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i have been progressing my skills in modeling geometry for objects, but when it comes to outdoor levels and scenes i can't succeed. does anyone know of places to get a learning about modeling outdoor scenes/creating outdoor level geometry? any tutorials at all will help

ummm.. this is rather broad.. could you refine that a little like ground trees outdoor buildings(houses factory's) cars... there's a lot...

like, how to build the geometry of cliffs and land--specifically, how to plan the scene design and where to start on making it. the level of detail i need right now is not much, probably just halo:combat evolved single player outdoor style. it seems like it wouldn't be that hard when i think about it, but when i try to do it i don't know how

I'm going to assume you are using max just to get my point across.
There are a ton of plugins for max to do with landscapes, and obviously i could branch out into various other programs that i could import it into it, but there are several ways you can do it natively in max.

Make a plane with a resolution you wish (the minimum first, maybe 126x126) and then use the push/pull painting tools to sculpt the basic land mass into the plane, keeping it rough at first. After you have got the basic layout of your landmass, whack on a turbosmooth and another edit poly modifier into the stack. Now sculpt in some more finer details, flattening out parts for roads and digging ditches and other crevices for water. Keeping the modifiers seperate you can go back to any point in the creation and change it around, say for instance you wanted to make the peak of the mountain higher, it would take forever to pull them all up with 4 turbosmooths on so you will go back down to the bottom of the stack and move the lower polygon mesh. You can make displacement maps with these aswell if you ever wanted to take them into a game environment.

thanks oolite, i get what you're saying and luckily i know how to apply those principles to XSI; the one thing i noticed about games like halo though is that the cliff walls are different from the terrain, and the terrain polies are deleted where the walls prevent you from going. the problems i have are mainly how to construct the walls; i suppose i should start painting terrains and try extruding parts of it to make cliffs and crevasses.