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Mozared Moderator

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Mozared

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#1 Feb 25, 2013 at 16:36 UTC - 0 likes

Weekly Terraining Exercise #116

Hello folks!

Returning from having been gone for a week, this week's WTE will be themed "Tropical Islands". As a theme I don't think we've had before, I'd like to see you guys recreate Hawaii, the Caribbean or really any kind of tropically themed island that floats your boat. While the weather outside is frightful, let's think of some place warmer.

Good luck, have fun!

The Global Information/Idea thread for Terraining Exercises can be found here:
http://forums.sc2mapster.com/development/terrain/14658-terraining-exercises-global-information-idea-thread/

Last edited Feb 25, 2013 by Mozared

Scbroodsc2 Author

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Fenix

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#2 Feb 25, 2013 at 18:11 UTC - 1 like

FTW, I might not have sc2... But, I have sc1 =D And this WTE is possible in sc1. Of course what you will see is not something you can argue about lightning, unit size, color, etc. Sc1 is very limited and making something interesting is quite hard.

I've done a kind of island with one "custom" building on it. I pretty like it considering this is sc1. I think in overall I got the "Tropical Islands".

Average knowlegde of the Trigger, Data and Terraining
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#3 Feb 26, 2013 at 00:06 UTC - 0 likes

Ive been working on these islands for some time i think they fit the discription:

One of Many Islands

http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/island-troll-tribes-remake/
Island Troll Tribes|

Scbroodsc2 Author

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#4 Feb 26, 2013 at 03:25 UTC - 0 likes

Lets be straight:

1: Your pictures are too small. You should upload them while making your post to make them load at the end of it.

2: Your water color is great. I think it fits with what someone imagine when thinking to tropical island.

3: The reflectivity on the water is less great. There is something not quite natural in these white reflects.

4: Waterfall comes from nowhere. It's like if under the mountain there was pressure that would push up the water to the waterfall... kind of weird.

5: I feel like the islands are too smooth. If there are mountains, there are rocks. It's very hard to get a good moutain that we think is big. Either you place a lot of small trees and rocks or you get a good point of view or different ground heigh variation with good texturing.

6: There are not enough rocks. Put more rocks. More more more rocks. So many rocks that David Kim's face will appear! Look at: http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/scenic-view-of-the-tropical-island-bill-curtsinger.jpg

7: I see 2 or 3 textures. You have access to 8 textures. More grass, more green, more rocky for the cliff. Mix the textures.

8: You need more types of tree in general. There are plenty of different kind. You could add vines on rocks, bushes, tree underbrush, LOS (in the case you're not making a melee map), etc.

For more feedback on smaller details we need bigger pictures. Trying to give feedback on your waterfall for example is quite impossible or on tree variety. It's too small.

So in overall, I don't feel the size of the island. I can't say by looking at it, oh it looks like 2km long. This means there is something not working in the size. Though, the map looks way enough big like it is cause we can see the texture repeat on the water. It's not easy, but you can probably get it ;)

Last edited Feb 26, 2013 by Scbroodsc2

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#5 Feb 26, 2013 at 05:58 UTC - 0 likes

Wow. Wo. Wow. Wow.

That's possible in StarEdit? I wasn't aware it could do that.

Any and all SC2 related things put on hold for now.

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#6 Feb 26, 2013 at 13:07 UTC - 0 likes

@Mozared: Go

Funny, Mozie, I honestly thought the next WTE would be 'Protoss Settlement' or something like that, and this one would be WTE 117. After all, we done Zerg Base, Terran Base, Infested Terran Base, so Protoss is what's left, I think.

Oh, well, you can't always get what you want, I suppose.

Anyways, I inspired this small, particular work on Bulletstorm, the FPS I came to like. It mixed majestic background and brutal action in a manner rarely seen in a game of such genre (But then, it came from the same guy who made Gears of War).

Name	Size	MD5
116.Tropical_Island.SC2Map	909.1 KiB	e14481f931e7...

The Light will blind you. Step away from it!!!

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#7 Feb 26, 2013 at 13:25 UTC - 0 likes

We could always do Hybrid Base.

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#8 Feb 26, 2013 at 13:58 UTC - 0 likes

@SGTMeowmers9: Go

Quote from SGTMeowmers9: Go
We could always do Hybrid Base.

Nah, we're gonna have to wait until HotS comes out. Or LotV, we don't know if we'll actually face a hybrid base on the Stukov missions or if it'll be just creatures popping out of Terran vats.

Mozared Moderator

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#9 Feb 26, 2013 at 15:47 UTC - 0 likes

@DeltaCadimus: Go

It could be sunnier, but overall I like it. Really simple, interesting take. I wouldn't mind a proper point of interest though - right now the rock tower is the main 'event'; other than that it really is just an island.

As for the WTE: a Protoss 'settlement' doesn't really exist, does it? Plus, we've had all sorts of ruins/temples. It's an interesting thought though, maybe next week could be the participants' vision of what a Protoss metropolis (Aiur) would look like. Christ, we really need some Protoss lore.

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#10 Feb 26, 2013 at 17:28 UTC - 0 likes

Critter island, we'll see if i finish this.

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#11 Feb 26, 2013 at 17:44 UTC - 0 likes

@DeltaCadimus: Go

Impressive. I like it. Large quantities of tree's while I don't get the impression of it being cluttered.

I might as well put my latest map out there for some criticism. Two selected screenshots of the most "tropical island"-like parts of the map.

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#12 Feb 26, 2013 at 18:38 UTC - 0 likes

Quote from Mozared: Go
@DeltaCadimus: Go

It could be sunnier, but overall I like it. Really simple, interesting take. I wouldn't mind a proper point of interest though - right now the rock tower is the main 'event'; other than that it really is just an island.

