Difference between revisions of "Creating Large Worldspaces"

Creating Large Worldspaces (edit)

Revision as of 20:40, 25 January 2011

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 =Ready to Go=
-Once you have a handle of the related tools and basic methods you should begin. You should always start a new world space with a new [[Glossary#E|.esp]]. This is true even if you already have significant aspects of your mod completed. The reason for this is simple. More RAM available for the CS means crashes will be less frequent.
+With tools in hand and some practical experience with using them you are now ready to go.
-=====Notes=====
+In keeping with the suggested order of things as discussed at the start of this article a large world space mod begins with the creation of a landmass. This is done using the heightmap editor. The recommended way to do this is through a new plug in, i.e. a new [[Glossary#E|.esp]]. Oblivion.esm is not needed at this point so it should not to be loaded. The reason for this is simple. Oblivion.esm requires RAM. Not having Oblivion.esm loaded means more RAM is available for the CS. This will help prevent crashes and it will mean shorter load times when starting the CS.
+Even if you have already started work on other aspects of your mod you will still want to start your mod with a separate plugin. As you go through this article the reasons will probably become more obvious. If nothing else starting a new .esp decreases the chance of corrupting your previous work and vice versa.
-* An added benefit of starting a new .esp is that it decreases the chance of corrupting your other mods and vice versa.
+Next you'll want to define your world space in the CS (World > World Spaces > New, give your new world space a name, and adjust the settings as desired within that window. You can change climate and water settings later. The map will come last. Now, before you open the heightmap editor save the mod again. Now if the CS crashes during your first session you will at least have your world space defined.
 == Heightmap Generation ==
-Start a new .esp. '''You do not need to load Oblivion.esm at this time.''' You are creating a new world space. You will not need Oblivion.esm until you get to region generation. Not loading Oblivion.esm here at the beginning will save you time by not having to process it. It will also lower demands on RAM.
+Before you open the heightmap editor and start building your landmass a few things should be said about planning your terrain. This does not entail generating highly accurate elevation plans. This is about taking a practical look at the scale of your new world space and the way changes in terrain translate in the game world. In other words, mountains in the real world can be tens of thousands of feet higher than the foothills and plains surrounding them, but in the CS creating this difference in elevation isn't practical. [[Oblivion Units]] is a good place to start.
+Another important piece of information to keep in mind as you plan is a quote from the Heightmap Editing article:
+ ''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.
+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.
+=====Notes=====
+*A simple conversion to remember is 32 units equals a yard. So divide by 32 and multiply by three to covert CS units to feet.
-Save this .esp. You will probably want to name this .esp something similar to the name of the new world space. Now define your world space in the CS (World > World Spaces > New, give it a name and adjust the settings as desired within that window (you can change climate and water settings later, map will come last (none of these are covered in this primer))). Don't create any terrain for this world space quite yet, just have it defined. Save the mod again. Although this may seem a bit redundant, some aspects of the heightmap editor (notorious for being problematic as you probably know) don't work particularly well when working on a world space which has not been saved (it's a memory thing); saving the mod records the definition of the world space within the .esp, so it is more stable (or something). Now you can begin within the heightmap editor.
+Save this .esp. You will probably want to name this .esp something similar to the name of the new world space.  Although this may seem a bit redundant, some aspects of the heightmap editor (notorious for being problematic as you probably know) don't work particularly well when working on a world space which has not been saved (it's a memory thing); saving the mod records the definition of the world space within the .esp, so it is more stable (or something). Now you can begin within the heightmap editor.
 ====Using the Heightmap Editor Part 1====