[WIP] Cresty's West Gash landscaping

Yep, i cant strong associate Morrowind waters with pure-bloody waters from blooming Red Sea even if this lore have many associations with semitic myths (volcanism focus, Exodus, desert hermits, the expectation of the Messiah).
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I think it can be waters of sallow, brownish, earthly color, both in river and lakes for mucksponges (with dense cover of duckweed).
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If most of site's dev's population more like cooler colors - i can recommend not use saturated blue/green color, but whitish. opalescent. sulfurous water color like on image lower. Maybe iceflame means them too.

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River can be made less wide to suit intensive waterfalls plus desert island without ice sources.
Canyon then can have not only water surface, but beaches with light boats (not ships), trees, shrubs and fisher cave dwellings.

Additional stuff

I still think that more round shape would be better than vanilla unnatural rectangle. In this case river must be only in some (close to vanilla) part of canyon, but canyon would be better have round shape with some of it's inner walls became slopes. Part of road to west (to dwemer ruins, egg mine and ancestral tomb) can be placed on bed of dry part of canyon.



if there would be canyon shift/break around Gnisis - there can be made 'lower Gnisis'
Landscapers can use more shacks in there, to make town more differ between poor and rich parts of town.
Maybe additional cave dwellings can be added close to water for fishermans and poor farmers to inhabit.

In some places canyon can suit small ravine forest or big quantity of shrubs and grasses and moss.
http://www.goodwp.com/large/201210/25636.jpg

Some parts or ravine can be really narrow.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Neatcoulee.jpg

Some places can have one side as canyon and one side as gently sloping beach.

I think some light vegetation alongside the river would fit the region better than a ravine forest like that:

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Just fyi, Alysander's idea is only doable with some major heightmap terraforming. The river already has quite steep sloping banks, with an increased water level the river floor would have to be raised quite drastically. Quite possible but it's work. I'd say see how it looks before and if it looks funny to adjust it after.

With new assets instead of Skyrim's that must be would be awesome.
Grass from tundra and ferns looks odd in desertous biome.

looks pretty good, especially the tree placement in pic nr 2 is very scenic and nice looking.

I like idea but with those shadows.....

Second thing bushes don't fit me here maybe better just add some tumbleweeds inside. Just there is no light to grow there.

Btw. good job [External image] Just another route to move through.

What's going on with the "lighting" in the caves? That's not realistic at all, is it just preview lighting? I hope the caves don't look like that in final release. They should be DARK from any point past 20 feet in or so as to facilitate an eerie sense of exploration (requiring torch light, like the original Morrowind + remember the variety of light sources!? Candles, lanterns, etc all with their own respective illuminance values)

I digress/sorry for going off on a tangent.

Btw. in those tunnels can be added some trunks, small rocks, sand and other things which could be dropped here by seasonal stream current.

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And I agree with Adrian with lighting here like that it doesn't work, but again same idea is great.

Crestycomb

 on release, WG will be mostly cloudy and foggy

Whhhhhy? I think WG needs to stay bright and open, Morrowind is already cloudy in every other region it seems. (Dust storms in Ashlands, storms in the Bittercoast/Azura's coast, ash in Molag Amur, blight in Red Mountain, cold rains in Sheogorad) The only regions that won't be stormy are Ascadian Isles and Grazelands at this point. 

West Gash should have frequent dust storms, especially in the North. It's not a nice and sunny region. Grazelands, Azura's Coast and Ascadian Isles should be rather nice though.

Dragomir

Azura's Coast.... should be rather nice though.

AC should be IMHO a bit more windy, cold but sunny example compare to Graze and AI. Just marine climate.

Great! [External image] IHMO in last example it would be great to see some openwork roots if you have one.

Perfect! We need more gentle slopes to go along side the cliffs. We don't want to lock the player in, But we do want to make it feel unique so keep doing what you are doing here, Throw in a land slide or two which the player can run up and keep adding more of those large flat rocks that are barely poking out of the ground. they really add a lot of life to the world!

Great!

I have only one note to trees. I think it's better to place more spacious examples (branches) on higher ground. And pointed ones more in valley. I can't say why but it looks better for me. For some reasons pointed one are too much eye-catchy. But I understand that it could be changed.

