Breaking Ground: Terrain and Waterworks

[Gobias]

art128 & noahclem:  thanks both!

While waiting for mods to determine what's causing the Berner Oberland to fail upload on the private LEX I've been tinkering with a few things.

First off - the Berner Oberland mod itself... due to the technical difficulties with the LEX I invited a small handful of users via PM to test the darned thing - might as well get a little feedback while I wait.  I made a few minor improvements including enhancing a little texture in my grass which is an area I'd never been fully satisfied myself.  Since this is a region where grass grows like carpet it's tricky to add detail (normally dirt/gravel) without destroying the purity of the grass fields.  But I managed to make improvements that I'm quite pleased with.  Just some subtle changes that add a little variety in the grass:





Meanwhile I made a few other cosmetic mods for sidewalks and retaining walls this week.  If anyone's interested I'd be happy to submit them?

A 19th Century cobbled brick sidewalk:


And a mod that replaces the MAXIS retaining walls with a variety of brick or rock/mortar walls, all 19th century:


Well - that's it for now.  Just waiting for the Oberland mod to upload.

Cheers,
Daniel

[HappyDays]

Considering the Maxis retaining walls suck, anything is an improvement and you've managed to make a really good improvement. Thumbs up!

I'll have to get the sidewalks in game to see if I like 'em. Of everything in the game, sidewalks are where I'm pickiest for some reason.

[noahclem]

The Oberland textures are looking fantastic as always. It seems the details you added hear fit in very nicely.

Those retaining walls look great 

[kinderly]

Those new textures look fantastic, and very real! This is something I will definitely stick with.

Also if your having trouble with uploading onto the LEX why not upload to the STEX?

[Gobias]

kinderly:  several people have now suggested uploading to the STEX.  I'm not ruling it out but I was trying to be patient and allow the LEX to find a solution.  I chose to develop the mod here because of the high quality that the LEX maintains through it's members.  I know some in this community have strong feelings about the STEX and the subject of quality too.  I like the idea of initiating new modders by engaging them in a scrutiny process.  I learned from the community on these boards and, to be honest, my mod would have wound up on the STEX a long time ago in far weaker condition than it is today if I hadn't decided to go for LEX candidacy.  This being my first release, and having developed it here on the SC4D boards, I would like to see it debut on the LEX so that the community here gets to know me as a LEX modder.  But I suppose if a solution isn't found I'll have to go that route at some point.  I'd like to give it a little more time though.

[memo]

Excellent work. I am looking forward to using this terrain mod.

In the second shot there you can see what I mean about the base textures along the road.  The sidewalks (all 3 wealth levels) I probably can't do anything about without re-doing the NAM completely!

If you wish I could try to do some coding to auto-find&replace the textures, i.e. automatically find all the wealthified game's and NAM's transit textures and replace their grass textures by new ones. Well, only if the new grass textures fit well to the terrain. The files would be of similar size as the euro textures mods. The auto-find&replace could be done with the euro textures as well, of course.

[Gobias]

memo:  I just submitted the mod to the LEX but this would be a great idea for an addon. 

To the rest of the readers the Berner Oberland mod should be up on the LEX. If you're interested give it a try and let me know what you think.  The mod works best on a good mountain map to get all of the details hidden in the hills and I'd highly recommend giving it a shot on nichter85's Bernese Oberland map on the STEX.  The high-alt default plugin was custom designed using that map for region-accuracy.

Also the mod should be compatible with the work that vortext is doing right now with his tree-controller (go check out his thread if you haven't already!  Great work being done there!).  The flora elevation parameter was coordinated with his project.

Finally, a few shots of me goofing around with the final product:

[Swordmaster]

Great mod for mountainous regions. Well-made!

Cheers
Willy

[kinderly]

Glad it finally worked out! I tried it and I loved it. The night is so dark it truly feels like pitch black nightime in the countryside. The terrain textures are some of the best I've seen, and the water mod is something I can't stop looking at. This is a very well made(and possibly one of the best)terrain mod. Hope to see more from you!

[whatevermind]

Is the mod missing the FloraBrush exemplar?  The Readme indicates it should be in the BO Properties... files, but I've looked in both and I'm not seeing it.  I checked in game as well and the God Mode tree brush seems to have defaulted back to Maxis sizes.

On another note, the terrain is beautiful, especially the snow.

[epicblunder]

So i finally had some time to take a peek at your terrain mod.  I whipped up a dry alps map to give it a go.  Pity i don't have any good satellite data for europe, i'll have to test it on a mountainous US map later to see how it handles really detailed terrain.

Berchtesgaden, Germany:


I really like your terrain.  The scree slopes are excellently done, and i love the detail in the glacier texture.   

Keep up the good work!

[Gobias]

Is the mod missing the FloraBrush exemplar?  The Readme indicates it should be in the BO Properties... files, but I've looked in both and I'm not seeing it.  I checked in game as well and the God Mode tree brush seems to have defaulted back to Maxis sizes.

On another note, the terrain is beautiful, especially the snow.

You're right, I misspoke in the readme calling it a "flora brush" when I should have referred to it as a "flora tuner"... I'll update the readme on the LEX to correct that.

The tuner (group 7a4a8458 instance 1a2fdb6a) is included in the Properties file (hi or low altitude) and makes the mod compatible with seasonal tree controllers and sets the flora elevation parameters separately for hi and low altitude - basically establishes a tree-line near the snow-line if you're using a tree controller that sets it's final elevation row to be tree-free.  So the reason I included it in the mod was to make sure that other tree controllers would be compatible with the Oberland and that tree-lines would appear at the correct elevations when using my mod.

