hey @ all

this will be the new thread for all mods and projects around or based on the "tamriel heightmaps" and combines the two old threads Under the sign of the dragon "tamriel heightmaps"and "tamriel landscapes".

original threads can be found here :

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1073491-wiprelz-under-the-sign-of-the-dragon-tamriel-heightmaps/


http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1080432-under-the-sign-of-the-dragon-tamriel-landscapes/



Under the sign of the dragon - Tamriel heightmaps -

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=27235


description
==============================================

This mod will try to provide lore friendly heightmaps of all provinces of Tamriel in the Tamriel worldspace .

Official lore maps and/or other lore based maps ( like TR team maps) have been used to create lore correct or at least lore friendly shapes and basic geographic data of all provinces.

Note ! For compatibility reasons and to get a more realistic gameplay, all provinces around cyrodiil have been enlarged (mainly in north/south direction).
This means you will find the different provinces larger compared to cyrodiil than on the lore maps.

The heightmaps will be provided as modders resources, so that everyone is free to place his own mods in the different provinces using the heightmaps as a master.

This could be a complete region, a city, a playerhome...placing creatures or whatever...the idea is to have the provinces playable right from the start and getting them more and more interesting by new content added by new created mods.

So far heightmaps of Black Marsh, Valenwood/Elsweyr , Summerset Isles, Hammerfell and High Rock have been released.

All provinces (heightmaps) will be provided modular and get basic lorefriendly regions including trees, large rocks,landscape textures, map data, weather, sounds and generated pathgrids..lod textures and meshes will be provided as well.

This way the provinces will be fully playable right from the start and it will be more fun to explore them....also if somebody creates new locations using the heightmaps it will not look like being placed in the middle of nowhere..

Every province will have just 1 or 2 basic regions for the moment...more detailed regions, architecture , creatures etc etc will hopefully be added by other modders / teams.


Note ! Ilianas mod will be required for the Valenwood/Elsweyr heightmap but not work as a master anymore...instead a patch is provided ( somes with the Valenwood heightmap download) which also contains all the region data for Valenwood and southern Elsweyr.


requirements
=============================================

Shivering isles, OBMM or Wrye Bash, Tes4LodGen

The Valenwood-Elsweyr Heightmap requires Ilianas Elsweyr Deserts of Anequina mod and the provided patch to work properly !!

grab Ilianas mod here :

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RNY1LP2Y


Additions
==============================================

Igerup has created Cell Grid Maps for the different heightmaps. This should be a great help for people start modding on the Tamriel heightmaps.

Summerset_gridmap :

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30050

Valenwood_gridmap :

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30063

Blackmarsh_gridmap :

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30064

Igerup has also released his (wip) complete tamriel ingame map which works cool with the so far released heightmaps.

grab it here :

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30824

Kiwi-hawk is working on a complete tamriel ingame map as well

get it here :

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30875



compatible province mods using the tamriel worldspace
===============================================

Stirk made by the Tamriel Rebuilt team

Stirk is an idyllic isle located west of Anvil. The isle is currently home to a resort town for Cyrodiil's wealthy and an imperial fort that once protected Cyrodiil from the Aldmeri Dominion. However, beneath the stucco facade lie secrets yet undisturbed by the island's mining operation.

grab it here :

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=22401


WIPz Elsweyrs Kingdom of Rimmen made by grzesiog1 Auryga Aussie_In_Oblivion googlepox johnn123 norinvaux


The lore background this work is based on:

"Pocket Guide to the Empire, 1st Edition
Rimmen

Though ostensibly its own kingdom, Rimmen still pays tribute to the Mane of Elsweyr, from whose realm it seceded
in CE812 during the Interregnum. Earlier, Akaviri refugees had fled persecution
when the warlord Attrebus briefly aspired to the Imperial Throne. Attrebus, though
he lasted no longer than most of the pretender kings of that period, thought he
might rid Cyrodiil of the foreigners who had ruled it for the first half of the
Common Era, and he drove the Akaviris past the Empire's borders into Elsweyr. The
khajiit granted them asylum in the hills and steppes of northwestern Elsweyr, where
they dwelt in relative seclusion until remnants of the Dir-Kamal resurfaced in Cyrodiil,
seizing the Throne from Attrebus' successors. The Rimmen (literally, the Rim Men,
as the khajiit called them) joined their brothers to try to rebuild the Empire.
This effort was doomed to failure, but not before the khajiit attempted to reclaim
their lands in a series of bloody border wars. Currently, since the ascension of
Tiber Septim, the hapless Rimmen have once again submitted to the protection of
the Mane, with a renewed tribute paying for the Cat Lord's guarantee of their independence,
a truly weak reed upon which to lean."


grab it here :

