What if there was a little bit of colour (greens and yellows) while still looking arid.

Found this link:   http://maybewerecrazy.com/?tag=badlands-national-park

The bottom three pictures are dry climates but with furtile soil.

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This could be the transition from Shipal-Shin to Deshaan

I felt like drawing rocks for some reason:

I do not think rocks should have a significant presence in the Deshaan proper. The cliff pieces would be used for the chasms, probably for the edge of Lake Andaram, and possibly at the Shipal-shin border. I don’t think they should really be used anywhere else.

The large rocks would generally only be found at the base of cliffs, especially at Lake Andaram; incidentally, there should be at least one more large rock, but I ran out of page space.

Medium and small rocks would be found on the plain, but generally in clusters that are relatively few and far between. They would generally be used to accentuate landmarks/visual features, like a dried out brine pool, or to themselves serve as landmarks/visual features.

Flat rocks would be used a little more liberally, also generally placed in small clusters, often near other rocks. While they should have collisions, they should be low enough not to serve as obstacles.

Whereas in most regions rocks are used to cover up ugly texture seams and hide general land texture tiling, I think in the Deshaan that role should mostly be carried out by tall grass. Aside from allowing the Deshaan to appear as an open plain rather than a sort of boulder landscape, and allowing us to implement larger creatures along the lines of the plain strider without fear of wonky pathing and glitching about should we so desire, I think the approach will also let us make the most of the rocks where they are used, rather than rocks simply serving as a constant background noise.

To that end, rock clusters would frequently be accompanied by other assets; first and foremost salt formations, but also flora. The salt formations would tend to look very jagged, contrasting with the overall smoothness of the rocks.

Ah, great idea.

I think the stalk could be made to look a bit more woody (not thicker) to better supprot what would probably be a very heavy ‘flower’; maybe something like these:

Just quickly made this. It’s the ashmire from the ashlands, except I made it salt like instead of ash like.

Hm. My main hang-up with the colour palette is that I’m still not entirely sold on the yellow and (more to the point) purple contrast. Though as far as the purple is concerned, something that springs to mind: perhaps more of a reddish-purple could be used to work with Daedric ruins? Also, this might be the same issue as before, but I feel as though the yellows and especially purples are far too saturated.

So, we have flora concepts and rock concepts. Fauna I’m personally putting on the backburner, as fauna can be included at any point in the implementation stage and doesn’t need to be available for exterior modders. I think the main terrain models that still need to be pinned down are salt formations. As far as the exterior is concerned, I think these should essentially come in four variants:

salt crystals: These are relatively pure salt concentrations that form interesting shapes. Some could have splashes of colour and some could be an entirely different colour, but I think the colours shouldn’t be too saturated. Google images shows quite a range of shapes and colours. Should have a good deal of variety. Asylum has made a great start on these:

salt lumps: Lumps of salt mixed with dirt roughly the same size as the small rocks in my concept. Should have a light but dull colour and a very complex surface (probably via textures and vertex shading). Probably five variants.

salt spires: Same as salt lumps except for their shape. Should come as single spires or as groups. Probably something like four single pillars and two groups. I don’t think these should be very large at all; generally shorter than a person. (Note that most of those are – I believe – rock and not salt formations, but the general shape is what’s important. I included an image of an actual salt pillar to round them out).

salt platforms: I’d say at least three variations. Again, Asylum has made a great start on these:

Aside from that, chlorine clouds and brine pools spring to mind; unless we want to get fancy, one model for each would probably suffice. There’s also the idea of chlorine vents which I’m not entirely sold on; I feel that might get too similar to the ashland steam vents.

Edit: I almost forgot to mention: the brine pools would naturally just need to be a retexture of the generic (I’d go with) 512x512 flat tile.

Yeah, those salt formations are excellent references, though more specifically for the salt washes tileset rather than the exterior.

I ended up tossing together some concepts for the salt formations I described above; I also included concepts on two ways I think the Spindelwort could be modelled as well as an illustration of my above suggestion that the Salt Crocus be given a segmented stalk. (The plant concepts are naturally not to scale).

It would be awesome to have geysers in the salt plains. Already have the water shooting type particle effect from the fountains in mournhold. And the steam from the molag Amur region. And Ashmiers from the ashlands. Just chnage textures and sizes and what not.

How about having structures like this to somewhat break up the flatness of the landscape?

Or having slight raised dunes between flat areas?

A few sketches of Deshaan’s borders:

Northern Border

Andaram Border

Northern Border: where the Deshaan Plains descend into the tumbling hills of the Orethan, and conversely the subtropic vegetation of the Orethan straggles its way up into the Deshaan as far as it can go before succumbing to the salt. Also featured at the bottom right is the northernmost of the mudflats; note the fringe of vegetation around the edge of the mudflats which mark the highest point the water can reach in periods of high tide. (In game the waters of the Mudflats are near their lowest ebb). That fringe is home to plants like wild saltrice.

Andaram Border: I’m not sure if this should be a cliff as shown or a very steep and rocky slope. Either way you have the Deshaan Plains up top and the Middle Thirr down at the bottom lining most of the lake’s edge. Also featured is one of the secondary entrances to the Salt Washes.

I’ve finally gotten around to making (or rather updating) a Deshaan Plains mockup using the WIP meshes and textures that are available so far. (In the latter case with a lot of edits).
The cell is T_MW_DPcell, up near snowy Solstheim because I don’t plan ahead. Note that the area being surrounded by cliffs is not representative of how the Deshaan will look. The Deshaan will have chasms disappearing into the ground, but few if any cliffs rising out of it.
I seem to have updated the texture paths for the Skyrender incorrectly, but couldn’t be bothered to find a solution. I’ve also played around with purplish vertex shading to go with the purple/yellow colour scheme. It might need to be toned down a bit more, though.

The first part of above post is referring to the question of whether the salt looks too much like snow, by the way.
As for the second bit, I do like the idea of having salt crystals on the ground, but why not have both?

Just a quick update before I turn in for the night: some updated textures. I tried to adapt one of Kaziem’s ground textures for the salt formations, (TerrDPSaltRock_01), but it wasn’t entirely successful. Otherwise, I mostly just bumped up the yellow a bit. Screenshots might follow tomorrow.

Hm. To me we should keep away from the crystals looking like well-cut quartz. Uncut crystals tend to have a more chaotic formation that looks granular or even furry when packed together. Patches form where water has gathered and evaporated, including water drips along sea cliffs, inanimate objects, or cave ceilings. Salt in particular weathers very easily because it dissolves in water, so perfect large crystals are rare. (Salt pillars often have other minerals mixed in them that disrupt the perfect crystal formation.)

Bunch of examples, almost all from the Dead Sea, which is awesome inspiration:

← I don’t know how that got formed, but omg!

Salt in particular also has a square formation to its crystals (due to how the Na+ and Cl- atoms align), rather than the planed hexagonal look you see in gemstones. You would probably find the big crystals in caves rather than on the surface, where they would otherwise get dissolved away come every rain:

Sorry, just had to get on my soap box. :) Quartz-style crystals in landscapes are very overdone in fantasy games, so I wanted to be sure ours looked especially Morrowind-y and true to the nature!