[updated] Solstheim landscaping update 5.07.15

Solstheim landscaping update 4.20.15

Progress update on Solstheim.

I've mostly concentrated on the South West forested area around Raven Rock and a little bit on the South East side of the island.

For now I'm mostly working on look development and basic layout as well as general landscaping, additional detailing should be done after I, or someone else, has completed the rest of the terrain and re-texturing

The basic idea I'm working with is that Solstheim was born from undersea volcanic activity, which explains the basalt columns. Also at times large slabs of bedrock have been uplifted from lava and earthquakes. Raven Rock mines the basalt as well as ebony. It would be cool if the rock construction material of the buildings of Raven Rock are darker in color to portray the idea that the builders would have used the local resources. Also the town is very mudding as befitting its location so the buildings could have raised porches and wood planks laid over the ground as a sort of corduroy road. The coast is very rocky, lined with large rocks protruding from the water and basalt columns pocking out of eroded cliff sides.

One thing I've been thinking about is how to differentiate it from Skyrim. Due to the islands location it's probably some mix of Skyrim and Morrowind. Perhaps something more like Greenland but with more trees, or parts of Alaska.

Obviously very WIP with lots of work to still do, even in the areas most worked on.

Last edited by Jethro on 7 May 2015 - 02:33.

This is spot on, very nice

This is spot on, very nice landscaping :-)

Oh damn, this is looking

Oh damn, this is looking fantastic!

I'm really liking your use of elevation and rocks. Also feel free to message me with any 3d asset requests and we can discuss timeframes for getting them made. Currently the houses and buildings are quite low on our priority list, However the Imperial fort tileset should be getting made in the next month or so

Great, I was a bit worried

Great, I was a bit worried about the cliffs because I've read that some people have complained before about excessive cliffs in Skyrim vs. original morrowind.

One custom model I would really like eventually is a large stone raven statue that I want to place on the edge of the cliffs overlooking Raven Rock. Places are usually named a specific thing for a reason, whether that be what explorers first found there or what the native's called the area. The raven statue and other environmental queues can be used by the player to infer details about the settlement.

A remnant from when Nords inhabited the island before settling upon Skyrim. Nords have a obvious celtic theme running through them complete with monolithic standing stones, burial mounds, and cairn's so taking ideas from that culture is something we can work with. The raven is also a very widely used symbol in Celtic mythology and can perhaps be a clue as to the nature of the original Nordic settelers.

Another thing that is interesting is the difference between the burial mounds of Skyrim, where they are constructed entirely of stone, and that of Morrowwind-Era Solstheim, where the mounds are covered in earth. We can use the opportunity to show how the early nords lived. The difference between the two cultural eras is a story in itself.

[External image][External image][External image]

What about a rock that Could

What about a rock that Could be interpreted as a raven, rather than having a actual raven statue, that way its more of a hidden thing. Its also not super hard to do either, Since it can be very rough. That may also be a cool idea for one of the concepter artists to throw a concept together for

Right I actually had that

Right I actually had that thought as well. Perhaps making a sort of spread wing raven out of the rocks that overlook Raven Rock. Or something like that.

I can't speak from a

I can't speak from a "landscaper" perspective or "lore" perspective, but damn, that landscaping looks beautiful! You made it look like a place that I'd really like to explore.

Keep at it, Jhetro! [External image]

i tried to make it look more

i tried to make it look more natural but it looks rather sculpted.

If you would change belly to

If you would change belly to rough plane stone and fuse beak with head - it would be more "natural stone".

Couldn't Raven Rock just be a

Couldn't Raven Rock just be a reference to the dark colour of the surface ebony ore deposits in the area?

TemporaryMan wrote:

TemporaryMan
Couldn't Raven Rock just be a reference to the dark colour of the surface ebony ore deposits in the area?

Sure but what I had in mind was something that the early Nord settlers may have built overlooking their burial mounds or settlements. Could be both - A raven carved from a particularly massive Ebony node.

That sculpture looks excellent, the chiseled look is fine imo, but needs weathering.

According to lore, the site

According to lore, the site where Raven Rock sits was just an uninhabited patch of snow in the Hirstaang Forest. There was no mention of any Nordic significance to the area until later in the 4th Era when miners broke into an ancient burial tomb deep underground--which shut the mine down until the Dovahkiin clears the Draugr. It may just be a case of pareidolia that a rock looks vaguely like a raven in some way (Rock looks like the head and beak) that caused the naming of the settlement.

Maybe use some of these to

Maybe use some of these to spice up landscaping? It is a free resource

http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/58859/

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They look very good! But in

They look very good! But in my opinion they are too realistic and too much "real world" and would break immersion if they were put on Solstheim.

