Trying to start my first map (finally have free time) but found out quickly that terraining is boring and I find that it's difficult to take the idea in your head (or on paper) to the map. How do you guys do your terrains? How did you first learn? And does anyone actually like doing it???
We explore, we take our past experience, we mess around, we use blizzard tutorials, we use other people to help us, and I mean it, 80% of editor for me is learned by my self, and 20% is other people/blizzard
And I love to terrain, it feels nice when theres nothing to do, and people who have awesome terrain, have, well, have taken hours just on the terrain, no data, or triggers, no nothing...
About 15 years of casually playing around with various editors; mostly Blizzard's, but not entirely. Along with a healthy amount of just looking at maps/environment art/set designs/the real world/etc that weren't created by me.
And a resounding "Yes" for the second part of your question. If I didn't enjoy terraining I wouldn't still be doing it after so long.
If you need some inspiration, click through some of the Weekly Terraining Exercises in the sticky here. There are some really awesome things there.
Terraining requires the most patience - in my opinion - to learn, than any other aspect of the galaxy editor. There are simply so many models, terrains, tilesets, lighting and fog features, doodads for you to manipulate that learning what looks good is simply a case of having an eye for detail, and knowing what detail you want.
My best piece of advice for you, would be to load up any campaign map (preferably one that is mostly linear), remove the triggers and give yourself a few units to run around with. Take these units on a tour of the map and just 'look' at how the blizzard employees have used the various tools to create their map.
I almost always start terraining by opening up the data editor and creating a custom tileset. I feel even this simple step gives you more freedom and creativity to accomplish what you want (although there is still a hard-coded limit in number of textures per map)
Im a natural terrainer... i was born with all this knowledge, I was a master before the editor was even made LAWL
nah but really, Just messed around with it, Used MS Paint to draw up some terrain plans and used those plans to follow by, and just learn over time, Blizz tutorials, and Terraining Thursdays and Newb wednesdays help A LOT.
I started terraining with Warcraft 3 two years ago, and learned 99.9% of what I know through experimenting (thanks, bounty, for that texuvset X Y console command :D)
for me i just sorta "feel" for what i want..... kinda like, "i feel like adding a mountain there..." or "you know, some trees here would look nice" it may not look like a masterpiece lol, but it suits the purpose for the map :P
I also started terraining back in Warcraft 3 and I learned most of what I knew (I say knew because terraining in Sc2 has a different feel to me, and I couldn't get used to it yet) by checking other people's terrains and trying new things to see what worked and what didn't look good.
My advice is to check out Blizzard's terrains since they did a pretty good job of making things look good and simple, and practice. Practice a lot.
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Trying to start my first map (finally have free time) but found out quickly that terraining is boring and I find that it's difficult to take the idea in your head (or on paper) to the map. How do you guys do your terrains? How did you first learn? And does anyone actually like doing it???
rofl.
My current map's terrain is a flat piece of land. Apparently I still don't know how to make something pretty.
We explore, we take our past experience, we mess around, we use blizzard tutorials, we use other people to help us, and I mean it, 80% of editor for me is learned by my self, and 20% is other people/blizzard And I love to terrain, it feels nice when theres nothing to do, and people who have awesome terrain, have, well, have taken hours just on the terrain, no data, or triggers, no nothing...
How did I learn to terrain?
About 15 years of casually playing around with various editors; mostly Blizzard's, but not entirely. Along with a healthy amount of just looking at maps/environment art/set designs/the real world/etc that weren't created by me.
And a resounding "Yes" for the second part of your question. If I didn't enjoy terraining I wouldn't still be doing it after so long.
If you need some inspiration, click through some of the Weekly Terraining Exercises in the sticky here. There are some really awesome things there.
Terraining requires the most patience - in my opinion - to learn, than any other aspect of the galaxy editor. There are simply so many models, terrains, tilesets, lighting and fog features, doodads for you to manipulate that learning what looks good is simply a case of having an eye for detail, and knowing what detail you want.
My best piece of advice for you, would be to load up any campaign map (preferably one that is mostly linear), remove the triggers and give yourself a few units to run around with. Take these units on a tour of the map and just 'look' at how the blizzard employees have used the various tools to create their map.
I almost always start terraining by opening up the data editor and creating a custom tileset. I feel even this simple step gives you more freedom and creativity to accomplish what you want (although there is still a hard-coded limit in number of textures per map)
Im a natural terrainer... i was born with all this knowledge, I was a master before the editor was even made LAWL
nah but really, Just messed around with it, Used MS Paint to draw up some terrain plans and used those plans to follow by, and just learn over time, Blizz tutorials, and Terraining Thursdays and Newb wednesdays help A LOT.
I started terraining with Warcraft 3 two years ago, and learned 99.9% of what I know through experimenting (thanks, bounty, for that texuvset X Y console command :D)
Basically, just keep at it for a while.
for me i just sorta "feel" for what i want..... kinda like, "i feel like adding a mountain there..." or "you know, some trees here would look nice" it may not look like a masterpiece lol, but it suits the purpose for the map :P
I also started terraining back in Warcraft 3 and I learned most of what I knew (I say knew because terraining in Sc2 has a different feel to me, and I couldn't get used to it yet) by checking other people's terrains and trying new things to see what worked and what didn't look good.
My advice is to check out Blizzard's terrains since they did a pretty good job of making things look good and simple, and practice. Practice a lot.