Landscape Error

[McclaudEagle]

Hi.

 

I have restarted the development of my mod, and so far it seems to have been going smoothly, until I noticed the issue you'll see in the image below:

 

Landscape Error

 

As you can see, there seems to be a part of the landscape that tears away from the rest as if I lowered it. It only seems to occur in areas where I have edited.

 

Anyone know what's causing this?

 

Thanks

[davidlallen]

How did you edit this part? The "H" key and heightmap editor should not cause this effect, it locally raises or lowers. Is this occuring on a grid boundary (use the "B" key to see boundaries)?

[McclaudEagle]

It does seem to be happening on some grid boundaries, and not others.

[davidlallen]

I always avoid doing things on grid boundaries. Is it possible that when you edit with the heightmap "brush" it only affects one side of the grid boundary, and ignores the other? Then you could brush on the other side of the grid boundary till it matches. Or, you could go to fnvedit and delete the edited heightmaps so that the original appears again, and then start from that.

[McclaudEagle]

I never actually worked on the landscape using grids. I did accidentally toggle the Heightmap Editor, but I don't know if I did anything with it. The only landscape editing I've done so far is just lowering the terrain under the roads.

[davidlallen]

If you lowered the landscape, I guess you did it with the heightmap editing tool, which is triggered by the "h" key. If you do this while grid display is turned on, I guess you can find out if this is causing your rips.

[McclaudEagle]

I tried flattening the terrain using the Landscape Editor, but when I reloaded the mod, the problem was there again. As for the FNVEdit idea, I don't know how to do that.

[GrindedStone]

Put the default land hight at something retarded like 14,000

Then put the default water to -10,000 or something equally retarded move it up later or don't.

Autowater has to be above 12,000 or sometin to work correctly

You also need distant land that covers up water to avoid holes if you had for example "water world" the distant cells would need to be covered with land or it would have holes, I would do this default height even if I wasn't going to use water just because it's so buggy. Then when you go into heightmap for the first time on this worldspace it's already at the color for that 14,000 height

 

The most important thing would be to plan the size correctly to allow for LOD generation which takes a while an is more complex than just using the editor.

Heightmap is for the large edits, but it's basicly the same thing as landscape editing.

In Heightmap I never had any luck with a totally flat landscape it would crash on meh when I saved.

You can put some erosion or small wavy hills which will let you save if it does that.

GECK MAIN PAGE LINK

 

FNV/FO3 EDIT

 

What he means is actually pretty important for you if you plan on painting this landscape.

FNV GECK is more prone even than the regular GECK at having the landscape texturing go bonkers or corupted.

That being said the regular GECK was pretty bad about this, so it's almost un-avoidable.

 

After you have done some landscape painting though you have practice an can do it better so it's less likely.

First lay the base texture down you want, then add another for detail to shake it up, then if you wana experiment make a back up of the .esp

an load the mod again in GECK an apply some touch up by using a 25 50 or 75 opacity setting, 25 would be see thru but some color picks up.

Though I would only do this in the center of the cell not around the edge. Press B in GECK to bring up the borders so you'll know.

 

FNV edit would allow you to load up the whole load order of mods you have at one time, including the mod that you are working on (usually at the end)

so with it loaded up all you would have to do is click the + for the mod you are making

Then click the + at the bottom which is Worldspace

 

This will open up the worldspace in a tree (You can filter the tree to flatten it, but it's probably better to not do that here)

You would have to know either the Cell coordinates I.E. 12 -12 or whatever the name for the cell is if you are into naming cells

So you open up the tree until you see that cell then open that which you will see all the contents of that cell if any.

Any landscape is listed in a single block which is named landscape, so you open that up an it's basicly a whole lot of Verts which make the mesh of the cell.

Below that is the texturing

 

If you just use one texture then there is only going to be one top block. This is the main block for that which you can drag an drop (which copies the whole thing)

However if you use more than one texture or more than one opacity setting it's treated as a seperate entry so there will be more than one top block.

By top block I mean picture a spread sheet.

 

MODNAME MODNAME MODNAME MODNAME MODNAME

Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty

landscape Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

texture1Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

texture2Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty Empty

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH

 

 

 

The red MODNAME is going to be whatever the name of the .esm or .esp of that mod depending on how many mods deal with this entry you might have 642 mods listed. If only two mods deal with this entry then only two will be displayed. These go from left to rigth with each one overwriting the last. (think of it like an override) It's replacing this data with that data with the furtest to the right being the winner. You can have various conflicts in between the far left an far right, but the one furthest to the right wins. Say you have 10 mods that all add something cool to one entry (one in game item) if you were to combine the different parts of all 10 into one entry in a new mod which loads at the end of the list which uses all of the privious mods as masters, you could then have that one in-game item do all 10 cool things at the same time. This is done by right clicking the top block for this type of action which would be the RED MODNAME area, to which you get options to copy as override into or copy as new entry

 

Most times you can just use the Empty space to move something from one mod to another, when it prompts you to add a master to another mod you know it's time to create an override.

