[WIP] Cresty's West Gash landscaping

Morrowind is a game about exploration and being alone in the world, For me we cannot just lock away large areas like the tops of the canyons, So What I think should happen is the tops should all stay level with eachother, However the actual terrain should slowly ramp downwards to the ocean/sea, There should also be a lot more ways for the player to climb to the tops of these large rock formations as it is basic game design princibles to give the player the tools to explore.

We cannot rely on the player having levitation to explore these areas so having things like a set of rocks that they can hop up so that they can feel like they are some sort of parkour wizard which is really fun. Hide things on the tops, give hints to people living up there because they are secluded and tucked away from the rest of the world.

Don't just fill them with sulphur pools. that is silly, They break the immersion of the area. The main areas for the pools are in southern west gash close to Molag Mar. Throw in some low rocks that barely stick out of the ground, It doesnt need to be crowded. It would suck to run through if you are having to jump every few seconds too!

So with that in mind, remember to play through all the areas, try break them. write down anything that annoys you and don't be afraid to completely redo an entire area because it isn't fun. Fun is what we want to achive here and people WILL give you shit if it isn't fun or completely breaks immersion.

Also make a main road that looks like a stilt strider could travel it since there are a number of destinations on the stilt strider network around West Gash. Canyons don't feel like they would be traveled down often either as they would be very prone to bandit attacks, so do take that into account.

To break up the monotony you could also add some structures. Ruined Imperial outpost (without any interior, just rubble) turned into a bandit ambush camp for example. 

if your stuck on what to do with canyon tops, the solution is simple.
have less of them. Instead, replace lots of them with seperate thin "ridges".
new assets will make that another wait though :(

I agree with Max about emptiness sometimes being a good thing. One example I can think of is the differences in the way GTA San Andreas handled a natural landscape compared to GTA V. In the former there were wide areas of completely barren, almost flat landscape, wheras in the latter every square meter of landscape was packed.

In a lot of ways, I preferred having a break from being bombarded with assets in the older game, though the choice might come from the memory a PS2 had to work with. Either way, the game felt creepy at night being all alone in a desert, and is probably why so many "conspiracy theories" about serial killers and bigfoot came about.

Compare that with the world presented in the new game, and there is so much "stuff" going on at one time I feel like having a break now and then and actively look for areas without much action, to no avail.

Either way, thats just a case study on how less is more. I think the canyon tops should be barren, with lots of dead shrubs and tumbleweeds and deadwood, (make sure to have constant howling wind sounds to reflect this environment) while in the canyons there are all the pretty assets, with bandits and what have you (sort of the opposite to that scene in finding nemo where the deadly looking canyon is actually the safe route)

It would also be a good idea to have varied looking canyons. For example, one could have a beautiful glistening stream running through it that reflects the patterns of water on the canyon walls, while another could be crumbling away and filled with falling boulders, making it dangerous to cross. And all the while the player can hear the howling winds above them and dust streaming across the roof.

Dragomir

To break up the monotony you could also add some structures. Ruined Imperial outpost (without any interior, just rubble) turned into a bandit ambush camp for example. 

This could be nice addition. But 2-3 max examples IMHO.

Actually, i would look even on ruined settlement.
Completely broken ruins are cool place to walk around.
They are adding sense of history.

The empire hasn't really been around long enough to warrant ruins. But Chimer, orc, or Nord ruins would work.

Yep, Nord ones would be really good one step.
However, they must be more coastal.
Would be nice to add some lost in Bitter Coast.

alysander

Yep, Nord ones would be really good one step.
However, they must be more coastal.
Would be nice to add some lost in Bitter Coast.

Especially when they were in original. If anyone want to add buried whole settlements, this one I see only somewhere underwater. And done by someone who want to implement this :P

As always , its a pleasure for the eyes landscape you do Cresty. I would say, it's a bit lacking of vegetation, but I guess I'm the one to blame here.

It looks really cool. I really like specious feel. It is somehow "escapist" which fits to fantasy. I'm still not sure how Grazelands looks in case of hills. I suppose they will be "rolling hills style". So if your landscape would be too similar to Grazelands you can add more irregular shapes of hills or add some river/water weathering or do it more rocky or you have other ideas.

I think it used the ashlands assets in morrowind because it is meant to be some sort of mini caldera. Personally, I thought it was kind of cool being ashlands like that but there's no other dunmer fortress in the gash so I'd be fine with either version provided the valley is made to look less caldera-ish.

cool, forgot about Berandas. Just to be clear I was talking about the formation - caldera - or actually probably better to describe it as a volcanic crator after reading the wiki, not the namesake town.

I like the desert idea, just might make sense for the large rock formations to be igneous rock rather than sedimentary sandstone or the like. Could be an interesting hybrid region. Possibly transfer the concept art to Berandas?

Of course I'm biased in this case, but most fits me, little sand desert (do we have dunes?) with WG assets. Maybe where is "main gate" it would be cool to add small elevation to cut off sudden transition.

Nice progress there cresty! :-)

Coming along nicely. I don't think I could stand West Gash ending up being actual factual Hammerfell

So I think the final West Gash should actually be heavily vegetated, considering so many other areas are barren.

Something like this

I'm kind of in the same boat as grumpy, Like the landscaping so far but I feel it needs something to tie it into morrowind a bit more. Vegetation might do this seeing that it would be in a similar rain situation in the valleys as the BitterCoast. Definitely worth playing around with when the rock formations are finished up.

It would be great to see smth like on Grumpy's post's photo, but i presume current limestone range models are surprisingly low on quality (in other words - they are too repetitive and have too simple form).

For vegetation there can be used plants like Bittergreen in form of thickets.

