Heightmap Editor

Post » Sat May 28, 2011 9:34 am

Hey guys,
I'm creating quite a large world in the heightmap editor (larger than the quad shown at the getgo) and when I go to regenerate the overview so I can navigate the to other quads, CS crashes on me every time.
So far all I've done is the basic region editing stuff as well as creating worlds and climates. I think it just has to do with my custom world because I've checked the other Oblivion
maps and they regenerate the overview fine.
Has anyone else had this issue? If so can you please help?

Thanks a bunch,
Overload
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Causon-Chambers
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 9:47 pm

You need to save both the mod and the heightmapped terrain you've worked on before being able to regenerate the overview. If you don't have any terrain yet and want a worldspace that isn't in the original 4 quads, you should generate the overview before doing anything else and NOT save the terrain. You MUST however save the .esp containing the worldspace first though.

When working on worldspaces larger than 4 quads, you should convert the worldspace to a .esm, and never work on an area larger than 4 quads within a .esp based on that .esm at any time. There are two reasons for this. 1, by using a .esm which just has .esp files merged into it, you always retain a backup of the worldspace at the last point of merging, so if you screw up something horribly while heightmapping, you don't have to start from scratch (should still make backups of those .esm files). 2, due to limitations in the CS and your system, working on too many cells can lead to severe instability and/or frequent crashing. The more cells a worldspace has, the more it needs to load into memory while you're working on it. .esp files larger than 40mb (8 quads) usually cannot be loaded in the CS without some sort of error popping up. For a particularly large worldspace, you have no option other than using .esm format, and will need to make adjustments related to this as far as connections, quests, and LOD data is concerned.
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clelia vega
 
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Post » Fri May 27, 2011 8:00 pm

When working on worldspaces larger than 4 quads, you should convert the worldspace to a .esm, and never work on an area larger than 4 quads within a .esp based on that .esm at any time. There are two reasons for this. 1, by using a .esm which just has .esp files merged into it, you always retain a backup of the worldspace at the last point of merging, so if you screw up something horribly while heightmapping, you don't have to start from scratch (should still make backups of those .esm files). 2, due to limitations in the CS and your system, working on too many cells can lead to severe instability and/or frequent crashing. The more cells a worldspace has, the more it needs to load into memory while you're working on it. .esp files larger than 40mb (8 quads) usually cannot be loaded in the CS without some sort of error popping up. For a particularly large worldspace, you have no option other than using .esm format, and will need to make adjustments related to this as far as connections, quests, and LOD data is concerned.


How do I merge the files, or split them for that matter? Sorry if I'm slow, I just don't want to screw it up.
Edit: Never mind, I've got it to work, thank you so much for your help I think it's safe to say you've saved my mod.
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Charles Weber
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 5:46 am

Use TES4Gecko, convert the mod to a .esm, then base all further work on that mod as a .esp with both that .esm and oblivion.esm loaded. Merge with TES4Gecko.

Keep in mind that within a .esm you cannot have any changes to a vanilla worldspace (even placing a door in a vanilla exterior) without causing the landscape to get screwed up. Once you have trees and other stuff, you will also need to clear out all the VWD flags for your worldspace using TES4Edit in order for your worldspace to show correctly when loaded anywhere other than the 01 index. You would need to do this cleaning after every change which adds more trees, but thankfully, you only need to clean out those things which were added/moved.

When it comes to blending the landscape from 1 four quad group with another, you should probably do this in the landscape editor rather than edit the two bordering quads within the heightmap editor. The reason being that it saves you from having to fix holes which form in already finished areas, and makes the .esp to be merged a more manageable size. The general method of editing should involve smoothing the terrain along that border (in landscape editor) so that both sides are within no more than 4000 units of eachother and there is no rip between quads, then use the standard raise/lower tool to get the desired result. You can increase the landscape sensitivity to make movements faster within the CS options (same tab as grid settings), but this can often lead to jagged looking terrain, so may need some selective smoothing with a smaller tool before region generation.

