[World Building] Aémere Forest (None-Official Name) [Progress]

[~sInX]

Necesarry Improvements:

-Add Detail Doodads (Grass, Bushes...)
-Add Medium Size Bush Objects
-Add Rock Objects
-Worldbuild/texture rocky areas on the grass parts
-Add unevenesses on the grass parts (using a 5-10 brush)
-Replace the WotLK light objects with fewer simple torches (instead of 3 lanterns spawn 1 torch)

|>>>Update # 4: In-Game Screenies<<<|

Finally bothered to save all three ADTs in Taliis (that i've world-built on) so that .mdx would show up in-game. Ignore the shadowed-terrain chunks; they can easily be fixed in Noggit - i just cba atm. Tell me what you guys think. Comment ffs. 400 views 9 replies? Come on people!



























































----------End of Update # 4--------

|>>>Update # 3: Rock-Face Texturing<<<|

So i went back and re-textured all the rock-based chunks in both ADTs (obviously refering to Bjarke's advice). Take a look at the results:

Opinions are appreciated

-----------End Of Update-------------

|>>>Update # 2<<<|

So i went back to my initial adt (27/23) and after improving both 22 + 23 with over 300 extra doodads + texturing i think i can move on to the next adt without this ocd bugging me regarding these two not being perfect. Take a look:

Opinions

-------END OF UPDATE # 2-------

Updated Pics + Info!

Fixed up the ADT directly beside my initial edit (therefore leaving me currently with two complete ADTs). My first ADT is scheduled to be worked on directly after i post this (adding objects.. already edited textures throughout). Take a look:













































Opinions

-------------------------End of Update------------------------

Presents:

Aémere Forest

Hey. So i found some work i did around a month and a half for modcraft which was discontinued and decided to pick it up again :P This is acting as my aspirant work for EC. Named it Aémere Forest (although will have to discuss with Eluo regarding the zone name). Will feature 12 adts, a city, 3 villages and masses of 'desolate' woodland. HF / GH / Hyjal-themed, the zone itself is rather alternative with varying textures ranging from Elwynn to Duskwood. Screenies taken in Noggit, + Water has yet to be added (as can be seen in below pictures) as no current tools can endure 3.x water that may be a problem. I am (genuinly) planning on finishing this; not just some WIP that i won't bother to finish.

Two pictures below are of exact copies of the ADTs portrayed above. Not quite sure which to go for yet Doodads have NOT been added to the ADTs featured in the two screenies below + i've avoided adding WMOs as of yet to either due to the latest noggit failing at saving with them.

Tell me wht you think

[Bjarke]

Hmm, try turning the brush scale to (~)0.44 - 1.0 and turn the hardness to 80 or so. place the presure as you like it, and then start doing smaaaalll details. it looks much better then big blur'd stuff but i like it so far. great improvement in your noggit skills indeed. but the mouintians could be a bit more "soft" at some places.

EDIT: As you can see, the sharpen one looks more blizzlike then the blur'd one.
Sharpen - Blur

Oh ya, rember to use alot

[~sInX]

Hmm, try turning the brush scale to (~)0.44 - 1.0 and turn the hardness to 80 or so. place the presure as you like it, and then start doing smaaaalll details.

I'll keep that in mind & Thx for the compliment.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Oh ya, rember to use alot

A bloody ****ing lot.
You missed that especially on the mountain parts and should definitly retexture them. The ground texture seems to be pretty nice, following a natural chaotic style. Adapt that on the mountain areas as well. One texture simply is not enough.
Try splitting the setup on ADTs with Mountains this way: 2 textures for the ground, 2 textures for the rocky areas.
You can view, learn and even recreate this structure very easily on the Emerald Dream Canyon, where Blizzard uses only 4 textures (also 2 rock, 2 ground basically although one rock is also used as dirt which is perfectly ok as well but it also plays a big role on the rock areas).
Using the opacity slider Bjarke just posted a picture of enables you to create the feeling of 6-8 textures on an ADT instead of 4, which is really, really necessary to be used.
Work your way from ~20% opacity up to a MAXIMUM of 70%. Don't use more than that, blizzard doesn't either (Okay on some very, very few rock parts but it still doesn't look good).
Also try texturing most things with a brush lower than 1. Best thing would be the 0.1 brush but I don't know if it works correctly in the newest version of noggit 3. Add some (=lots of) branches of ground texture AND rock texture to the mountain/rock areas. These branches can be seen in almost every level style of blizzard's, but once you're at it you can also have quite a nice look at it in the Emerald Dream Canyon too.
Now if you're really into learning something from the texturing there I suggest you switch the 4 textures of EDC to a blue, a yellow, a red and a green texture and you'll be able to view those techniques in a even better way. You'll be able to see how they create totally new colors using the opacity level.

