Updated to 2.2.

New: 6 new textures. 4 Hi-Res (2048x2048), 2 1024x1024 textures.

Renamed mesh "Lush" to "Lush Tall" and added http://pnmedia.gamespy.com/planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/fms/images/mods/8065/1270824765_fullres.jpg.

http://pnmedia.gamespy.com/planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/fms/images/mods/8065/1270824689_fullres.jpg

It's nice to see such a variety. I really like the grass part of the hires textures. It blends in very well, at least with the vanilla textures (waitin' for connary:D).
But wouldn't it be better to make separated grass and scrub textures for the 2 meshes for future interchangeability? Just a suggestion before people start asking for any kind of combination;)

JoeDoe, I kind of like it the way it is, because i don't need to switch between the texture files and can easily apply changes and easily see that the colors match etc. I'm kind of used to it now, so i think i'll stick with it.


I've now done grass for Solsteheim, and applied it to the region: http://pnmedia.gamespy.com/planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/fms/images/mods/8065/1270905036_fullres.jpg

It required me to create 2 .esp's, i'll have to read up a little and see if they can be merged

It is nice to see Solsthiem getting a bit of attention.... Even though I dont go there very often. :whistling:

Only criit I have is the grass that is in the areas with heavy snow. With snow that is apparently as deep as that snow appears to be, you would either see no grass or perhaps just the tops of the grass poking through. Right now it appears the grass is growing directly from the top of the snow. Don't know how difficult it would be to fix this little issue but it would certainly add to the believability for me at least.

That would be easy to fix, i could either lower it, or change the ground texture to something that doesnt look like deep snow. The grass is probably too straight too.. it's just something i made in a matter of minutes so it's not the final version

Agreed. Maybe just the tips poking thru the snow?

It probably wouldn't be a good idea to just lower the point where the mesh intersects with the ground along the z-axis because of how MGE animates grass - the further up the z-axis from zero the more the grass will bend with the wind, and the more wind the more bend. Placing the base of the existing meshes below ground will cause the tips of the grass to clip thru it too much. A shallow mesh would avoid the clipping, but it also won't bend as much in high winds.

I could skip creating grass for the textures that has deep snow. I don't think it's a good idea to generate grass if it's just tiny tops that will show, hardly worth the FPS hit, instead i could have more grass on other areas. The landscape doesnt need to have grass all over the place, it needs to have places that looks bare too

Agreed. Maybe the "grass tops" should be used on the borders of the deep snow?

That would require me to hand place it, i don't think i will be doing that, i tried that with the Ashlands a bit, it was painful to create even tiny patches of grass hehe

I can make the shader to view render grass a little below than normal and stop any wind effects too. But I have no idea how can I tell the shader to do that for Solstheim only but not for other places.

Edit: Now that I think about it, it is possible to make the grass grow in time. But shaders and scripts is a non-explored territory for me. And I'm not sure if MGE let's scripting ingame.fx. But it is not a far possibility. I will try to make a demonstration for Solstheim(only via shader).

Edit2: That kind of grow will only work for generic grass. Some other grass types won't take it nicely, I guess.

Edit3: I have code for making grass bend as PC walks over it(thanks to the ripples code developments), but the grass mesh is set in crosses and planes, which make each plane to bend in one distance making it look really bad. If grass was made of individual blades that could work greatly(not tested), but I think that can hurt performance greatly too.

I just had a thought -- what if the grass meshes were set as billboards? Or would that look too strange? And how would that effect MGE grass swaying??

Sorry, forgot to reply to this, but no billboards only really works for tree crowns and bushes that has a roundness to it, which grass definitely doesnt have. Grass would look awful, billboards are kind of ugly already, in the way that you clearly can see that they're turning while you're moving (so that they will always face you).

vtastek : bending grass would be awesome