady Nerevar]

if you mean the landscape vertex shading it basicaly lets you paint shadows onto the landscape (make textures darker). you can use colors other then gray too, but that typicaly comes out looking cheasy. vertex shading is used to give shadows to objects that cast shadows (buildings, landscape, etc.) and to help with texture merging

[Ammon]

Well I tried to animate a part of the Orrery... "TRIED"... But if you like it then thanks, if not then I guess its not for meh..



Hope you like it... I know that I havent fixed much up yet, but I've not been working in it in quite a while.

Ammon

[Hidden]

Originally posted by Lady Nerevar
if you mean the landscape vertex shading it basicaly lets you paint shadows onto the landscape (make textures darker). you can use colors other then gray too, but that typicaly comes out looking cheasy. vertex shading is used to give shadows to objects that cast shadows (buildings, landscape, etc.) and to help with texture merging

Oh that! I remember it. We used that to make a certain texture darker in the Royal Palace Courtyard, and to mark the end of the cell which was necessary for making a correct, accurate "world map". But can you make the Construction Set do it automatically for the buildings you have placed?

[Lady Nerevar]

no, i dont think you can. doing it by hand is a wee bit time consuming but not really hard.