New World Space and Region borders drawing

Overview

In this article I will show you how to draw region borders for a new world space in case that on a Region Map there is very difficult to determine where to place a region, when all you have is just a big space with white cells and no idea where is or should be a land of your world. It covers all steps that lead to region borders creation – creating a new world space, building a heightmap, regions drawing – so if you already have a world and just want to get an answer, how to draw a region borders, you can skip some first steps and go to region drawing. As an example we will create a pizza like world.

To fully understand what is going on I recommend you first read the following articles:
Basic Landscaping Tutorial
World Space Tutorial
Heightmap Editing

and you should also be aware about „LOD for a new world” problems:
Landscape LOD Tutorial
A final and simple solution to all those LOD load order problems., I think ... ;)

Create a new world space

As for now we don't need any data from „Oblivion.esm” master file, so just start up the Construction Set, go to [World] -> [World Spaces...], right click on a list to create new EditorID for an exterior world space, and name it whatever you want – mine is the „PizzaWorld”. We don't need any parent worldspace (Parent Worldspace -> NONE), our world shall be Small and player Can't Fast Travel From Here to any other world spaces.

Image01: Adding a new world space

When a new world is created, go to the Cell View window, choose 'PizzaWorld' as a World Space, and double click on 'Wilderness' cell to activate it – now we should have some new cells added to a PizzaWorld.

Generate a Heightmap

To create a landmass we can use the Heightmap Editor – go to menu [World] -> [Heightmap Editing...] and choose our 'PizzaWorld' to load. We will build an island – from Toolbar choose the Lasso and draw a world shape. I have also toggled the Grid to show you a scale of my Pizza World.

Image02: World shape drawing

Noise Parameters and Erosion Settings

To create the heightmap we will use automatic Generators. My island will be almost totally flat, with no lakes or rivers, so I set the following noise parameters:

• Frequency = 400
• Amplitude = 2000
• Base Offset = 4110 (just above water level, which is 4096)
• Additive flag is checked (we will only rise the terrain) and other settings are default or not set.

Image03: Spaces that need correction

If everything is ready, we can push twice the Generate button (twice, because we want to get a land just over the water level) and heightmap will be created automatically. Some of areas probably will require a correction.

To compare your view of created heightmap, these are parameters for the Color Masking in my settings:

   1 mask – level 0 – black color;
   2 mask – level 4000 – dark blue;
   3 mask – level 4096 – light blue;
   4 mask – level 4097 – dark green;
   5 mask – level 8726 – light green;
   6 mask – level 17637 – yellow;
   7 mask – level 25435 – red;
   8 mask – level 41772 – purple;
   9 mask – level 50497 – light grey;
   10 mask – level 65535 – white.

Now we need to smooth the heightmap – to do this, we can use the Erosion Generator with the following settings:

• Iterations = 95
• Erosion Rate = 0
• Sedimentation = 0
• Land Smoothing = 95

Push the Erode button 4 or 5 times to get completely smooth land. We can also check how our world looks in a 3D view – on a Toolbar click on a picture with camera to open the Preview Window and examine the world surface if there aren't any steep dodges.

Image04: 3D Preview

Now we can create the actual worldmass – press the Save button, close the Heightmap Editor and save the plugin. There may occur some errors related to the generated heightmap – we must correct them immediately with Landscape Toolbox and Soften Vertices brush.

We have created a world in main 4 quads – if you activate for example a 'Wilderness (-32, -32)' cell, you will see that on the edge of a quad there is a gap, that should be eliminated (with Landscape Toolbox and Flatten Vertices tool).

Image05: Gaps between land surfaces

Region borders drawing

Open the Regions Window – go to menu [World] -> [Regions...] and activate 'PizzaWorld'. On a region map probably you will see only a big space with white cells, a form that doesn't look in no way like a world we have just build. First lets add a new region to the Pizza World – I named it the 'PizzaMainShape'.

To draw a region shape for main terrain of island, we must know exact coordinates of each cell that lies on a border of island. Do not close Regions Window and once again open the Heightmap Editor for 'PizzaWorld'.

Image06: Light points on a heightmap

From a toolbar choose the Eyedropper and capture some bright color. Then choose the Paintbrush and draw on a heightmap some points, that will help you to quick determine the cell coordinates of island border.

Now place a cursor over one of this bright points, on a status bar read the cells coordinates and remember them. Go the Region Window, search for that cell – on a bottom status bar there are displayed coordinates for a cell pointed by a cursor as well. When you find the cell with equivalent coordinates, left click to draw the first point of region border.

Image07: Region drawing - first point

Use the same method to draw the rest of points.

Image08: Region drawing - all points

At the end close a region shape – right click on a region map and select Done – and you may close the Heightmap Editor without saving the changes (otherwise you add those bright points to a heightmap of 'PizzaWorld').

Now you have a main region shape. Its borders are more or less in the same position as the border of island and using this region as a basis allows you to add some more regions. 'PizzaWorld' is an island so it is wise to build a Border Region – the border of this region should be two or three cells outside from the 'PizzaMainShape'.

Remember that we haven't loaded data from „Oblivion.esm” file – so if you want to build now some Object Regions, you should reload Construction Set and choose both files: the plugin file we have just created and „Oblivon.esm” (or any other master file, or make your own master file and merge it with plugin) - after this operation your plugin will be „Oblivion.esm” dependant.

I wrote this short tutorial as an answer to the Forum question - link here.
--Tom Brightblade 05:05, 13 May 2007 (EDT)