Anyone who has been following this blog for a while has probably been seeing screenshots from Iriaebor for a long time. That's because Iriaebor, the city where BD is going to take place, has proven to be an incredibly demanding area to build, and I'm still not even halfway done with it. It is 32 x 32; the city is big and demands a bunch of buildings; it is also, like Drawn Swords, built on a high point, so creating the illusion of distance is once again important here. The good thing is that the city only occupies one area (as opposed to Neverwinter or Athkatla), so once I'm done with it, I'm done with the game's only urban area (excluding interiors, of course).
Now, I haven't been working on Iriaebor consistently--I've broken away to work on other areas, particularly the High Tower and Harrowfax--and then there was also my lengthy vacation. But I've done a good deal of city work this weekend. Here's a pic to let you know how far I have to go.
7 comments:
How do you approach making terraced terrain for 3-dimensional cities? I always find myself endlessly frustrated by the need to avoid unrealistic flatness and sharp, artificial inclines, but trying to get the ground to match up with buildings is hard. "Flatten Under" inevitably flattens not just the terrain under the placeable but the terrain about twice the diameter out as well.
Ugh. 32 x 32 areas are so taxing. I'm the kind of person that likes to test a lot too and the bake time for an area that size really adds up. I'm sure it will be sweet when it's done and I've really liked what I've seen so far. Best wishes with it.
JasonNH
This makes me dizzy to look down on. Real hot-air balloon feeling. I like it.
I don't use "flatten under," but I do use the plain old flatten tool. A good strategy is to lock the building (and other placeables) in place using height/position fix and then do what you want with the terrain--flatten and shape it with raise/lower.
Jason--yes, this area is a real pain, and baking it takes *so* long. Longer than it takes water to boil when you're watching it. The most depressing part of it is knowing how *little* of the area is actually walkable--I'm a big fan of no-walk zones. I think *maybe* ten percent of this is walkable?
Glad you like it Meg!
Are you mocking me?
No!
Doing 32x32 areas is a time consuming process, but it is very rewarding. 'Flatten under' is a troublesome beast, I agree, especially if you've sculpted the terrain beforehand. I liked to make a rough idea of the terrain and put down as many placeables as possible, use 'flatten under' and then do height/position lock and tweak using raise lower.
One thing to keep in mind with a large area though... it takes quite a while for a character to get around it, so you have to be very careful to avoid having the player do lots of backtracking in quests.
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