So my project features a somewhat large exterior area, so I immediately dove into the heightmap editor to see if it was broken like in the GECK. I can edit and save, but a window pops up saying "File in use" and a timer counts up and says "waiting". Then it lists the file in use, which is either Skyrim.esm or the .esp I made to screw around. (Depending on what I'm using) I have to click Cancel like 10 times, then the bar fills up and the CK crashes.

How do I prevent this so I can safely edit the heightmap?

Thanks!
Alexander J. Velicky

PS. I love you Bethesda. I just love you so gosh darn much!

Have you tried viewing tamriel in the heightmap? Have a go at it and take a look at the thousand mile high cliffs that cover half the world. Truly pathetic.

Alas, it is still broken like in the GECK: http://www.creationkit.com/Heightmap_Editing

So, I'm screwed. Wooooot! When I try to save my data it crashes the CK instantly. Can a dev come in here and maybe say something? Am I plum outta luck here?

It was the first thing I tried when I got the CK. Crashed over and over again. It never once saved a heightmap.

On more stocking-stuffer in this bag of disappointment.

got this same error too beyond frustrating seeing as this is the first and main part of the mod i planned

They say they left it in incae it was useful, and it isn't supported anymore, but the fact it doesn't even work pisses me off.
Yup, same... The first step in adding my new land is, you know, making the new land....

Well it appears to be completely broken. I made a quick .raw file to test, and it cant even import it without crashing...

Care to give some input here Bethesda? How do we import stuff or use heightmap info at all? Hmmm? You did it so it clearly must be possible. I'm not hand shaping over 1100 exterior cells, and many people have tens of thousands of cells to do.

Honestly, pretty much all HM you make in a game engine will be terrible. I can see why they didn't bother using it at all beyond basic functions like flatenning terrain for buildings. I don't know a single development studio that makes terrain using in-engine tools.

The best HM creator out there that has tons of features in creating your own HM as well as generating some is GeoControl2. I'd look into that. It's a VERY complicated program if you are totally new to HM editing, but you can make some amazing stuff with it. Here's an example of some terrain from the Mechwarrior: Living Legends mod for Crysis Wars, that used GC2 for terrain editing:

http://i.imgur.com/9EBDa.jpg

So I highly suggest that program.

Some freeware alternatives would be Terragen or L3DT, but they rely on your ability to edit HM files in Photoshop to get layouts you want, so it's not nearly as smooth of a process as GeoControl is.

i was thinking about using another program for it, but its just frustrating they would put something like that in and not support it

That's cool and all but not only do I not have time to learn a new program, the heightmap thing in the CK crashes, no matter what I try to do. I cant even Import saved RAW files, which makes doing ANYTHING with heightmapping even outside of the CK completely impossible. WTF.

I seriously would love to get a dev in here so I know what I'm doing wrong. They imported from photoshop, so importing has to work.

Confirmed. CK crashes at any attempt to save heightmap data, whether it's an imported RAW file or an internally generated heightmap. Hopefully this will be fixed.

~DE

First make a new plugin file with just the new worldspace in it, don't go into the heightmap editor yet. Then save the plugin, exit the CK, restart the CK, load your save and then you can save in the heightmap editor. You will probably get an error about it not being valid TES file, just ignore it and continue. You might also get an error about an invalid coordinate, click on Retry then and it will work.

The real problem is that each saved set of 4 quads equals to around 600-700 MB RAM being used by the CK, which is bloody ridiculous. This insane RAM usage also occurs if you load a plugin containing heightmap data as Active. If the plugin contains enough heightmap data it gets to it's limit of around 3.5GB RAM and the CK freezes. It's only possible to load large heightmap plugins as non-Active, which is really inconvenient.

Ok wait, I tried and it still crashed, so a few clarifying questions; Do you mean make an esp, like, before even loading skyrim.esm? Also, do i have to go into the worldspace to generate those first 25 cells first? If so, when? Before or after saving and reopening?

I really hope this works... I'm fine using the 'crappy' built in HM editor, I just really want to be able to save. T.T

I don't think it matters whether you load Skyrim.esm, for me it worked when I first created the ESP containing a new empty worldspace only, then restarted the CK, loaded my plugin again and started the Heightmap Editor. Note I saved imported RAW files (X_Y.raw), I didn't try drawing new lands.

