Assembling the Goldmoor Region (not quick and easy)

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 5:03 pm

Now that we have Goldmoor objects in the OoT file, I have to take the objects and put them into a new region, so that the region can be generated properly, and we don't have to do it all by hand. However, if any of us want to get exterior claiming open in a timely fashion, I'm going to need help.
Each object that is to be generated by the Region Generator has over a dozen numerical values that need to be tested and understood. To do this, I want to enlist the help of all modders with time on their hands. This is actually going to be pretty simple, so keep reading.
I'm going to give you step-by-step instructions for using the Region Generator. First, open the latest OoT file in the CS. To bring up the Region Generator, open your "World" menu at the top of the OBCS, and select "Regions..." from the drop menu. This will open up the Region Generator.
In order to create a new region, select "Tamriel" from the drop box in the top left, and right-click on the list of region names.
[url=http://img47.imageshack.us/my.php?image=32224855wj4.jpg][img]http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/2474/32224855wj4.th.jpg[/img][/url]
Give your region a name like "Test" or "GM01" or whatever, not important. You can also select the color code for it.
Next, we want to add objects to the region, so locate some of the TR GM stuff in your Objects window, and drag them into the Generated Objects box in your Region Generator window.
[url=http://img337.imageshack.us/my.php?image=36727407mi1.jpg][img]http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/7996/36727407mi1.th.jpg[/img][/url]
[url=http://img396.imageshack.us/my.php?image=52739099bp5.jpg][img]http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/8254/52739099bp5.th.jpg[/img][/url]
Now, you'll need to go back into the CS proper, and raise some land off the coast of Anvil. This works just like it did in Morrowind. Just select the Tamriel worldspace, find the Anvil exterior cells, and move out from them. Use your Landscape Editor (the hotkey is h) to raise a small patch of land.
Now, back in the Region Generator. Using your scroll button, you can zoom out of the mosiac region map that is taking up the lower half of the Region Generator window. Clicking and dragging with the scroll button will move the map around. Remembering the coords of your newly raised land, use the left mouse button to place marks surrounding it, enclosing it in a shape. When you have enclosed it, right-click the space and select "Generate Canopy Shadow Mask For This Cell" while you have your new test region selected in the Region Name list.
[url=http://img260.imageshack.us/my.php?image=88749490oq2.jpg][img]http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/1445/88749490oq2.th.jpg[/img][/url]
Right, the hard part is over. Now, we want you to play around. Under the "Objects" and "Objects (More)" tabs, you will see there are data boxes for values such as density, clustering, sink, and so on. I want you to experiment with putting different values in those boxes, and hitting "Generate Now" to have the Region Generator throw it all together. View your land in the CS the way you would in Morrowind, and take notes and screenshots of what you produced. Odds are at first you'll have lots of crazy stuff happening, like floating rocks, slanted trees, and things generating inside of each other. Post all your results in this thread, and tell us what variables you played with that might cause these results.
This may seem like a lot of information, but really, doing a quick test will take no more than a half hour. This is really important if we want to use the Region Generator at all, so please participate in this.

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 6:58 pm

I don't have the hammerfell TR objects. I'll try with the vanilla objects.

Thrignar Fraxix · Post by **Thrignar Fraxix** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 6:59 pm

...why don't you DL the HF objects...
...we don't need a new region with vanilla statics...

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 9:22 pm

All rocks have density 30 and max slope 90. Min. slope and min. height are 0. 200000.0 is the max height of all objects.
Rock 045 has a radius of 39
Rock 050 has a radius of 37
Rock 070 has a radius of 160 and is parent
Rock 085 has a radius of 60 and has a radius with parent 512
Rock 095 has a radius of 76 and has a radius with parent 512
Rock 105 has a radius of 74 and has a radius with parent 512
Rock 150 has a radius of 110 and has a radius with parent 512
Rock 165 has a radius of 117 and has a radius with parent 512
Rock 220 has a radius of 160 and has a radius with parent 512
Count rocks:
Rock 045: 12394
Rock 050: 4782
All the rest is 0.

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 9:41 pm

Nice, that's what I was looking for. Thank you.
Would you be able to continue with this, and tweak the values until you get the objects generating with a more natural feel? Density could be played with. Also, those rocks look like they are very rigid and grid-like, almost like tombstones in a military graveyard. See what happens if you play with the clumping value.