As for the WTE: a Protoss 'settlement' doesn't really exist, does it? Plus, we've had all sorts of ruins/temples. It's an interesting thought though, maybe next week could be the participants' vision of what a Protoss metropolis (Aiur) would look like. Christ, we really need some Protoss lore.

Well we're getting that Protoss space platform tileset in HotS so maybe then we could have more for Protoss settlements.

Also, I apologise for my absence for the past few months... still struggling with a nasty bug/cold :(

Last edited Feb 26, 2013 by Kanitala

Scbroodsc2 Author

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#13 Feb 27, 2013 at 03:47 UTC - 0 likes

Quote from SGTMeowmers9: Go
Wow. Wo. Wow. Wow.

That's possible in StarEdit? I wasn't aware it could do that.

Haha! StarEdit is eh...if Starcraft 1 only had StarEdit, the game would have died a long time ago. It has a big lack of possibilities that other known editors such as SCMDraft 2 can do. As one example, you can resize your map, place units to player 13-255, have access to a bunch of triggers that are not in StarEdit, and a whole bunch of other things.

Basicly, SC1 is in 2D. A lot of doodads are duplicated and flipped, having them in 2 directions. In SCMDraft 2 you can place what they call Sprites. It's just an image without pathing. For example, if you place a tree, the bottom part of the tree will have pathing, the top part will be a Sprite. So, in the editor you can place all the possible Sprites. I've placed some I used next to the building in this picture at the bottom of the post.

From that, I took a bunch of them and placed them in a way that creates the illusion of a building. The order in which you place them is important. If you place them in the wrong order you will see that they will not overlap correctly showing bad parts of the Sprite and disabling the illusion. As an example, I remade the top of the building in the wrong side. The effect is totally different.

However, you can't do that kind of stuff endlessly. You have a limit of 250 sprites which kind of suck. This building uses 112 sprites. Soooo... you don't make many building I guess.

@DeltaCadimus: Go

Well done. I like it, though, I don't think I would take vacations there. There is something in the atmosphere from the color that do not make this place attracting. But it is surely an island and no one said the water always had to be blue!

@SheogorathSC: Go

This is the HoTS editor that I did not opened once yet *sad face* The only time I tried to open it resulted in an error. But, seeing this kind doodads "me met l'eau à la bouche" (sorry I don't know this expression in english, but it means something like; I really want to see more). HoTS comes with a lot of new doodads and whole terrain set and the possibilities will suddenly be much bigger than what we can do at the moment in WoL. We've been making WTE with the same doodads for so long that it's now very hard to mix them in a new way. New doodads and textures like you're showing is sooooo nice. HoTS will be sooooo epic. =D

@njordys: Go

njordys, I like the paths that you made and the texture very dark for cliffs and bright for the sand. You really see what is what. But I have some troubles when it comes to tree size. When I look in overall, some trees are huge, some are very small, ok, it's fine... Then in the picture 2 I see the small house. I lose the proportions... How big is what... I mean, what if a marine was as big as the house and in fact that house was a small toy? I think what you,re trying to do is an island/land where trees growth really big...but something is missing to get the whole feeling. Are the cliffs part of the weird size? Maybe. Are the number of plants and underbrush part of the issue? Maybe. You have already many doodads under the trees, but the first thing you see is the big ball at the bottom of eatch huge tree. The color distinction between the trees and the ground texture seems to drastic. It's gray-ish over dark green.

Aw, I'm taking long time to write eatch sentence because I'm not 100% sure. I just want to say that I'm not right at all. It might be really great to your eyes, but for mines, there is something missing. Take a look at the pictures from the movie Avatar. Of course it's totally not the same deal, but look at those picture and then look at your, could you add something that would make your forest, the ground, the huge trees... be more "as one".

Last edited Feb 27, 2013 by Scbroodsc2

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#14 Feb 27, 2013 at 23:50 UTC - 1 like

Was stuck at 0.01 FPS when taking these shots. Having lots of water planes lags the editor so badly...

Be sure to listen to this while going through the map.

Name	Size	MD5
WTE_116.SC2Map	2.8 MiB	e4abb30241b5...

NotD:E coming soon...

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#15 Feb 28, 2013 at 01:23 UTC - 0 likes

@sgtnoobkilla: Go

Awesome that's pretty amazing.

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.
Want to use Render To Texture in your cutscenes? Try This

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#16 Mar 02, 2013 at 04:28 UTC - 0 likes

@sgtnoobkilla: Go

My mouth lays down on the floor while my head and my eyes are still looking at your pictures.

There is only one thing missing and it would be a rainbow.

I've tried looking at it carefully to see if anything could be better and I didn't find anything else to say than -awesome-.

Mozared Moderator

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#17 Mar 02, 2013 at 11:53 UTC - 0 likes

Quote from Scbroodsc2: Go
My mouth lays down on the floor while my head and my eyes are still looking at your pictures.

Does that mean you're having a seizure? =P

I like Noobkilla's terrain too though, even if it suffers from the same 'issue' of not having any real 'focal points'. I guess this happens relatively easy with a showcase (check my welcome to the jungle terrain in my profile, same thing there) but it's always a bit of a shame.

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#18 Mar 03, 2013 at 05:36 UTC - 0 likes

If we could move forward in time... so I can make that 2nd WTE video from 101 to 200 =P To rapidly show those epic terrains...but I guess more are coming with HoTS.

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#19 Mar 09, 2013 at 10:53 UTC - 0 likes

@DeltaCadimus: Go

Awesome island! Is it walkable? So real and good. However, your water ruined it. This should be some bluish color or sea blue color,

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Weekly Terraining Exercise #116: Tropical Islands

Weekly Terraining Exercise #116