Crestycomb

Should I keep posting these pics? I think I've gotten my style across.

Yes. Please do. No matter how much you got your style across, there's nothing bad about some eye candy.


One thing I noticed though is that the cliffs on the far side of the river in these two pictures look a little unnatural and artificial. I don't know if it's just me or if that area is even finished, I just wanted to throw that in, so you may look into it.

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this keep looking better and better, good job cresty :)

Yeah, it looks less and less generic, form post to post and more and more diverse :)

Rubble would be very nice. It could be better around forts and older in WG.
That would be strange to see old barrier-with-ropes around it, but it could use some crude stone curb.

Is the West Gash supposed to be lush with greenery? If so, more grass, more grass! The terrain looks bald right now, but I agree this is improving with each pass.

A very tricky job you have Cresty, it's not all fun and games with lego blocks like one may assume, but a real challenge of flow and composition.

Hot springs on top of canyon?
I am not sure that this suit each other.
 

alysander

Hot springs on top of canyon?
I am not sure that this suit each other.
 

Well, considering the rain West Gash gets, and the limestone (calcium carbonate) rock, the canyons are likely formed from karst dissolution with slight acidification of the rainwater from the ashen air. In terms of geology, then, at one point West Gash was all highlands, which then dissolved in parts and collapsed. Thus, the hot springs would have all been at an equal height at one point in the past. I could see that as making sense. Just means that there should be some of those karstic pillar-rocks (some of the West Gash sediment-rock pieces in the CK) in the canyon passes at the lower ground, like so:

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I started to set something similar in my claim section of West Gash (the immediate area around Gnisis), so I will post some screens of how it looks over there soon.

So I would say dunes at the top (hot springs are fine too, just not too many), and some karst rocks in the canyons. Looking good so far. Another thing I want to add is that hot springs would probably be most common near the caldera.

Looks awesome imo, really coming together!

There can be some intermittent pools of rain water there. Though i would make upland more dry.
But hot springs on limestone? That s quite unbelievable. Water will make path to lower place.
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Limestone pillars looks nice, however such exotic things can be used only in one-two places.
 

alysander

There can be some intermittent pools of rain water there. Though i would make upland more dry.
But hot springs on limestone? That s quite unbelievable. Water will make path to lower place.
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Limestone pillars looks nice, however such exotic things can be used only in one-two places.
 

Travertine hot springs actually upwell limestone/calcium carbonate rock. As in the case of Pamukkale, such springs can create large walls of limestone for karst to dissolve at. I'd say that rather than the larger pools around hot springs, they should use the mineral pool assets instead because those are tavertine springs. So, the canyons may have even formed from hot springs in the first place. Under all the dust and dunes, the terrain would probably look something like this:

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But much less pure in color than that example, especially due to the dust. Instead, it would have the same color as the West Gash cliffs. I wonder if there could be some dripping tavertine assets (equivelent to icicles) that could be placed at cliff edges to break it up a bit? Tavertine pools could actually be a great way for the player to climb the cliffs, considering they can scale the edges like this:

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So based on that reference they could be in both the lower and upper parts of the cliffs, but just as smaller pools with the mineral deposits (tavertine) instead of the large ones from the screenshot.

Actually, I'm now thinking these tavertine/hot spring formations would be better suited north of Balmora, around Caldera as a possible headwater source for the Odai instead.

For the northern canyons, however, in order to have access ways up the cliffs, I'm thinking old landslides would be an immersive way. There's already a landslide terrain texture in the CK. Considering the barren rocky landscape, steep walls, and occasional rain, all the ingredients for landslides are there. It would be awesome to see a landslide/mudslide in action, but that would probably be too hard to pull off. Falling rock traps, however...

Yeah, that would be a lovely place around Caldera.

MAPS

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I am not sure that so 'clean white' travertine will be 100% suit not so warm and dry climate of Morrowind. More relevant references could look as:
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With a bit (not so saturate) of color from:
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Ideally it can look like this (=>), with some sulfur in water.
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To be fair, I would decrease the usage of hot springs in general. They seem to be one of those tempting assets to use, because they're cool and all, but they're slowly becoming the new basalts... I'd propose to look around the Morrowind map and decide on certain places at which the hot springs would make the most sense, and refrain from using them anywhere else. With volcanic activity they'd be rather common compared to most regions of Earth, but then it's not like you trip over a hot spring every two steps in Iceland.

