Silgrad Tower from the Ashes

Official 'Black Marsh' Landscape Claim for Darkmoor Region #13: South

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Darkmoor Region: South
AVAILABILITY: Completed by Ibsen's Ghost

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NB: All the black cells in the picture must be modded plus all of the blue cells adjacent to them. The cells that border the region are optional (in order to get an effective transition from one region to another). To find these locations, take note that the x co-ordinates here (the numbers along the top) are all minus values on the left and plus values on the right whilst the y co-ordinates (the numbers along the side) are all plus values up top and minus values below. Therefore, -16,-16 is the cell in the North-Western tip of the claim and -06,-22 is the cell in the South-Eastern tip.

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Description & Details

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This area of the Black Marsh: Darkmoor region is very wild and contains no settlements besides the town of Chasepoint that provides access to the Parchlands. Chasepoint was one of the more successful towns to have been built around the traditional Argonian fishing port, owing to the walls on the western side. Despite being modified by travelling Imperials and fairly popular with non-natives, it retains traditional Black Marsh traditions. This is something that has kept it relatively free of tribal interest and intrigue.

However, the old Imperial lighthouse and port, also built by non-natives has fallen into disrepair due to the unpredictable nature of Argonia's climate, especially the water levels.

The watery area to the south-east (the blue cells) is Lake Kulan which harbours a number of vicious water-dwelling creatures....and perhaps something interesting deep below. Spider caves predominate in Darkmoor but there may be evidence of Marsh Elf (Barsaebic) ruins and perhaps a Hist Shrine too. It is recommended to add one of each in this claim.

The giant cypress trees are the strongest feature of Darkmoor (and may present the biggest difficulty of this claim). The giant swamptrees should have swamproots placed at their base as much as possible. You can use the Dementia-shaped Mangrove rocks to create some interesting passages and mini-cliffs. Try to prevent clipping where possible (this is where flora or trees merge together and the models 'clip' into each other) and try to add more of the following varieties of flora: Blueberries, Nirn-worms, Purple and Green Lumberries and Spike Plants. Some mossy logs can be used too.

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At-a-glance Details

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Region: Rottmere Everglades
Cell count: 114
Exterior cell coordinates:
SW Corner = -20,-23
NW Corner = -16,-16
SE Corner = -06,-22
NE Corner = -03,-16
Claim Size & Difficulty: Medium-Hard. Leave Chasepoint as it is except where you may wish to merge your landscaping to make it flow better.
Inhabitants: A quite cosmopolitan mix of races may be found in Chasepoint.
Settlements in area: Chasepoint
General Info: Please maintain contact about your modding on this thread but, above all, keep posting updates by adding v1, v2, v3 etc. to the end of your files.Take note that any esps submitted must begin with BM followed by your modder initials. For me, this is BMIG (IG for Ibsen's Ghost). Then submit your final claim to this thread: Latest esm and esp updates .

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Modding Directions

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Download the latest bsa details here: Black Marsh Resources: Latest bsa .

Your first task is to make sure that the flora and trees are not floating above the ground or have any edges of the models showing. For Darkmoor, this is particularly common with some trees so it may help to select a number of suspect trees together and pull them down so that they are fully rooted.

You may alter the height map as you wish but please bear in mind that this may affect other cells and the positioning of flora and trees as you will need to alter these accordingly. You are welcome to delete objects and there are recommendations on what to add below but please bear in mind that doing so means that you will probably have to add or delete vertex shading and make appropriate choices for texturing using the surrounding texture palette.

Your main task, however, is to make this area dense, dark and more realistic.

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Modding Directions: What to add

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Textures - When near to the borders with other claims, please make sure that there is a smooth transition. Otherwise, please keep to the sort of patterns that you see in the generated landscape. It's best to use non-grass textures around flora and rock objects to prevent grass peeping through objects and make sure you add vertex shading!

Clutter and Flora - Much of the flora has already been added through region generation but you may decorate with the following rocks and flora: Blueberries, Nirn-worms, Purple and Green Lumberries and Spike Plants.

You will find these under the Flora\blackmarsh folder or the Static\Flora\blackmarsh folder (in the case of the Bromeliads, for example). You will also find the mossy logs under Static\landscape.