Before doing region generation, make sure you have a backup of the .esm, and have merged all terrain that you planned to do. As you setup your regions, it is suggested that you do some small test patches (4 cells 2x2) with that region to see how it will texture and place things. Once you have a region to your liking, remove it and all objects generated by that region within the same CS session, and move on to testing the next region. DO NOT SAVE YOUR MOD WITH ANY GENERATED ITEMS IN YOUR WORLDSPACE AT THIS TIME, ALWAYS CLEAN BEFORE SAVING. Before defining actual region borders, save your mod, open it with TES4Gecko, and remove any entries which refer to edited cells. Merge this region mod so that the settings are contained within your .esm and can be reverted to later. Make a backup. Now, start a new .esp for your region borders. Only define the region borders DO NOT GENERATE THEM.
This mod will have some small cell changes, so is not as easy to clean, which is why you did this as a separate .esp. Make sure it has no placed objects, then merge it.

There are two very important things to keep in mind when generating regions:
1) Larger regions mean not only more time spent generating, but also larger .esp size, and depending on system specs and density of items, can lead to frequent crashing (why we're using a .esm). The only thing you should be doing while working on region generation is generating objects for that region. Leave ALL other structures and statics until after you've generated EVERYTHING as these structures can often get buried during generation.

2) Once an object has been placed in a cell from region generation, and once that session has been saved and ended, the object can no longer be removed by that region. Meaning that if you want to change any settings related to region items, or have overlapping regions, you would have to manually remove them cell by cell if you've already saved the mod and started a new session. To make life easier, you should adopt a rather simple method of avoiding this problem all together. After every region you generate, select every bordering region and select "remove objects for this region". Even if you havn't generated that region yet, the region you generated placed objects slightly outside its border, and once saved, these objects may be doubled when that bordering region is generated later. This will leave only the space which exists only within the one region you generated as having items (the remaining parts will be mostly generated with those other regions. Save the mod, merge, and work on the next. For small regions, you can do more that one region per .esp, but should avoid generating regions which are near eachother within the same .esp. For larger regions, you should keep it to a single .esp per region.

No doubt you're staring at this a bit confused. Just take your time and work through it one region at a time. For a 4 quad worldspace which is entirely generated, it is to be expected that you will be spending no less than a week doing little else other than generating objects if you are using several regions and region types (took me a little over 2 weeks when I did one 4 quad worldspace simply because I had to figure out most of this stuff and deal with crashes when the CS ran out of memory). For larger worldspaces, significantly longer. The downside however is that in order to make the landscape work right as a .esm without requiring it to be loaded in the 01 index, you will have to go through a few thousand tree entries in TES4Edit and remove the vwd flags. It's not as bad as it sounds since most of the work is just lots of clicking on the little + boxes and expanding cell information, but there isn't any sort of automated script which does this to my knowledge. You would also need to use TES4LodGen to generate distant objects afterward, but that's a fairly quick thing.
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Kelli Wolfe
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 3:40 am

Use TES4Gecko, convert the mod to a .esm, then base all further work on that mod as a .esp with both that .esm and oblivion.esm loaded. Merge with TES4Gecko.

Keep in mind that within a .esm you cannot have any changes to a vanilla worldspace (even placing a door in a vanilla exterior) without causing the landscape to get screwed up. Once you have trees and other stuff, you will also need to clear out all the VWD flags for your worldspace using TES4Edit in order for your worldspace to show correctly when loaded anywhere other than the 01 index. You would need to do this cleaning after every change which adds more trees, but thankfully, you only need to clean out those things which were added/moved.

When it comes to blending the landscape from 1 four quad group with another, you should probably do this in the landscape editor rather than edit the two bordering quads within the heightmap editor. The reason being that it saves you from having to fix holes which form in already finished areas, and makes the .esp to be merged a more manageable size. The general method of editing should involve smoothing the terrain along that border (in landscape editor) so that both sides are within no more than 4000 units of eachother and there is no rip between quads, then use the standard raise/lower tool to get the desired result. You can increase the landscape sensitivity to make movements faster within the CS options (same tab as grid settings), but this can often lead to jagged looking terrain, so may need some selective smoothing with a smaller tool before region generation.

Before doing region generation, make sure you have a backup of the .esm, and have merged all terrain that you planned to do. As you setup your regions, it is suggested that you do some small test patches (4 cells 2x2) with that region to see how it will texture and place things. Once you have a region to your liking, remove it and all objects generated by that region within the same CS session, and move on to testing the next region. DO NOT SAVE YOUR MOD WITH ANY GENERATED ITEMS IN YOUR WORLDSPACE AT THIS TIME, ALWAYS CLEAN BEFORE SAVING. Before defining actual region borders, save your mod, open it with TES4Gecko, and remove any entries which refer to edited cells. Merge this region mod so that the settings are contained within your .esm and can be reverted to later. Make a backup. Now, start a new .esp for your region borders. Only define the region borders DO NOT GENERATE THEM.
This mod will have some small cell changes, so is not as easy to clean, which is why you did this as a separate .esp. Make sure it has no placed objects, then merge it.

