How (not?) To Develop A Mod, Part Two

Work is currently progressing slowly on a level for "5," and a few things can be learned here:

Be careful with Displacements.

The level (like the mod) will be quite displacement intensive but to a lesser extent than the main island. You have to plan carefully with displacement textures because

-They're a bitch to manipulate when you need to do fine detail work
-It's difficult to fix a displacement when you screw up
-It's difficult to make a displacement look realistic when you're working on large terrain with lower numbers of displacement verticies
-Texture contineuity (making the ground appear natural) is also difficult to achieve
-Sew can be detrimental to map progress if you sew too early, because it will link the displacements improperly and you will see big seams in the displacements on compile

A few positive things:

-Combine scanner units are incredibly easy to put in a level- just place a few info_node_airs in logical sweep patterns around the area you want patrolled and the scanners will sweep the area automatically and take pictures of the player and other npcs.

-trigger_waterydeath is also relatively easy to implement and will help you block off waterways or oceans when necessary.

-Soundscapes do a lot to add to atmosphere when implemented appropriately.

More updates as development progresses.