Region Generation Procedures

[Ibsen's Ghost]

[SIZE=16]Region Generation Procedure

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Procedure

I am proposing that the team follows the same procedure as outlined by sandor on the 'father project' of 'Silgrad Tower': Region Guidelines .

A similar method can be outlined here on approval by the core.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

After a few questions about region generation, I thought I'd give people an update on how we go about things here:

Region Generation

Generating regions does require a number of different skills and a very, very good PC. To generate the regions, I have to prepare assets, get them into the archive, sort out the height map (this normally involves using the smoothing technique in the CS), pre-think areas that might require special sculpting of the landscape (because changing the height map after region gen is really hard work!), choose a preset from the vanilla landscape on which to base my customised region....and then it's over to sandor. sandor then generates the region (because his PC is absolutely super-sonic and he's very experienced with using the region editor tool). I then create an item replacement list so that the vanilla objects can be automatically replaced with custom ones. This takes time because you need the object reference IDs. Then sandor does the item replacement which I believe (and can imagine) can be very tedious and that's the region generated! In short, the region generation requires a good general awareness and idea of how you want things to go beforehand combined with some very learn-able skills, a great PC and a fair amount of time and effort. I tend to think that, considering the results, it's not actually that bad compared to some modding tasks but then I do have sandor helping me to share the load.

It also has a roughly equal amount of the technical-administrative stuff of modding and the design element (which I always prefer, as do most people).

Landscaping

Landscaping depends on the quality of the region generation which, unfortunately, can be very difficult to predict. Sometimes what you saw in the preset cells don't end up in the same proportions and sometimes miss out or add other objects. Also, in my experience at least, it has the annoying tendency of producing a more limited variety of trees and flora than what you saw and produces too many rocks. This is because Bethesda auto-generated some stuff but also hand-placed a large amount of stuff as well so the system doesn't reflect the results.

What this means si that you have to do some of the hand-placing yourself....which can take a lot of time, especially if you want 4-5 more trees of x variety per cell of the region and the same sort of thing doing with various flora. You also have to check for floating objects which is a fault of the region editor. If the area is very dense then this is especially difficult because things get in the way and you miss things.

Then there's the texturing, which ain't too bad... but only when you know how. Each cell can only support something like ten textures per cell. Any more and you get errors (see my landscaping claims for details). What you have to do is delete textures that show up as a low percentage and then smooth over the changes.

The big bonus to landscaping, however, and the reason why I think it's one of the best parts of modding, is that you get to create fabulous locations, cave entrances, landscape features and so on and it can be relaxing...like painting a landscape and an enjoyable diversion from work.

Depending on how many alterations you have to make, it can be either an absolute nightmare or a total joy!