Dr.G wrote:

Dr.G
According to lore, the site where Raven Rock sits was just an uninhabited patch of snow in the Hirstaang Forest. There was no mention of any Nordic significance to the area until later in the 4th Era when miners broke into an ancient burial tomb deep underground--which shut the mine down until the Dovahkiin clears the Draugr. It may just be a case of pareidolia that a rock looks vaguely like a raven in some way (Rock looks like the head and beak) that caused the naming of the settlement.

From what lore I was able to research through the wiki and other sources, in the late Merethic Era Solstheim was a battlefield between fleeing snow elves and the invading army of Ysgramor. Ysgramor was Atmoran, the early ancestor of "modern" Nords" and developed a runic transcription of Nordic speech. Also just because the game doesn't clearly state there was no signifigance doesn't mean we can't add some history to the area. The area has several burial mounds just outside of town, it's reasonable to think that the mounds were located there for a reason. Perhaps for cultural or religous reasons, or the site may have been the location of a battle. I would need to do more research of Nordic burial traditions to find out what makes sense.

Where in the lore does it state that the area was a uninhabited patch of snow prior to the founding of Raven Rock? I would assume that there may not have been much there, but it could have been built upon the ruins of a older settlement as well. Unless the lore states otherwise of course, the lack of specific history doesn't mean it couldn't have happened, and Bethesda has the tradition of leaving such matters open ended to invite theories and future additions.

Also the area that the Dovahkiin breaks into was of course there for quite some time and got there somehow. Lore-wise it is a ancient Nordic burial site.

Dr.G wrote:

Dr.G
According to lore, the site where Raven Rock sits was just an uninhabited patch of snow in the Hirstaang Forest. There was no mention of any Nordic significance to the area until later in the 4th Era when miners broke into an ancient burial tomb deep underground--which shut the mine down until the Dovahkiin clears the Draugr. It may just be a case of pareidolia that a rock looks vaguely like a raven in some way (Rock looks like the head and beak) that caused the naming of the settlement.

Mmmmkay. So there was an expansion that came out for Morrowind called Bloodmoon, which included Solstheim. This was intended to happen around the same time as the Nerevarine was traipsing around Vvardenfell thwarting the forces of Dagoth Ur, a few years before the Oblivion crisis. The Skaal were also in this expansion. The Skaal of Solstheim are basically like the people of Iceland compared to other people of Scandinavia. The Skaal language and culture are a more pure form of the language and culture coming from Atmora, while mainland Nords' language was heavily influenced by the dragon-tongue, and their eventual religion was heavily influenced by the Aldmeri's Eight Divines.

Point is, Solstheim since it's inclusion in the universe (in the Bloodmoon expansion) has had significant Nord presence since driving the Falmer off with their last "Snow Prince" aeons ago. The island ~should~ have Falmer ruins, and ancient Nord (Skaal) burial sites. There was a glacial ice castle on the northern end built by a frost giant and maintained by reiklings. There was no mention of Dwemer ruins, and there were no Dunmer living on Solstheim as originally planned.

Of course there should have been Falmer ruins (not Dwemer) in Skyrim, as well. But Bethesda has decided they're going to throw Dwemer everywhere from here on out, so why not?

Oh. Ravenrock. Yeah, probably just named for ebony. Could have a small statue of a literal raven rock carved by the docks or something, I suppose. I wouldn't make it ebony, or even that fancy. Ebony is worth quite a lot. The ebony statue in Ebonheart is a symbol to the people of Morrowind that the Empire has forced their gods to bend the knee. It's an imperial trade port intentionally built around the metropolitan hub of Morrowind to show off. Ravenrock's a tiny mining town that only just sprang up because a small amount of ebony was found there.

I have no idea why the hell the Empire would built a fort on that crappy little island. To defend against... who exactly? They would have been better off just sending a few members of the imperial legion to help build up defenses around Raven Rock to protect the town from the local savages. Anyway. Bloodmoon was always the weakest link of the Morrowind games. Not a lot made sense there.

Is the landmass of Solstheim

Is the landmass of Solstheim for Skywind using the height map from Bloodmoon or Dragonborn? We may as well just use Dragonborn, since the map is larger and already has most of what we'd need mapped out. It would just be a matter of taking out the Redoran-style Ravenrock and replacing it with an imperial village, removing the 'Dragonborn' constructions (since those won't be built for 200 years), and getting the imperial fortress ruins back up on their feet. Any extra interiors needed for quests could just be added to the landmass, and extraneous dungeons could be kept as they are, like the Dwemer ruins.

This would probably save a lot of time, and it would be neat to see the before and after comparison of what would be a 'familiar' world-space to the players, rather than a completely new take on Solstheim.