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 9:57 pm

A second time:
All rocks have density 30 and max slope 90. The exception is rock 070 which has a density of 80.
Min. slope and min. height are 0. 200000.0 is the max height of all objects.
Rock 045 has a radius of 80
Rock 050 has a radius of 80
Rock 070 has a radius of 60
Rock 085 has a radius of 60 and is a parent
Rock 095 has a radius of 76 and has a radius with parent of 128
Rock 105 has a radius of 74 and has a radius with parent of 128
Rock 150 has a radius of 110 and has a radius with parent of 128
Rock 165 has a radius of 117 and has a radius with parent of 128
Rock 220 has a radius of 160 and has a radius with parent of 512 and is parent of rockgrass 01255.
RockGrass 01255 has a radius of 188 and has a radius with parent of 512
Count rocks:
Rock 045: 4504
Rock 050: 3084
Rock 070: 5876
Rock 085: 226
Rock 095: 6
Rock 105: 6
Rock 150 and rock 165 have 0 objects
Rock 220: 12
Rockgrass 01255: 10

Comment: the trees are generated by the CS. It's not my doing. It still looks like a graveyard, but there's more variation now.
Luckily there is a edit-button.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Tue Apr 10, 2007 11:59 pm

Thanks for the tutorial Dex. Its a huge help. I was just about to generate my region and the CS crashed

Luckily its not too complicated.. it'll just take lots of tries to get right.

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:03 am

Region generation takes a lot of memory, since there is so much freakin' information to be considered. To combat this, I suggest making your test region only a handful of cells in size. The one I am testing on is 2x2.

theviking · Post by **theviking** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:03 pm

Can't you just use an existing region and work from there? That seems to be more simple than inventing the process over again.

Andres Indoril · Post by **Andres Indoril** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 1:23 pm

I do not know if it is possible to replace the objects on the list, so that the numbers would stay at the goody values. Anyway -> [url=http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Regions]LINKY[/url].
There is some information there... You've probably looked there though.

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 8:36 pm

All rocks have max slope 90. Min. slope and min. height are 0. 200000.0 is the max height of all objects.
Rock 045 has a radius of 400 and density 8
Rock 050 has a radius of 400 and density 10
Rock 070 has a radius of 400 and density 5
Rock 085 has a radius of 400 and density 15
Rock 095 has a radius of 400 and density 10 and is parent
Rock 105 has a radius of 400 and has a radius with parent 512 and density 10
Rock 150 has a radius of 400 and has a radius with parent 512 and density 10
Rock 165 has a radius of 400 and has a radius with parent 512 and density 10
Rock 220 has a radius of 400 and has a radius with parent 512 and density 10
Count rocks:
Rock 045: 88
Rock 050: 100
Rock 070: 40
Rock 085: 132
Rock 095: 66
All the rest is 0.

With different density values, we can see that the number of rocks is dependant on the density value.
There are much less rocks compared with the previous times, because the radius is 400 even on small 2*3 island.

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Wed Apr 11, 2007 9:10 pm

All rocks have max slope 90 and a radius of 250.
Min. slope and min. height are 0. 200000.0 is the max height of all objects.
Rock 045 has a density of 1
Rock 050 has a density of 1
Rock 070 has a density of 1
Rock 085 has a density of 1
Rock 095 has a density of 15, a clustering value of 20 and is parent.
Rock 105 has a density of 3 and has a radius wrt parent of 512
Rock 150 has a density of 10 and has a radius wrt parent of 512
Rock 165 has a density of 12 and has a radius wrt parent of 512
Rock 220 has a density of 5 and has a radius wrt parent of 512

Count rocks:
Rock 045: 54
Rock 050: 68
Rock 070: 30
Rock 085: 70
Rock 095: 285

Comment: I've done this on a grid of 4*3 but in an excisting hammerfell region. That avnilla region didn't have rocks.

After changing the radius wrt to 256 and generated the same region, nothing special happened for the rocks which have a parent. The only noticable thing is the fact that there are much more rocks then the first time, almost the double of them.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Thu Apr 12, 2007 3:44 am

I think we're going to need more random ground cover objects... logs, leaves, flowers, ect.

[url=http://img440.imageshack.us/my.php?image=goldmoorzz0.jpg][img]http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/5959/goldmoorzz0.th.jpg[/img][/url]

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 9:13 am

Another one.
This time I've changed the order.
Rock 105: dens 25 and radius 400
Rock 150: dens 30 and radius 400 and is parent of rock 165 & 220
Rock 165: dens 20 and radius 250 radius wrt parent 512
Rock 220: dens 20 and radius 320 radius wrt parent 512
Rock 095: dens 30 and radius 400
Rock 085: dens 30 and radius 400
Rock 070: dens 30 and radius 420
Rock 050: dens 15 and radius 400 and is parent of rock 045
Rock 045: dens 20 and radius 350 radius wrt parent 512

TRGMGrassDirt01: dens 80 and radius 84
All min slopes were 0 and max slopes 90.

Total count:
Rock 045: 0
Rock 050: 32
Rock 070: 2
Rock 085: 62
Rock 095: 96
Rock 105: 3743
Rock 150: 164
Rock 165: 66
Rock 220: 0

Morgoth · Post by **Morgoth** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 6:31 pm

Morden is right. On our property there are a bunch of wooded areas. You literally can't walk two yards without stepping on a log. Maybe a few more log meshes are in order?

