Are we decided on scale then?

[Dave_91]

Sorry to pester you Lightwave, but, any progress with the 1.5x scale?

Desperate to see how it looks...

[Lightwave]

Sorry, I've been at a dance festival all weekend, Salsa, Bachata, Raggaton, yoga, spin, shines, ducks and dives classes etc. And doing crazier things catching scantily clad chicks launching themselves face first and managing to drop one of them too! Been a bit exhausting, 3-4 hours sleep and a full day, dancing 'til 3:30am 3 days running, my apologies for no sooner update.

It wouldn't normally take more than an hour to get a scaled heightmap and generate the LOD and that's still totally possible with any existing release of TESAnnwyn. Unfortunately I 'fixed' something in my development version of TESAnnwyn (every imported heightmap was one pixel further north-east than it should have been) but have broken something else I've been trying to fix (related to texture positioning). What I'm fixing is a bit pedantic, but I want it perfectly centralized, I'll track it down and release it ASAP, I'm looking forward to it too, sorry about the delay.

[Dave_91]

Christ you must be fit..

sorry about the delay

Lol, it's no problem at all.

[grumbler]

My first thought on the 1.5 scale was that is was maybe the worst of both worlds, but after reconsideration I think that maybe it is the best, simply because it will still allow you guys to follow "the original dream" and yet make it likelier that the mod would get made.

I think you need to think about the roads carefully. Roads exist for a reason. They don't wind without reason, nor do they branch without reason. You can put those reasons in the game (a road going over a rope bridge might branch to a ford for loads too heavy for a bridge, for instance). I cannot model, but I may be able to map, and could perhaps help the mod in the road-pathing context.

[raggidman]

:jump: welcome O grumbly one!

That sounds great - the lads were givin out a few moanies about havvin to do the roads

I will wake them up if I can. They should have recovered from their fundays by now.

[Dave_91]

Yep. Thanks for offering to help, Grumbler - I'm sure we can use you. Once we see how the 1.5x scale looks and we decide what size to use, we can start planning the roads properly.

[Lightwave]

Okey dokey, here's the archive:


Vvardenfellx1.5.7z


It contains:

1) A 1.5x scale texture converted landscape ESP, with a primitive and roughly fitting worldmap taken from the VCLR. Includes Firemoth and Solstheim.

2) A 1.5x scaled, TES4 converted and Placed NPCs ESP (from TESPort). The NPCs are at their normal scale obviously and combined from Vvardenfell, Firemoth and Solstheim.

3) A 1.5x scaled and placed content ESP; this includes all of Galadrielle's meshes for Vvardenfell, activators (such as signs), lights etc. They are expanded to 1.5x scale so they fit together with the original terrain.

4) LOD: DistantLand mesh and a batch file to create the DistantLand textures.

5) A batch file to convert TES3 meshes to TES4 (this is only if you want to play with the placed content ESP). This runs Galadrielle's NIF converter (not ESP converter).

6) An optional batch file to rapidly make full DistantLOD versions of everything for cracking screenshots but diabolical framerates.


The placed content file and converter (3 and 5) is as always for interest, reference and nostalgia only. We cannot use it for anything official, but it's far nicer to visit the 1.5x world using it than just a empty world.

The Cavern of the Incarnate stands out fine still too, which is a nice bonus. The DistantLand mesh has its usual myriad of issues, but this is no surprise.


Have fun.

Lightwave

p.s. I also agree we should keep the layout of all the winding roads. New ones can be created by people where appropriate of course.

[Lightwave]

Howdy folks,

Any thoughts and feelings on the 1.5x scale landscape? You know I'm easy whatever we go with, but I think 1.5x is a nice compromise, it's obvious it's much bigger than the original and it still looks pretty vast from many high points but is just over half the area of the 2x landscape (56% of the area to be exact) so a lot less work.

And if so, what's the next phase? Turn it in to an ESM, combined with the STAT and other model references from our last master resource file that sandor produced?

[InsanitySorrow]

Any thoughts and feelings on the 1.5x scale landscape? You know I'm easy whatever we go with, but I think 1.5x is a nice compromise, it's obvious it's much bigger than the original and it still looks pretty vast from many high points but is just over half the area of the 2x landscape (56% of the area to be exact) so a lot less work

I actually think this is the best scale to use, I agree with everything you said, we get a bigger scale land but less work compared to the 2x scale. Definately the one to go with guys :yes:

And if so, what's the next phase? Turn it in to an ESM, combined with the STAT and other model references from our last master resource file that sandor produced?

I think that would be a wise step.

[Dave_91]

I like this scale best too. :yes:

I can't get the distant textures working on the LOD distant land (pink). I probably installed something wrong. All folders were cleaned of files beforehand too. I'll try again tomorrow.

Yeah - next we'll need to create a master file. If anyone here has knowledge to create a master file for VV and maintain that position, then that's brilliant.

After we create the master file, I think we should consider generating regions regardless of missing meshes as they can be replaced later. I've created my own versions of the rocks for the Ascadian Isles region with new textures which I'd like to to include. I've also retextured the rocks with texures that fit other regions for variation (like the Grazelands, Bitter Coast etc.). I'll make unique rocks for the regions in case they begin to look monotonous.

After region generation esps have been merged, we can start building towns and cities.