Region Generation or Mesh Replacement?

[Dave_91]

The question of whether or not we should region generate or replace meshes was brought up in the pinned Status thread which has gotten slightly off topic in places, so I decided to make a specific thread. The choices are simple, we can either region generate or use the converter. Both have their pros and cons I suppose... some are fairly obvious.

Region Generation:

• Gives us a more control
  
• Can be tweaked and edited
  
• ;( Is slower (depending on landmass scale, it could take a very long time to generate and create a good preset)
  
• ;( More work for exterior modders
  

Replacement:

• Very fast - replaces all chosen mesh instances with desired replacements in no time
  
• Less work for exterior modders
  
• ;( Slightly risky - there's always the chance a misplaced file or texture may be left and publically released
  
• ;( Cannot replace tilesets or pieces that snap
  
• ;( Some models might not match the TES3 equivalents meaning objects may float, align wrongly or bleed into each other
  

[Moryal]

I figured I'd reply here to avoid muddling the status thread.

Lightwave, if you can place textures in their specific locations from the TES III heightmap on the Vv heightmap as you've done, could you place only the road textures and not replace any others?

What I'm proposing is to first region generate the textures the way you like them on the Vv heightmap. After this is done, superimpose only the TES III road textures on the heightmap so that you get the best of both worlds. Since TES III didn't layer textures they shouldn't appear in poor locations..

That being said, I'm not sure how viable that'd be... I could see problems arising if bethesda had used the road texture somewhere other than on a road... Still, even if they had, it might be easier to fix that than to draw out all of the roads again or to do texture work by hand.

Just a thought... Good to see there's some kick left in this mod.

[Seniosh]

I think that region generation, if you can get good modders, is much more fulfilling, will make better landscapes, and avoids sticky things like having models which are not exactly the same as the morrowind ones. You can generate with what you have, instead of trying to get an equivalent for every single model from Morrowind.

It also lets you change things, improve on the old landscapes, incorporate new models and textures, ect.

And region-generating can be a bit frustrating sometimes, but it's a much faster and easier process than i expected. (It isn't quite fast or easy, but it's better than i thought). Silgrad's landscape was completed fairly quickly, because all you need to do is get a region preset, and then you can generate huge areas of land. And you can always improve the preset.

[Lightwave]

TESAnnwyn can be used to layer on the road textures above the other layers, so I can take a region generated textured worldspace and change the top layer for the roads, at a high but not 100% opacity so there'll still be blending around the edges between the region generated textures and the roads.

Road textures are also used around buildings, towns and settlements, but since these will always be around genuine original locations that's still very useful and easily removed or modified by the modder responsible for that area. There's also field systems outside several plantations, assuming they haven't become derelict it's useful to have those (but there aren't many of them).

The vertex colour map is also questionable. Currently it perfectly fits the line of every road, the layout of every building and the placement of every rock and tree, but if that is to be region generated, perhaps we shouldn't have the vertex colour map at all, or those round circles dotted all over the LOD won't make sense. That said, if we are to keep the roads, we should modify the vertex colour map and paste out everything but the roads. But that'll be a chore - it's very complicated ...


Anyway, my vote is for region generation as it's the only practical way to get TES4 density but with the following 2 points:

1. Leave the placed content ESP available as one of our files but for optional only reference - so that anyone can travel around the old world for ideas, for fun or to identify locations of important features they want to work on in the new mod. But it won't be merged back in the master file.

2. We need the meshes. Their unavailability holds back or prevenst generating some regions atm, but if we start modding in the south or the grazelands, we've probably the best chance of being able to fill them with the meshes we have available now. And those are interesting areas that people might want to mod sooner anyway (Vivec, Balmora).


Btw, using higher res alternative TES3 textures might better suit the landscape for texture generation that Oblivion's nearest Cyrodiil textures do. Do any Morrowind modders remember any high res textures that might suit this, such as Qarl's, remembering that OB's standard are 512x512 and cover a 1.7mx1.7m area and MW's were 256x256 (and were designed to cover a 7.3mx7.3m area though in OB they would still take up 1.7mx1.7m each) ???

[Efcaz]

not every thing has to be the same in oblivion people talk about deadra hordes this could result in war torn enviroments,chunks of land removed from obilon gate opening ect

[Dave_91]

2. We need the meshes.

I know I'm not the best know modeler around, but I can get them working in game with collision. I've already created the Grazeland and Azura's Coast rocks (they use the same meshes) with textures. Creating the other rocks shouldn't be too difficult either as they're mostly single objects and only require basic mapping.

I bet at least some of the TES3 ground textures could be made by using altered SI or Oblivion textures... I don't know of any ground texture replacers for TES3 but I'll take a look around - there must be some somewhere.

[Moryal]

I found a pretty good set of upgraded Morrowind textures, they're free to be used in anything, as long as no profit is made and credit is given. Worth a look anyway.

Here

Hopefully that helps.

There's a good set of before and after screenshots here. There's more than just ground textures too.... though I don't know if the rest of it is high enough resolution.

[Dave_91]

Cool... although no screenshots is a bit of a downer... nevermind.

I'll download it later and check it out.

Cheers. :goodjob:

[Lightwave]

Thanks Moryal, they do look very interesting and are 512x512 textures, the same as OB. :goodjob:

I'll have to see how they look on the landscape using TES3 texture size conversion first. The only potential issue with TES3 designed textures is that they would have designed them to be spread over a much wider area (18x the area of a TES4 texture), so there's more chance of a noticeable repeated pattern. But if they look better then these could be used for region texture generation instead. I'll compare the roads against OB's too.

[Moryal]

Hmm... The thought of having to downscale them had occurred to me... Would it be possible to "chop" each one up into eighteen seperate squares and tell the region generator to use eighteen different textures evenly?

I really have no clue, I'm just guessing.. if the eighteen pieces weren't kept straight it'd probably look screwed up anyway.. Especially with some textures like the Ashland crags.

Just a thought... awesome board structure by the way :goodjob: