Want to work as landscaper

CheGuerillia · Post by **CheGuerillia** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 2:28 pm

Hey Guy's,
I'm sorry for my bad english, but I'm first 13 and from germany.
I working with the CS for 2 years now and I loved the Idea of a whole Tamriel.
My favorite part of the Consturction Set is it, to create exteriors.
Mabe i could work as landscaper !?

So i posted a little plugin to show my abilities in landscaping.
I hope I could be youseful.

Harke the Apostle · Post by **Harke the Apostle** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:23 pm

Welcome to TR!

Took a quick look. You'll have to wait for the real exterior people for a review. I did notice two things:

Your file is dirty...download tesame and clean it first. (You also have loads of dirty GMSTs).
The cell Testisland has 82 refs..that's at least 18 too little (a minimum of 250 would be healthy)

Your island still needs a lot of detailing, but I do like the general idea of what you put on it. I like it.

Jale · Post by **Jale** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:54 pm

Also, just a language point but 'Testisland', though meant to mean 'Test Island' could equally be 'Testis Land'...the land of testicles.

Keep this up, though.

CheGuerillia · Post by **CheGuerillia** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 5:52 pm

OK, I'll try to clean it by tesame....
And the 82 Objects are only one Part of the whole island, because only 1 of 3 cells is called Test Island

But thanks...
i'll clean it and make it a bit more detailled

Thrignar Fraxix · Post by **Thrignar Fraxix** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 6:51 pm

Harke, don't talk about things you don't understand.
100 refs is the exterior cell minimum, the only requirement beyond that is that it looks good. When cleaning your file remember to leave in the ground textures.

Harke the Apostle · Post by **Harke the Apostle** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:11 pm

Thrignar Fraxix wrote: 100 refs is the exterior cell minimum, the only requirement beyond that is that it looks good. When cleaning your file remember to leave in the ground textures.

[url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=18224]This is a very useful sticky...[/url]

Thrignar Fraxix · Post by **Thrignar Fraxix** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:24 pm

I don't care what a sticky says, if an exterior looks good at 120 refs then it is good. I don't want to see a cell garishly overdone just to fit into that ideal range when one with less looks just as good.

CheGuerillia · Post by **CheGuerillia** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:58 pm

So, here is the newer version, i cleaned it by tesame and it's a bit more detailled...
you should visit Test Island on night
I'm happy about tipps for better modding

Post by **Haplo** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 9:36 pm

Ive updated the static range of that sticky.

Review:

You do a good job of making the landscape slope down into the water, but try to make the slope a bit more gradual once you actual get underwater.

Neon colors are bad for vertex shading. Like yellow and the green you've used for a large portion of your island. Try using more natural colors, browns, darker greens, not yellow, etc.

Also, try to use more than one ground texture per section, and don't use vertex shading in place of ground textures.

Add dark vertex shading where different textures meet, most of the time. They will usually show seams, square-ish unrealistic texture changes, especially when it's from light to dark as in your island.

Add more statics! The swampy area's density is pretty good, try and get half that elsewhere. If your argument is that it's a remote volcanic island, know that the statics don't have to be trees, but can be rocks and small flora like lichens and ferns.

Go for realism! A sandy beach of a rocky volcanic island isn't likely to give way to one section of dense swamp area and then revert back immediately after fifty feet. Most things in nature flow gradually, try and make the change between settings more subtle, slower, and more natural.

Don't mix bad styles! While most people are familiar with style-mixing as it pertains to interiors, it's also a very important aspect of exteriors. First, see where your island falls geographically related to Vvardenfell. If it's off the coast of a BC (Bitter Coast) area, use BC statics and flora, and other statics and flora that matches. If it's West Gash(WG), or Grazelands(GL), or Ascadian Isles(AI), or Molag Amur (MA), use statics accordingly! Your exterior should be a harmonious meld of the right stuff.

Regarding style-mixing and architecture, you use Dunmer lamps on a common building. Common lamps are available for use, and should be used accordingly.
---
Can't wait for the next version!

CheGuerillia · Post by **CheGuerillia** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 6:35 pm

Ok, I think I understand your problem....
But this version was just a little demo, so the different styles were mixed on a littloe island.
( Only the Dunmer Lamps
on the commen house was a bit too much

)
I made this litte mod by less time...

I will make a new area, wich has the right style for the geografic place!

Thanks for the Tipps for Vertex painting, I have learned it just 3 days ago.

I think the new mod is there this night...

