Making Caves not look all copy and pastey

[scarycave]

So, I've been fixing up some of the issues with Trials of the Nine, and I noticed how I built a lot of the areas in it with the random grassy, snowy, etc. rocks - essentially making an "exterioryish" looking area in an interior cell. One of my biggest beefs with Oblivion Construction is that the set pieces aren't very flexible - you rotate one cave piece, or attach anything but the correct cave piece you get a big ugly seam down the middle.

 

The rocks are much more flexible, they're essentially building blocks.

 

So I built a quick cave using only the Oblivion rocks, I think it lags like the dickens a-bit but my Laptop has a graphics rating of 3.9 (whatever that means). I'm planning of finishing up the cave - and was wondering if I ever do if someone could test it to see if it looks weird or anything.

[lonewolfkai]

Before you get too far into your project, have you looked into the Better Dungeons mod? http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/40392

[wetblanket]

That and the judicious use of objects, including rocks, in combination with the standard cave pieces can bring individuality without the lag. Which is pretty much what Better Dungeons is all about.

 

Something that I think would be a good addition to Oblivion caves would be entrances like Fallout NV uses. For those unfamiliar, the exit is obscured visually with a winding path and has a light box (?) to indicate daylight (or lack of) and no door (for natural caves). A collision box/activator provides the mechanical means to leave the cell. So you can 'see' the exit but not actually approach it.

 

A lot of work for someone really keen but it would/should work alongside Better Dungeons.

[scarycave]

I might have to give better dungeons a look - I've actually done something similar by using trees when I made a dungeon awhile back. Little things like that really do add to the caves - mixed with this brown lighting I gave it to make it feel earthly. What I'm aiming for though, is a bit hard to explain but its more about player-made dungeons...I had a link I posted with a pic, that shows a bit of the dungeon I'm working on - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zavE97Ci4dc, I'd probably be better off getting a video of it - so I'll probably try to get a quick one up later.

 

If you look closely, you'll see a pool of water, that pool is pretty deep, and set up with stones, allowing me to make it as deep as I please.

The whole ceiling,and walls are all from scaled rocks. The major issue here though, is the rocks collision - I don't have footage of it now, but the red pool has a trigger activator, which revives a horde of zombies - once the zombies wake up, they have a tendency to get stuck. This is fixed by rotating rocks and such to make a slight escape slope for them to climb.

 

I pretty much have near complete control - but the constant use of "bricks" and having to constantly add more to fill holes is a constant problem.

 

It's not that I'm trying to spruce up dungeons, its more about getting a tighter grip on the reigns when building one.

[ElderScrollsFan001]

here's something I've been thinking of using in a mod that might be of help

 

 

M E R P Cave Pack Modders Resource by Disturbed And Mr siika

http://oblivion.nexusmods.com/mods/16389

Edited April 26, 2013 by ElderScrollsFan001

[wetblanket]

...I had a link I posted with a pic, that shows a bit of the dungeon I'm working on...

You're right - not ideal for viewing your dungeon. Regarding your collision problem: could you use collision boxes to smooth out the surface invisibly? The surface would still look rough and you could position it mostly below your rocks, just covering the deeper holes.

[scarycave]

I never really used collision boxes before - I'll look into it and see if I can get them to work.

Here's some better pics of the dungeon, don't mind the missing Mesh things, they're just test traps.

http://i.imgur.com/e1if7rq.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/3bKqMVn.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/59GhjpY.jpg

[wetblanket]

Looks good. If you are going to use collision boxes then this makes them much easier to use especially for your purposes.