Finializing a world space aka The b*tch that is LOD terrain mesh gener

[MartinPurvis]

Looks very nice, congratulations

[RangerBoo]

Looks very nice, congratulations

Thank you. :) That means a lot. This is the first world space that I truly worked on let alone a mod.

[TrickyVein]

Quite.

 

If only we had a program like TESAnwynn that generates LOD data as efficiently as it imports heightmap data.

[Thaiauxn]

I paint my own worldspace heightmap data in 3dsMax & Mudbox, then export that mesh as a height map to World Machine, then World Machine back to Photoshop, then take the last heightmap into Cryengine or GECK. Mostly Cryengine 3 Pro lately for work. Scored a jr. design position as a remote freelancer.

 

I learned from Wenda's excellent tutorials and just worked on it for the last couple years until it made sense:

 

You have to "cut" your World Machine heightmap into quads for GECK, but I've managed a couple really excellent little world spaces with LOD that way.

 

GECK LOD generation is a huge pain. Freddie Farnsworth on our Project Brazil team built his own dedicated rig specifically to handle it, and gets consistent results that way. Since I like getting down and dirty with my level design, making adjustments manually, it's a tough lesson to learn about that perfect quad thing. Project Brazil's San Berdoo had to be sanded down along every edge to get it to render. Took months to get right. Sadly, I've come WAY further in my skills since Brazil's worldspace, learning to create assets of my own, and I just wish I had the time to perfect F:PB's world with my new techniques. Too late now, gotta focus on programming.

 

I tried to use TESAnwynn back in the day. Didn't really help too much. It's best to get the hardware the way GECK likes it, and use that.

 

Best of luck with your work!

[TrickyVein]

So you have nothing to add to the thread as far as generating LOD meshes is concerned. Thanks! I'm so glad for you that you 'scored' a jr. design position, too. That was really on-topic. If you had read the OP you might have figured out that people are able to create terrain using completely free software, and so while the tutorial you linked to may be interesting, very few people have both 3ds max and mudbox. Not only are these programs prohibitively expensive, they're not even required, and we're not talking about importing terrain anyway.

 

3/10 would not read again :down:

[Thaiauxn]

So you have nothing to add to the thread as far as generating LOD meshes is concerned. Thanks! I'm so glad for you that you 'scored' a jr. design position, too. That was really on-topic. If you had read the OP you might have figured out that people are able to create terrain using completely free software, and so while the tutorial you linked to may be interesting, very few people have both 3ds max and mudbox. Not only are these programs prohibitively expensive, they're not even required, and we're not talking about importing terrain anyway.

 

3/10 would not read again :down:

 

Sorry?

 

The point was about the hardware for large terrain. The point about my method was, I guess, pointless.

[Nihilisaurus]

It is possible to get 3dsmax for free, Millenia has posted about it a bunch of times. Mudbox is still expensive though, so unless you're willing to do something illegal I guess for most people the only viable method is the way included in the GECK.

 

The bit about Brazil's methods for LOD generation were interesting - if a little tangential - and it's a shame the tools to do things that way are so far out of reach for most people.

[Nimboss]

Here is a picture if your curious: http://imageshack.us/a/img833/9962/blza.jpg

Still a little more work to be done.

 

Nice picture! Would be nice to know what all this will end up to to be able to follow your and your fellows progress.

 

Regarding some work still, you need to generate NavMesh (you done that already?) you can triangulate it yourself manually (tedious) or you can actually get GECK to do it with to my mind acceptable results I done that successfully, BUT I have to recall the strategy, it was some not so obvious steps to get it done and always there was no clear document how to do it properly.

Why I mention this? If you have just one (1) so little tiny error in your hightmap somewhere in the outer borders of your worldspace Generate NavMesh fails, if you create a border around the sections any player and NPC follower will be able to follow and all errors in hightmap is outside that border you happily can use the Generate NavMesh function and save a lot of time. The problem is I can't recall exactly how I created that border and forced generation to just generate NavMesh inside.

[RangerBoo]

 

Here is a picture if your curious: http://imageshack.us/a/img833/9962/blza.jpg

Still a little more work to be done.

 

Nice picture! Would be nice to know what all this will end up to to be able to follow your and your fellows progress.

 

Regarding some work still, you need to generate NavMesh (you done that already?) you can triangulate it yourself manually (tedious) or you can actually get GECK to do it with to my mind acceptable results I done that successfully, BUT I have to recall the strategy, it was some not so obvious steps to get it done and always there was no clear document how to do it properly.

Why I mention this? If you have just one (1) so little tiny error in your hightmap somewhere in the outer borders of your worldspace Generate NavMesh fails, if you create a border around the sections any player and NPC follower will be able to follow and all errors in hightmap is outside that border you happily can use the Generate NavMesh function and save a lot of time. The problem is I can't recall exactly how I created that border and forced generation to just generate NavMesh inside.

 

Thank you for both the compliment and tip regarding the navmeshing! The mod in question is a companion mod that my friends been wanting to make for a while now. At first I thought I would be just vocing the mod but when when he learned that I knew how to make a new world space a bunch of ideas got into his head and this world space is the result. Its nearing complation(I'm about 70% done, just need to make a couple more dungeons and then navmeshing). I am also making my own world space/ quest mod as well but right now thats on the back burner until my friends mod is done.