Okay guys, I really think that we are getting close to generating the Helkori region, so I think we should sit down and have a serious discussion about what we want the region to look like, how it will feel, and how to generate it.
a quick outline of stuff and things going through my head:
The original pre-design concepts said that it was a grassland based on the [url=http://www.planetware.com/i/photo/serengeti-national-park-tza122.jpg]Serengeti[/url] and [url=http://www.campbell-safari.co.za/images/DSC01099.JPG]Savannah[/url]
we had a concept art thread [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=19906]here[/url] which established the plant life for the region, much of it has been modeled but some remains open or needs fixing (see the OoT claims browser or me for details).
This region has very few settlements in vanilla lore. IMO a few should be added here since it is a very large land and a whole map without any major cities. This is supported by our lore, since the Helkori plains were given to ancient Raga chiefs for their help in Hammerfell's conquest.
Southern part of the region uses the Goldmoor architecture set, northern part uses the as of yet un-modeled Mountain set.
Screenshots of what we have in terms of meshes and textures. some of these are outdated, I know the trees could use new textures (many currently use vanilla ones).
South - most green, blends with Goldmoor. Add some tors and GM plants to the HK grassland.
East - blends with mountains (Colovian), more rocks and trees (both Helkori and Cyrodiil ones)
Center - full on Helkori, lots of grass. A tree surrounded by rocks and plants roughly every 2 cells (have yet to test how this would feel in game, but I want lots of open grass space).
West - dry, less vegetation, more red. blends with the Dak'Fron desert region.
modders will be responsible for adding tree clumps to make small groves of trees and stuff. River valleys (I don't really see any on the map but they are mentioned in concept) should also be extra fertile.
The Colovian region in the east can be generated with the Helkori, but what about the Corten? Little (if anything) has been decided about these mountains. They should ideally be generated with the Helkori so that there is no 30 cell detail less hole between two good regions. Currently, Nemon and I are thinking about making this region with the cliff pieces from Goldmoor. the only real problems I see with that is that we might not have enough cliff meshes (I could re-texture some more of Siika's if necessary) and that this region could get boring. I want to make it with minimal new meshes, none if possible.
So, a few things I'd like discussed and addressed:
What kind of grass do we want here? I was thinking (based on concepts) that it should be mostly brown, with some green and red hues. I also like the idea of having lots of wild flowers and other non-grass automatically generated flora (such as small shrubs).
Do we want to add additional villages to the region? If so, where (probably near roads and in empty places)? What should these new villages be called?
the already present villages need to be renamed, cause the names are really lame. It would also be good if they had some kind of concept and back story, even if its really basic.
Who can help to fix the stuff needed for region generation? There is a tree model that needs fixing and several flowers that could be fixed/completed. Modelers, finish your work!
Who here has experience with region generation and is willing to generate this? The hardest part is getting it too look right, after that its just waiting for an hour while it parses cells.
So, um, yeah. I especially want to hear from people who hold/held claims in Goldmoor. What did you like? Dislike? What can we do better this time?
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uhm... maybe adding some little towns on the mountain side (on the border of the plains) would be good, i mean something like two settlements on the colovian side, one on both Corten Mountains and West Reach). These towns would be home for farmers wich work the land on the border of the plains or miners, and in the central part isolated farmhouses. I think it's more logical.
With little towns i mean little farmer settlements with 5/6 building (if the big cities are around 20...) with one service (a general trader+bed maybe) and private houses.
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Might be somewhat obvious but, what about a couple mines in the mountainside?
Judging by the description I would agree that most of the terrain is probably too flat for it otherwise... But I think it may good to have some.
I too agree with the farmland, and farmer settlements.
Although I'd go with even less buildings than 5/6, if I remember correctly Oblivion had like 2-3 per settlement that you found in the middle of nowhere.
Stryker wrote:Although I'd go with even less buildings than 5/6, if I remember correctly Oblivion had like 2-3 per settlement that you found in the middle of nowhere.
I just have to point out that that was one of the lamest things about Oblivion, that there was no one living outside cities except for people needed for quests from cities.
