kyago8

Yeah, I'm not looking forward to figuring out animations... I've got a friend who has experience with visual design in that regard that's agreed to assist with my modding endeavors, so hopefully there's some nuance to it that they're aware of. This entire process has me wondering how teams today are able to collaborate on larger mods. If version control is meant to be set up using a network that all devices are connected to, do the teams have to organize an office space or have they found a way to set up the network path remotely? I suppose they may have an alternated workflow to not overwrite each other's work as well. The biggest issue is that the person working with me is not at a reasonably commutable distance, so we will not be operating on the same network. I imagine that there is a common workaround for this now, as the modding scene doesn't pay enough for an office space, and still think that this question is related to this thread (though, the result I'm looking for may have nothing to do with version control).

In terms of workflow, when should other concepts for the landscape be included? i.e. regions, objects, grass, painting the landscape, etc. Is it a practice that you just go back and forth until you're satisfied or is there a specific order to make sure that the terrain is walkable and that formIDs don't surpass 16mb too quickly?

Interesting... I wonder if this technique could be translated into the heightmap editor. My biggest issue with relying on the landscape editor with creating larger parts of the landscape. Currently, I am crudely recreating the Rio Grande that is roughly 59 cells in length (it's curved and is present in a NW(-31,31)SE(31,-32) worldspace. At times, it will take up an entire cell+ in width. This is why I'd prefer to outline the entire landscape in the heightmap editor (with heavily altered mask settings). I suppose getting good and creative with the landscape editor was a hurdle I was going to have to face eventually.

Update: I've finally successfully merged an .esp into an .esm! So, for the record, madmongo is correct about (well, everything, but) two things in particular. 1) I shouldn't have needed to re-do my heightmap in my .esp, I had to because all of my land data disappeared from that .esp (yes, I saved). No idea what happened there. 2) The GECK Extender does not work with version control. There is a setting in the GECKextender.ini "bVersionControlMode=0", I've found reports of changing this to "=1" and finding success, but for me it resulted in crashes (sometimes with error messages, sometimes without). My only way around this was deleting the GECK Extender files from the local install locations whenever actively merging (the GECK is just unusable without it in my eyes). I now keep a back up of these files in a separate folder on my desktop to make the switch between Version Control and Local Editing. Again, while this thread was absolutely used for troubleshooting my specific issues with version control, it has very little documentation about its use. If any pros out there have used it with large projects and perfected their workflow, please take the time and post it somewhere. The community thanks you.

I can't believe all I forgot to do was click Select All... that seems to be a pattern with me. It turns out that my .esp (though only including the heightmap data and water height) already passed over into 17.7mb, so it's likely I will have to do re-do my heightmap in my .esp, merge, and then apply water and everything else in much smaller chunks than I anticipated. I should have time coming up soon to do so.

I found that in the .ini file for the GECK Extender there's a setting called "bVersionControlMode" and I've set this to 1 in order to get it to work. That being said, I still haven't successfully used version control to merge yet, so I could be wrong. I'm just writing this before going into work, so I will test this when I'm off to see if changing this setting works. I'm really hoping that it does, since without the extender the GECK crashes a lot especially with creating custom worldspaces (in my experience, the longest period I've gone without a crash without using the GECK Extender was about 7 minutes, most of which I was idle). I haven't run into any issues while using this setting so far, just user error.

I've taken a few days to experiment with using version control in the GECK, and I think I have some more questions that would apply to this thread. I've noticed an issue with the heightmap editor in version control mode, the main of which being that it does not save the heightmap, leading to all of the work on the heightmap being lost as soon as the editor is closed. What I've done to work around this for the time being is creating the heightmap and landscape in local editing mode, and try to rely on version control only for when I've actively merging into the .esm. This leads me to another problem... I'm not sure how to check that my changes made on my .esp is actually being merged into the network .esm. From the way that I understand it, after each Check In, the .esp should become an empty .esp file and its changes should have been made to the network master. However, after creating the landscape in local editing mode, saving the .esp and relaunching the GECK in Version Control mode in order to merge, after I click "Check In", the worldspace is still only on that .esp, and I still have an empty network master. I'm aware that because I was using the .esp in local editing mode, I need to check out before the GECK would recognize any changes made (and I made to sure to check out first in case), but the Version Control is recognizing the changes, just simply is not merging when "Check In" is clicked. Using version control seems to be less documented than setting it up, which makes part of me think that it's not complicated and that most people are able to over come these learning hurdles on their own -- but there's an even bigger part of me that wishes that there were basic "How-To's" when it comes to the niche sides of the GECK (maybe I'll make it a project once I figure it out). But until then... Does anyone know why my .esp isn't being merged into the network master?