Noirgrim · Post by **Noirgrim** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 6:36 pm

Morden, if you could put up threads (claims) in the Goldmoor forum for each thing you think we need as ground cover, or make one thread with all of them, that would be much appreciated.

Here is a short list of ground cover that I think we could use:

-logs
-roots
-other color variations of the white flower

At some point we need to call it good and get GM generated. But for some of our meshers, if properly motivated, could bang out these relatively quickly.

Morgoth · Post by **Morgoth** » Mon Apr 16, 2007 10:54 pm

Is it possible to do something like a "pile" of fallen foliage? Obviously placing leaves by hand would be a pain, but groups of them might be a nice touch. Some hollow log or fallen tree meshes would be cool. You could hide objects in them from time to time.

Fairwater · Post by **Fairwater** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:27 am

Morgoroth all it would really be is a bunch of planes mismatched over each other, so it is possible....and we could just use the leaf textures that are already on our trees.....which would make it very easy to do!

Morgoth · Post by **Morgoth** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 1:17 am

I just realized that Joco made a very nice looking leaf mesh. Maybe he could be persuaded to do a few more and stick them together?

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 1:19 am

Or we could just used the ground cover meshes and add our own alpha mapped texture... they have piles of leaves too...

Morden, if you could put up threads (claims) in the Goldmoor forum for each thing you think we need as ground cover, or make one thread with all of them, that would be much appreciated.

I'm busy modeling something for fairwater... and if i take anything else on I'm sure I won't finish it. I'm more productive in my backseat Honorary Member role for the time being.

Nanu · Post by **Nanu** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:40 am

Mordy, I think you misread. He's only asking you to put up the claims, not actually claim them.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 2:55 am

I read quite correct. I used the phrase "backseat Honorary Member role".. as in not organising things.

Noirgrim · Post by **Noirgrim** » Tue Apr 17, 2007 3:22 am

NP, it has been taken care of.

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Wed May 09, 2007 12:17 pm

I've done some region generation yesterday. I've made a worldspace by myself. I'll post only the screens. However I want to tell you the grass area screens are very dense. The 4*4 region with the grass has almost 33000 grass units and it took 15 min. with my 2*1024 MB RAM and Intel 2.4 GHz pc.
The last screen isn't really an TR-screen, but it shows region generation with houses (and some additions) and why it sucks.

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Wed May 09, 2007 12:20 pm

I'll continue. Whoever wants the values has to say it to me, because it's much.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Wed May 09, 2007 4:40 pm

Getting closer all the time. Would it be possible to see and in game shot? Then we can look at the grass and see how it fits with the rest of the objects.

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Wed May 09, 2007 10:21 pm

It would be hard to see it as an ingame shot because there's something wrong with my ground textures while I play the game. I've unistalled everything and I came to the conclusion that problem of the texture erro was the patch on my KOTN cd. I can make screenshots if you want to see some kind of blur.
I don't know what will happen when I enter the grassy area. Perhaps the fps will be to low.

Noirgrim · Post by **Noirgrim** » Wed May 09, 2007 10:23 pm

Looks like the LOD meshes are sticking up through your ground. Don't know what would cause that.

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Sun May 13, 2007 9:52 pm

That problem has been fixed by uninstalling oblivion and reinstalling the SI a few times.
I've got some in game screenies.

Morden · Post by **Morden** » Mon May 14, 2007 1:35 am

Good work.

Is that grass appearing transparent in the game for you?

Fairwater · Post by **Fairwater** » Mon May 14, 2007 1:48 am

I dont know if we have talked about this but shouldnt we alter the weather patterns for hammerfell?

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Mon May 14, 2007 6:57 pm

yea, each reagion needs different weather patters. that should probably be one of the last things to be done though, since it requires a merged map (probably) and is only a few clicks of CS

Noirgrim · Post by **Noirgrim** » Mon May 14, 2007 7:09 pm

A merged map? The entire landmass is in the esm file, and the weather can be added directly to the esm file. Dex can easily do it when he generates GM (in a couple days IIRC).

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Mon May 14, 2007 7:12 pm

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Fri May 18, 2007 8:45 pm

What needs to be changed to the goldmoor region generation?

Noirgrim · Post by **Noirgrim** » Fri May 18, 2007 8:56 pm

What do you mean? Changed from your tests, or changed from how Beth did it?

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Fri May 18, 2007 10:56 pm

I meant what or how needs to be the generation improved? What could have been better?

lb003g0676 · Post by **lb003g0676** » Sun May 20, 2007 1:01 am

Wow it looks bloody great. Great work everyone. Especially whoever made that grass, looks really seamless ( I am assuming Morden). But aren't we goign to have more colours to it? Flowers and stuff?

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Sun May 20, 2007 3:14 pm

yes. there are quite a few different grass colors and some frowers as well.

blackbird · Post by **blackbird** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:54 pm

I've done another region generation, this time with more objects and textures and a 5*5 grid.
Is anyone interested yet?