I see no problem with Hammerfell breaking that mold. (Though I really don't know what our goals are with Hammerfell, so what can I say?)
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Bloodthirsty Crustacean wrote:I just have to point out that that was one of the lamest things about Oblivion, that there was no one living outside cities except for people needed for quests from cities.
True, I haven't actually played Oblivion recently enough to have remembered that.
So having said that... To me, bringing the settlement to life should be more important. As long as those settlements aren't like quest-only NPCs, like you mentioned, it really doesn't matter how big the settlement is.
actually i was thinking making little settlements could be fun to make some questline of inter-town or internal feuds... but it's quite early to think about that. Anyway non-quest-related NPC's are good for me as the quest-related ones.
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Its very arid, thorny acacia trees, and brown whithered grass, mostly flat but broken up with rocky outcroppings.
I think it would be fairly easy to generate a base region, then manually add places of interest.
Does Hammerfell have tribes? Perhaps an African equivalent of the Morrowind Ashlanders? If so you could break it up with a few nomad camps following the herds.
the Sahel appears to be perfect for the western part of the Helkori, as it would make a great transition into the deserts.
Hammerfell does have roaming tribes, called the Dunedwellers. they are historically found in the Alik'r, but imo it would be fine to place a small group into the western helkori, especially since we already have so much cool stuff developed around these people.
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I like the look of those Sahel villages. Be good to have them (or villages of some kind) up in the Corten looking out over the immense Helkori, leading an isolated existance. The Corten could even be made so that the village(s) are hidden or just hard to get to.
I think those villages don't fit Hammerfell at all. Looks more like something you'd find gnomes living in. Pointy roofs like those aren't seen anywhere in redguard architecture.
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I disagree; pointy roofs are all over the place in Redguard architecture (from what I remember, at least). I really do like the look of the houses. They really contrast with thatched roofs of other areas such as High Rock and Skyrim and could give Hammerfell a distinctive look.
I think those villages don't fit Hammerfell at all. Looks more like something you'd find gnomes living in. Pointy roofs like those aren't seen anywhere in redguard architecture.
I disagree; pointy roofs are all over the place in Redguard architecture (from what I remember, at least). I really do like the look of the houses. They really contrast with thatched roofs of other areas such as High Rock and Skyrim and could give Hammerfell a distinctive look.
I wasn't talking so much about the architecture as I was the scenery of the picture: a lonely village high up on a mountain overlooking an endless plain, humble but perhaps the only trace of civilization within sight. And because of this maybe its inhabitants have a distinct way of life (and architecture?). Anyways, with the Corten Mountains right there at the edge of the Helkori, the image seemed to make sense.
blackbird wrote:It may look like a dumb question? Does the Helkori plains look like the graze lands from MW? is there any resemblance between them?
I think that the Helkori region will have a lot less hills than the Grazelands, though that's just a guess. They're similar in that they're not-too-lush grasslands, but the flora and fauna would be a lot different, not to mention its inhabitants. It might have a similar use, (grazing for animals), though I'm not sure if Redguards tend to have herds of grazing animals or not. With Bethesda's RAI, shepherds might be an interesting thing to have, by the way, though I might just be strange.
As for towns, I can imagine a lot of coastal villages, as the region doesn't look especially fertile, even if it isn't especially harsh. I think something like that might make for an interesting coastline, though it might be better for the Alik'ir. It would be especially nice for people using sailing mods. (Speaking of which, I suppose sailing mods would need add-ons to work in TR, as Hammerfell's a separate Worldspace).
Gnomey wrote:...As for towns, I can imagine a lot of coastal villages, as the region doesn't look especially fertile, even if it isn't especially harsh. I think something like that might make for an interesting coastline, though it might be better for the Alik'ir. It would be especially nice for people using sailing mods. (Speaking of which, I suppose sailing mods would need add-ons to work in TR, as Hammerfell's a separate Worldspace).
The Helkori is entirely located inland with the only water being small ponds and narrow streams that can be fished from the shore (if at all).
I like the idea of the villages being restricted (mostly) to the hillsides around the edge of the Helkori. As for archetectural style, how about the good old round hut with mud walls and a twig-thatch roof? Seems suitably 'low-tech', and deffinitely fits with the 'african savana' theme of the Helkori as a whole.
