Deepen Meadows: Landscape Claim 1 [Claimed]

[TheImperialDragon]

Deepen Meadows: Landscape Claim 1
STATUS: Claimed by Anastassia

Size: ~123 cells

Deepen Meadows is a peaceful farming region - just east of Silgrad Tower - where the player can feel relaxed. It has an atmosphere much like the Shire from the Lord of the Rings. There are no monsters in this region, which is in strong contrast with many of the other, more dangerous regions in our mod, such as the horror-themed Forgotten Forest, or the cold Borderlands.

The village of Deepen Meadows is the only major settlement in the region, but there will also be a few outlying farms where crops and livestock are grown.

[title]What's Involved?[/title]

Landscape claims, at the most basic level, involve customizing landscape that has already had objects placed by the Construction Set's region generator. The main areas of focus in this landscape claim are as follows:

• Decorating the landscape
  
• Fixing landscape and texture seams
  
• Fixing object errors
  
• Fixing region transitions
  
• Adding farms

Further details are given below.

[title]Decorating the Landscape[/title]

Depending on the atmosphere of the region, you may want to decorate it with a particular theme in mind. In the Forgotten Forest, for example, you might place objects to create a scary environment, but in the Ashunor Valley region, you might place objects to make beautiful nature scene instead.

You may delete or move generated objects that are already in this area of the region, in addition to adding more objects. You may also change the landscape shape and paint landscape textures, though please use only textures that are already found in the region (all textures beginning with StIdTerrainDW are Deepen Meadows textures.), and make sure that any changes to the shape of the land aren't too sharp - the land should be reasonably smooth, there should be no jagged areas.

Please leave any areas that look as though they may already have been customized by other modders (such as roads) alone. If you're unsure, feel free to ask in this thread.

Each region has its own set of objects. Most Deepen Meadows objects can be found in the following list locations in the CS:
[indent][/indent]Trees:
[indent][/indent][indent][/indent]- Trees->SilgradFicus
[indent][/indent][indent][/indent]- Trees->SilgradWillowOak
[indent][/indent][indent][/indent]- Trees->SilgradBushes (starting with SilgradBushSu only)
[indent][/indent][indent][/indent]- Static->ST->Environment->DeepenMeadows
[indent][/indent]Rocks:
[indent][/indent][indent][/indent]- Static->ST->Rocks->DeepenMeadows
[indent][/indent]The flora that are used in this region are all under Flora->ST
[indent][/indent][indent][/indent]- StFloraDandelion01
[indent][/indent][indent][/indent]- StFloraGoldKanet01
[indent][/indent][indent][/indent]- StFloraStoneflower (models 01, 02, and 03)
[indent][/indent][indent][/indent]- StFloraHeather01 (models 01 and 02)
[indent][/indent][indent][/indent]- StFloraToadstool (models 01, 02, and 03)
[indent][/indent][indent][/indent]- StFloraComberry
You may also copy other objects you see in the region.
Objects exclusive to other regions should not be used. Objects from vanilla Oblivion (in other words, objects that are used in Cyrodiil) or the Shivering Isles should generally not be used.

Some objects were planned for the region, but were either not available when the region was generated, or unsuitable for the region generator. You should try to make more use of these Flora-type objects, so that they are more common throughout the region:
[indent][/indent]- StFloraRaspberry objects
[indent][/indent]- StFloraStoneFungus objects
[indent][/indent]- StFloraSunRay objects

When placing large objects, remember to add grey vertex shading around the base of the object. Likewise for when you delete objects, please remove any vertex shading from that part of the land.

Please note that dungeons in this region have already been placed - please don't set up additional dungeon entrances without checking with me first.

[title]Fixing landscape and texture seams[/title]

A landscape seam is where you can see an obvious gap in the landscape shape. These are usually a result of accidental landscape changes from before the region was generated, and are found on the borders between cells. They are uncommon, but you may still find a few.

To fix these, use the landscape editor's smoothen tool over the area with the gap. See the screenshot (link below) for an example:

BEFORE - AFTER

A texture seam is where you can see a sharp change in textures. Usually, this is a result of how the Construction Set's region generator draws the textures. They aren't very common per-se, but they can be found just about anywhere on the landscape, so whenever you see one, you should try to fix it.

To fix a texture seam, use the landscape editor to paint a texture over-top of it. See the screenshot (link below) for an example:

BEFORE - AFTER

If you notice that you can't paint any textures (which happens on rare occasions), or that the texture doesn't look right, first make sure you aren't trying to paint on one of the cells on the edge of the loaded area (the Construction Set won't let you). If that's not the case, try reloading the Render Window (press the 'F5' key). If the textures still don't look right, you'll need to make sure that there are fewer than 9 different textures in the area you are trying to paint. sandor describes this process in the Steadhelm landscape claim threads (see the section "Technical Info" - note the requirements for Steadhelm's claims are different than for this region).

[title]Fixing object errors[/title]

Unfortunately, one of the disadvantages with using the region generator is that you can't tell it to check that the objects it generates don't float above the ground, or have gaps in the mesh visible underneath. It's also very difficult to control when objects merge into one another. Objects that have these problems must be fixed by hand.