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=31203


Nordinkarst -Nordic Meadhall-

Wandering around the high Jeralls is both strenuous and disheartening. The mountains and weather are formidable, and bleak. Nothing about a journey along those high mountains is friendly. Except for the Nords. Just across the border in skyrim, in the high Jeralls, is a mead hall, run by a Nord Smith. He set up his inn for travelers and hunters to lodge in. Over time, people have set up permanent residences around the mead hall, and some in it. The fires always crackle, the mead is always light and cool, and the beds are always made. Everybody is welcome there.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=13735


Lost chapel by Floydian1

Just over the border of Blackwood stands a ruined chapel forgotten by time. This is a simple edit to the chapel location used in the Chapel Shop mod, I've stripped out the vendor and the clothing/weapon part of the mod and simply added a bedroll and some player safe storage sacks. This is for folks who like the location but didn't want the weapons and clothing therefore, since this uses just vanilla items the download is very small in size and easy to install.

grab it here :

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=29580


mods and wip projects using the tamriel heightmaps as master files
=================================================


Under the sign of the dragon -Tamriel Landscapes- made by onra and firesparks

Based on the Tamriel heightmaps this mod series will provide plugins for all provinces of Tamriel containing different things like cities, settlements, trading outposts, imperial legion forts, new quests or simply some nice landscapes.
These plugins are also planned to interact later on with our legion mods Fort Akatosh Redux and Guards of Cyrodiil Redux.

released : Summerset Landscapes Beta version

The first plugin Summerset Landscapes adds the city and region of Firsthold to the game. Firsthold is located at the north of the smaller island of the Summerset Isles. it is divided into 3 parts...Port Firsthold including a small imperial trading outpost...Firsthold Markets and the city of Firsthold. The city itself and the markets are not accessable in this version (exteriors only), but the imperial outpost will be a nice destination for some nice sailing trips to Summerset.
The Census Inspector at the Census and Excise Office will provide some usefull lore background about Summerset as well...

grab it here :

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30429


WIP Elsweyr -The city of Senchal- made by StarX


will create the city and area of Senchal located at the end of the Quin'rawl pensula ( South Elsweyr)


screenshots can be found here :

http://www.invision.tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/gallery/album/114/64-starx-album/

more infos about Senchal will be posted by StarX :foodndrink:



WIP RAVENSGATE by Omegacron

This mod adds the town of Ravenholme to the valley just west of the Hermaeus Mora shrine. Ravenholme is a trading town that represents the last outpost of Cyrodiil before crossing over into Hammerfell or Skyrim, and is protected by the fortress of Ravensgate along with a nearby Imperial garrison along the border. Due to the recent passing of its previous owner with no heirs, Ravensgate is now being offered as a home to those who can prove themselves worthy of leading the town and its people. Be warned, however - ownership of the castle will not come easily, and once purchased it has a few secrets to offer up to those willing to search.

wip thread http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1091737-wipz-ravensgate/


WIP Elinhir by AlitheLord

will create the Redguard town Elinhir in Hammerfell

for more infos look here : http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1091726-wipz-elinhir-an-open-town-in-hammerfell/

Oh a new thread to keep all the info in one place! Nice work, Onra! :foodndrink:

Currently I'm optimizing the area around Senchal as much as possible, both aesthetically (floating rocks and such) and keeping it as FPS friendly as possible (which is mainly the harborpart). Also I'm hoping to hear something from mr. Siika about the interiors for the Jurad City Tileset, before I try creating them myself with a bit of copy-pasting in NifSkope and the CS.

Anyway, I hope the new thread will give fellow modders the inspiration to mod the new lands.

Cheers,

StarX

Excellent. I might as well paste this into here:



There's a new overview image uploaded as well.

I'm making a mod that will introduce a player-owned castle and a trading town right at the junction between Cyrodiil, Hammerfell, and Skyrim. I have several quests that will take the player up northeast into Skyrim, and would love to use this resource for that part. Can someone post a quick tutorial or steps on how to use these heightmaps with a mod (including anything that needs to be done with the actual files and LOD stuff). I'm pretty comfortable with the CS at this point, but any instructions might as well be made for someone who's starting out.

P.S. - If I'm using this resource, I might as well introduce some stuff across the Hammerfell border as well - maybe a small town or two and some dungeons. Is there any shared map or list I need to update as to which area I'm modding with?