Okay, I guess drawing new stuff is broken, and I'm naming the Raw file wrong, as in it's something random. What should it be called? Also, can I only use 1 raw file (For just 1 quad), or do I need all 4?

Also, I get 'File is in use' when I try to save. So it isn't exactly just randomly crashing, it's once I hit Cancel 4 times (Once for each quad, I would imagine) that it crashes. So how do I get around it 'being in use'?

Simple enough...

Here are the steps :

-make a 1024*1024 RAW 16Bits image with photoshop (1024*1024 is for a quad so supposedly 4096*4096 should be the max)
-with TESAnnwyn (which you can find on google) importe it using TESAnnwyn -i 4 -w MyWorld -s 0.25 MYFILE.raw command (-s is a scale factor depand on contrast of you image, i used 0.4 but for know can't see the result since steam is still downloading textures pack)
-with the CK create an empty worldspaces with the same name as specified with the -w command
-withe TESVSnip (which you can find on nexus) add the esp made with Annwyn and the esp made with CK
-Under WRLD in the annwyn esp you should find a GRUP item, copy them to your esp made with CK
-SAVE
-open CK, active your esp, DONE, ENJOY !



look at skyrim nexus since i can't make link if you search "Worldspace proof of concept" in the images sector. I've posted a screen of the new worldspace

with all that photoshop i have :/

Coming across the same problem unfortunately. I have taken a raw file, converted it using TesAnnwyn, then made it into an esm. I can load it into the Heightmap editor and created a heightmap view, which took a long time, but hey ho. However trying to change any of the heightmap info in the CK, even using a .esm file makes the entire thing break down. It is now at 6 minutes plus and waiting.

Cancelled the button for each quad and the CK crashed. So the heightmap editor is useless. Now lets see if the LOD generation is also useless.

I tried this but the only thing I get is a buggy heightmap, with misaligned cells (as an example, think of a really compressed JPEG image with uneven edges all over it) and exagerated tones (my heightmap's highest points are usually peaking between purplish red (purplish red, z = 16 384) and yellow (z = 24 576) since the highest tone value on my map is 170 on 255 (grayscale in Photoshop), but now they peak all the way up to green (z = 57 344) and grey (z = 65 535), exagerating all of the map's surface and its height). Plus, the new map is reflected upside-down (a bit like this : < | > , or like this : d | b , if you see what I mean). In my opinion, it has something to do with the Annwyn.esp being made for Oblivion and not Skyrim, but you say it worked for you, so I may be wrong. Maybe it has something to do with me not downscaling my heightmap trough TESAnnwyn (I didn't use the ''-s'' option, I just didn't typed it, since I was already Ok with my map's height proportions).


Here's some screeshots of the original and the buggy heightmap :

Before : http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/893333CKbugPaalatumavant.png

After : http://img11.hostingpics.net/pics/609005CKbugPaalatumaprs.png


Could you provide more details about how you got it working? I mean, ideally, everything that you can think of ; for example, when you first stated how you got it working, you didn't mentionned where to put the .raw files for TESAnnwyn to find them, which turned out to be into the TESAnnwyn folder... same thing with TESVSnip : I was a bit confused at first about the way to import .ESPs into it, but I tried with ''Open'' and it turned out it was it. This could be of great help since those having the same problem as me can't really know if they made a mistake somewhere or if it's the instructions that aren't clear enough .

Also, if anyone has any idea about what could be the origin of this bug, please, do tell! Thanks

Well, discution continued on another post about same subjet (would be great to merge them) so i resume what has been said so far :

there is a new version of TESAnnwyn wich can import directly in a skyrim esp (you can find it in the forum in "Skyrim mod" section
so only one step to import your heightmap
but ingame LOD doesn't show up in game afer generated it in CK or with Oscape...

(for your heightmap they are many possibilities, the squares must be due to old version of annwyn (i got similar but smal one)
(for the height of your heightmap you can use -h -4096, after annwyn is done it show you min and max height of your heightmap 250 meters is already a huge height so you should try many times by adjusting -h option and see what results are best, also in CK, in the WorldSpace window and under your worldspace there is landheight waterheight and lodwaterheight that you can adjust to raise up or down water. (i think that 0 is horizon plane))

Hope this help.

They must have used Photoshop or a seperate heightmap editor. When I used CS...yes you could tweak HM but it was pretty crucial to do it within CS to get it 'just right'. Alot tougher if there is an issue with CK in general.