I've explained to Smitehammer

I've explained to Smitehammer the issues with this and how far progress is on the morrowind worldspace Solstheim. From 9.6 things were coming along nicely with a nice blend of DB lore aspects from what I saw.

I don't know why we should

I don't know why we should treat name "Raven Rock" so direct. I think it would be good to add sth similar like below.

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Bear rock on Guam island. Just creating sth more or less similar to raven hanging above town.

One thing more. Moesring

One thing more. Moesring Mountains were quite boring in MW. I don't think we should keep Skyrim look too. I found some examples which could add some fresh new view. Even when it will need new assets it would be quite easy to do IMHO. (Just monolith rock with existing textures). And some info from wiki.

refs

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I think having mountains such

I think having mountains such as that would darastically change the morphology of the island. It would look cool but not like Solstheim as is in MW. Plus would require a bunch more assets and right nowmy goal is to get the island built without needing many new assets (we can talk about adding new stuff later after I have the initial layout done.)

One thing I've been thinking about is how to handle the large random boulders, their geologically a bit weird. They appear to be just really large boulders that randomly dot the landscape. How they got there I have no idea so I've just been working off the idea that they are left over from the land being eroded away.

Heres a updated image of the SE coast I've been working on.

Does anyone know how to get rid of the black spots? I assume they are shadows from trees that may have been on the original MW map that were used for placement by a previous person? I'm not sure if that's from the distant terrain texture or how it was done.

Heres a update of the SE coast.

Large boulders can be moved

Large boulders can be moved by ice, or simply be rocks/small mountains which has been reshaped by the ice. Search for glacial erratics on google, and a lot of this stuff should pop up. I really like your landscaping Jethro, I hope you stay with us till we have enough assets for you to take on another area :)

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Black spots are texture

Black spots are texture shadow painting. When using the texture painting tool, there is an option (checkbox in the pop-up window if memory serves correct) which will allow you to paint brightness using the left/right mouse buttons.

Smitehammer wrote:Is the

Smitehammer
Is the landmass of Solstheim for Skywind using the height map from Bloodmoon or Dragonborn? We may as well just use Dragonborn, since the map is larger and already has most of what we need mapped out. It would just be a matter of taking out the Redoran-style Ravenrock and replacing it with an imperial village, removing the Dragonborn constructions (since those won't be built for 200 years), and getting the imperial fortress ruins back up on their feet. Any extra interiors needed for quests could just be added to the landmass, and extraneous dungeons could be kept as they are, like the Dwemer ruins.

This would probably save a lot of time, and it would be neat to see the before and after comparison of what would be a familiar world-space to the players, rather than a completely new take on Solstheim.

I was going to ask this as well, seems like a good idea.

taerkalith
I've explained to Smitehammer the issues with this and how far progress is on the morrowind worldspace Solstheim. From 9.6 things were coming along nicely with a nice blend of DB lore aspects from what I saw.

Alas. Perhaps the "good blend" does a good job with everything mentioned above anyway ^_^

Being the main landscaper for

Being the main landscaper for this project, all I can say is THANK YOU. This looks fantastic and it's clear you know what you are doing. Doing the bulk of the level design work had been really stressful to me and seeing this is a huge motivator. I really hope you continue your work here and are eager for more in the future. I will definitely be showing this off in the upcoming developer video, so keep polishing it up. Amazing work Jethro.

Black spots, hm, it might

Black spots, hm, it might have something to do with this. I remember we had to fix a lot of these a while back.

http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/topic/8314-landscaping-the-dreaded-black-spot-and-what-to-do-about-it/

Thanks :D I apologize in

Thanks :D I apologize in advance if I changed anything that you may have been attached to on Solstheim. Let me know if you think anything should be left, though I've tried to incorporate the work of others as much as I could as long as it "worked."

I also apologize to anyone who may feel like I'm blowing off their ideas, rest assured I am not. I'm just trying to get by for now with what I have since I know creating new assets is an issue right now and we are concentrating in other places. It will be cool later on after the other areas are more complete to come back to Solstheim and add some more flavor to it.

Mehh wrote:

Mehh
Black spots, hm, it might have something to do with this. I remember we had to fix a lot of these a while back.

http://www.darkcreations.org/forums/topic/8314-landscaping-the-dreaded-black-spot-and-what-to-do-about-it/

This is definintly not the problem, I'm well aware of the texture limits for each quad.

I think the "shadow painting" is more likely the culprit, though it seems odd that these spots are all painted regardless of there being actual trees in that location. Which makes me wonder if it's possible a base color map was imported from MW to use as a reference. I don't know if that's possible in CK or not.