You can also add mosquitoes and flora fly if you wish but please try to use the levelled lists.

Trees - The giant cypress trees are the strongest feature of Darkmoor (and may present the biggest difficulty of this claim). The giant swamptrees should have swamproots placed at their base as much as possible. As mentioned, many of the trees do not fit too well into the ground. Please 'root' them properly.

You may make things even more dense. In which case, you can duplicate objects by pressing Ctrl-D when you find your chosen model and then to drag them out and position them where you see fit. Don't forget to vertex shade the bases when you do this though.

You may wish to choose a weather type or use activators such as fog or rain. Please notify a core member if planning to do so.

Otherwise, ask if you'd like to use any other models or textures. I'm sure you'll make sensible choices but it would be best to check that out by posting screenshots or offering a suggestion in this thread.

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Settlements and Dungeons

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The best part of landscape claims that I enjoy the most are modding the dungeons. For this, you may use the mossy ruin exteriors (see blackmarsh-architecture-ruins) or the mossy cave exteriors. However, there is a wide selection of possible dungeons on offer including SI ruins and caves so please ask regarding anything specific.

All such dungeons can be decorated with appropriate clutter on the outside or you can leave this to the dungeon modder themselves. Please note that it should be your responsibility to post up dungeon claims once the landscape claim has been submitted. Please see the core about acquiring a claims template (that which is normally written in these threads) when you wish to do so. However, I can possibly do this if I have time available.

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Important Notice and Technical Information

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If you decide to add a lot of one particular model, please notify on this thread the rough proportions of the extra models that you add so that it is easier for the next person who takes a landscape claim to work with you and maintain a degree of uniformity to the landscape. For example, tell us roughly how many of Koniption's bromeliads you are using per cell.

For extra help, please take a look at sandor's excellent claims descriptions on the ST site here: SHRAC05 "Steadhelm Region Area Claim" [Claimed] , particularly in the 'Technical Info' section.

Above all, make if fun for the player and have fun with the claim yourself!

Could I try the landscaping for a change? I just looked into the first claim available. What do you think?

Absolutely! It tends to be me dealing with landscaping exclusively so any help is very much welcome. The instructions above pretty much tell you everything but I'll just give you a quick rundown:

The trees are going to be the biggest obstacle to landscaping because the tree canopies are huge. The biggest task here is to make sure they aren't floating as there are lots of them that are. You just need to drag them down and make sure they have vertex shading and that's the biggest task here. After that, it might help to use the view menu and untick trees and leaves so you can make finer changes to the landscape.

Some models clip into others. Certainly if the clipping is major then it needs to be sorted. Adding Blueberries, Nirn-worms, Purple and Green Lumberries and Spike Plants would be great but don't start off by adding loads as you'll only give yourself more work to do later in order for everything to be consistent elsewhere. Clumps and patches work well but heed that warning to save yourself from pain!

Don't add mosquitoes yet but flora fly are fine. There are actually probably too many big rocks in this area so feel free to delete some and add the rocks called rockmanoverhang instead. These ones should be great for creating spider caves and interesting landscape features. You have room for about one spider cave and one Barsaebic ruin which is probably going to be the most fun part of this claim. I'd advise using plenty of our own cobwebs too (Static>blackmarsh>Clutters>DUN). Any of the BMWeb or vanilla cobwebs (Static>Dungeons>Misc) are fine. Enjoy! :goodjob:

I see. Not many questions from me at this point, other than maybe about spider caves and Barsaebic ruins. Not sure what you mean. Any particular place in BM where they exist, so I can compare to?

As you said, the initial post explains it quite well and your post is great, as it is a helpful support to the original one.

Let me see that in CS. I guess it will take me more time than those mini-claims I did so far, but let's see. I will keep you posted.

Barsaebic Ruins are retextured Ayleid ruins, covered in moss and mould. The backstory is, the Barsaebic clans were exiled Ayleids who were kicked out of Cyrodiil for some alleged crime (which maybe you could think up a cool backstory for?)