Returning with a small update: I've been searching the forums and Reddit for any relevant information on importing heightmaps into the GECK. It seems that Adobe Photoshop CS2 is or was at some point able to export in the required RAW settings for importing a heightmap into the GECK (it's also available for free). I know that some people commonly use this with the NVIDIA plugin for photoshop in order to export .dds files for textures. I've definitely made some progress, but this is getting into some forgotten territory, as the latest post I could find on this forum addressing heightmap imports (other than this one) was way back in 2016. It seems that the export settings are available in this program, but for some reason when I tried to change 8-bit to 16-bit, the dialogue box grayed out. I'm sure that there is a common cause leading to this problem (perhaps the scale of the image at import? I used Tanagrams.io to get the basic heightmap, as suggested by the Height_Map_Tutorial_Ashton on the GECK Wiki, and then edited in PS CS2), but as far as I'm concerned, the dialogue option with the necessary exports -- though locked -- is progress. All other export settings that the GECK requires as a heightmap are readily available to change. If anyone has experience with Photoshop CS2, I implore you to try this out for yourself and you may be able to get this to work. It'd be great to restore one of the GECK's lost functions to be used by the community.

Hi everyone, I'm currently creating a new worldspace and landscape within the GECK (with version control enabled). I have already set up the worldspace within the "World" drop down menu. Because this worldspace will have trees and water, I first used the heightmap's noise generator to displace the entire map by 14000 to avoid the TreeLOD bug and then made a basic heightmap with low detail (I intend to do some fine tuning within the heightmap editor and then use the landscape editor for finer details), to carve out mountains and rivers. I did this first because I think I remember seeing something about changing the water height via slider within the GECK which I would use to make sure my water height is correct for the rivers, but now that I am searching I can't seem to find the tool. Is this still a feature, and where would I find it?

[[RESOLVED]] Special thank you to madmongo for being an amazing resource of information and representing the best of the community (as always). I don't believe that a separate tutorial for this is necessary, but there are some notes from going through this process that I think would benefit anyone setting up Version Control for New Vegas for the first time. 1) Make sure your file shares are set up correctly. Go into the properties tab on \Merging and \CheckInBackup folders, click "Advanced Sharing Settings" and make sure that "Everyone" is given full control. madmongo included a helpful command in this thread. 2) Double check and triple check settings for GECKcustom.ini. Remember that any setting that exists in multiple instances, the first that appears supersedes any that follow. Also remember to include "Sudo" in the required settings for New Vegas. If the .ini settings are input incorrectly, but everything else is set up correctly, you will be prompted to select the ConstructionSetNetwork.ini, and I'm going to get into why that's a problem. 3) The ConstructionSetNetwork.ini is a lie (for New Vegas). Don't worry about it, if everything is set up correctly, it will not come across your mind. It will not be created at the point dictated in the guide on the Wiki, and will instead be made automatically within the \\127.0.0.1\Merging folder after creating the bit array files in the \Merging\Data folder. 4) Just always run the GECK as administrator. Personally, while making stuff with the GECK on its own, I've never personally come across issues with not running as an administrator (I kept forgetting, so I made a shortcut with "run as admin" checked), but not doing so whilst setting up version control brought be to a lot of weird problems, so it's best just to avoid it. (As a helpful user tip, you can simply toggle between version control and local editing by editing the setting in the GECKcustom.ini to "bUseVersionControl=0" [off] and "bUseVersionControl=1" [on].) Otherwise, if you follow the guide on the Wiki as well as madmongo's advice in this thread, it should not be an issue to set up VC for New Vegas.

Yes! Just after setting up the Master files (.fid,.fud,.fvd) I see that this file was automatically created.

So I found that deleting my GECKcustom.ini, running the GECK to regenerate the file, and then editing the setting according with the tutorial ended up fixing this entirely. I'm assuming that there were multiple entries of the settings and some were being overwritten. I have now successfully set up Version Control and got the bit array files from all of my masters

I'm not sure how, then. When I try to launch the GECK (I run as administrator), I receive the first popup. When I click "OK", it opens my file browser to select the ConstructionSetNetwork.ini. Since I don't have that file and the GECK didn't create it, I click "Cancel" and receive the second popup, closing which closes the GECK entirely. I suppose I can try to direct it to either the GECKcustom.ini or GECKPrefs.ini, but I'm assuming that it needs to be name specific and intended to be its own file. Did you encounter this at any point while setting up version control?

When prompted to select the ConstructionSetNetwork.ini, the GECK did not automatically create the .ini file, requiring for me to manually create the file and place it in the \Merging folder. However, when selecting this in the GECK, I get a popup stating "Invalid Path Only full paths are allowed. Please select the file through a network that includes the machine name." I'm assuming that there's some setting in the .ini file that must be input, as the only text in that document are as follows: [Users] 1=kyago kyago=1 Has anyone experienced this prompt before?

Thank you! This helped a lot and definitely got me on the right path. I'll update with either my success or obstacles.