UPDATE: Just in case anyone needs to know, http://mods.omegacron.com/images/tamrielmap_ravensgate.jpg is the rough area I'll be working in. I will probably set up the road into Falkreath, but don't plan on doing the city itself. My town - Ravenholme - is just this side of the Cyrodiil border, with quests taking you across the border as well as deeper into Cyrodiil. I'm trying to make it compatible with UL and everything, but can't make any promises at this point.

not really sure i should say this, but i'll say so anyways. these aren't really all that lore accurate. In the south, everything is stretched out and scaled up, making it at least twice the size its supposed to be. in the north, everything is squished and scaled down, making it smaller than its supposed to be. it looks like tamriel at first glance, but the proportions of the provinces are really off. i know you worked hard on this, and i certainly appreciate your effort, i just think that you could take it further if lore correctness is your goal. especially since many people are looking to use it and to build of it. again, not meant as an insult or a discouragement, just a critique.

Someone mentioned that in another thread... Onra's not really going for "lore-correct," but "gameplay-fun." He tried it to scale, and he didn't like how it turned out, so he scaled stuff up

then onra shouldnt call it lore friendly. also, if he scaled it up, why only scale the southern portion and greatly reduce the just-as-fun northern half? there really has to be some sort of consistency.

I have to agree with Lady Nerevar on this on.e By NO means am I insulting or being ungrateful, I absolutely LOVE the heightmaps, they are indeed some of my favorite mods, its just...well basically what Lady Nerevar said.
But please, dont take this the wrong way.

The northern half is definitely not smaller on scale than he made the southern half. I've been messing around with making my own maps and the Hammerfell and Highrock maps are HUGE! I was using the Hammerfell map made by TR as a place holder for a while and his Hammerfell went way off of my map. I agree, though, that it may not be as lore friendly in comparison to how they made Cyrodiil.

Edit: Here's an example of scaling http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/8093/tamrielmap3copy.png

i was looking at http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30875, which has the northern provinces smaller. here is what it http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5264/tammap.jpg to.

Yeah, Kiwi_Hawk (the creator of the first link) was tracing the map made by Arthmodeus, which was made way before Onra's heightmaps. Where is the picture in the second link from? because the bottom part looks like Onra's, but the top part doesn't look anything like his.

This is what I have right now. It was made by exporting Onra's heightmaps using Tesanwynn to a bmp file and just tracing it.

http://i757.photobucket.com/albums/xx220/shadowbeast368/FullTamrielMap.jpg

This should be a very accurate representation to the outline of the heightmaps (and please don't mind the terrible textures, this is still very much a WIP).

Hey

please use my provided heightmaps for your critique and not Kiwi Hawks wip ingame map....this map is currently a puzzle out of a few of my heightmaps and different other maps... the complete north, Morrowind and Blackmarsh are not taken from my heightmaps...so it is logical that there are different scales on it.

As I stated before, all provinces ( as well in the north) have been rescaled (enlarged). Cyrodiil has not been touched of course and for Vardenfall I am using a rescaled version of the Morrowind heightmap. For Hammerfell and the Morrowind mainland ( not released yet) I am using the Tamriel Rebuilt maps as a reference...the shape of the Hammerfell map for example is even a nearly 1:1 copy (rescaled) of the TR Hammerfell ingame map (should be lorefriendly enough).

The main reason to rescale the provinces was to get a more realistic gameplay. As we all know the TES 4 world is absolutely too small and not realistic...using the exact proportions of the lore maps for the tamriel worldspace would look absolutely crappy in some places ( believe me I have tested this very carefully as I am working on this now since nearly 2 years) .Gameplay would be, at least in my eyes, not realsitic as well.

In this case it is very interesting to have a look on the original lod meshes created by Beth. The not playable visible land uses also bigger dimensions and would absolutely not fit with the lore maps
(has been tested by me). I am sure this was created this way to get the perfect illusion of a real big world/continent. If you have a look on the topal bay for example you will see the coastline of Blackmarsh and southern Elsweyr fading far in the distance...you will have the same view when using my heightmaps...using the lore correct seize of the maps and creating lod meshes based on it would rescale the topal to the half...just one example .

If you have a closer look on my maps you will also notice that the tamriel provinces have been mainly inlarged from north to south direction...this way cities and other locations are still located nearly the right meridian (except Summerset) but the distance (north/ south) is larger, which makes it more realistic. As I said before the shape of the provinces has been taken from the officially lore mapsand should be lore correct or friendly.


Last but not least one reason for editing the heightmaps this way, was also to have it compatible and work together with mods like Ilianas Elsweyr Anequina mod. Using a lore based Quin'rawl pensula would not have been compatible with Ilianas mod for example...beside the problems (lod etc) mentioned above.


regards

onra

That second pic has the northern provinces based on a heightmap I made two years ago, it's now outdated and you should use my new map, with the northern provinces made from a bmp Tesannwyn created from onra's relevant heightmap of that same area. Which is way larger than my heightmap of some years ago. The updated version is http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=30824

alright, thanks for the correction. your reasoning makes sense and is valid, i just think you should list it somewhere in the OP so that people know exactly what they are getting.