The actual "flora brush" exemplar which is not included in the mod (group 6a01fc2a instance 2a31304e) would control the width and strength of the God Mode flora brush.

And third, if you wanted to change the selection of trees in a god-mode brush you'd be looking for the actual flora exemplars themselves and would need to change the Resource Key to refer to a different tree model.  These are in the group e83e0437 (not in the mod).

Sorry for the confusion and thanks for pointing that out.

Also, the mod is a stand-alone product and does not by itself alter your tree-selection in the tree brush.  By itself you will get MAXIS trees from your brush.  But if you're using a custom tree-brush it is compatible with the mod.  I use a tree-brush that is a densely growing mix of all-evergreen VIP flora (a mix of conifers, abies grandis, subalpine firs and serbian spruces) to achieve that Euro-Alpine look but it's just my own personal mod.  I didn't include a tree-controller for two reasons:  first, that would require dependencies for the trees (which are not mine) and permission from the Girafe and I'd rather have released the terrain mod as a stand-alone terrain package... and second, it looks as though vortext is putting together a real gem of a seasonal controller so I think that need will be filled soon enough.

Hope that makes more sense now and thanks for letting me know about the readme.

Cheers,
Daniel

[Gobias]

swordmaster, kinderly:  thanks for the compliments - glad you like the mod!

epicblunder: Lovely screenshot - just the kind of terrain the B.O. was made for!  I also wish I had access to better Euro-DEM for mapping but there is a good selection of NHP maps on the STEX too.  I always recommend nichter85's Berner Oberland map since I made the mod for that region.  But the whole ALPS series on the STEX works well too.  In particular the "Oberstdorf Bavaria" map works well with the hi-alt plugin.  The Zillertal and St. Moritz maps work well too.  Lots of good DEM detail in that whole series.

Just a heads up on what I'm working on now... I have a few things I'd like to prepare for release before I dig into the next big terrain mod.  A few smaller packages:
- I have a variety of rock and beach textures I created while designing the Oberland so I think I might clean up a pack of each and release.
- As mentioned earlier I've been playing with HD sidewalk and retaining wall textures.  About 80% ready to go on both of those.
- The big task at hand:  I've just started testing a MAXIS street replacement mod that upgrades the asphalt textures to something w/higher resolution and also improves the grass texture on the borders of the sidewalks.  I'll have something to show pretty soon. 

I'll be out of town for a good chunk of October (trips to New York and Chicago) but look for a lot of the above to start coming out in November.

Cheers,
Daniel

[Gobias]

... I should add, regarding the street replacement I just started... I'd be curious to know if anyone has a preference as to which shading (light or dark) you think I should use for the asphalt?

See image below.  Not the best resolution on the jpeg but you get the idea... shows the original asphalt street texture and two preliminary variations of light/dark asphalt I'm looking to create:



Any preference?  It's a lot of work to make these puzzle pieces so I've got to choose one and stick with it!

[Bipin]

I love the look of the darker asphalt. It's a good balance in terms of grain/noise and value between the old black asphalt and your lighter grey one; the best of both worlds.

[MandelSoft]

I like the new Dark Asphalt textures! I'd like to see some more

The light asphalt could be a replacement set for the standard streets...

[Gobias]

Here's a preview of some of the beaches I'm working on.  I'll likely release these as a pack if there's interest?

Wondering at this point though if I need to release two versions - I use a .09x texture tiling factor in my terrain mods (Berner Oberland and future releases) and Lowkee used a .04x in his.  I prefer working from a .09 so that I don't put too much strain on stretching the detail of my textures.  I'd like to avoid making installation too complicated with too many choices though.  But I also want any rock, water, beach mod I release to be universally compatible?  Opinions are certainly welcome on that topic.

Forgive the inappropriate selection of flora in some of the shots...not a lot of palm trees in New England!... just trying to give some suggestion of scale by thowing a few quick MMPs on to the sand.

[Swordmaster]

Very interesting!

If you intend to make it go with Lowkee's mod as well, then you should release a .04 version as well, I guess. I don't think that'll be too complicated, just select which version you want to install.

Cheers
Willy

[whatevermind]

Regarding tiling, it's entirely up to you, but I know from a brief attempt at trying to find different water to go with Berner Oberland, that very few looked anything but ridiculous, even the HD ones. So, if you're shooting for compatibility with other mods, releasing versions tuned for other tiling factors could make a big difference. Of course that's also a lot more work if you have to create and maintain 3 or 4 or 10 (?) different sets of your mod to cover all the tiling factors out there. It might come down to some testing, create your textures for the 0.09x factor, and then load them up in installs of various terrain mods and see how they look. If I can find some free time, I might even try that out myself.

I also don't see any problem with simply releasing them at your tiling factor only, and just disclaimering the mod about potential visual conflicts with other terrain mods. Especially since you're planning on releasing several mods, whatever you go with could become the standard going forward for HD mods, especially if you do release water and beach and rock packs that are interchangeable with your various terrain mods. Eventually, others will likely follow suit.

Beautiful beaches, by the way, especially the Nantucket and Cape Cod versions. 

[noahclem]

Those beach mods look very promising--I'd love to see more of them    The only setback, and maybe it has more to do with water than beach, is that the line where the water starts and stops is not very clear. Perhaps changing the color or transparency settings of the water could help. And as far as I'm concerned the more options the better with regard to beaches, water, and rock mods designed for Berner Oberland.

The darker of the new asphalt streets is my preference though both textures are very nice.