 

Copy as override into will basicly move this entry somewhere else, you can pick a mod or create a new one. This is helpful if say you want your DLC to override all that other crap you use

Thus making the DLC actually work, though the scale of such an action depends on how much the user wants to work on the build of their game.

FALLOUTNV.ESM--DEADMONEY.ESM--STUPIDMOD.ESP--ANOTHERSTUPIDMOD.ESP--HERE.ESM this here.esm is the new file I created which is the override

I can put all the overides for my dlc in here an quickly repair all the damage the supid mods did, or combine them so that all parts work together.

 

Copy as new entry will recreate this entry so that it's a new item a brand new FormID number so that it's unrelated to anything else. A white entry.

You can also batch copy an there are options to rename with prefix or suffix or remove certian pre or suf

Also Say you have FNV.esm then 10 other mods which conflict an you just want them all to match FNV.esm you can click the top block for FNV.esm an drag an drop it to the right on the other mods an it will overwrite them with, thus making them all match, or turn green. This is the area below that is a empty block which is the top block for the whole entry. The actual top block if you will.

 

The purple (pink :O) landscape line is basicly a top block but it's not the actual top block, just the top block for this part of the entry. It's another empty block that can be dragged an dropped. Rather than copy each seperate Vert here you can copy them all or delete them all, or drag an drop the same empty block from the left to the right to overwrite the landscape data you messed up or wanted to start over. There are times when only a small part will conflict in a entry so you don't use the top block in those cases you go down an find it an fix that tiny part, but that doesn't really happen in landscape. I'm just saying though. Most of the time I'm not actually changing the data I'm moving it around here or there. This is actual data so you can open it up, right click some of the stuff below the top block an you can edit it, which means you can Ctrl C to copy an paste it somewhere else.

 

The long form editor is hold shift then double click which opens up a text editor, because the normal editor will only display so many characters. For example looking at scripts or Facegen data you need the long form to view an change. Also you can click an pause then click again an it will open up the auto box which is a selection of all available types of that data, like if you did that on a hair type on a NPC it would present all types of HAIR though I think this is based on the group name. It's only dangerous when working with FORM ID lists, because you pretty much pull up every available type of data in one autobox which maxes out the program an it freezes. So FORM ID list entries like say the FORM ID LIST that has all the different types of shotguns in it, you have to right click the top bock an pick new which adds a new block an then copy paste in the form id you wanted, rather than using the autobox.

 

The Green is the texture for the landscape an if you mess up then you can delete it. Right click the top block for this part which is the empty part to the right of the Texture1 an you should be able to remove. Though you'll probably be drag an dropping from the far left to the far right so that the entire texture from the Vanilla game for this part of land is moved to the messed up texturing you did which is on the right, thus overwriting it, an allowing you to start over without having to do the actual landscaping. I'm not sure but I think deleting it would revert it to the default texture for land rather than any actual data.

 

Below that one you see a Texture2 line which means that either this cell has two different textures in it, or two opacity settings so to start over or remove one you would have to scroll down an find it. Keep in mind that there is a huge amount of data here, lines an lines an blocks an block so you might have to click the little bar all the way to the right so you can scroll really fast.

Edited March 12, 2011 by GrindedStone

[davidlallen]

That is a very helpful and long post. But the OP question is, what is causing these "rips" on the landscape. My theory is that making small adjustments to the heightmap may not "carry across" grid boundaries. I suggested using fnvedit to delete the existing changes, and then start over on that part. Perhaps also stay away from editing along grid boundaries.

 

The first couple of paragraphs in red answer the question about how to undo using fnvedit, but I had a hard time to follow it. Here are some steps to delete unwanted terrain changes.

 

1. Find the grid coordinate for the grid you need to undo, such as -20,-20.

2. Load your mod in fnvedit (see the excellent training manual)

3. On the left side, expand under (your mod) => worldspace => WastelandNV

4. Expand different blocks and sub-blocks until you come to the one with your coordinates

5. Expand "Temporary" under that and you will see a leaf level entry for "Landscape"

6. Right click on that and choose "remove". This removes this change from your mod, so the original will "shine through" again

7. Use the Windows "close program" icon at the top right of the window.

8. Sometimes in the save dialog which pops up, your base game file is checkboxed. Make sure to uncheck it!

[McclaudEagle]

I did your steps david, but the GECK still seems to have other ideas. It was fine after doing those steps, but when I lowered the terrain around some roads, it came back again. This is really getting annoying :(