Ohhh, I see I'll need to update my Elven Map Redux for Elsweyr. My southern coastline is a bit off compared to yours, mainly cause I never checked it ingame and took the original colored map for Elsweyr as a guide.

thx...mod description (first post) edited

regards

Now that the lore correctness issues are resolved it's time to move on!



Interresting stuff here! Good luck on this project, from what I gather from your requests it should be a great addition! I posted instructions on how to use the heightmaps in the other thread, but feel free to ask here when in doubt.


A small update on Senchal, didn't get to do much as RL work has been hectic the last few days. I toned down the orange on the banners a bit, as it felt like the Dutch footballteam was coming to Senchal to train for the upcoming world cup. Also created the texture for the gate doors, which I think worked out pretty good.

A few pics:
http://www.invision.tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/gallery/image/6854-senchal-gatejpg/
http://www.invision.tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/gallery/image/6856-senchal-gate-keepjpg/
http://www.invision.tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/gallery/image/6855-senchal-pineapple-farmjpg/
http://www.invision.tesalliance.org/forums/index.php?/gallery/image/6857-senchal-at-dawnjpg/

Cheers,

StarX :foodndrink:

Huh, how long did creating all these heightmaps take?

I'm creating something, myself, and heightmaps are the first place I want to start, once I learn how to do them for Oblivion.

I believe I read in this thread or one of the others that it's been over a year so far. Of course, yours most likely wouldn't take that long -- this is an enormous undertaking. It's the sort of things entire teams of people attempt and give up on, so the fact that Onra has released as much as he has AND IS STILL GOING is amazing. I myself haven't had much luck yet at heightmaps (which, actually, only makes me appreciate the enormity of this project so much more), but don't let that timeframe discourage you. Even though it wasn't what I wanted, I had a working heightmap about half the size of Cyrodiil after only a couple of nights with a tutorial on it.

Oooh, nice. I want mine to be about the size of Cyrodiil if not larger. Considering how it's entirely unique, it doesn't have to be accurate to any maps or lore. So that should speed things up.

Well, if it helps any, http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/Heightmap_Editing is a very useful article (although I had no luck whatsoever using the CS for it), but what really got me a working in-game map was the tutorial by MooCow. I can't find the online version now (maybe it's down), but http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=OblivionMods.Detail&id=5050 to the offline version on PES.

Yeah, I'm hoping once I'm done it'll become one of the must-have mods for explorers. I've been really tempted to post a WIPz thread on it, but then again I'm half afraid that if I do it's a sure sign that I'll lose interest before releasing it lol.

But just to keep on topic, I'm sure I'll be posting some questions later on since this is the first time I'll be using someone else's mod with my own, plus I have little to no experience with LOD meshes/textures. Hopefully any questions I come up with will be useful for others as well.

Also, since these are to become a centralized resource, is there a map or anything that will track who's adding what to where? That way if someone wants to use these heightmaps for their mod, they can look to see if something else is already using that space (such as Elsweyr for example). If there is, it might be a good idea to post that as a file on the Nexus page for the heightmaps.

And... one last question for now. If I want the Skyrim part, I need to download/install the two "Hammerfell High Rock" files, right? (Just to confirm before I do)

@ Omegacron

your plans sound very promising....it is a nice location especially when used together with UL Cloudtop Mountains...you have two cities right therealso ..btw there are tons of brilliant skyrim/nordic resources avaible

for the tutorial...don't know if there is a wrye bash tutorial about esmifying/espifying esp's....this is what you have to do with the heightmaps if you want to use them as masterfiles....will try to add a tut to the first post as soon as possible...

for Skyrim....skyrim will be the only province devided into different maps ( original Oblivion esm, Hammerfell/HighRock esp, Morrowind.esp)..for the part you are working on you will be fine with the Hammerfell HighRock esp.

Note ! For the next version I will rename the Hammerfell esp into Hammerfell_HighRock.esp for compatibility ( boss) reasons... so if you want to use it right now as a master I would recommend to rename your Hasmmerfell esp....better wait for the next version though...

iggey has released cell grid maps for the southern provinces...maybe he will add the northern provinces as well ...later on we could try to provide a cell map wth all the existing and wip projects marked similar to the one the UL team provides ....


@ StarX


Senchal looks CENSORED brilliant !!!



back working on Fort Akatosh 1.3

cheers :foodndrink:

Yeah! Back working! I wants it nao! :goodjob:

I guess I can make a grid map thingy of the Hammerfell/High Rock/Skyrim heightmap. It doesn't really take that long to do. Even though all the prety girls I saw in Copenhagen today makes me think of doing completely different things...