http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46396473/MGE%20Screenshot%20033.jpg
if it was me, i'd make all these rocks ALOT bigger, and only use the smaller ones (ie the ones you just made) around them to merge the rocks into the landscape.

I dunno about making them even bigger, I will do an esp that adds extra content to the landscape, including making those ridges filled with meshes, so there are no longer gaps. That will look better.

First things first is to get vanilla content moved up to fit the new landscape.

Just a small update, 8% of modified cells checked and content moved to fit the new landscape. Took an hour to do one busy cell! Phew. Luckily most of what I've adjusted are in "empty" areas.

While this mod won't be dependent, I highly recommend that Vurts Ashland Tree replacer, Taddeus's On the Rocks Mods, and Slartibartfasts Texture Fix mod are used, along with the new red mountain rocks I am using.
While I'm keeping everything virtually in the same x-y co-ord, I am rotating or moving a few objects to fit better, so in theory, using vanilla rocks and trees will still be fine, with no floaters, I can't guarantee it.

Will also need to make a patch mod for my Expanded Sounds mod and my lighting mod - joy!

I also think right at the very end I'll have to generate a grass comptable file too, even more fun! Will have to talk to Vurt about that.

How exciting! I can't wait to see it when it's finished.

I think everyone should be using Vurt's Trees, Taddeus' On the Rocks mods and Slartibartfast's texture fixes anyway

Bit early, but if anyone wants to volunteer to beta test this beast, let me know.

Hmm, just scared myself witless, did a calculation at current rate of progress, and all the cell content will be in its correct place in 7 weeks time, before fixing landscape seams and adjustments :S

Who's crazy idea was this anyway?

Hi Piratelord: In another topic you wrote "Red Mountain can be made higher, 1.6 times higher within game engine limits" and Hrnchamd and other modders were speaking a height limit (32.000? "8000 "units"?)... I am trying to remake a higher Solstheim and would like to understand: how do you check or make sure, in the CS, that you do not exceed this limit? (object coordinates on Z axe seem be much higher that only 8000, so what mean 'unit' here? I've already tried to make very high mountain and the CS has never complained...).

Does it mean that Morrowind will crash if we make a higher landscape? Or it means that MGE won't be able to render properly higher landscape? (i.e. distant land will not work)

Maximum height is 32768 units (as shown in the editor).

The CS will allow you to go as high as you like, but the game engine will make an interesting side effect - anything above 32768 will have no collision, so you'll just fall through the landscape/meshes. I don't think it will actually crash. This is based on info from the TESAnnwyn website.

The land mesh used in Morrowind isnt low poly at all. Modern games like Arma or battlefield 3 use a terrain grid of similar quality. Standard terrain in Unreal uses lower poly land meshes than Morrowind. The only problem with the land mesh is it doesn't work well with drastic increases in height, in fact, being lower poly actually helps this as the point are obviously further apart.

schooled.

Nope, just stating a point. People think just cos its old its low poly, most of the game may be, however, the ground is not.

I've noticed fromy my re-imported heightmap that I've got small spikey areas in places, which highlights there are plenty of polys in the landscape itself. Also got some extremely sheer surfaces, which will need facing with meshes to break up the overstretched texture.

Thanks for the clarification Piratelord.

Is there any way to circumvent this height limit, if its only collision, coudn't it be an engine bug, the sort of which mcp could fix

Well, if you want to get around the height limit, you'd get the land to go 32,767 and stop there. At that point you use a custom mesh to create extra height. Objects don't have that height limit so you'd still be able to walk up that mesh.

CelltoNIF is handy for that sorta stuff. You can use that for ground meshes above the limit, coupled with large rock meshes you could get some interesting effects

Based on the TESAnnwyn help file: "The Morrowind game engine has a 16-bit height range limit. Ironically the Construction Set doesn't."
True, it's based on the landscape data. I'd have assumed it would be applicable to objects too.

I think I'll stop on this. Proving to be a lot of work, more then I expected, and I'd rather be playing the game then bleeding my eyes out with all this CS work. Especially when it comes to landscaping, my small attempts haven't been too great.

I'll definately keep those spikey rocks though (once the collision is sorted out), they instantly add height and an extra element of fantasy to the view.

Thanks to everyone I've been speaking to and the assistance offered to date.

Maybe can you just redone the Red Mountain only? It would be awesome to have a real mountain effect for it ^^.

Let me think about it a bit more. I have one further idea that won't need such a drastic amount of work, an inbetween solution.

Side note, I tested what Vvardenfell looks like with normal landscape, and my rocky red mountain meshes. It does look great (goo d enough for a stand alone mod by themselves), and does really require red mountain to be taller. These meshes make up for the small amount of extra landscape height I was adding to areas outside of red mountain. Overall, those landscape changes were not that noticeable, so cutting down to just the red mountain would be a big time save.

Yes and the people wait for a more taller/moutain effect for the Red Mountain since Morrowind is out

Small update. I've basically restarted again, not a big deal, but it's more focused now.

76 cells changed now (instead of the 300 odd before) with a slightly adjusted formula for height adjustment. The 4 main cells that make up the Daogth Ur area will be instead shifted up and the landscape reshaped to fit the surrounding landscape. I've decided on this route, as otherwise the vent is near impossible to work with due to the extreme stretch.

I will also be adding in more meshes as part of the design, instead of the additions being a seperate extra esp. Should take about 3 weeks to get all those cells sorted out worse case, so initial release near mid feb.

It's possible in some areas I'll need to make interior tunnels to get between different levels.

Quick http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46396473/MGE%20Screenshot%20047.jpg of the restart. Started work around the top of the mountain, and put in quite a few new meshes.

It even feels like a proper "mountain". From the ghostgate entrance, it looks like a short walk up a hill, but you get to the halfway mark, and you see even more mountain ahead of you, and even better, it's so steep, you can't walk up it, so you are forced to follow the main path around (or levitate )

The side of the mountain where there is a daedric ruin is currently too steep to travel over, so will definately need to be creative there with the landscape tool.

Some changes that I will be making:

• Adding meshes to the landscape to enchance it's "spikey-ness", beyond what the landscape model can produce, started doing this around the vent. Meshes I'm using use the same texture as the ground, so totally compatable with any texture replacer.
  
• Remove the rope bridges, and replace with dwemer bridges. Just makes more sense to me. Dwemer moved in after initial eruption, built their stuff, did their vanishing act, then Dagoth Ur moved in.
  
• Likewise, remove all rope posts, replace with ruined dwemer walls
  
• I'm going to remove ALL dead trees and grass from the mountain, and look at the grass tool to generate across the mountain in suitable places random dead trees/grass. Many of vanilla trees are very close together, and with the new landscape, are/were growing out of 60 degree plus slopes. Looks silly to me
  
• Remove/move spawn points, some of the 6th house spawn points are in places that requires mountaineering gear to reach/move over.

Edited to fix forum posting raw HTML version, and not formatted HTML - silly forum

looks cool, but i just thought i'd throw this out for and idea. Make the ashlands side of red mountain way higher then the south side. That way it would look more like and half blown out volcano. I'd almost make the ashlands side solid. And impassable.

Well, he'll have to deal with Ald'ruhn and Maar Gan regardless of what he does to the ashland side. You have to make sure they are reachable...

True enough. Maar gan kinda looks to be in a hollow already. And ald-Rhun a plateau. Accenting those features would work.