To fix a floating object, you must sink it so that all of its edges are below the landscape surface. See below:

BEFORE - AFTER

To fix an object with a gap underneath, you must sink it so that all of the edges are below the landscape surface, OR rotate it first so that it roughly matches the slope of the landscape it is on, and then (if necessary), move it. See below:

BEFORE - AFTER

To fix objects that merge into one another (we say these objects are "bleeding" into one another), you must move one of the objects away from the other until the objects no longer bleed into each other. See below:

BEFORE - AFTER

[title]Fixing region transitions[/title]

All of the regions were generated by the Construction Set's region generator. Because they were all generated separately, the borders between regions don't have any smooth transition - they immediately change into the next. There is usually a sharp texture seam between regions (screenshot). We need to mod the transitions between regions by hand.

This might seem like a daunting task, but it's actually quite simple. First, choose one region (we'll call it "Region A") that will move slightly into the other ("Region B"). Then, choose one of the textures from Region A (to see which textures are used in a cell, press the "i" key while using the landscape editor). Use that texture to paint over the seam between regions. Be sure that the transition isn't a straight line - make sure you give it a few bends to make it less uniform. Please don't mod more than one cell into the other region. When you're done that, you'll need to delete the objects from Region B that are used on top of Region A's landscape texture, and replace them with objects from Region A. The end result should be a bit like this:

BEFORE - AFTER

(in this case, the darker region - Forgotten Forest - is Region A, and the green region - Soluthis - is Region B)

[title]Adding farms[/title]

The Deepen Meadows region has many farms, so you should try to make room for at least three in the area of this claim. You don't need to mod the interiors for any farms you create - separate interior claims will be set up later on. Also note that not all of the farm building models are available yet.

To start a farm, choose where you want the farm owner's house to be, and mark it with an X-marker object. When a suitable model becomes available, we'll replace that X-marker with the farm building, and add the farmer NPC. If you'd like, you may use the Nord House 01 model (Static->ST->Nord->Exterior->StRwNordHouse01Ext) as one of the farm buildings in this region.

Select the tilled soil landscape texture (TerrainTilledSoil), and paint it over one or more rectangular areas of land near the farm. Then, select the crops you would like to be grown at this farm. These may include plants from the original game (Cyrodiil's cabbages, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, and other crops). Place them in the tilled soil field however you think they'd look best.

If you would like for there to be livestock in the region, just create a pen (surrounded by an imperial fence - model set Static->ST->Walls->Fence->ImperialMorrowind) where animals will be placed later on.

Finally, make sure that you mod a road from the farm to the road that Anastassia modded throughout the region (see the map above).

In addition to the farms, there will be a village in cells that have EditorID's beginning with the string "DeepenMeadowsVillage", but you don't need to do anything in those areas, since the village will be modded separately. Farms should be at least a few cells away from the village, however.

[title]Anything else?[/title]

• Don't mod outside the area of the landscape claim. Any such changes could end up being lost.
  
• You don't need to mod a pathgrid in this area.
  
• Deepen Meadows is free of enemies, so please don't place any monsters in the region.
  
• Playtest the landscape area at least once before submitting it for review, and fix any problems that you find.

If you have any questions at all, either about the claim, or how to mod it, feel free to ask in this thread.

[Anastassia]

I have started working in this, but I have encountered this problem when I tryed to testplay the area. I'd rather not continue before fixing it, any suggestions about what may be the cause of this?

[TheImperialDragon]

Are you using the latest ESM? And if so, did you start a new ESP? If you're using the same ESP as before, that might be causing conflicting data (since the data from your old ESP was merged to the ESM).

[Anastassia]

I believe I kept using the same ESP after upgrading to the latest ESM. What should I do?

[TheImperialDragon]

Generally, if your file is merged, you should start a new ESP.

First, see what happens when you try playing without your ESP active. If things look normal again, you'll need to start a new ESP file.

Also, another thing that could be causing this to happen is if you are playing with more ESM's than just Oblivion.esm and Silgrad_Tower.esm. If you are, then it would be a good idea to not have them active when you are playtesting.

[Zurke]

Anastassia what I think TID is referring to is an esp that has already been merged.

Have you done any work on this claim that you submitted for merging?

If so then that will conflict. If you have not submitted an esp for this claim then It may be something else.

edit: I did not see you active TID. Just putting in my 2 cents

[sandor]

The land disappears if you load the ST esm in a mod index of 02 or higher.

The ST esm has to be loaded directly (mod index 01) after the Oblivion esm.

You could use OBMM to check the load order.

[Anastassia]

I checked the load order with OBMM, and that was it. Thanks all of you for the help.

[sandor]

Originally posted by Anastassia
I checked the load order with OBMM, and that was it. Thanks all of you for the help.

I am glad you solved the problem.

[Anastassia]

Again when testplaying I found a strange issue.

Those two paralel lines, anyone knows what they are?, and if so, how to remove them, they are all over the place