The Forest of Hoddminir

Great things are happening :)
Two weeks ago Noirdesir contacted me and asked if I needed any help with region generation for Hoddminir. And yes I most definitely did, but I hadn't planed to start with region generation until all the plant resources where done, probably sometime next spring :)
But most thing were finished  for a conifer forest, and I had just the spot, the great Hoddminir forest. Ztree also volunteered to make some more models for the forest and he has now made several beautiful scotch pines. I'm still working in branch textures so I'll show them later on.

I have just got the first test region, and I have walked around and looked at everything.
It looks fantastic :)
I thought I would give you all a sneak peak too.

/E

Moss and Shaders

One thing I have really wanted in Hoddminir is dark conifer forests where there is a thick cover of moss on every rock. With the help of ElijahHouck I now how to do that, thanks :)
The solution is called shaders, this is for example how snow is applied to buildings and stones in the game.

First of I had to extract the right nif model from the Skyrim.BSA. (Data/Meshes/shadertests/tundramossshader.nif). I then re-textured this shader nif with one of my mossy ground textures. I had to adjust the UV mapping by scaling it up 4 times so the texture would appear smaller.

In the Creation kit new shaders can be added under Material Object. I'm not completely sure yet what all settings will do, but if I want the shader to be applied on to of the object, Z should be -1. The Falloff Bias will change the thickness of the texture applied.  With higher values more of the underlying model will show. 

To associate a shader to a model, just edit and select the material in the Directional Material menu.
Now as you see unfortunately the shader will not be seen in the CK, but it will show up in the game :)

The observant watcher will see that this rook is not an original one. This is one of the rocks Ztree made and I have been re-texturing these with my rocky ground textures. And around the rock is a new Lingonberry plant I just made :)

/E