Naga-Cradle Jungle

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Thanks to sandor, we now have a fully generated Jungle Region. :banana:

At the moment, we're still needing to change things a little though so it's not finished yet. It doesn't have any LOD so that's why some of these screenshots are looking a little...um...undercut. It will need a little more work on the landscaping than the landscape claims for Blackwood. This includes more re-positioning of objects, varying the tree varieties, adding large tree-root models, land texturing and other bits of general tweaking besides setting up small locations and dungeon exteriors. The region as a whole is deliberately sparse in areas so that it proves easier to introduce a wider variety of trees. Just adding trees is a very simple matter so that's no problem.

What you can see here includes the exterior part of Tenmar Wall, flora varieties such as Koniption's Stargazer Lily, GreenStriped Bromeliads, Elephant Ear, Green Ti Plant, Saffron Crocus and others, as well as a glimpse of the new mountainous section and views of Stormhold.

I will be issuing landscaping claims soon so if anyone likes the idea of manipulating this landscape, stay tuned!

[Koniption]

:poorme: ...it's.....it's.....so beautiful!

Koniption

[Lady Nerevar]

still too empty for my taste :/ jungles are supposed to be really cluttered and overgrown, and black marsh is supposed to be nearly impassible. may i sugest adding some large vanilla trees into the fray to take up space?

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Originally posted by Lady Nerevar
still too empty for my taste :/ jungles are supposed to be really cluttered and overgrown, and black marsh is supposed to be nearly impassible. may I sugest adding some large vanilla trees into the fray to take up space?

Originally posted by Ibsen's Ghost
....it's not finished yet.....The region as a whole is deliberately sparse in areas so that it proves easier to introduce a wider variety of trees. Just adding trees is a very simple matter so that's no problem.....

Ahem! Nevertheless, if it was 'nearly impassable' it would be nearly impossible to play. Blackwood will be denser too if people can take over the landscape claims. Or else I'll have to do it.

[Xae]

Pardon the thread necromancy, I was looking up on some jungle pics to see if the soundtrack is too dark. Either way, I had a thought when I saw this:

Originally posted by Lady Nerevar
still too empty for my taste :/ jungles are supposed to be really cluttered and overgrown, and black marsh is supposed to be nearly impassible. may I sugest adding some large vanilla trees into the fray to take up space?

This statement does make very much sense, but Ibsen's reply that impassible equals unplayable is equally true. So, what about somewhere in between?

We could add some impassable areas around the map. In practice, we'd only have to landscape the borders, 10 or 15 meters, with very dense forest/jungle etc, and then add an invisible ground-to-sky blocker with a popup trigger, "This area is too dense to travel through", preventing any player, even the extremely acrobatic ones, from passing through.

This would not only allow us to make any roads make more sense but also create more special areas inside the forest. Valleys, swamps etc with only one or more entrances. This'd be more like it is in non open-world games, where the only places you can go are the interesting areas. So, we could have these 'areas of interest' every now and then, create settlements outside a few of them as quest-bases (like an MMORPG) and really, there's tons of other opportunities.

This also relates quite strongly to the map. I gather that in Cyrodiil they'd have an Imperial cartographer or the like, but in Black Marsh, it makes much more sense if the map would be an Adventurer's Map. It can look the same as the vanilla one (even if it'd be more interesting to make our own dark, tattered map) but the information presented would be different. Text on the map should be made more readable (and we could change the location boxes to simple dots and reveal the area type with mouseover) and we could mark some of these 'areas of interest'. Being that it's an Adventurer's map, the impassable areas are all marked. A simple thick black border would do, with a little legend on the edge of the map as a reminder. Of course, we'd need someone very early to say something like "Make sure you plan your route around the impassible areas".

That's about it. Let me know if I'm certifiable.

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Originally posted by Xaeaix
That's about it. Let me know if I'm certifiable.

I do like the idea although I'm the only one doing any landscaping which is a LOT of work. However, with the idea of modding around the borders then it's not too tough to handle. Nevertheless, this jungle (the Naga-Cradle) is rather small by comparison with the Arnesian Jungle so I'm thinking that this is more likely to be something that would become a feature beyond the beta. However, it IS worth bearing in mind as I landscape...so thanks...

[Deeza]

I think that's a very good idea for adding later. In particular, we could hide Helstrom in one of these (it is supposed to be long-lost after all)...

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Absolutely...and we could surround it with TheFilthySpaniard's quicksand...

[morcroft]

Morrowind used high (nearly) unclimbable mountains to split up the landmass and force the player to go the long way round to get anywhere. It made Vaardenfell seem far larger than it actually was. Oblivion's Cyrodiil really lost that sense of vastness because you can always get anywhere in a straight line. Long thin winding impenetrable sections could make the Naga-Cradle seem enormous. Especially if you're trying to get out....

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Aye, it might be worth being a bit crafty with the height maps. That's more likely to happen with the Arnesian Jungle though. Altering the HM when the region is generated creates a lot of work for yourself....but it's nice knowing this before the other jungle is ready...