There are two very important things to keep in mind when generating regions:
1) Larger regions mean not only more time spent generating, but also larger .esp size, and depending on system specs and density of items, can lead to frequent crashing (why we're using a .esm). The only thing you should be doing while working on region generation is generating objects for that region. Leave ALL other structures and statics until after you've generated EVERYTHING as these structures can often get buried during generation.

2) Once an object has been placed in a cell from region generation, and once that session has been saved and ended, the object can no longer be removed by that region. Meaning that if you want to change any settings related to region items, or have overlapping regions, you would have to manually remove them cell by cell if you've already saved the mod and started a new session. To make life easier, you should adopt a rather simple method of avoiding this problem all together. After every region you generate, select every bordering region and select "remove objects for this region". Even if you havn't generated that region yet, the region you generated placed objects slightly outside its border, and once saved, these objects may be doubled when that bordering region is generated later. This will leave only the space which exists only within the one region you generated as having items (the remaining parts will be mostly generated with those other regions. Save the mod, merge, and work on the next. For small regions, you can do more that one region per .esp, but should avoid generating regions which are near eachother within the same .esp. For larger regions, you should keep it to a single .esp per region.

No doubt you're staring at this a bit confused. Just take your time and work through it one region at a time. For a 4 quad worldspace which is entirely generated, it is to be expected that you will be spending no less than a week doing little else other than generating objects if you are using several regions and region types (took me a little over 2 weeks when I did one 4 quad worldspace simply because I had to figure out most of this stuff and deal with crashes when the CS ran out of memory). For larger worldspaces, significantly longer. The downside however is that in order to make the landscape work right as a .esm without requiring it to be loaded in the 01 index, you will have to go through a few thousand tree entries in TES4Edit and remove the vwd flags. It's not as bad as it sounds since most of the work is just lots of clicking on the little + boxes and expanding cell information, but there isn't any sort of automated script which does this to my knowledge. You would also need to use TES4LodGen to generate distant objects afterward, but that's a fairly quick thing.

You should really just add this great info to your tutorial. Then your next post could be:

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Heightmap_editor :)

Maybe change the name of the tutorial to "Custom worldspace tutorial" or something. This information is too good to be left languishing in the forums only to waste away after a few months.
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Julie Ann
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 7:54 am

You should really just add this great info to your tutorial. Then your next post could be:


Maybe change the name of the tutorial to "Custom worldspace tutorial" or something. This information is too good to be left languishing in the forums only to waste away after a few months.

I agree, thanks for the awesome information!
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Tiffany Carter
 
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Joined: Wed Jul 19, 2006 4:05 am

Post » Fri May 27, 2011 7:03 pm

Done... With a bit more that should probably be mentioned in the same topic.
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Creating_Large_Worldspaces
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Michelle davies
 
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Post » Sat May 28, 2011 12:00 am

Done... With a bit more that should probably be mentioned in the same topic.
http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Creating_Large_Worldspaces


I've only just started reading it and it's already a fantastic tutorial! One question though, when you say 'define your worldspace', do you mean in the Region Editor with the borders and stuff, or are you referring to simply creating the
climates and creating the actual Worldspace?
Thanks a bunch,
Overload
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Ross Zombie
 
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Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2007 5:40 pm

Post » Fri May 27, 2011 11:19 pm

I've only just started reading it and it's already a fantastic tutorial! One question though, when you say 'define your worldspace', do you mean in the Region Editor with the borders and stuff, or are you referring to simply creating the
climates and creating the actual Worldspace?
Thanks a bunch,
Overload

Mean just define the worldspace as having a name and ID. (World > Worldspace > New).
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Alisia Lisha
 
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Joined: Tue Dec 05, 2006 8:52 pm

Post » Fri May 27, 2011 6:35 pm

Mean just define the worldspace as having a name and ID. (World > Worldspace > New).

Ah okay, I did that. Thanks
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koumba
 
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