CheGuerillia · Post by **CheGuerillia** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 7:11 pm

So, It is finished.
I wasn't able to finish it yesterday...

In Vivec you now can travel to Vivec Light-House by Gondolier.

I hope you like it a bit....

Post by **Haplo** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 8:13 pm

You edited a lot of vanilla Vivec cells, please make sure you clean them out of your mod using TESAME!

I'm not sure how the Telvanni menhirs work on land or near Vivec, but they do kind of fit.

I don't know if a road marker will do much good in the middle of the sea, either

The lighthouse looks really cool, but... there's no entrance.

When placing NPCs, you don't have to move them down past the point the drop when he 'f'all them. They drop down once the game initializes.

I would also make the light_velothi_braziers simply rest on the platform, instead of bleeding them into the base.

You have two travel markers. Why?

You do a much better job overall, (I like the waterfall, by the way) even if the vertex shading could still use some work. (You just learned about it recently) Try to stay away from yellow as much as you can, especially in green/brown areas. Use green and brown vertex shading.

The point is to not only smooth transitions, but to essentially look like a darker version of the ground texture, like the sun is casting a shadow on an object, or something.

Add an entrance (and possibly an exit/balcony somewhere), clean the plug-in, and fix the few things mentioned, and we'll go from there! Your work is shaping nicely

CheGuerillia · Post by **CheGuerillia** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:37 pm

Thanks.

The two travel markers are for two NPC's.
One at the Vivec Temple and one at "Fremdenviertel" (dont konw this in english, sry)

Do you have a Tipp, how to make low Vertex painting on sand, because every lighter brown looks as Yellow by enabled light button....

By cleaning I'm no time sure what to clean,
the time before suddenly the Waterfall was away

And the Roadmarker - Yeah on the first look it seems useless, but for Sailing-Plugins it's good, because on a Ship you then can see where you are.
But sure, it neednt to be there.

I havent any Idea for better Vertex paintig

ehhr... we will see

Post by **Haplo** » Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:53 pm

You can try darker browns, it may look wrong at first, but we can check that later.

By cleaning I mean opening your plug-in in a program called TESAME, found here:

http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/files/utils/tesame.zip

You edited several cells on accident that ended up with your plug-in basically erasing them when it is loaded. This is bad because it removes them from the game! We don't want this to happen, so we have to load the plug-in in TESAME, select(right-click or spacebar) the cells we want to remove from our plug-in (Anything you don't recognize or didn't mean to edit. It should be fairly obvious which ones), and delete them, then save as "clean" blah blah.

EDIT - Good job adding those entrances. One thing about vertex shading is: Use it it cover up unsightly/ugly ground texture seams, as seen below in the picture:

[url=http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/6265/textureseamsiy9.jpg][img]http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/6265/textureseamsiy9.th.jpg[/img][/url]

We cover these edges/seams up with dark or moderate vertex shading so that the ground looks more realistic. Go over the island and cover up any you find.

Try not to cover up paths with dark shading, we normally try to outline the edges of these paths with vertex shading, but not the paths themselves. If we cover them up, players may have difficulty following them. See below for what I mean:

[url=http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/7467/badshadingdl9.jpg][img]http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/7467/badshadingdl9.th.jpg[/img][/url][url=http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/681/goodshadingce0.jpg][img]http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/681/goodshadingce0.th.jpg[/img][/url]

The path is clearly visible in the second image, but totally obscured in the first one. Of course I'm not sure how important this path is, since it doesn't lead anywhere... Perhaps have it turn into a dirt path (or change the whole thing to a dirt path) or simply continue the path around to the entrance of the lighthouse structure.

I don't think scathecraw plants fit in the Ascadian Isles or Grazelands regions. They're more of a lava-y barren area-type plant.

CheGuerillia · Post by **CheGuerillia** » Sat Jul 19, 2008 12:08 pm

Good Morning, Boys and Girls,
The Vertex shading on the path was the Shadow of the Tower so...

I made the Path usefull and cleaned up the Shadow.

By cleaning are ever multiple Cells only called "Cell",
so I dont know if I should it clean or not....

Post by **Gnomey** » Sat Jul 19, 2008 12:42 pm

Morrowind doesn't have any "long" shadows, because they wouldn't change no matter where the sun is. When making a shadow think of the sun as being directly above your objects.

