How does one add a row or column of external cells to the Tamriel worl

[RealmEleven]

I was monkeying around with the TESCS4 on the edges of the Tamriel worldspace. The famous old quote,

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HIC SVNT DRACONES

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...really says it all. How little they knew of true nature of Tamriel's edges!

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This has me wondering if there is a way to add extra cells, or rows/columns of cells to an existing worldspace such as Tamriel?

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Thanks in Advance...

[MShoap13]

There are mods which add entire world spaces to the edge of Tamriel. Elswyr, Hammerfell, etc., etc. However, they all use the same trick to disable all invisible borders around Tamriel as I don't believe it's possible to actually alter the invisible borders with a plugin. Search for some of these mods on the Nexus if you're wondering how they were able to add and alter the cells outside of the borders. I'm pretty sure the way you'd turn off the borders is through a variable in Oblivion.ini.

[Striker879]

From Koroush Ghazi's Oblivion Tweak Guide:

bBorderRegionsEnabled=1 - If set to 0, this option removes the invisible barriers around the outer parts of the game world, though not much is beyond.

[RealmEleven]

Somehow, I don't think this is a border issue. I've already had to switch off the borders in order to get to this place - which is on the edge of the actual worldspace, not on the border. I think the attachment paints the picture. Specifically, the picture was taken from the seaward side of the island west of the Hammerfell Coast on the bearing indicated.

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I've already put a little town up on the Rihad spur just north of the Brena river and outside the border. It all worked so very well that this got me thinking about doing more of Hammerfell. While all of Hammerfell lies outside the border (not a problem), much of Hammerfell falls outside the wordspace itself - requiring the addition of extra rows and columns of cells. Otherwise the weirdness (attached) comes into play as a powerful immersion-breaker. Imagine, one minute you're swimming, the next you're falling - and if you survive you find yourself on a barren plane with a wall of water towering on one side and random distant LOD shapes on the other. It would be almost magical if it weren't so very sharp and reminiscent of torn meshes.

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So I am wondering whether additional cells can be added to worldspaces (as opposed to editing existing cells within those worldspaces) or does this situation call for a "Great Wall of Hammerfell" or some other form of barrier to cut off the weirding ways of the edges of wordspaces?

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TIA

[David Brasher]

The other commenters are talking about a totally different issue. Disabling borders is one thing. Adding content to exterior cells on the edge of a worldspace is another.

 

Adding these cells is really easy. In fact, it is automatic and you don't have to do anything special. Just go to the cells and make edits. Each Oblivion worldspace is for all intents and purposes, infinite in size. The computer only records information about cells that are not identical to master. (Cells that have one or more edits. So in this case, cells that are not empty.) So to extend your worldspace, you can just go to the edge and lift up the land to match the rest of it, texture it, and add rocks and trees or whatever you like.

 

People usually have the other problem. It is not hard to add cells, the problem is that the computer adds a bunch of cells you don't want to have in the area where you are working and you have to go modclean them out to keep your filesize down.

[RealmEleven]

The other commenters are talking about a totally different issue. Disabling borders is one thing. Adding content to exterior cells on the edge of a worldspace is another.

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Adding these cells is really easy. In fact, it is automatic and you don't have to do anything special. Just go to the cells and make edits. Each Oblivion worldspace is for all intents and purposes, infinite in size. The computer only records information about cells that are not identical to master. (Cells that have one or more edits. So in this case, cells that are not empty.) So to extend your worldspace, you can just go to the edge and lift up the land to match the rest of it, texture it, and add rocks and trees or whatever you like.

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I tried adding a tower and then progressed to a quick test run with the landscape editor; stitching up the torn mesh along the western edge with the soften vertices tool set to 11. It worked like a charm - just like you said it would. Thank you very much. Now I know just what to do next time I "need breathing space".

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People usually have the other problem. It is not hard to add cells, the problem is that the computer adds a bunch of cells you don't want to have in the area where you are working and you have to go modclean them out to keep your filesize down.

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Yes, I give TES4Edit quite a workout. Generally I use this tool to clean the mod every time I save in the CS. Having multiples of the same external cell can really corrupt the mod - especially if the modified cell you were workking on gets orphaned in the process; a problem I've experienced with the FNV-GECK.

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Thanks again for your help. It was much appreciated.