TESPort-Discussion

[thePOSTALdude]

Originally posted by Arbiter
I heard some rumors that TES5 may be done on current Gamebryo engine... but I say even if they DO make it on current engine they'll pimp it like hell.

btw. I somehow doubt we'll ever see truly dramatic choices and consequences even if we DO join evil side (look ad DB and how that played).

Why not? Dagon would have killed off everyone in Tamriel leaving only the Chosen (or maybe killing them too).

And Dagoth would have stolen Wraithguard, deactivated the Ghostfence and unleashed vile creatures upon Vvardenfell. (In fact, there is already a mod that does this perfectly.)

[KuKulzA]

Originally posted by The Grey Wizard
We egarly await for KuKu, so that this thread may be more "on topic"

thanks

guys, back on topic!

anyhow, here's my draft, you guys tell me if this english is good to be asking if we can use the Vvardenfell lightwave style

Joel Burgess,
Excuse me, cause I know you're probably busy and don't have all the tim ein the world to answer questions from TES4 modders, but I DO have a question that regards the legality of something. I do not want to infringe on any copyrights or anything like that, so I ask, on behalf of the TES4 Vvardenfell mod team, if it would be possible to import the heightmap of TES3's Vvardenfell, resize it, and edit it. Of course this sounds a lot like simply copying and may appear to be, however, the amount of refining and editing needed (size resizing causes the land to terrace by default, and the deformation of some prominent and memorable geographic areas) makes the new heightmap quite different than the original, although close enough for it to be Vvardenfell, and from above, topographically, seemingly the original. It is alright if that is illegal, if so we will not do it, and we are already fully prepared to make a heightmap from scratch. Thank for your time, and thank you for considering our idea and our honesty as we ask you.
Sincerely,
KuKulzA and the Vvardenfell team

is that good?
any suggestions?

[Vality7]

Hah, he is going to immediately be reminded of me with the word 'legality'. I used that several times in each PM.

I think it could be improved a little. I can't really write it for you, but a few more techincal details might help. Like what TESPort is, what it does and how it works etc.

Theres the word tim ein needs a fix, and dividing it into paragraphs to make it look a little more formal.

[KuKulzA]

thanks, I'll work on that

right now I have two essays, a presentation, and this to write to I'm in the writing mood... out of necessity

[Pjstaab]

Ok so Cyrodill or however you spell it is about 6.9 square miles playable right? And Vvardenfell playble is just short of 6 square miles right? Cyrodill is supposed to be 4x larger than Vvardenfell right? So vvardenfell really isn't much smaller than cyrodill right now. There really isn't all that much of a distance between vvardenfell and the mainland is there? So I think Vvardenfell should be left alone. If we really need to make it seem bigger we could ask permission to convert and release any of the multitude of little island mods surrounding vvardenfell for morrowind. Also quick question, does this project include solstheim?

Edit: Ah, I see skyrim is making solstheim. I am just wondering why. I understand there are like no dunmer there but it does fall within morrowind boundaries.

[SACarrow]

I think maybe soften the references to "legality" and "illegality" and frame it as a request for permission, kind of a "Would there be a problem with that?" message. After all, it's all about permission; if a person with that authority at BethSoft says it's OK, it's pretty much by definition legal.

As Vality7 says, a little more description would be very cool. And of course putting the response (either way) on this thread will settle things for good.

Thanks,
Steve

[Lightwave]

Originally posted by KuKulzA
Excuse me, cause I know you're probably busy and don't have all the tim ein the world to answer questions from TES4 modders, but I DO

It's nice as a draft, both polite and suitably grovelling. Obviously 'tim ein' was a typo, and it's better not to use capitals (like DO) in the middle of a sentence or abbreviations (i.e. cause should become because) since it still needs to be a quite formal email. Your description of terracing and the topographical likeness is better than I've been describing it lately though, and no I'm not grovelling.