West Gash really needs scrubland terrain. Most of the textures for the region were always listed as some variant of scrub, but Morrowind's terrain never really was capable of rendering that kind of flora. These small bushes would dominate the landscape, thriving from the frequent rainfall, and would be vital in preventing desertification from the east.

Mid West Gash:

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Southern West Gash:

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What about something like this:

Nice concept!

Also, in regards to the progress thus far, I would recommend swapping out the large cliff pieces with large, smoother rocks like "0LSC_WG_SedimentRock17" and "0LSC_WG_SedimentRock13", as isolated cliff parts of that type are associated quite strongly with the Wild West, which is probably better to avoid:

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There's actually a lot of good sediment rocks to use that make things look a bit more unique/West Gash-like, those two are just the taller ones.

Do you happen to have a link to any of the references? Because right now I'm not too confident about Wild West fitting in for the West Gash. In Morrowind it looked so much more unique, quite fitting for the traveling ash storms that shape the rock, and scrubland flora resting on dunes of dust, fueled by frequent rainfall that serves to protect against the growing ashland of the east.

I feel like a Wild West approach seems overdone and cliché to be honest, like the All Deserts have Cacti trope.

the west gash ain't monument valley. there's literally no place like that in any part of morrowind. you're thinkin' of hammerfell, pard'ner

I really love Roman's environment concept up there, that's a really good look. And iceflame's descriptions are spot on

I have to agree with ice and disco on this opinion, West Gash is suppose to be a highlands type of region, your areas of North and South Gash fit this perfectly, but this area of mid gash with the overuse of monument rocks doesn't fit the region at all, it does feel as if it was a region of Hammerfell as stated previously. Without grass as well, this region just feels like an empty dessert.

Grass is for the grasslands. I would go with a more prehistoric feel to fit the general 'feel' of Morrowind. Grass is a relatively young organism for Earth.

Lichens might be a good alternative ground-cover, along with something akin to horsetails or scouring rush around shallow standing pools of water.

While the region may be generally arid, the ground textures could also hint at intermittent rain by having an appearance of cracked red clay. I could see the weather of West Gash being long periods of drought, interspersed with sudden torrential downpours and flash flooding. Look at dry creek-beds for some inspiration.

In Tennessee we also have regions called Cedar Glades with very shallow soil and bare rock which are bone-dry in the summer, and standing water when it rains. The prarie plants in these regions have to be able to handle very arid conditions and poor soils, as well as flooding conditions. It's a way to match the atmosphere of what the West Gash might be like without going for the 'wild west' look. Replace the 'cedar' with 'roobrush' and you're good to go!

The Wild West doesn't fit too well. The Badlands however, keep popping up in my head when the West Gash is brought up.

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Dust dunes looked fine to me along with the dirt cliffs. It was just the monolothic structures that looked too much like an american postcard that it made you think "Am I in the Midwest?" rather than "Oh this is a cool new look for WG".

I think the general consensus is more shrubberies and general foilage and less of a desertification look, but a balance between the two can probably be found intermixed. Play around with more plants, see what you come up with?

Smitehammer

Grass is for the grasslands. I would go with a more prehistoric feel to fit the general 'feel' of Morrowind. Grass is a relatively young organism for Earth.

Yeah, I agree, it could be even some grass but in small quantities and mainly yellow/orange/pale green. I don't want to see grassland 2.0

Smitehammer

Lichens might be a good alternative ground-cover, along with something akin to horsetails or scouring rush around shallow standing pools of water.

Honestly I think it's better to preserve it for Sheogorad. They remind me more north climate than some arid badlands.

Smitehammer

While the region may be generally arid, the ground textures could also hint at intermittent rain by having an appearance of cracked red clay. I could see the weather of West Gash being long periods of drought, interspersed with sudden torrential downpours and flash flooding. Look at dry creek-beds for some inspiration.

In Tennessee we also have regions called Cedar Glades with very shallow soil and bare rock which are bone-dry in the summer, and standing water when it rains. The prarie plants in these regions have to be able to handle very arid conditions and poor soils, as well as flooding conditions. It's a way to match the atmosphere of what the West Gash might be like without going for the 'wild west' look. Replace the 'cedar' with 'roobrush' and you're good to go!

I think this is good direction. Just making slopes more gentle and less monolith (a lot of rubble), making ground more rocky will solve most problems IMHO.

Well i made those pieces deliberately at the time for a wild west feel. Nobody complained at the time. Or did u not have the guts to disapprove of the design when I did it, but only when cresty uses them, 4 months too late?

I don't understand need to create additional assets for such small area (there are not some sort of "hero" assets) In worst case it can be just recolored skyrim assets. I think main problem is just sticking out monolith rocks. Here can be used mainly assets marked circle. And put on them some mid-size rocks, somehow "blended" eachother (yeah I know it's not this stage for that)

I don't think assets are a problem Rav, I think it's the placement that is causing the association. Mind you we're making all these judgments from a single screenshot so maybe we should all stop armchairing a bit and wait for these to be in the game so we can walk around and really get a feel for the general idea.

Yeah, it's the placement that is the issue, the assets are great. It just resembles Monument Valley a bit too much when isolated on an open plain like that. The assets themselves are great, and look perfect along the cliffs, as seen so far with North West Gash, and soon on either side of the passes to the south.

Sigh

Still it would be nice to have some deformed pieces of rock.
Retextured Skyrim assets from lukkar's link are much more chaotic.
I didnt seen any broken examples, or just single pieces of same material.

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Have to remember : there is/was earthquakes on island.
+ Maybe some rocks can be placed with noticeable sloping to add diversity.
+ Many parts of such stone walls can be broken at the middle with small rocks around.
+ Also that's why i want to see most of arches and stone columns broken.