[WIP] Nahlo's West Gash landscaping

Good work

Love it! I actually think the slightly greyer colour scheme feels much more like Morrowind... Maybe desaturating all the West Gash textures could be a good idea? As in, the ones that are grey here would be even greyer, and the ones in the rest of WG would be like these here more or less. In MK concept the rocks were red, but not to that degree.

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Probably, in the worst case and if editing textures would be too much work, I'm pretty sure the colour scheme can be changed with some proper lighting and athmospherics tweaks. Skyrim's HDR is way too strong anyway.

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But yeah, not sure if that's a thing for landscapers, or later for somebody in charge of athmosphere - keep in mind West Gash is not really a vibrant, lush place full of sunlight and warm colours. It's quite dour, especially in the north and near where it transitions into ashlands. The idyllic feeling with bright sunlight and clear skies we probably want to reserve for Ascadian Isles only.

Nice work Nahlo!

Yes, the colours is a bit over-saturated for Morrowind look, but maybe to figure out climate instead of desaturating textures?

Looking great Nahlo!

Nice work, one of my favorite areas in Morrowind. :)

despite nobody wanting me to, i'm working on new west gash graphics that will copy all the current mesh shapes but with far superior quality rock, and some nice tiling cliff faces. 
Talked to eloth, and we will have multiple sets of the rock meshes, in 3 colours, deep red/orange, dull brown, and darker green/grey

The deep red/orange is only in the middle of WG, the dull brown is balmora/caldera/east cliffs, and the dark grey is all coastal and north areas.

In a week I hope to have all the new rock faces dont visually for your approval.

Good landscaping so far, will be improved by better assets.

Looking great so far! In terms of suggestions, I think that as great as the new cliffs are, that there should be sections in which they are used more sparingly. A defining part of West Gash in Morrowind was the hills with arched rock and trees with large roots.

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It would be great to find a balance between the hills and cliffs, with the steep cliffs of the Gnisis concept art and the canyon path between Balmora and Caldera, and then winding roads around hills reminiscent of old ash dunes that have since merged with scrub and soil. Perhaps the Dragonborn ash dunes with the textures swapped with West Gash terrain would work well in adding detail to the hills without turning them into cliffs. Skyrim's rockpile assets, particularly the first one if I recall correctly, could work well at the base of cliffs and hills.

Early screenshots of West Gash often showed ashstorm in the area, I think the region could benefit from an alternate ash storm weather effect, in which ash from the east travels over and gets mixed with the dust of the West Gash. More hostile weather would help to make the region feel more like a 'gash'.

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A duststorm in an early Gnisis

Some good ref: trapps of Gawler Ranges

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Type command TG and you'll see what he means. 

iceflame542A defining part of West Gash in Morrowind was the hills with arched rock and trees with large roots.

This feels really important in creating the West Gash, to me. The trees with knotty, convoluted branches and roots were a distinctive and striking example of the kind of interesting visual direction present in Morrowind and somewhat lost in later games.

That, along with the smoothness and windswept, dusty feel that I'm afraid is lost with the rugged rock that is set up there currently, as much as I love those assets. I would just prefer to see the windswept set be more common than the rugged one in the West Gash,with the smooth rock arch formations of the original, and formations made by duststorm-related weathering. I hope that can be done in a way that also ensure that the rugged assets do not go to waste.

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While the 'gash' may be interpreted as a rugged region, it seems to be more in the form of harsh weathering from ash and dust storms that form and reform the area, weathering away rock and building up dust and ash into hilly dunes, essentially the 'dustlands', in which not much survives other than what can tolerate the harsh landscape in which such storms are frequent.

Its just that the sort of depictions associated with the West Gash on these forums seem better suited for the Alik'r, based on concept art for the desert:

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damn that pretty much is opposite to what i'm doing atm, but i can expand the wind blasted ones

Okay, thank you, I don't want to come across as demanding of too much additional workload, or wasteful in terms of what assets are available, it just conflicts with how the region was depicted originally for the most part. I would recommend the rugged assets be mostly limited to the westernmost sections and moving out a bit in the north. That way, the parts in the east can be more in line with the dustlands depiction. Although, the canyon by Balmora may be an exception, as the cliffs could provide sufficient cover from the wind.

To be fair, smooth windswept rocks were predominant all over Morrowind, while in Skywind we have near to none...