Questions and rules about MW exteriors

[blackbird]

I've tried to find some advice about MW exteriors, but I couldn't find much except for haplo's tutorial.
But I had still some questions.
Texture mix. Which combinations aren't allowed? I don't believe a mix of ashlands and ascadian isles is allowed. Grazeland textures and ascadian isles textures do fit with each other, am I right?

Should the type of the rocks be from the same texture? I mean if the ground has a WG textures, should I place only WG rocks or am I allowed to put AC or GL rocks on the WG texture? Should every rockhave some smaller satelite rocks around it? Are horizontally tilted rocks allowed? Like small rocks on a big rock or cliff.

Are there any specific rules about trees? Are dead trees (with no leaves) allowed on grass textures? Are trees with leaves allowed on rock textures? What are the maximum angle values of those trees? Is there a maximum height for trees?

Which are the specific rules about the flora? Which kind of flora may be used on Molag amur and ashland textures and vice versa ( on which kind of textures may I put conberrys?) Is there a limit on their numbers (like no more then 20 hacklelo plants in a single cell)?

Is every exterior cell obliged to have at least 100 refs or are there a few exceptions (mountains)?

If a modder wants to create a city, is he allowed to mix with buildings belonging to a different house (a city which is patrial redoran and partial hlaalu) or only one house style? What about velothi buildings?
Is a living village (opposite of ghost town) allowed being constructed with the Old Mournhold set or the dunmer stronghold set?

Which kind of ambient lights should I use on plains?

[gro-Dhal]

Couldn't you answer at least some of these questions by looking at how vanilla MW does things?

[Haplo]

Generally I suggest staying in the region for textures, but sometimes that doesn't work. GL does match AI and AI goes better with BC than other things. A lot of the time it's just a personal preference of what looks good.

As far as rocks, it's the same deal, although a bit closer to 'stay within that region.' Sometimes where things landscape textures meet landscape textures you can use rocks and boulders of either region. Just go with what looks good. Rocks don't have to have satellite rocks, and rocks can be tilted in any direction you want, so long as caspering does not occur. Bleeding rocks into the ground or other rocks is perfectly acceptable.

Dead trees are allowed on grass textures, but should be sparse. On dead land (ash), there shouldn't be any trees with foliage. Maximum heights for trees is generally whatever fits, sometimes 2.00 is fine, other times anywhere from .5 to 1.5 is the range that fits perfectly. Trees should never be tilted more than 45 degrees, with 45 degrees being the extreme, when they are on a mountain side and have grown toward the sun for their entire lifespan.

I'm not going to get into a list of every single piece of flora and where it's allowed to be used, but comberry bushes generally go in green areas, WG, Grazelands, AI, BC, etc. There's no limit to how many of a certain plant you may place in a cell, but try to exercise some common sense: If it's not a farm, or never was, the area shouldn't be brimming with them, although if it's the only place in the wild they grow, then sure, there will be many of them around. Remember they are containers that respawn after being picked.

Not every cell needs 100 references; if it is detailed enough, or perhaps somewhat inaccessible, a lesser amount will do. We came up with the '100 refs per cell' rule only to make sure that cells didn't look empty or remain under-detailed. Cells are bigger than we think in-game, most of the time.

When creating a city, unless there is lore or developed city plans in place to mix architecture sets, you should stay away from it, except for Nordic and common houses, which mix fine and have been used by us copiously. Velothi is also an exception in that it will fit with Hlaalu and sometimes Redoran. Using the OM set or the Stronghold set is frowned upon since they are so rare. This is something that's decided upon in a case-by-case basis.

I frown on using ambient lights in exteriors personally since I believe in natural sunlight. Unless there's a grotto underwater with phosphorescent light or mushrooms in a cave or in a shaded spot like a marsh or swamp somewhere, I won't use any. Plains and mountains never have any unless there's a lantern or some sort of artificial light to be found close by. So in conclusion I'm skeptical of ambient lights in exteriors.

[Lady Nerevar]

when in doubt look at bethesda cells or at other TR work. you might also check the UESP, i believe they have a list of what flora grows in what region.

[blackbird]

Couldn't you answer at least some of these questions by looking at how vanilla MW does things?

Maybe one or 2 of those questions, but TR is still different from vanilla MW.
Vanilla MW doesn't have a mix of region textures. You won't see Ai grass textures in the middle of some WG textures.

Thank you haplo for your answers.

[Theo]

Some of my thoughts on exterior making.

Refs numer per cell: Is completely irelevant due to me. You can put 500 hunderd refs of grass in the claim and the claim will look just plain. You can create epic mountaionous landscape with just 3 cliffs and 25 huge rocks, or intriquing town of 10 buildings.
What I consider a detailed cell is that one, where there are no blank spaces of the same texture (with the exception of deserts, plains or seabad, but then there should be micro flora or little stones at least)

Texture mixing: I believe anything goes, IF it is used consistently. I can imagine a region of mixed MA and GL textures if it was reasonably big and reasonably geographicaly well defined.
What I see as a problem is that as TR exterior claims were made by different modders and they are often quite small, each of the modder must respect the style of neighbouring mods which results in the mods being more conservative.
If I for example placed GL trees on WG scrubplain the modder in the north of me used AI rocks for the same terrain an the modder to the south would enjoy placing a lot of dead trees the result would be an ugly mess. So it is better for all to be as conservative as possible.
Nomadic is now going to remake a whole new area of emerald forest. As he is the one in charge of all this region and it is geographically well-defined he can loosen his fantasy a little bit and introduce something new.

[aro101]

when in doubt look at bethesda cells or at other TR work.

Lol. Your sentence made me think bethesda cells is TR work

[Nemon]

when in doubt look at bethesda cells or at other TR work.

Lol. Your sentence made me think bethesda cells is TR work

Yes, indeed Bethesda has been quite useful in our plan to create Morrowind.

[blackbird]

There is a set of AJ trees and AJ rocks. What does AJ mean? Is there a place in MW where bamboo grows?

[Hemitheon]

AJ - Argon Jungle.

[blackbird]

Is it allowed to build a city on map 4 ,5 and 6 with Necrom buidlings? Or should those buildings only belong to Necrom city itself?

[Thrignar Fraxix]

necrom only

[blackbird]

Is there a maximum number for the face count of a cell, a number which may not be exceeded? Like 100.000

[Haplo]

Generally I don't worry about face counts since almost all of our meshes have a reasonable amount of faces to such an extent that you can simply view the reference count only. But for reference, Balmora's main cell has over 60,000 faces, and Narsis' cells range from 55,000 to over 120,000 faces. Generally if you can keep below 100,000 that would be great. Wilderness cells should probably never reach close to 100,000.

[RelinQ]

@ Blackbird, There are certain things you have to do within certain area types, Like for example something around 75% to 90% of trees in a BC (that arent dead) must to be coming out of swamps. once you work with all the areas you tend to get a feel of how things work.

going slighty offtopic, There are a couple of areas in my claim that have been hard to blend, mainly going from AL and BC.

Here's 2 examples
[url]http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y286/Relinquished_kaos/ScreenShot112.jpg[/url]
[url]http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y286/Relinquished_kaos/ScreenShot111.jpg[/url]

IMO It looks pretty good in game now, but its been a bitch to fix, pardon me.

[blackbird]

Does every Mh plant which is growing in the wild (those which aren't in a flower pot) be removed?

[Tyrion]

I haven't heard this...

[Haplo]

No, if they look alright, they should be fine. But they also need to be able to grow feasibly in the region they're placed. Cacti, for example, shouldn't be in a wilderness region that uses swampy regions, and none of them should appear in ashlands