Groundcover index and Mesh-Gen tool

Added preliminary pages for these to collate poorly understood/documented aspects of groundcover, particularly lacking for MGE-XE

Author: MasssiveJuice08

mmw-content/assets/modding-tools/mesh-gen/screenshot-of-morrowind-groundcover-generator.png

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+---
+title: Groundcover
+aliases:
+  - Groundcover
+tags:
+  - Groundcover
+  - Lawnmower
+  - Mesh-Gen
+  - Groundcoverify
+  - Grass
+description: Creating and managing animated grass for MGE-XE and OpenMW
+---
+## Creating and managing animated grass for MGE-XE and OpenMW
+
+Both [[MGE-XE]] and [[OpenMW]] support animated, instanced grass called **groundcover**. 
+
+Groundcover allows the rendering of hundreds of grass meshes per cell at low performance cost. In addition, these meshes are animated to simulate blowing in the wind ('grass-swaying') and will deform as if pushed aside when colliding with the player ('grass-stomping'). To achieve this, mods adding groundcover must be handled differently from regular plugins.
+
+Whilst each game engine differs in their exact handling of groundcover, the same general principles above apply in both.
+
+## To Do
+
+> [!maintenance] 
+> 
+> ![[picture-of-divayth-fyr.png|left wtiny]]
+> 
+> > [!maintenance|clean nbrd]
+> > 
+> > **"Say. That's an interesting Dwemer piece you have there. What can you tell me about it?**
+> > 
+> > It is requested that this article, or a section of this article, be expanded.
+
+^6fc39d
+
+- Contrary to popular belief, groundcover plugins can ESM files in both MGE-XE[^1] and OpenMW[^2], and other groundcover plugins can depend on and modify these masters just like regular plugins and master files.
+- Best documentation on how MGE-XE groundcover works ironically comes from OpenMW devs.[^3]
+
+[^1]: [Hrnchamd, 'Morrowind Modding Community' Discord server, 2024-08-16](https://discord.com/channels/210394599246659585/842003950723137536/1273642430876352553)
+[^2]: [S3ctor, 'OpenMW' Discord server, 2024-08-16](https://discord.com/channels/260439894298460160/262662689489158145/1273661141146406963)
+[^3]: [forum.openmw.org, 'Animated Grass: MGE research', akortunov, 2018-03-22](https://forum.openmw.org/viewtopic.php?t=5049)

mmw-content/guides/groundcover/index.md

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+---
+title: Morrowind Groundcover Generator
+aliases:
+  - Morrowind Groundcover Generator
+  - Mesh-Gen
+  - Mesh Generator
+  - MeshGen
+tags:
+  - Mesh-Gen
+  - Groundcover
+description: A program to automatically place meshes over the Morrowind landscape according to landscape texture. Primarily used for groundcover creation.
+---
+> [!infobox|n-th]
+> 
+> ## Mesh Generator
+> 
+> > [!caption|center txt-s banner]
+> > ![[screenshot-of-morrowind-groundcover-generator.png|"screenshot of Mesh Generator for Morrowind"]]
+> > Morrowind Groundcover Generator v0.5.3
+> 
+> ### Info
+> 
+> | Type | Name |
+> | --- | --- |
+> | **Links** | [Github](https://github.com/Yacoby/mw-groundcover-generator)<br>[NexusMods](https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/23065/) |
+> | **Author** | Yacoby |
+> | **Current Version** | 0.5.3 |
+
+## About
+
+**Morrowind Groundcover Generator**, also known as Mesh Generator or <abbr title="Mesh Generator">Mesh-Gen</abbr>, is a program for generating randomly placed objects in [exterior cells](https://tes3cs.pages.dev/building-and-editing/world/exterior-cell).
+
+Although it is primarily used for the creation of [[guides/groundcover/index|groundcover]] mods, any static object can be placed _en masse_ using the tool - for example, `Ex_T_menhir_L_01`.