Workflow for new worldspaces?

[kyago8]

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?

[madmongo]

Once I create my heightmap I generally place some object where I want a river to be, then I check to see what Z value the object ends up at. Then I use that to go back into the worldspace settings and set my default water height accordingly.

For a map that I am currently working on, I set the water height a bit below the ground and I am going cell by cell and editing the terrain to "carve" out the river. I like that it's giving me a realistic looking river, but I also have to say that it's painfully slow.

You can also edit the water height on a cell by cell basis. There's no slider that I am aware of, but if you center the cell that you want to change in the render window, then click on World -> Cells the GECK will bring up a cell editor where you can change the water type, water height, acoustic space, music type, and a few other bits. Just double check which cell you are actually editing since it's easy to have the wrong cell in focus when you bring up the editor. I always double check the cell X,Y values in the render window and check those against the cell that ends up selected when I bring up the cell editor to make sure I'm on the correct cell.

Edited Wednesday at 01:34 AM by madmongo

[kyago8]

On 2/18/2025 at 5:31 PM, madmongo said:

For a map that I am currently working on, I set the water height a bit below the ground and I am going cell by cell and editing the terrain to "carve" out the river. I like that it's giving me a realistic looking river, but I also have to say that it's painfully slow.

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.

[kyago8]

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?