The archetypal Barsaebic ruin is a cell called Xarphyrial, which was made by Ibsen. Also check out my own work in the older bits of Stormhold.

As for Spider Caves, to be honest I'm not quite sure what that refers to. There is a new tileset for caves but is that what Ibsen means? Hopefully he'll drop by and answer this.

No problem, Deeza. Yes, we now have three Barsaebic ruin entrances. Xarphyrial is the marsh elf capital but there's also Mokumalata and Norgramyre (see the Dungeon claims). Mokumalata is semi-complete inside. Oh, and Senten created a really nice one at Seafalls too but I can't recall the name of it. We also have one complete Ayleid ruin as well (the only one to exist in BM; it's along the Cyrodiil coastline).

Spider Caves are unique to Darkmoor (so far). They basically use the mossy cave tileset that came from Leo Gura's 'Lost Spires' mod and are the same as our own default tileset...but with a spider speciality. If I remember rightly, there should be a unique mangrove-moss-textured dungeon entrance for them. We'll be using our tarantulas around there and I may add other types of spiders later. The idea is to maximise the use of our assets specifically designed for this region though. The rockmanoverhang models in combination with the new cobwebs should work very well indeed!

Btw, landscape claims can be quite hard-going in places but the opportunity to sculpt unique locations is what makes me go back to them again and again.

I took a look at this area. I think I see the main problems. Most often the trees are off (hovering above the ground level), but there seem to be more glitches, when you look more carefully. Things like grass planted inside a rock, a mushroom partly "sunk" in a tree or a rock etc.

I also found the above mentioned glitches in the areas not marked as black on the map, near Chasepoint. I will limit my input to the black areas, thou.

These glitches are sadly the inevitable side-effects of using the almost-broken region generator that comes with OB. Still, fixing the bugs is easier than doing it all by hand (or at least I think so, though a purist like Lady Nerevar would disagree with me).

I was going to ask how you can generate such a landscape. So there is a tool to do it, you say? Where can I read more about it?

By the way, I read the discussion in another thread about using a pre-defined templates vs. creating your own ones. (You might partly refer to it when you mentioned Lady Nerevar, as I saw she was strongly opinionated in this thread) Ha! Interesting subject. As much as I agree with the idealistic approach, I do take your point that modifications are easier, faster, more convenient, doesn't drive you crazy

Although I believe paying crazy amount of attention to the details pays off. It's extremely important and contributes mostly to the outcome of what you can come up with. So it's either magical and super exceptional stuff or just average good.

Well, easy for me to chit chat... A lot to do for sure... Actions speak better than words, but it's sometimes good to know what is the goal and what kind of quality we aim for.

At the same time, now as I explored BM a little bit more both in CS and in game mode, I have to say there is a heckload left to be done. The amount of outstanding work is still huge, from what I can see.

A few more questions as I "get my hands dirsty" with this claim, resulting from my limited experience with Oblivion modding:
* How can I do vertex shading?
* How can I apply weather types? You've mentioned activators: fog, rain...

Also:
* Only 1 Barsaebic ruin and 1 Spider Cave? This is actually a bigger point. The area is vast. You sure you want just a wild region with wild nature and nothing else than that? I mean I'd rather make use of space for something... like mini-plots or caves etc. Empty large spaces are part of the game, but why would a player visit it actually? Gathering herbs is one reason, another one might be simply tourism. I can't think of anything else.

1. You can download an excellent video on how to use the region generator which I have hosted here:

http://www.filefront.com/15654465/BXXReg...ial01.rar/

2. You can add vertex shading using the "Landscaping" button in the CS taskbar (it's a few along from Open, I forget how many exactly). At the bottom of the panel that opens is a checkbox for "use colour". The panels beside it change the colour it paints. After doing this, right-clicking in the viewing window will paint that colour on the ground.

3. Weather activators will be added globally at a later stage I believe.

4. You are right, but the real limiting factor here is the time it takes to do the interiors. Making a fun and convincing dungeon is a difficult task, much more than an ordinary interior. We decided a while ago that we'd focus on quality rather than quantity, making a few exceptional dungeons rather than many average ones. From what you've just said, I think this accords with your own modding philosophy!