Thread: Haevenstad Harbor and the Ydisian Coast

I think your scenario for Hævenstadt's formation is plausible from a geological standpoint.

I'd even add that from the flatness of the area close to the coast this seems to be a passive continental margin and such cliffs probably indicate a fault scarp going along it. In all probability and given how rift opening works besides normal faults parallel to the coast there are also strike-slip faults perpendicular to it. Now mind you these wont be particularly active now but an area where they cross could accumulate more tension than other parts besides providing a spot where the sea and rain can sink their teeth into as it were.
So what's keeping other spots in the coast with similar arrangement from developing harbours? As you say this is the one the one earthquake-induced landslide that stopped just short of the sea level and in a more or less leveled way. However I think raising the harbour plain as it meets the cliffs wouldn't be out of order.

@ Nomadic : Yep, you mentioned that over in the Challenge Forum. I suppose I should have mentioned that I'm currently living in Tigard, but grew up in Florence and had relatives that lived up in the Puget Sound area, so I spent quite a bit of time up there as well.

@ Dracontes : Thanks for the bit of technical back-up. I am far from being an expert when it comes to fault lines and such. More often than not, I do just enough research to get myself in trouble. As for sloping at the base of the cliffs and where the land has collapsed, I was considering that, or possibly working it up as a "pile of rubble." One of my other thoughts is that the engineers have done some mining beneath the upper portion of the city, so there might even be a few terraces and "murder holes" along the cliff faces.

@ SG : Yeah, at that scale it is kind of hard to see. That's the one frustrating thing about Terragen and using textures. You have to be at "just the right distance" with the camera to get the textures to appear clean.


In any event, I was thinking about this project at work last night, more specifically, how I was going to manage the regional render in FTPro without hours and hours of editing the coast line. Somewhere in the midst of all that thinking, I was hit by an epiphany, so I'll be taking a day or two off from the project to work out a few details and then offering up a new tutorial (hopefully a far better one than my original FTPro to Terragen tutorial which, btw, is being re-written) for FTPro that takes advantage of the coloring schemes and the Color to Altitude Conversion.

Thanks again for all the opinions and input, every little bit helps.

GW

Okay, so my Color to Altitude Conversion idea didn't work out the way I hoped. Bummer because it would have made things so very much easier. In any event, I'm back to work on the regional map and have, for the most part, hammered out the continent (and a few surrounding islands) that Haevenstadt is a part of. Did a little Terraformer work with this to get an idea of the climates in question, but they will need to be tweaked a bit.

The harbor itself is kind of hard to see at this scale, but if you look closely you can see it just above the middle of the continent on the western coast. As for the compass and scale, they're not finalized. They're just there as a point of reference for now.

GW

Hævenstadt in the Rough

Even though I'm not quite finished editing the continent, I wanted to get an idea of what things were going to look like once I started rendering in Terragen, so I snatched a small piece of the elevation file and worked it up roughly. Obviously there is still a bit of editing to do. The two big things that I'm hoping to accomplish in the next day or so is the adding of rubble along the base of the cliffs between Upper and Lower Hævenstadt. I also mentioned the possibility of terraced regions along the cliff face, but I haven't settled on that 100 percent just yet. I also need to pick a good spot to create the "promenade" between the two portions of the town, but that is going to have to wait for a little bit. My only other big concern is whether or not I will have to "level" some of the areas that Upper Hævenstadt will be resting. While I don't mind the rolling hill effect, I think it might be a bit too much for a town that is slowly becoming a major trade center along such a brutal coast.

On a side note, I did a little surface mapping to get a better idea of where the hills and valleys are, implementing a little slope restriction, and added a strata effect to the cliff faces. There is a hint of texturing in the coloring, but not a purposeful one. I'm not going to bother with trying to texture things at this early stage of development since it is, at least in Terragen, a royal pain in the hindquarters to get all the scaling set up so that the texturing shows through like it should. It isn't much just yet, but now is just as good a time as any to share the progress and get a little bit of feedback on what I'm trying to accomplish. As always, opinions and suggestions are more than welcome.

GW

The cliffs are gorgous! Just model a couple of spitfires flying over them and it will be just right

Originally Posted by ravells

The cliffs are gorgous! Just model a couple of spitfires flying over them and it will be just right

Thanks for the compliment, but about the spitfires . . . Oh sure, just what a bunch of hammer throwing dwarfs, arrow firing elfs and god-fearing humans need, modern technology flying overhead! But it would look good, wouldn't it?

GW

P.S. Strata effects are one of the things that Terragen is exceptionally good at, all you need is a 1px wide coloring file and then a "clouded" height map and presto, instant strata. I will, however, have to figure out a good way to add a bit of vegetation hanging over the upper edges of the cliffs and some lichen along the water level, but that is for another day.

So I'm thinking maybe a little motion blur to sweep the upper elevations inland a little bit. It wouldn't exactly "level" anything out, but the windward slopes would be a little more gradual while the leeward slopes would be a little more aggressive, possibly giving a little more of an erosion effect. Anyone have any thoughts on this, or am I searching for needles in a haystack?

GW

Just to take a break, I started fiddling around with a few things on a more local view of the harbor. It's still very rough, but I wanted to see what things looked like at a closer view. Just for the sake of throwing out an idea, I tossed in a rough river with a set of falls dumping into the harbor. Again, all very rough, and I haven't detailed in the lower land mass yet. Not sure yet, just how I'm going to approach the texturing since Terragen seems to be balking my every attempt, but I will work it out eventually. And then, of course, there will be the roads, buildings and other assorted features to work out, but I'm nowhere near that stage just yet. Still any thoughts are welcome.

GW

Still working on the coastline with this update. I did drop in the lower portion of the town as well as some "off-shore" reefs and islands. Brought up some wave effects as well, but I am a bit concerned that they are too a bit too much. I am also concerned that the land (particularly the land above the cliff faces) isn't aggressive enough. That may be tough to tweak out, but I can do it bit by bit if it seems reasonable. For the most part, I am still trying to lay out the foundations of everything and get a good idea of where it needs to go, but at this point, I am getting happier with the results even if they are coming in small steps. Thoughts, opinions and/or suggestions?

GW