Personally I'm only able to write really good formal letters when I'm really in the mood ...

Vality7
I think it could be improved a little. I can't really write it for you, but a few more techincal details might help. Like what TESPort is, what it does and how it works etc.

Not wishing to confuse matters, but technically it was two programs, one to scale up Morrowind in TES3 by literally doubling the land gradient data in both dimensions and splitting it over 4 cells (then doubling up the X,Y,Z values of all NPCs and statics to produce a playable 2x2x2 world). This is where the cell join and terracing effects were introduced. The program was written specifically for 2x scaling a Morrowind esm/esp and has no name (I can always tidy it up and release it if anyone really wanted to play a terraced TES3 scaled up Morrowind, it was based on the TESfaith program).
Then TESPort was used for migrating the landmass from TES3 to TES4 (I disabled it from importing unwanted features at the time, like NPCs, books etc).

Further not wishing to confuse issues(!), but I believe I'm now able to produce a perfectly scaled replica without any terracing or join issues: I've just written a RAW heightmap to TES3 ESP importer which can import any variable size RAW file of heightmap data and create a landmass from that data.

The nice thing is I can now produce a perfect landmass scaled by any amount, just by multiplying each height point by the required scale, opening it in Photoshop, changing the image size by that scale (which automatically interpolates the data), saving it, and running the new file through this importer (which I'm calling TESAnnwyn for the moment, Annwyn is Welsh for the Celtic Otherworld, not some tart from down the street. ) There are no cell joins problems or terraces by using this method.

At this stage this may of course not be what you wanted to know, since we're trying to convince Bethesda that the only copy we have needs quite some work to even fix the basics, though I think maybe it's still an idea to proceed down that line for now since it's the only heightmap copy I've provided; at the end of the day the quick soft-brushing of that heightmap would produce a 99% identical heightmap to the precise scaling method that I have now.

With this program it's possible to use any scale. e.g. I just doubled the size of the quad containing the Imperial city landmass from Oblivion (all of q2.raw produced by the TES4 heightmap exporter) and then did another half size miniature. You could even import Vvardenfell in one cell, though it wouldn't look like much since the smallest landmass vertex in TES3 and TES4 has a base of 128x128 game units - i.e. only 64x64 points per MW cell). For example, here's a shot of q2.raw reduced to 1/8th size (it takes up just 4 cells). The Imperial city is near the centre with the arc of the docks (in a lighter texture) to the lower-right, I put a couple of MW NPCs on for scale. The textures I've slapped on manually to help highlight the details a little better.

So one could for example have a 1.8x scale Vvardenfell instead, or one could import real world landscapes too from heightmaps, or do silly things like import a landmass the shape of your face (if you have the height data). I'll release the proggy when I've added the TES3 and TES4 RAW/BMP exporter code from TEStroi to it, so it can both import and export landmasses (the TES4 CS heightmap importer/exporter is very limited in size, scale and reliability). I'll add code later to create a TES4 ESP too, though TESPort does the same thing for now, just via a totally different method.

Sorry.

Lightwave

[The Grey Wizard]

Facinating, that is just amazing work Lightwave. I've only dreampt of these possiblitities in the past, that being height maps and models interchangable, this is truly a revolution in the way height maps can be used. Now this is a bit off topic, but I had an idea for White Gold Tower in Vality's mod where it could be an LOD landscape shaped and textured as Whitegold Tower, that way you could see it from anywhere in the game, as you can in Oblivion. Do you suppose that would be possible with your breakthrough?

Edit: PM me if you would prefer, that way we don't hijack this thread

[Vality7]

Originally posted by Lightwave
.... or do silly things like import a landmass the shape of your face (if you have the height data)..
Lightwave

Haha, like this:

(its not my face btw)

[KuKulzA]

thanks for the advice guys, I will definitely work hard on this (almost done with all my homework, just a lab report and a presentation to memorize and I'll be allset)