Post by **Haplo** » Sat Jul 19, 2008 7:15 pm

When cleaning in TESAME, load your plug-in, and don't sort it, otherwise you'll lose which landscape data entries go with which cell entries; each cell entry has an accompanying landscape data entry right below it, as you can see in the picture below:

[img]http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/7020/tesamexj1.jpg[/img]

You want to select everything except the cells you know you edited, usually the ones you named with something you can remember, like "my city" or something. Everything else should be removed. And of course never delete the TES3 entry at the very top.

CheGuerillia · Post by **CheGuerillia** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 9:42 am

Ok, my problem was,
that I didn't rename every cell on wich I modifiered something.
I think,
I understand now how to clean.
Thanks.

Here is the right cleaned Pluginfile.

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 7:16 pm

this looks quite good

i love the lighthouse, great creative use of the tileset. i noticed a few patches of pointy land that need to be smoothed. i would also make the land rise out of the ocean more gradually. your main error was the use of a lot of different region stiles (AS is your main but you also have WG and BC stuff and the Telvanni menhirs). it looks damn fine on the island though, i gota admit

its not acceptable in TR however. the boat was placed too low in the water, some of the water bled into the boat. the clothing in the boat bled into the boat and each other.

This is still dirty btw. all statics and containers should be deleted, same with the GMSTs. the only thing remaining should be Textures, Landscape, and Cells that you modified on purpose, as well as any new objects created on purpose (you seem to have renamed a lot of stuff accidentally).

As ive said before this is an creative peace of land and very well detailed. smooth it out some and remove the physical errors. get rid of as much non-Ascadian Isles stuff as possible. then i will gladly promote you

CheGuerillia · Post by **CheGuerillia** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 7:09 pm

I'm sorry,
At moment I'm on holidays, so I cant work on my Computer.
I think in 5 weeks there will be an final version.

Thanks for the nice comments

And I hope, that I learn not to use different plants and rocks
at the same place ^^

But....
I've an question: Is there a way to install Morrowind a 2nd time on my computer ?
For moddfing it's better to have an realy orginal version of MW,
but for playing it's better to have better textures etc.

osiris · Post by **osiris** » Sun Aug 03, 2008 7:17 pm

CheGuerillia wrote:Is there a way to install Morrowind a 2nd time on my computer ?

Have a look at [url=http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=832760]this sticky[/url].

CheGuerillia · Post by **CheGuerillia** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 8:56 am

Thanks Osiris,
I didn't consider this posibility,
wich is explained on this Site.

I won't longer have problems with wrong landscape-
and static-textures by modding ^^

CheGuerillia · Post by **CheGuerillia** » Wed Aug 20, 2008 10:59 am

So,
I hope there are no wrong objects any more...

Take a look !

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 9:35 pm

hey, sorry for the wait. in the future, please bump your showcase if it needs attention, we miss things and need to be reminded.

there are actually still objects that dont belong, but i dont really mind that as much as long as you dont do it in an official claim. what i did mind were the physicals (caspering rocks around the shore, floating Weidenblume). the rocks at the south side of the lighthouse lack vertex shading.

again, i love the detail and think you have great skill. fix the above (should take all of 5 minutes) and ill promote you

CheGuerillia · Post by **CheGuerillia** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 3:03 pm

I cleaned all what I saw...

Aeven · Post by **Aeven** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 5:03 pm

Great creative use of the tileset! My hat off to you

Now for some errors:

Under the dock of the lighthouse, there is a texture seam. I don't know how to fix this as I never have done landscaping, but it can be fixed. There is also a less noticeable texture seam underwater, very near the dock. One that you can fix (but it doesn't matter) is also under the building itself.

Also, you seem to have edited the name of a cell, causing it to display it in German.

On a whole: very nice and if you would complete this I'd love to have it in my game

Perhaps even with a Vivec harbour.

CheGuerillia · Post by **CheGuerillia** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 8:11 pm

Hey,
thanks Aeven,
I also thoght about a Vivec habour, but:

1: I don't know the right position for it
2: there is an habour in ebonheart, wich is very close.....

I'll look for the seam's, thanks.

It would be nice to know wich Cell is called with the german name,
so that I can fix it.

Aeven · Post by **Aeven** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 9:20 pm

I only had it once in the CS, where it said something like Ascadische Inseln or something similar.

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 9:57 pm

there are some kinda rough spots, make sure that everything is smooth when working on an actual exterior. also watch for caspers, those are quite likely on hilly terrain.

Promoted for Exterior Modding. welcome to the team!

Aeven · Post by **Aeven** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 3:31 pm

Congratulations

CheGuerillia · Post by **CheGuerillia** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 6:55 pm

OK, thanks for all.
I hope that I'll be useful ^^