The Kingdom

[Varine1]

I'm making a mod called The Kingdom. In it, there are three large kingdoms: Elves, Men, and Dwarves. The Dwarves and Elves are close to war, while the humans isolate themselves and rarely make contact with the other races. There are two Elvish kingdoms: One in the north, frozen lands; and one in the southern forests.

However, the magic containing the Armies of Darkness in the south is weakening, and the remaining Great Wizards begin to notice it, however as they attempt to warn the Humans, Elves, and Dwarves they aren't given much support, save from the northern Elves, who offer to aid them if they can.

The player comes in as the one who plays the saviour (like every other game). The story's a lot more complex then that but I don't feel like going in through all the details because that would take a long time to write.

 

Anyway, I'm working on it a bit (I have school and stuff, after all) when I can/feel like it, however my heightmap editor crashes whenever I try to save it so it's going to take a while to make the landmasses because I have to do it bit by bit.

So does anyone have any ideas as to the best way to go about this?

[Ddeatth]

Wow um. I have no idea for your problem but this mod idea seems like an awful lot of work for one person. I'm sure you can't do it alone.

[Vagrant0]

I'm making a mod called The Kingdom. In it, there are three large kingdoms: Elves, Men, and Dwarves. The Dwarves and Elves are close to war, while the humans isolate themselves and rarely make contact with the other races. There are two Elvish kingdoms: One in the north, frozen lands; and one in the southern forests.

However, the magic containing the Armies of Darkness in the south is weakening, and the remaining Great Wizards begin to notice it, however as they attempt to warn the Humans, Elves, and Dwarves they aren't given much support, save from the northern Elves, who offer to aid them if they can.

The player comes in as the one who plays the saviour (like every other game). The story's a lot more complex then that but I don't feel like going in through all the details because that would take a long time to write.

 

Anyway, I'm working on it a bit (I have school and stuff, after all) when I can/feel like it, however my heightmap editor crashes whenever I try to save it so it's going to take a while to make the landmasses because I have to do it bit by bit.

So does anyone have any ideas as to the best way to go about this?

Yes, ignore the height map editor, you need atleast 2gb RAM to make it work with XP, you need more if you're using vista. It's actually kinda worthless since you can't accurately judge heights. Instead, use the landscaping tools and the render window, While it isn't as fast, you can usually get better results. Remember to change the Landscape Sensitivity Multiplier in preferences > movement to make your job easier. I've found that using a setting of 1 is good for smoothe changes, 2-4 for steeper changes, and 5 or more just to move the general land higher than the water. Use a wider radius for general landmassing, smaller radius for individual paths. It's also a good idea to build as you need it, rather than trying to do all the land at once, then try to figure out where the heck you are. You might even want to buy a pad of graphing paper if you want to plan out things, and see how they're all related to eachother. Remember to setup regions after you complete an area, this will make it easier for you to go back to where you were. Renaming cells also helps, but can get troublesome if you have alot of things named similarly. Allowing more cells loaded in the .ini can also make things a bit easier. The Heightmap editor has its uses, but it's far from necessary, even when you have large landmasses.

[Varine1]

Yes, ignore the height map editor, you need atleast 2gb RAM to make it work with XP, you need more if you're using vista. It's actually kinda worthless since you can't accurately judge heights. Instead, use the landscaping tools and the render window, While it isn't as fast, you can usually get better results. Remember to change the Landscape Sensitivity Multiplier in preferences > movement to make your job easier. I've found that using a setting of 1 is good for smoothe changes, 2-4 for steeper changes, and 5 or more just to move the general land higher than the water. Use a wider radius for general landmassing, smaller radius for individual paths. It's also a good idea to build as you need it, rather than trying to do all the land at once, then try to figure out where the heck you are. You might even want to buy a pad of graphing paper if you want to plan out things, and see how they're all related to eachother. Remember to setup regions after you complete an area, this will make it easier for you to go back to where you were. Renaming cells also helps, but can get troublesome if you have alot of things named similarly. Allowing more cells loaded in the .ini can also make things a bit easier. The Heightmap editor has its uses, but it's far from necessary, even when you have large landmasses.

 

That's essentially my intention. The main reason I wished to use the hightmap editor was to create the basic form of the landmass then I could edit it with more precision as I went through. But, as that's no longer a very hopeful option, I'm going to do it as you said and work on each section of it and then continue on to the next progressively. But as I've grown rather tired of artificial landscapes for the time being I'm going to hammer out the storyline and side missions and things of that general nature. Perhaps at some point I'll become ambitious enough to draw out more detailed maps of the areas, although artistry (in the sense of cartography and such) has never been much of a strong point.

At some point I'll get some screenshots although I would prefer to get the landscape textures set in first as now all it looks like is a series of blatant hills.