I thought I would make this guide for all of you to look over in case any of you ever think about making areas for BG:TSCC. This guide does not go into the details of area building and expects you to have some proficiency with the toolset. This guide focuses on my own personal preferences to building an exterior area with regards to the step by step process.
If you ever wish to build an area for BG:TSCC I will ask that you submit each step of this process such that it can be looked over and adjusted before you put in additional time just to see it wasted.
Step 1. Research, Research Research
Any area you build needs to have been fully researched. You need to know all the details of that area with regards to lore and the surrounding areas. Also, you will need to know all the lore with regards to any creatures you plan on having inhabit the area. The approximate location will also need to be submitted on a map of Faerun. Google "Faerun Map" and I am sure you will find plenty. Edit it in paint or whatever program is your preference and send it my way.
Step 2. Number of Areas, Area Size, and Area Features
You need to decide early on how large your areas are going to be and how many of them there will be. You should always aim for doing the most with as little possible. Once you have an idea for how many areas there will be, their approximate sizes, and any features or landmarks send that information my way.
The rest of this guide pertains to exteriors only.
Step 3. Creating your height map
During this step you will have to decide on all your general elevations of your area and fine tune it where you can. Put generic placeables or way point markers with labels to show where certain features, landmarks, etc.. will be located. Also work out all your general walkmeshes with regards to the area, not objects you place, and bake the area. Once you have finished this step, export the area, compress it, and send it to who your working under. Do nothing more until you hear back from myself or who your working under. There is a very good chance things may need adjustment.
Examples:
Rough Height Map
Detailed Height Map
Step 4. Texturing
This step can be broken down into 3 parts,
- i. Your Base Texture: Here you need to decide what base texture(s) you will use for your area. There are many ways to go about this. You can use the filler and replace the entire current texture, you can individualy select the grid units and change each each base texture as you like, you can do a combination of the above, you can can have a multi-layered base texture. There are many different things you can do, but you need to think very carefully about this as going backwards to fix things with textures can become very tedious.
Example: TT_GG_Grass_03 as a Base and then painting over the entire area TT_GD_Dirt_05 set at 50%. This will create a base of 50/50 for each of these textures, sorta like mixing paint.
ii. Detailed and Refined Texturing: This is where your area really starts to come to life as you texture things like cliffs, roads, river beds, muddy sections, sandy sections, etc... Remember to be careful with what you set your percentage for each texture. If you mess up you can always Control Z up to 5 times. If it is really bad you can always go 100% on your base texture (or combo like I did in the example 50/50 of two textures) and that will remove all the detailing you did. Take your time, and don't forget to use fading techniques such that your detailing doesn't look abrupt, unless that is what you are going for. Your detailing here with the textures is very important. You can draw a player to their death, a prize, a monster, or a combination of many things by texturing. Also you should attempt to further refine your height map here and there while texturing since you can better see it after doing so.
Examples:
Detailed Texturing of a Cliff
Refined Texturing of a Cliff
Detailed Texturing of a Dirt Road
Refined Texturing of a Dirt Road
Detailed Texturing of an Area
iii. Shading: This is more subtle than detailed texturing but just as important, and you can do amazing things with shading if done right. You actually don't find this tool under the texturing tab (retarded I know) but will find it under the Terrain Tab/Color. Now you can color your textures anything you like. Keep in mind that if you mess up on your shading you can Control Z back just like textures and that using the color pure white is like an eraser.
The previous project was canceled, so I will use a current project I am working on to give a simple example of shading and what you can do. Here are a couple pics of an exterior area made to look like an interior cave. What you see here is a chasm dividing the area in two. Make note of how I made the chasm seem very deep with the shading, and made the top of the chasm seem to go up forever as well.
Examples:
Before Shading:
After Shading:
Also, keep in mind your fog and lighting settings when you are doing your shading. Your lighting and fog settings have a major impact on what your shading will look like after you are finished.
