Vudai Marsh Development

[Ibsen's Ghost]

With this esp now merged, I was able to send TOYB a copy of our latest height map. You can see that the Vudai Marsh mainly consists of water canals moving in a Southerly direction towards Murkwood before breaking up to the East. These aren't rivers as such but they are fed by the water from the Arnesian mountains. Take note that Arnesia has yet to be height-mapped properly (the very blue parts are what I do in the preliminary height-mapping stages)....as discussed with Deeza recently, it will start to become less mountainous the further East you go....but there will be plenty of high parts in the mid-section.

Note that the Wamasus Hills are now in place. These will be less wet than it's neighbouring marshlands. I still have to sculpt out the Eastern coastline properly though...

[Koniption]

:banana:

KP

[Xae]

It's great to see overviews like this. It makes BM a lot more palpable.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I'm working on this baby now. I'm having a few issues with my graphics card so no screenies as yet but I'm just working on identifying a preset region and getting all of the assets together.

Plus I'm working with Koniption on some new models. There is, as ever, a whole range of cool new stuff on the way from our Lead Modeller from rocks to clothing and, hopefully, a new tree/flora item...

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Quite an exclusive for ya here...

I just finished the asset replacement notes for the Vudai Marshes and passed them on to sandor...which means we're now at the final stage of region generation.

As I was doing so, I tested out the assets on one of the cells in the WS and here are the results. The big change here is that a prototype of Koniption's new Spore tree was made ready for me to test. This is something we've been working on behind-the-scenes. Currently, the textures aren't quite right but it's something that KP has been working on. The spore trees are visible in shots 2 and 5 and feature two types. One is the slightly smaller type you see here which is 'inactive'. Hopefully, we can create an 'active' version that acts as an environmental hazard and releases dangerous spores at infrequent intervals, thus adding to the hazards presented to the PC already provided by TFS's quicksand. Oh yes, the Vudai Marshes will be treacherous indeed! =)

Mossy trees and Marsh Poppies remain, making this by far our most unique landscape yet! All tree types are created by Koniption and, whilst they're not 'normal' trees that move in the wind, they nevertheless have other properties and other strengths.

New flora and shrubbery will be added such as the 'Fireroot', the 'Tillandsia Bulbosa' (which attaches itself to the water-dwelling mossy trees) along with Heliconia and Tiger ferns...not forgetting the much-smaller animated marsh poppies that can be harvested for poppy seeds.

DISCLAIMER - Please excuse my graphics card errors as usual (the poppies DO NOT have holes in their fronds) and bear in mind that, as yet, no weather FX are applied. Likewise, no swampwater. I have uploaded a new esp which should hopefully correct that last point once and for all. Finally, the Spore Trees WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE until I post up a new update to the archive and that includes the new bsa. For the time being, a simple placeholder will be used...

[Deeza]

Hmm. I never thought I'd describe a region of Black Marsh as beautiful but...

Seriously, great work by everyone involved.

[Koniption]

:pop:

Dang, those screenies look tantalizing! The region does look deceptively beautiful....

Koniption

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I momentarily switched back to landscaping this region again. If I can bring its development in line with the landscaped portions of the Talu Swamps and Murkwood then we'll have this where we want it for the beta.