Hate to Ask -- Creating Floating Landmasses

Post » Thu May 19, 2011 12:56 pm

So there's a painting I've seen in Oblivion that, well, has a floating landmass. It's essentially an island up in the sky with water falling from the sides.

In short, I'd like to create it to test myself, but I'm having a devil of a time finding the right stuff to do it with. I have Blender, but I'd just rather find a way to avoid relying on myself creating objects that may or may not work out right.

So what am I asking?

I want to make something that resembles this:

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/391/floatingisland.png
[yes, the image is terrible quality, I know]

The actual rock part is my major focus, since I can work my way around the other objects. Any suggestions for what to use to make the land part? Any suggestions for the waterfalls and water (creating any body of water above ground is beyond me at this point)? Any input as to what bugs I should look out for? Preferably, the surface would have collision on all sides, but I'm willing to do whatever works.

I'm sorry to ask about what may be obvious, and very sorry if this is the wrong place for the thread. Hope you understand, and would appreciate any and all ideas and suggestions for this project. Thanks!
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Ray
 
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Post » Thu May 19, 2011 8:32 pm

The problem is that you can't have two water levels in the same cell, and I don't see how you're going to do this without it. Waterfalls at the edges of cells are possible, but the pool below and the pool above don't overlap the way you'd need for this.

When I read the title, I thought you just meant islands floating on the water - like the one with the door to SI.
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Eileen Müller
 
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Post » Thu May 19, 2011 2:59 pm

The problem is that you can't have two water levels in the same cell, and I don't see how you're going to do this without it. Waterfalls at the edges of cells are possible, but the pool below and the pool above don't overlap the way you'd need for this.

That's one of the reasons I was interested in it. I'm almost wondering if I can use the waterfalls to make an imitation of a stream that disappears under rocks for a work around, but there's always some issue to face. Actually solving the issue you mentioned would be incredible, but I'm just not that skilled with mods.

How about the rock part? Is there a way to create a land platform that can be readily meshed using the CS terrain editor? (The bottom needs to be meshed along with the top in a way that can be changed quickly if the need arises). i.e. grass/rocky top with a brown, muddy underside.
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Eduardo Rosas
 
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Post » Thu May 19, 2011 6:05 pm

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18905 part is easy enough. Landscape above the surface is going to be the real problem. You'll have to either rely on giant rocks or do some custom work on larger pieces that have decent land shape.
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Johnny
 
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Post » Thu May 19, 2011 5:34 pm

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18905 part is easy enough. Landscape above the surface is going to be the real problem. You'll have to either rely on giant rocks or do some custom work on larger pieces that have decent land shape.

A million thanks, and I agree.

The problem solving is one of the reasons I'm having so much fun with the concept. :) I see what you're saying -- Blender's going to be necessary. If I meshed the bottom of a 3D platform, could I use the CS terrain editor to color the top? I could just place the land over a body of water if the ground far below the object gets colored with it.... Again though, I have no idea if that would color the bottom portion too, which is exactly what I want to avoid.

I guess I could just color the whole thing before the import, but it's just such a pain to edit on the fly.
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Agnieszka Bak
 
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Post » Thu May 19, 2011 10:51 am

My take on this would be to use the existing vanilla rock meshes as a base. You can pretty much do what you want by combining several of the larger rock meshes together (don't forget to flip some around to cover the bottom). As static items, they will stay in the sky where you place them. That way your island will be visible from Cyrodiil. Then you can build your town or structures on top of the rock surface, and voila! - floating island. That's the jist of it, anyway.

Having actual land terrain wouldn't work, since it has no underside to it, and if you elevated the cell terrain somehow, then it wouldn't have land under it anywhere - below your island would be a cell-sized hole things fall through.

