World building, and assets?

[Alixen]

I was playing some adventure games (Dracula: Origins and The Longest Journey) and just walking through a atmospheric graveyard and city street inspired a creative yearning in me. Despite the Bethesda-style games being massive and wonderful worlds to roleplay in, they are very 'specific' in setting. Fantasy medieval and wrecked wasteland, for obvious reasons, and ehavily scaled down because few want to walk miles to get anywere. But note I say few, rather than none.

 

I want to build myself, and mayhaps release it if I ever finish, a big city. Something massive. Set pre-war, though probobly still in Fallout as I don't want to do more than re-texture when it comes to assets. Somewhere I can roleplay a more urban adventure and add a few quests, like gang wars, hits, and maybe do some vaguely supernatural stuff.

 

I'm still not sure what game to set it in, I just posted it here due to this being the current Fallout modding hub. Part of my question is advice in this matter. Fallout 3 has less assets all around (doesn't it?) to work with, but the items and thing from Tranqulity Lane would be a boon. I think there were also plenty of 'fresh' items in Zeta. I'd also want to make use of the tall buildings, unless I make it a town as opposed to a city. However, New Vegas has a lot of different styles of building and object. Problem for me is I can;t think of a single instance where I wouldn't have to give things a cleaner texture. There are enough suitable clothes however, since people dress more 'civilized' than the outfits in the CW.

 

My second problem is... tutorial's plix? The furthest i've even gotten in the GECK is to place items, tweak NPCs, and make custom races. What I want to make is effectively living breathing place. Houses, parks, office buildings, haunted mansions to drop Dracula Origin refrences, junk yards, a school, a military base, perhaps a uninhabited and sparkly Vault. NPCs inside them. Vendors.

 

The first step is learning to make a large, flattish landmass to build on.

[TrickyVein]

Read through the information on 'geck.bethsoft.com' specifically the pages related to 'world lod' and 'heightmap editing'

 

There are some things you should need to figure out before starting a project that will save you *tons* of time later on. These are:

 

'How large a worldspace would you like to create?' (Also see the page on 'units' so that you can understand what 'large' actually is.)

 

I have started a thread on landscape editing where you may find some useful information, here.

 

Depending on how large a space you would like to populate with meshes and NPCs and the like and then cover with a navmesh, providing the editor with LOD objects may be necessary. If you plan on simply retexturing many of the stock assets then perhaps you can get away with using existing LOD textures, but this will have to be your decision and something you will have to research.

 

As far as which game provides more assets for modders to use, Fallout 3 provides a more complete and consistent set of architectural pieces than does New Vegas. If you want to create a city with tall buildings and things you may actually be more interested in modding for Fallout 3, unless you decide to create your own assets.

[Alixen]

Thank you, that was very helpful. =)