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[img]http://farm1.static.flickr.com/1/129345116_f8ee04927f_o.jpg[/img]
just found that on flikr. imo a big rift like that would be a cool environment. it wouldnt be very obvious from most of the region, since its very flat, so it woudnt take up much space. also a cool place for a ruin or just for the player to get lost in. my only concern is how well something like this could be built without new meshes.
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That piture could have easly been ripped from my imagination! That is EXACTLY the sort of image i had in my head when i though about what the helkori would look like!
Say LN, could something like that ravine be created with cliff-face meshes? If so re-texturing them to fit the colour scheem would be a relitively minor matter i wold think. But i deffinitely like it from a style perspective. Keep in mind, not just ruins, but ACTIVE villages (or bandit camps for that matter) could be found in such areas too (assuming there was little or no threat from being washed out during a rare storm).
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a bit of an update. as some of you might know ive been working on getting a good generation preset for the region. it started out crappy and has been getting progressively better, but its still a ways off (mostly tweaking, which is a pain in and off itself).
anyways, i accidentally ran a test for the whole region instead of just a couple cells. it produced a pretty interesting result: the region is very bare and some of the formations are very unnatural, but it does give a little insight into what all of our resources look like together. as mentioned above the region will have several subregions... but thats a matter i dont even want to think about until i get this down
plug in with the latest OoT and hammerfell.esm, find it in the TRHammerfell worldspace, exactly where its supposed to be.
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-PoHa!
Lady Nerevar wrote:
just found that on flikr. imo a big rift like that would be a cool environment. it wouldnt be very obvious from most of the region, since its very flat, so it woudnt take up much space. also a cool place for a ruin or just for the player to get lost in. my only concern is how well something like this could be built without new meshes.
If you can implement rifts then you can implement mines.
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I was thinking for the land heading towards the east (and north), since its flat and then later very mountainous, you could turn it into a foggy Moor and then make it arise into like the highlands.
Im thinking in a very scottish way atm, lol.
I found some site of someones travels that might help
Also, Im not very familiar with Oblivion Modding, but you could always use some of the cliff meshes from morrowind. they'd only need some mesh smoothing and retexturing, right?
It looks really good so far, especially for computer-generated rather than handmade landscape, although would it possible to add low, spiny shrubs and bushes with small leaves?
From what I've seen from being in southern Spain (which looks to have a very similar climate to Helkori), trees are fairly uncommon, and there tends to be more large thickets of thorny plants adapted for the heat and lack of water.
Thinly spread clumps of dry, yellowed grass would look quite good too perhaps.
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Haplo wrote:Looking good, although those purple/lavender flowers look a bit off in that setting
Yeah I thought they looked a bit odd as well.
@Cath
I was looking in the same direction as you about the patchy scrubs. In Australia, Out in the bush you tend to get lots of little patches or thickets of scrubs/grass/ and god only knows all over the environment, from what I notice though its usually on inclines of the terrain rather than flats.
Saying that however, sometimes Ive seen flat lands where it might be bare for say, 10km² (or more) and smack in the middle is this tiny, isolated, yet densely vegetated forest. O_o
EDIT: I need to spell more carefully.
Last edited by RelinQ on Sat Aug 15, 2009 7:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
shrubs are a good idea, i'll look around and try to find some fitting ones. grass is missing because we havent textured it yet, i may adapt some oblivion grasses (either as a placeholder or for real). anyone opposed?
In hoc signo vinces
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So long as the end result looks good i dont see any problems, placeholder or otherwise...
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I think at least a couple new grass textures should be made for the finished project, even if it's just a quick edit of an existing grass texture.
Adapting some oblivion grasses for placeholders should be fine though.
Maybe the geography of Kazachstan could be an inpiration for Helkori. Kazachstan has also steppes, especially the region Saryarka.
http://www.vliegfabriek.nl/media/images/country/kazachstan.jpg
http://kusbegi.kz/berkut3.jpg
http://variety.mcot.net/DetailImg/LiveScience/saryarka-kazak.jpg
