Difference between revisions of "Creating Large Worldspaces"

Creating Large Worldspaces (edit)

Revision as of 21:18, 25 January 2011

566 bytes added , 21:18, 25 January 2011

→‎Heightmap Generation

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   ''It's important to know how the height units in the heightmap editor relate to the actual terrain elevation when the map is saved to the plugin. Water level (defaults to z=0 in exterior cells) corresponds to z=4096 on the height map. Moreover, all differences from this value are doubled in the generated terrain. For example, z=4196 doesn't give a terrain height of 100, but 200 instead. Following this formula, the default height in the heightmap editor (3072) results in an ocean depth of -2048 units.''
-Accurate and detailed elevations in the heightmap editor are not necessary for good looking terrain. Generally a guideline to follow is to keep your elevations changes within several hundred units for traversable terrain, and a thousand for impassable or nearly impassable terrain. Elevation changes greater than a few thousand do not translate in game well and will create rips (errors) in your heightmap texture.
+Accurate and detailed elevations in the heightmap editor are not necessary for good looking terrain. Generally, a guideline to follow is to keep your elevation changes within several hundred units for traversable terrain, and a thousand for impassable or nearly impassable terrain. Elevation changes greater than a few thousand do not translate in game well and will create rips (errors) in your heightmap texture.
-Hopefully you have a fairly detailed plan for your new world space terrain. You know where you want plains and where you want mountains. You know where you want rivers and where you want valleys. Although you don't need to get too terribly accurate, a sketch of these ideas should be generated in a graphics editing program such as the [[GIMP]]. A direct scale is not necessary, however, a proportional scale should be utilized. The heightmap editor works in quads which are square (again see [[Oblivion Units]]). It will be helpful to try and translate your landmass into GIMP in such a way that your final graphic can be divided up into squares that will be translated into each of the quads you plan to use in the heightmap editor.
+You'll also want to have at this point a fairly detailed plan for your new world space terrain. You want to know where you will have plains and where you will have mountains. You want to know the general locations of rivers, lakes, and any other important landmarks. Again, you don't need to be too terribly accurate as you can probably adjust your content to match the results when the time comes.
+A sketch of all these ideas should be generated in a graphics editing program such as the [[GIMP]] (although you can also do this on paper as well). A highly accurate scale is not as important as the idea of a proportional scale. The heightmap editor works in quads which are square in shape (again see [[Oblivion Units]]). You need to draw your landmass in GIMP in such a way that your final graphic can be divided up into squares. Using the heightmap editor you will manually transfer these squares into each of the quads you plan to use. This "translation" is going to be in some ways an artistic feat on your part and doesn't need to be mathematically perfect or in any particular file format. It is something for your eyes to look at and will act as a guide so you don't get lost as you work. This is especially important if your world space will be larger than 4 quads as you will see shortly.
 =====Notes=====