Hey there,
I just wanted to know whether there is any way, that Cliffs like the

RockCliff05Pineforest02 can be placed by the region generator in a sensefull way.

The problem here is, that 2 sides are so to say "missing" and one has to glitch it into a slope.

But i tried nearly all settings, but I didn't got it to work.

Looks like only items can be placed, where only the bottom is "missing". Like treest, rocks, flowers, critterspawn markers, etc.


So: Is there a way to make objects like RockCliff05Pineforest02 work with the region editor?

Thx

Nope. Region generation cannot be used to place large objects like cliffs of mountain pieces. You'll have to hand place those. But that's okay, you should definitely hand-touch-up everything region generated anyway.

I spent 3 weeks 'mastering' the region generation system, and even then I'm going to hand edit every square inch of wilderness created by it. But it cuts about 80% of the time off since you already have a huge pallete of objects spread out before you.

So stick to trees, shrubs, plants, and land textures, etc.

I played around with region generation in Alton, and it's more trouble than it's worth in my opinion. You spend a week or more getting a region set up properly, only to have to spend a great deal of time detailing/cleaning what the generator created. It takes about the same time simply creating them yourself, plus without generation you get a much more "hand-made" feel. Plus (as is the point of this topic) cliffs and mountain pieces cannot be generated properly, which makes me feel like generation is even more unnecessary.

@Elijah, it depends on the size of your worldspace. If it's relatively small it might not be worth learning to use the generator properly, if it's big it definitely is.

Over time one gets better and better with the region generator, one of the former devs of the MERP team has years of experience with it (also from generating regions for Oblivion MERP) and can make some astoundingly beautiful regions!

But Alexander is right about the huge rock meshes, they are not suitable for the generator.

Hey Maegfaer! Nice to meet you again, how are you?

The region generator can do nearly everything, but it takes some time to learn. Even with several years experience I'm still discovering new things right now: e.g. how to generate objects that are "swimming" in a river. In a properly generated region there is no need to do any cleaning or hand editing every inch. You just need to invest enough time and do proper testing of your settings in the region generator: http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/topic/2696-hoddminir-is-hosted-on-dc/#entry121613

If you want to generate rocks your best bet would be to use meshes that are closed at least on the sides, so that you can use rotation in all directions in order to give your region a varied and natural feeling.

I'm working on some sort of tutorial right now, but it will take some time still.

Ok, thx for the answers

Well I am alrdy quite used to the reg. gen. so I would definately not say it is useless but somehow essential to greate large woods. But i have some troubles with the textures. I am using the grass textures and the reg. gen is painting them, but the grass is not showing up. So when i press "h" and then "i" to see which textures are in the cell, there is definately some grasstexture with like 20%....but no grass. Bug?

That is simply not true. Alton was a world twice the size of Point Lookout, and it was mostly hand placed besides where I experimented with generation. Ethas is the size of Skyrim, and it is and will continue to be completely hand-made. So far my team and I have completed an area well over twice the size of Alton. Region generation is not necessary for any worldspace, as long as you're committed.

It depends on how many people you have working on it. You said a team. For me, I'm all alone making Falskaar. Completely hand placing every single object in a worldspace almost half the size of Skyrim would simply have taken me another year or two. So, instead, I did a good region generation, and now I'm filling in the dungeons/specifics, then tweaking the wilderness, saving an absurd amount of time, and getting a result that's just as good.

It's me heading world building, with another level designer that joined a few months ago. The rest of the team has different roles. We want to keep the team fairly small, so we'll probably just have the two of us doing world design for the rest of development. Then again, I aim for multi-year projects (Alton was two and a half years with only me working on it, Ethas will be longer), whereas you are aiming for a more timely release. Two different goals, each with different needs.

Hm, in a test region the landscape generation works fine....strange

Ok and now it works in my worldspace aswell.....CK as its best.

Did you assign the Grass to the grass textures that you're using? You can assign any type of grass to a texture, set its density, size and so on.