Your best bet for this is to go the rock route, using http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8884 to simulate your streams that lead outward to the waterfalls, and some sort of half-buried container and a static water surface for the lake (similar to what I did for my http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=31853 resource). It's perfectly doable without Blender, just takes some creative smoke and mirrors. :P
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David Chambers
 
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Post » Thu May 19, 2011 4:47 pm

I'd just like to thank Omegacron, Arthmoor and ghastley again for the help. You guys rock! I have a few good concepts going; this might just look fantastic if I can pull it off. :)

I may post updates in the future here for feedback, but I think I'm off to a good start with the great help.
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Rob Smith
 
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Post » Thu May 19, 2011 8:19 pm

I assume you are going for something like this:
http://binarymessiah.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/infernal-noscale.jpg

It would be very cool if you made the infernal city.
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Emily Jones
 
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Post » Thu May 19, 2011 10:52 pm

I assume you are going for something like this:
http://binarymessiah.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/infernal-noscale.jpg

It would be very cool if you made the infernal city.

Precisely! ;)

If I can get this down, I'll have the basics ready for something much more elaborate.

The current ambition is really a test ... perhaps the scale of a single home and a "yard" of sorts. I have to find a way to keep the FPS hit to a minimum before I aim bigger. I'm sure the objects loaded below the structure need to be factored in for the location. Over water is the current plan. :)

I'll get it all ironed out.
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Sierra Ritsuka
 
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Post » Thu May 19, 2011 1:08 pm

A long time later. Excuse the bump.

College has picked up sky high, but I'd like to get back into my Infernal City blueprints soon. The floating island was successful, which is very encouraging. However, I over-extended a few objects to make it (in a vain effort to trim the FPS hit), causing the player to be able to "sink" into the floating island in some parts. I'm not satisfied yet with it, but I'd like to put it on PES soon.

Here's a really rough look at the quick test results:

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/9712/waterrock1.png
http://img574.imageshack.us/img574/7161/waterrock2.png
http://img830.imageshack.us/img830/6673/waterrock3.png

I've been on hiatus since my work on the interiors, but all in all, I'm encouraged by what I see.

Like said though, I'm considering a radical take on my old ideas for the Infernal City. It can be "walled", and have a low res view of the city from the outside I suppose. This will eliminate frame-rate problems. What's more, I can use the Chorrol World or one similar to be the ground below. This low res background won't hurt the FPS inside the city --- allowing me to make a very big city. I feel like I have a lot of options here. Comments? Feedback? Thoughts?

And a shout-out to SpeedyB64 for his take on the idea -- and a nice model to boot, which I was far too late to see. Great job!
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Mel E
 
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Post » Thu May 19, 2011 2:15 pm

Some more resources you may be interested in regards to water up there. :P

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8930
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8781
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8712
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18905
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23055

and for any further resources in convenient categories: http://www.invision.tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/topic/1182-list-of-modders-resources-resources-to-be-used-freely/

:foodndrink:
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Sarah Knight
 
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Post » Thu May 19, 2011 10:12 pm

Some more resources you may be interested in regards to water up there. :P

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8930
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8781
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8712
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18905
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23055

and for any further resources in convenient categories: http://www.invision.tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/topic/1182-list-of-modders-resources-resources-to-be-used-freely/

:foodndrink:

Thanks! The biggest problem was actually getting a dispersing effect as the waterfall falls through the air. I'm no artist, but maybe those have what I'm looking for. :foodndrink:
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Megan Stabler
 
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Post » Thu May 19, 2011 8:22 am

the dispersing effect wouldn't be hard. you can be quite simple with it expect, and just alpha it out.

You could get more complex with it, and add a little texture/ alpha transform to break up the effect, throw a particle system at it to simulate some spray, and that's bout as far I'd ever go unless i was really bored.
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BaNK.RoLL
 
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Post » Thu May 19, 2011 5:20 pm

Some more resources you may be interested in regards to water up there. :P

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8930
http://tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8781
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8712
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=18905
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=23055

and for any further resources in convenient categories: http://www.invision.tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/topic/1182-list-of-modders-resources-resources-to-be-used-freely/

:foodndrink:

Hm. How difficult would it be to use that stuff, well... all over Cyrodiil?

I'm guessing either difficult or laborious, or both, otherwise it might've been done already... :(
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OnlyDumazzapplyhere
 
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