With an approximated landmass of more than 160.000 Oblivion cells (which is more than 545 kilometres of walkable land) Adventure Middle Earth is one of the biggest mod projects ever started. According to this it is not astonishing that creating the giant landmass takes a lot of time. This is why our Co-Teamleader und Lead 2D Artist Seven-D. is working on a new heightmap creating the whole at one fell swoop.
Oblivion is supplying us with lots of new possibilities as far as landscape creation is concerned: Much higher density of details, freely adjustable waterlevels and an extreme far view. These possibilities made it inevitable to elaborate the heightmap further.
With the new demands for the terrains the generators we used before to erode and filter the landscape reached their limits. It has never been possible to make big and differently looking landscapes look exactly the way we wanted them to look. We needed more control over the terrain...
Just then GeoControl saw the light of day. And the name holds what it promises.
GeoControl is a new and innovate terrain generator. Its DLG (Dynamic Level Generation) and DLB (Dynamic Level Brush) make it possible to edit every pixel individually and to paint whatever we want into the landscape. An exact description of the programme can be found here:
GeoControlWith the help of these tools and the immense mass of filters and terrain options, which can all be combined and varied with each other, we have all we need to create millions of individual landscapes which we never dared to dream about before.
Seven-D. has now bought a license of GeoControl and will revise the heightmap he has created and make it reach is limits. Furthermore he will work as a Beta-Tester of future versions of GeoControl and thus help optimizing the programme for the gaming industry.
To give you some impressions of the development of the heightmap we have made two new screenshots from the programme:
An excerpt of the Blue Mountains from the painted heightmap, which shows the different height layers:
GeoControl Screenshot 1
Having edited it with GeoControl (erosions and other filters) it looks like this:
GeoControl Screenshot 2
The screenshots are still from the test phasis and can differ from the final look. But it is fact that we now have all possibilities to create every inch of Middle Earth in a unique way and thus give it something special without having placed the first blade of grass in the landscape.
GeoControl will speed up Seven-D.'s work a lot and will help us to give all players of AME a landscape full of details which does not have to hide behind professional game design companies.
We hope that you enjoy our screenshots
your AME-Team