Edit: there also is a grass button, which lets you toggle the grass on and off in the CK.

Thx for the help but see answer above. Just CK again, making fun of me....restart solved the problem.

@Unknown: Great that its solved!


I don't think its possible to create a worldspace with a similar size like MERP was without the region generator and in a reasonable timeframe - it even was difficult to generate it with enough diverse and varied regions. Thats all Maegfaer wanted to say.

Fair enough, MERP was almost a different category, as its scope was so far beyond even Skyrim. I guess I should have payed more attention to who I was replying to.

But I would say for anything Skyrim-sized (maybe a bit above that, even) or below, hand making your worldspace is completely doable.

Agreed

On a Skyrim sized worldspace (even smaller), let the region generator do the donkey work. No point spending weeks/months on something the CK can do in a hour or two. Once it's done, you can then touch up the cosmetics to suit your needs.

To each his own, but as somebody who has actually completed a multi-year, large-scale world mod, I can say that the amount of time you supposedly save by generating is negligible.

I think the right wording is just that, a reasonable timeframe. Sure it can be done for any sized world, if you are willing to spend some years on placing trees and such. I would rather spend the same time building the actual story and other game elements

I would be great if you did a tutorial Noir, when you feel you have time that is
Your regions are turning out gorgeous, and there is probably many that would benefit from your knowledge.

Why are all so keen on a region generator tutorial? Is there something i miss? I mean....this thing is somehow rly easy to use, no? U have parent and subparent objects, choose some density values, put a little landscape texture here and there - or like Bob Ross would say:" Just a little tree here and there and a brush over here, where all the animals come out at night." And done?!.....I mean, one has rly to find the prefect values for himself by trying, or will there be the secret formula in the tut? Then I rly want to see this aswell ^^.

No, there is no secret formula and for that reason calling it a tutorial might not be the best word. Everybody who wants to generate a region has to try different values and settings himself, but there are tips and tricks that might make it easier to create your own regions. Just as an example: have you already noticed, that the generator doesn't rotate tree forms?

I haven't tried out the region generator in Skyrim, but I'm guessing this is left over from the days of Oblivion, which used SpeedTree, making trees non rotatable. Since gamesas didn't use generation in Skyrim, I'm guessing they didn't bother to change it.

Hm, well is it dependend on the "is a tree" setting? Cause i thought the gen rotates my trees (is a tree setting: off).....will give it a close look in the evening

But what I did not find out till now: What does "paint vertices" do? Experimented with it and it seems it is doing nothing.

@Elijah: So all items were handplaced in skyrim? Every stupid tree and plant?

Bethesda claims so, but plenty of modders highly doubt that (including myself). Not only because typical generator patterns can be discerned in the terrain textures, but also because they made this claim before (I think it was with FO3, don't quote me on it though) and after release the generator settings for regions were still in their ESM file. Most likely they did however manually edit almost every part of Skyrim after generating, thus making the claim "hand-made world" somewhat true.

'Is a tree' spreads out those objects and gives them a bigger 'radius' so that the branches/foliage doesn't clip with buildings or other trees really bad, that's all.

Paint vertices is from Fallout and earlier before world shadows. It could be used to darken the ground in 'shadowy' areas like narrow alleyways between tall buildings in Fallout. It would simulate shadows on the ground and make it look a bit better than just bright sunlight blasting down on this alleyway through the buildings.

And yes, every single object in Skyrim was hand places. They did not use computerized generation anywhere at all. Some people do claim they are lying, but honestly I don't see how it could have been generated, it all looks so good and unique...

Well thx so far for the help.

Btw: Do you also generate landscapetextures? Cause my experience is that this feature really causes more work, than you save. Because all the slops, where cliffs will be palced on, can get a grass landscape by random and then grass sticks through solid rock. Thus you have to check every cliff, whether grass glitches through stone. That is why I decided to place textures beforehand myself and then add trees, stones srhubs and flowers by the reg. editor.