This is an uncut (that is not final) version of the mountain pass area that I am creating for Cerea 2. This was originally planned for my own PW which is now on hiatus, so I decided to release it to the community in its current form. It will go thru many revisions (waterfall, new bridge, etc) before it goes into C2. You are welcome to use it in your module/PW but please give me credit for the original area design. This represents close to 60 hours of painstaking terrain editing (no terrain generators used - all done by hand) and texturing. I personally think it is gorgeous. Please vote and let me know what you think.
Known issues/notes to user:
-Some Walkmesh areas are not complete (some walk and nowalk editing needs to be done.)
-Bushes need to be made either environmental or deleted completely (pathing issues - hard to walk around them in some spots.)
-The whole east side of the area can still be edited and used if need be.
-Large size: 107 MB.
-You will need to reset the start position.
-Some texturing of the ground under the lake needs to be completed.
Again, please vote but remember this is a rough and unpolished area so don't expect it to be perfect - just damn near. :) Leaves a lot to be customized if you want.
Cerea 2 is and has been open to the public for a while. Visit the site at Link and check it out. You can get the mod from the Autodolo info on the site. Enjoy. (P.S. a vote would be nice, *grin*)
Thumps up for the quality and sheer scope seeing it's your first area.
My first 10 areas never got half finished ... but t'was good for a learning curve.
Best of luck to you and your fellow modders on Cerea 2.
P.S.
Any ETA when an early version of Cerea will be open to the public?
Background on this area:
This area first started as a test area to see the best method for imitating the natural look of mountains. As such I wanted the most space to play around with so I made it 32x32. It evolved into such a good area that I decided to finish it out. When I started on my own PW I wanted to include it as the first of a chain of mountain areas to adventure through. This was back before all the studies of the effect of area size on server load and stuff (I started this the day after the toolset was released.) I still figured I would rather have a few really good outside areas that were large and had lots to do, than a bunch of small crammed in areas. For right now, the only walkable areas are the path, the bridge, the lake shore area, and a small glade with a cave off the side of the path. The whole east side of the map is untouched, but is available for someone who wants to spend the time adding paths and such. This version of the area is by no means complete... I only offer it up for others to finish as they see fit. It represents roughly 60 hours of experimentation, terrain editing, plopping down hundreds of trees, and texturizing. Everything that I do beyond what is here is specific to Cerea 2 so I can't release any more details (i.e. intended spawns, etc...)
Looks good.
Just a question:
How much portion of the area is walkable?
I'm currently working on a forested mountain valley that is cut by a stream.
No bridge, only a ford though .. all things natural :)
A few things that you should consider beforehand:
- Where's my area going to be used.
For PWs I recommend to go for 20x20 to a max of 24x24 (20x24 or 24x20 incl.)
- How many spawns/monsters will be implemented into my area.
This will have impact on how much walkable space is required.
You should start with a very simple "big pen" painting of the walkable areas, paths and doors before going into sculpting or texturing.
This will also help to create the landscape.
- Texturing/vertex shading
I don't have an interface device such as a graphic tablet, yet.
I paint textures with 50% and then blur and speckle them up in Photoshop.
Make the base texture 100% opaque everywhere (fill texture map with white).
Then run YATT using the previously exported heightmap and your modified texture maps and rebuild a new area.
What's left to do?
Swapping textures if they don't blend that great.
Add Grass, shading for parts like ways, riverbanks. Then add objects etc.
Now edit the walkmesh and bake :)
Posted by Ravine_hu at 2007-08-23 03:58:13 Voted 9.25 on 08/23/07
Yeah... my original plan was to have several different paths (really there is only one branch in the area as it is - down to the lake) as well as several cave systems. By size do you mean literal area size or memory size (107 MB.) For memory size you could delete all or most of the grass and cut it down a lot (I tried to get as much grass into the area as possible without slowing it down.) That is why this is meant for an offline area as it stands. The Cerea 2 version will have a lot less grass to cut down on the memory footprint. I started this before I knew how much grass added to file size. I also had a second area connected to the south (seamless connection)that was hills that were just as detailed, but watermill corrupted the area and I lost it. Will see about remaking it later.
Posted by over_my_head at 2007-08-22 16:02:19 Voted 9.00 on 08/22/07
I really like the texturing used in this area, also the environment is really perfectly shaped and you really captured the spirit of nature. I would really like to call it a Must Have, the only downside I think is, and which I think is the cutting edge is the size. I think you are a bit searching for troubles with all the height differences. A couple of those are doable, but more will only slow down the whole thing.
Though I really think this is an outstanding area, and I will try to use this. Just take count of the memory usage of such areas.
Yeah... I would definitely turn off environmental shadows and water reflection/refraction on this area. Runs smooth with low settings and okay on medium settings on my mid-range computer. System used to design area:
Athlon XP 2800
1GB MB Kinsington RAM
X800PRO 256MB Video
Some of the SS I have up were on full settings but it was like a flip book on my PC, LOL. I agree the textures could use some work (in fact, there are several waterfalls behind the bridge in the Cerea 2 version and the textures are not so stretched.)
Anyway. thanks for the votes and comments. Much appreciated.
Posted by SGK73 at 2007-08-22 15:00:00 Voted 7.50 on 08/22/07
Good allaround area. Texturing way too nonchaotic and clean, as Morningwaits says you need to mix the textures and you also need to make heavy use of vertex colours. One other tip if you are doing exterior areas is to get a cheap Wacom tablet or other pressure sensitive device. A small one at 5x4" should be enough for resolution but make sure you have good pressure resolution and use the NWN2tablet plugin to enable pressure sensitivity in the toolset.
Posted by coreyh2 at 2007-08-22 13:29:32 Voted 10.00 on 08/22/07
Badass.
I do get low FPS compared to other areas. There are some ugly stretched textures on the cliffs. The one by the bridge mainly.
Posted by Deryk_Renaln at 2007-08-22 07:23:06 Voted 9.75 on 08/22/07
VERY nice work! I will definitely use this for a module I'm planning and of course give you credit. As per the previous poster the textures could use some work, but overall was perfect! :) _________________________ Deryk Renaln
Paladin of Tyr
City of Waterdeep
Posted by MorningWaits at 2007-08-22 07:08:06 Voted 8.00 on 08/22/07
Very nice. :) I love the area, but the only problem I have with it is the texturing. Don't be afraid to layer them, lay down the base stone on the mountains, then do the grass. Put it on 70% or so, that way it doesn't look like just a random patch of grass. :)
Keep it up!
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10 - A Masterpiece, Genuinely Groundbreaking 9 - Outstanding, a Must Have 8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone 7 - Very Good, Deserves a Look 6 - Good, Qualified Recommendation 5 - Fair, Solid yet Unremarkable 4 - Some Merit, Requires Improvements 3 - Poor Execution, Potential Unrealized 2 - Very Little Appeal 1 - Not Recommended to Anyone
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