melty bits on wilderness texture?

[davidlallen]

I have modified the heightmap for one wilderness cell, to make a flat area big enough to put some new buildings on. After I modify, it looks fine in geck. But in-game, there is some kind of melty bit sticking out of the terrain. See attached screenshot. It seems to be a low hill about 3m wide x 10m long. I can walk "into" the hill, in fact it is tall enough that I can fit inside it, in which case it vanishes.

 

When I edit the heightmap, do I need to do something else to avoid creating these hills? I am really not sure what to look for.

 

In related news, I have redone the navmesh for this section, and that has worked fine. But I notice that the navmesh vertex points are in 3D space. There are some vertices which I did not change, but I changed the heightmap around them. Do I need to correct the navmesh points to the correct Z value? Is there a convenient way to do that? Something like the "F" key for objects, maybe? It would be better if there was a way to select a group of vertices and mass-"F" them, or even better if they automatically snapped to the right Z.

[Ez0n3]

It's the LOD mesh. That's what you would see from a distance normally. But because you changed the landscape, the LOD mesh will always show. You have to generate LOD for your changes to fix it, but wasteland LOD generation is something very few attempt, of those few - few succeed. It's best not to change the landscape in a large world. Unless you have a PC with like 64gigs of RAM and a month or so to kill.

 

Don't know how to drop a vert like "F", but you can select the vert and hold "Z" and it will lock to the Z axis to move it up and down.

[davidlallen]

So, I can't flatten out a portion of the wasteland without having this problem? I am screwed. I just want to put a shack, a tent and a couple of other things here, but it's too hilly. I suppose if I tried heightmapping valleys up, then I wouldn't have these melty bits, but the view from a distance would still show a valley when it used the lower LOD. Is that correct?

 

Maybe I need to scrap this exterior and find a place which is already flat. But a lot of the flat locations that make sense, already have some encounter in easy view. One other spot that I chose, was too close to spawn locations for existing encounters.

[Ez0n3]

If you raise the landscape, you won't see the LOD up close. But from a distance, it will look lower. At the distance LOD switches to non-LOD, the ground will "pop up" to where you raised it to.

 

So I would pick an already flat piece of land. Keep in mind that what you place there won't be visible from a distance (it will "pop in").

 

An alternative is to create a new small worldspace and nest it in the larger one. So what you place in the large one is only a small door leading to your new one. Not sure if you're familiar with FO3, but that's how they did Oasis, Citadel, Downtown DC, etc.

 

You could even pick a spot beyond the invisible walls, so long as the door leading to it is in the playable area of the wasteland. The little door will "pop in", but it's usually far enough away that a small door isn't noticeable.

 

Edit:

I did a little tut that covers this for FO3 here. No LOD though.

Edited December 16, 2010 by Ez0n3

[davidlallen]

So, it sounds like there is no good way to mod in a building, period. You can mod in a door, hatch, etc. But a building pretty much has to go on flat land, and if you put it on flat land, it will be invisible until you get up close. Sigh. Is there a place where this type of strategic advice about mod planning lives, or could live? There are probably more such "gotchas" I would like to learn about.

[Ez0n3]

I don't know of such a list but agree that it would come in handy. The "bubble bursting" list. ;)

 

I tried the same thing when I 1st started, "Ok, I'll plop this huge building here in the Wasteland and - bugs, bugs, crash, gotcha, bugs, gotcha, crash, bugs...". The new world is the easiest option in my opinion.

 

Edit:

Couldn't think of a nested world in NV off hand for some reason but, Vegas Strip, Freeside, West Side, Boulder something, etc are all nested worlds.

Edited December 16, 2010 by Ez0n3

[davidlallen]

Thanks for the confirmation. My experience has been similar so far. I understand what you mean by nested worlds, but as far as the way they look from the outside "main" worldspace, they are the same as an interior. Like the TARDIS, the inside may be a lot bigger than the outside.

[Ez0n3]

Or scour the invisible walls which are normally parallel to a rock face. So you put your door flush against the rock face as if your going to walk through the invisible wall/rocks. Then you position your new world on the map so it appears on the other side of the rock face. So it seems like you could throw something over the rock wall and have it land in the new world (but it actually wouldn't because it's separate). In your new world, it would seem like you could throw something back over into the Mojave. Kind of like the strip fence.

 

In that new world you can get all fancy and then generate LOD (or not) for the smaller world which isn't that bad. So, in your new would, outside the playable area - you could put landmarkers off in the distance, like the Lucky 38.

 

When you're in the Mojave, you see a "fake" Lucky 38. It isn't until you enter the strip that you see the real one. Same idea, you put the "fake" Lucky 38 in your new world at about where it would really be in the Mojave from the POV of your new world. If you generate LOD for the new world, you will see the Luck 38 off in the distance.

Edited December 17, 2010 by Ez0n3

[davidlallen]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll keep it in mind. For now I think I will redesign the quest a little so it has less buildings needed outdoors. I can get away with one shack, I'm pretty sure, and then I'll put more "inside the hatch".