Hill size & elevation in general

Gabe · February 9, 2014, 8:46pm

I’ve read the great blog post about the map size, compression and avoiding things like 30m high “mountains”. But I have also been staring (and drooling a little) at the animated header of this website, particularly at it’s right edge, where it seems that the scene takes place on a hill that is really high above the surrounding countryside. So my question is:

How high is the highest hill going to be? Are there actually any beautiful vistas around Rataje, or will you create some artificially?

I mean - although Oblivion was potato-land, looking back at the Imperial city from the surrounding “mountains” is something that I remember fondly.

Jorge · February 10, 2014, 12:29am

I think based on what they have told us, the maps are going to be mostly based on real-world locations so from looking at that area it’s more like hills and plains. Once in a while there are probably terrains with mountains.

Dekssan · February 11, 2014, 3:25pm

There are no major hills or mountains in this area. And i doubt they will make any just to have some of it here.

Gabe · February 11, 2014, 3:52pm

I think so too. But their trailer video and website header had me wondering.

Freix · February 11, 2014, 5:07pm

The point is not that there won’t be 30 meters high hill, but that they won’t call it “the biggest mountain in th e world”, but simply “small hill”…

Lieste · April 14, 2014, 11:16pm

Without actually looking at the locales contained in the map extents, and the effect of horizontal scaling (confirmed) on the vertical distribution, I’d be very surprised if the vertical extent exceeded 200m, but equally think this is ‘around’ what would be the local maximum extent, based on the min/max elevations in a screen-full of SRTM-3 data at 1:100k

This is hilly, but not mountainous, roughly comparable to what is near my home city, though being ‘river cut plateau’ I have more abrupt relief.

Gently rolling is probably the most appropriate description, with local prominence being less than half the maximum extent.

FWIW this size of hill is something either so shallow that I don’t need to reduce speed to walk up, or short enough that I can ‘attack’ a steeper slope… if it were 200m or more, I’d find it necessary to rest, or to slow down from my ‘average day pace’ while climbing, particularly with the steeper slopes, although even a shallow, long hill can take it’s toll eventually.