Landscape Claims

[cire992]

I feel like I've talked to Dave about this before, but I can't remember where or when... so, I'm trying to figure out what we need (flora, rocks, etc.) to get going on creating landscapes. I was digging through the assets, but I'm still at a loss. Thoughts, comments, ideas, insults?
Wasn't there someone who was going to provide some rocks to us or something?

Update: Okay, forget the rocks.

That poll we set up came out saying thumbs up for using converted mesh placeholders. Nowhere would temporary meshes be more useful than in the landscape where things don't need to fit together like puzzle pieces.

SO here's the plan of attack:
1. carve out which meshes will be used where and convert them using Galadrielle's mesh converter.
2. generate meshes into the regions of the heightmap to get a rough landscape down.
3. At this point I'll start going through and putting together claims. I'll basically go over what the designer should and shouldn't place, anything notable that needs to be there (like dungeons or whatnot), and give a general description of the region with a few pictures from Morrowind.
4. Now that obviously leaves the modder with a lot of creative freedom and a large area to tackle. I would LOVE to have a board for exterior claims so I can post these claims as threads and have a lot of feedback and dialogue going back and forth as these claims develop.
5. As new ST meshes are made to replace the converted oes we use, we can just replace the converted meshes of rocks or trees or whatever we get without really having to go back and move things around again (at least for landscape pieces).

I'm feeling like I oughta start this straight away. I mean we have a lot of open interior claims, but I want to start working on giving this mod a sense of wholeness, exterior claims will accomplish that.

[sandor]

Originally posted by cire992
1. carve out which meshes will be used where and convert them using Galadrielle's mesh converter.
2. generate meshes into the regions of the heightmap to get a rough landscape down.

As far as I know Lightwave is going to create an esp with all the placed content.

The approach you mentioned under 3, 4 and 5 sounds like a good plan.

[cire992]

Thanks for the advice, I think there are still some kinks to work out with it, though.

[Dave_91]

A landscape claims forum is a good idea. My ideas were (for the landscape claims + forum):

A sub-forum inside of the Landscape Claims for each region of Vvardenfell. That'll leave us with 10 forums, one for each region. We could post the claim threads in them. Cire, I think you covered everything else pretty well and I agree with sandor, those are some good plans.

Before going ahead with modding any landmass at all, you suggested via. PM that we should perhaps make a simple object generation for the regions, so that they're not empty, and modders have some placed content for them to use already. (Although they have a lot of freedom of modding, so it's best if they're as creative and true to form as possible with the assets we have. After all, the generated rocks are primarily temporary until the landscaper works with the claim.) I like that idea.

Would it be a good idea, if we only allowed claims for hand-picked regions (ones that have enough assets) until we get more stuff? The threads can still be made, but they would be closed until we've got the assets for modding. If this idea was to be taken further, I'd put my vote to only allow claims in the Ashlands region, Bitter Coast and Ascadian Isles for the time being. This way, modders will always have the assets to work from, and nobody can claim an area that doesn't have the right assets, thus making the claim pointless.

I've been experimenting with different rocks and ground textures, and (IMO), I feel we have enough assets (hopefully), to cover most of the Ashlands, Bitter Coast and Ascadian Isles. The others could be worked on still, but they might require some more pieces before there's enough to mod with.

Also, I think it would be best if the modder had the SI expansion installed, as there are a few interesting ground textures that I think work well in areas (e.g. some of the Dementia/Ordered ground textures look similar to the textures used in the Ashlands and other rocky areas).

I've noticed a few meshes that would be handy for use in the Ashlands region, for example, the Bittergreen plant and dead tree stumps. If you want, I could note down some of the statics I feel we'd probably need eventually to make the region feel right.

[cire992]

^ Mentioning useful statics would be a good idea. I'll post lots of pictures from the Morrowind CS as well, if we end up using the 1x heightmap.

Something interesting regarding the BC and AI: I don't know if you've been keeping up with MW mods but a modder named Vality recently released custom tree replacers for AI and BC regions. They're oblivionesque "SpeedTree" models, hi-res and a beautiful hybrid of AI and BC flora in Oblivion level detail.

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/Vi...14&id=5981

Might be nice to have those trees in the mod. If there aren't any technical hitches to using them, do you think I should try to get a hold of Vality?

[Dave_91]

I remember seeing this posted on the official forums. Yes, I think that might be a good idea, as long as there's no problems with getting them into Oblivion like you say. Go for it. :goodjob: