Creating a lake in the GECK

[KangarooSwag]

Hi Guys

 

I'm working on a mod that basically makes the area in and around Novac look kind of like the entrance to Vault 22. Everything has worked fantastic so far, except for one thing.

I've been trying to create a small lake/dam kind of thing, just to add to the scenery, but to do this I need a small depression in the ground. Is there anyway to "dig" out the ground aside from editing the heightmap? Cause that seems like it would be a lot of messing around and looks inaccurate.

 

Thanks in advance,

KangarooSwag

[Jokerine]

Besides using the landscape editor to sink the ground, I guess you could put up rocks or something like that to form the shore and put the water inside, but it would be raised off the ground. :confused:

[madmongo]

You can click on world -> landscape editing, although that gets a bit painful if you want to dig out anything larger than a small pond. You can select the size of the tool but it only goes up to 15 max, which isn't very big for lake sized things. Left mouse lets you drag the landscape up and down and right mouse textures the landscape with whatever texture you have selected.

 

As with many things in the GECK, this is a bit buggy. It will often leave visual artifacts on the landscape in the form of big black squares just outside of the area that you were editing. You can double click to another area then double click back there to reload the textures and make the big black squares go away, but simply scrolling away from the area and scrolling back won't clear them.

 

Be warned, if you do any texture editing on the landscape. I've also had it hork up the landscape texture so bad that there was literally no way to fix it in the GECK and I had to reload my mod from an earlier save. Make backup copies often.

 

It also completely lacks any of the tools that you have in the heightmap editor. You get up and down and texture and that's it.

 

So basically your tools are the heightmap editor which is kinda like trying to do delicate surgery with a chain saw, and the landscape editor which is kinda like trying to carve out Mt. Rushmore with a hand pick. Neither tool is well suited to making a lake in an established landscape.

[KangarooSwag]

Yeah I did that for one of the smaller ponds Jokerine.

 

madmongo, I've pretty much done the whole area around Novac in the Grass-Farmland textures and it seems to be working OK, fingers crossed. Ill try the first option you proposed and see how that works. I just really wished the heightmap had some type of indication as to where buildings and roads and everything else were located, as you're basically in the blind when you go to do anything remotely near a town.

[SKYZOO]

I only use the heightmap editor for brand new worldspace design usually, other than that the landscape editor is a good friend (albeit buggy). I've made swimming pools, ponds, trenches and lakes of many different sizes without too much work (though Madmongo is right, the tool is never really big enough or small enough for certain jobs). Add that with placeable water resized to fit your areas, and your good most of the time. (Although don't get me started on placeable water and how mind numbingly aggravating that can be when it mucks up your whole area and makes you reload your mod from your last save :wallbash: )

[KangarooSwag]

 

 

(Although don't get me started on placeable water and how mind numbingly aggravating that can be when it mucks up your whole area and makes you reload your mod from your last save :wallbash: )

 

Yeah I did have a problem with one spring where the texture under the water was different to what was actually there. Walked closer (in game) and the water disappeared completely. Figured out what was wrong, I checked some wrong boxes, but I haven't had a catastrophic, mod-destroying mishap yet.

[SKYZOO]

I figure it's just something I miss or neglect sometimes, but I've had the water overtake my entire cell by four to six feet off the ground and both my land and water height were according to their proper working specs (land:2000, water:-2000). Oh well, you mod and you learn as the saying goes...now if scripting was just a bit easier to pick up on for me :down: .

Edited December 22, 2014 by SKYZOO