Where to put hot springs? I'm thinking around lake Nabia, near Molag Mar (maybe few other places in Molag Amur, but these would be poisonous), around Caldera. Can't think of any other place where they'd make much sense...

Unfortunately, canyon tops sounds like a bit of a stretch to me. They definetly need something to make them less barren, I just think something else might work better. I'd be fine with pockets of rainwater though, probably only in places where the hole is covered from sun - any pools would evaporate pretty quickly. Or maybe have Therm script the pools to only appear after rain and only stay there for a few days :P I know there's a mod for Skyrim that does that.

On the other hand, that last photo Aly posted looks freaking awesome. Might be worth making a single asset for and putting it somewhere in the West Gash as an unique landmark.

Yes, Drago. That's why i propose to place it only around Caldera - because Caldera already have them (Skyrim's ones) and have sulfurous zone (that can be in relation with such waters).

@Crestycomb: actually that's how top of canyon looks usually - it looks barren. However it can have some dead trees, pieces of wood, pools of rain water and maybe some succulent plants. I wonder if some Hackle-Lo can be used there.
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Also sometimes on top of rocks i seen such weirdly eroded stones. I think we have close asset in ashland, maybe its' modeller can make same for red stones.

PICS

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Maybe i must make map of biomes to help?

Dragomir

they're cool and all, but they're slowly becoming the new basalts... 

Hey! I take offense to that. I love my 5,000+ basalt count.

I don't know why top of canyons should be flat. I think you can add freely new levels, sub-levels but in much smaller scale (height). Just to make tops much more "jagged". I can't find examples. One type could be completely flat and rocky, other like you in your example but with less amount of lakes, another with additional sub-levels, levels. I think that it could better if you play more courageously with elevations. One place could be with depression, one with "bumps", other with some small hills or even mini-canyons.

Adding some big boulders in groups in inner area could be nice too.

The tops are really exposed to elements and they should be barren. Most landscapers fear emptiness, to the point where Molag Amur and Ashlands seem to have more trees than Ascadian Isles (which is too foresty in parts anyway). The tops look fine as they are IMO, just the hot springs don't make that much sense. Maybe it'd be better to leave it barren until more assets are made (any WG assets in the works?), some rocks eroded in a fun way would definetly fit there, perhaps with pocket-pools of water, and scarce flora (not too tall though, probably no trees, maybe one or two small dead ones).

Not sure if there is anything to make Molag Amur, Red Mountain and Ashlands more diverse. There is only several types of Ashlands : Ash Dusty Desert (on North), Stone Forests (around Ald Ruhn), Dead Forest (around Molag Mar), Open surface of Lava (around).

Would be nice to make several points filled with one type of plant (for example thickets of Trama Roots), or differentiate Lava Pools to Lava River (to active Foyada), or to create new type of 'biome' by using fresh/glossy obsidian surfaces.

Lots of good points here about the tops of the canyons. All I'll say as even though they would start quite barren, remember we've got a volcano spewing out all sorts of lovely ashy mineral goodness and erratic rock pieces all over Vvardenfell. I think one could expect to see random bits of spewed out igneous rock and maybe some minor desertified shrubs growing out of the pockets of collected ash not swept off the tops. This would break up the barren look a bit and seem realistic.

Also the notes about multiple smaller layers on the tops sounds cool, would be interesting to see the idea experimented with.

Hotsprings could appear on the top of the formations but I'd say it would be overall uncommon as steam fissures would tend to reach the canyon bottoms before forcing themselves all the way up, but it is definitely possible to use the asset in a few places. could be cool to connect them up with rivers in canyons via small waterfalls.

Looking great cresty!

Dragomir

The tops are really exposed to elements and they should be barren. Most landscapers fear emptines [...]

I couldn't agree more. I even think having some more empty and quiet areas has some beauty on it's own. Sometimes less is more and not every inch of the game world has to be exciting. That can even be overwhelming and hurt the overall experience.
The only real problem with the top of the canyons "as is" I see is that the textures don't tile really great and either someone should work on that or you need to put in a lot of (flat) rocks to break the monotony - which you should probably do anyway, since I imagine the top of canyons to be very rocky.