Now the spawning part. I know it's not finished so I'm giving you the basics of what the EC team expects you to do.
It is your job as a worldbuilder to create this magic, the atmosphere of the given concept and also make people getting in touch with this area for the first time feel it too.
Now a forest is not simply more trees than on some other zones, there is a shipload more to it, especially speaking of the smaller doodads most mediocre worldbuilders will miss:
-mushrooms, hundreds of them
-more rocks
-fields of flowers, a few (Blizzard finally realized putting several flowers into one model actually save them time in WotLK so go check there)
And now the most important thing next to trees in a forest:
-bushes, thousands of them. Literally.
Plus lots and lots of more trees. Yeah you started pretty good, but my lawn looks like dat, and it's not a forest You get what I mean I guess.

To consolidate the bush and tree thing have a look here:


If you look closely you'll find that you don't even SEE ANY GROUND AT ALL because there's thousands of bushes around. Yes, it's quite a pain in the ass spawning all that but decent worldbuilding/level design isn't something easy. (Of course when talking about having it rated by people more into real game development and design and not just a bunch of WoW playing kids with a lack of the latter Just speaking the truth)

Now I hope you can implement those thoughts and definitly looking forward to the finished version of this. I guess it's gonna be something you can really be proud of Just keep going, have a look at real forests, adapt, add you own style and you'll see you'll get a really decent qualitatively high area.
Good luck on that

[~sInX]

Just finished reading thru tht wall of text :P Tbh i can see it acting as a great help, and i dok appreciate it excesively. I will take all of your ideas into account and ofc your opinions on what looks good a someone whom i presume has experience in this I think i'll perfect this adt before moving on. Once again, thanks Bjarke and Mictlantecuhtli :P

[I Hypnotoad I]

tl;dr.

Only saw the pic, you probably expect him to be THAT awesome and do something like that. Also, good job Bjarke, You two are actually getting along now. XD

Ontopic: Very nice job, I might've showed you something almost exactly like this a month ago that I was working on SiN, I doubt you took the idea from me though, but even if you did, I wouldn't care.

Good luck with this project. =)

[iMurloc]

I think his looks pretty sick Great Job and Good Luck with it!

[~sInX]

Klkl. Updated with more recent work.

[Bjarke]

Hmm, i think theres a bit to much fog, and the texture details on the mouintains is poor. rember to scale down and do looooow details, especially on mouintains / roads, because thats the thing ppl will see most.
EDIT: id suggest makeing the mouintians a darker texture, or make some dirt splashes at them, like this: 3D - 2D

[~sInX]

Klkl. I'll focus on improving the texturing on these two ADTS before moving on Thx for those examples Bjarke.

[Eluo]

Nice update...
4 things:

-Right now i like your doodad placing very much...keep on goin like that.

-The hills need more steps or a defenite style of build.Decide one and try to hold that style through the whole area. Right now i think your little hills need more 'green steps'.
what i exatly mean with that can be seen here:



-Make the whole area more unflattern. In your area everything goes liear up and down. Dont do that it makes the area looking to 'perfekt' and with that bad. No Real landscape is compleatly going up and down so linear...try to get that ingame.
Here you can see again what i mean with that:



-Higher/lower the whole street from the rest of the ground.

[Ac3s]

very well done u should put some fences and some light posts sorta like elwyn

[techniquees]

Have I been out of the game so long that people are actually making good looking roads nowdays?

This is the first topic I've looked at on here since I last logged on..whenever that was.. And by christ the standards around here have stepped up a little if this is one of many

Otherwise I may have just stumbled on the only gd looking map on the forum.

Also, hooray for the updated tools I spawz. Simplify ftw.

[~sInX]

Haha, thanks techniquess. The truth is this took me a good week or two to come up with. I did get a lot of help from Bjarke and Eluo on msn and ICQ for techniques on how to improve this so many credits to them :P

Also, 3.x.x noggit is nice; but it is only in it's alpha stages and there are still many bugs. Tbh texturing and terrain-editing is done in 2.x.x before-hand. THEN (preferably)opened in 3.x.x and fixed up in 3d with more convenient terrain-editing brush speeds etc :P

Neways thanks for your comments guys. Inspiring The more people who like this the better.

very well done u should put some fences and some light posts sorta like elwyn

No? This isn't supposed to look like elwynn lmao. In fact i'm going for a rather contrasting theme. Almost like a Hyjal / Howling Fjord / Grizzly Hills style that's slowly being 'corrupted', if you will (hence the fog). There is a lack of civilisation in the area, therefore, a lack of fences.

[Demonshade]

No? This isn't supposed to look like elwynn lmao. In fact i'm going for a rather contrasting theme. Almost like a Hyjal / Howling Fjord / Grizzly Hills style that's slowly being 'corrupted', if you will (hence the fog). There is a lack of civilisation in the area, therefore, a lack of fences.

So you have well defined roads and lamp posts which seems to imply civilization yet you think that fences are too much? IMO, fences imply civilization much less then lamp posts. Who replaces the candles if no one is around? Also, ingame it looks much less eerie. The fog is nice and all, but doesnt fit with the lighting. Either make the sky darker or take the fog out imo. Other then that, great job