Worldspace and Reference Material

[Deleted76451128User]

ive been looking around and through a few posts but i havent quite found what im looking for...

 

when it comes to the idea of a grand worldspace at some point or another the person creating it has to rely on some sort of at least broad idea of what the whole thing is going to look like. as you can probably imagine i have never done an exterior wordspace although i have done many smaller projects in worldspaces i dont quite know what the best way to approach this project would be...

 

i used a geographical map to roughly plan out a layout of what i wanted but the only question is this: is there anyway i can somehow translate that into the creation kit effectively? (i.e overlay for large area editing)

 

im not entirely sure im asking the right questions either... one of the main points of reference is of course roads/highways/interstates. i could in theory freehand it so to speak but i feel like the proportions and scale may get lost to some degree by doing it this way.

 

if anyone has more experience with this sort of thing id greatly appreciate the advice, thank you.

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Yes, you can import heightmaps into the CK.

(I have never got it to work for me, but some people have ...)

You would need a heightmap for that.

 

Large worldspaces?

That isn't really possible, sadly ...

The biggest size that will work is about the size of the normal Fallout 4 exterior worldspace,

 

I know, that is frustrating, I felt exactly the same way ...

[Vactrol]

You can use the Heightmap Editor in the Creation Kit.

 

You draw your map on grid paper, each square is called a "Cell". Each cell is roughly 58mx58m. The max map size allowed by the Creation Kit editor is 64x64 Cell, with negative and positive (-32, +31). It translate as a 3,7 x 3,7km world. Bigger world can be made with external tools.

 

Once you drawed the map, you can add lines for your road to know in wich cell you will zoom in the heightmap editor, but precision is limited. A lot of work and fine terrain tuning is made in the render window.

 

Look at my resources about the editor, and there is grid paper to print with the coordinates if you want draw the map by hand.

 

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/42726

 

it's a huge task to make a full world. The best way is to try the map editor and make a small test map, fully featured, before making the big one. I made a test called Seeberg, available on the Nexus. Made plenty of mistakes with it.

The world you can make is big, but some part seem ridiculously small when your character is in game. Real world terrain is huge and it's better to make some "impressions" in game than trying to translate the real thing.

 

Best regards

[Vactrol]

Edit: Double post

 

I didn't see it was for Fallout, , the way to work is mainly the same for Skyrim

Edited November 25, 2020 by Vactrol

[Zorkaz]

I wrote an extensive tutorial about creating worldspaces. Might help you out

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/47316

[DieFeM]

The heightmap editor is a thing in Skyrim's CK, but in Fallout 4's CK it got replaced by a heightmap import feature, which imports from a grayscale dds image file.

I've imported to a 128 cells worldspace without issue, and probably you can do it on a bigger one.

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

But as fas as I know, there is a bug that makes maps bigger then +-64 cells on the X axis not work properly ...

The playable area, that is ...

The worldspace can be larger, to have like surrounding landscape but you can't actually go there ...

 

By the way, one cell is a square with 58,49088m or 192 feet side length.

 

The way I did it for my little custom worldspace is I drew out a rough map of the worldspace and overlayed a grid over it with the exact dimensions of the cells.

Then I manually edited the landscape in the CK to fit what I had in mind.

(Because I couldn't get the "import heightmap" thing to work ...)

 

For smaller worldspaces (like an island the size of the FO4 Commonwealth worldspace) that works, but it is lots of work and things like gradual slopes are hard to do "by hand".

 

Welcome to the world of pain and frustration wordlspace editing for FO4, by the way!

What a way to get started ....

Edited November 25, 2020 by YouDoNotKnowMyName

[DieFeM]

 

There you have a "proof of concept" I did in which I've imported a Tamriel heightmap in to a 128 (-64,-64 to 64, 64) worldspace. Is a desert for the most part, I did it for vehicle development tests mainly.

 

you can use the heightmap autopaint feature to paint the terrain, and place objects like flora and trees using the object pallet feature, on the other hand you can use the region editor to fill an area with objects.

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

Importing the Tamriel heightmap?

 

I though I was the one who tried remaking Skyrim in FO4 ....

:laugh:

 

(You had to scale it down, I guess? Or is the playbale +-64 cell area just "in the middle" of the imported heightmap?)

[DieFeM]

Importing the Tamriel heightmap?

 

I though I was the one who tried remaking Skyrim in FO4 ....

:laugh:

 

(You had to scale it down, I guess? Or is the playbale +-64 cell area just "in the middle" of the imported heightmap?)

I just scaled the grayscale image to the size that the CK prompted after introducing the cells info. So it is scaled. You would need a worldspace like 5 times bigger to fit 1:1 Tamriel.