I've been trying for a couple days to make the terrain and I just get even get the basic layout. I know basically what I want I just can't make it. Everything looks wrong to me when I try making terrain myself which pisses me off and then I end up getting nowhere. What I'm looking for is a terrain using Niflheim texture set which is easy enough to set up and using the flying ash doodad colored white with high hdr so it looks like snow. Everything else can be whatever you feel like making it look like. I'll be uploading a picture of the layout soon.
I was going through tutorials for terrain textures and saw Mozared said that some lost of performance is from using add texture instead of replace, using add just puts another layer on which causes both layers to render. If you could not do that it'd be great.
EDIT: Next to the triangles are supposed to be like a trapezoid but with one side being slanted while the opposite is flat. The little diamond looking things next to the trapezoids are supposed to be long and thin creating a pathway two pathways. I kind of put too much space in the middle pathways(up and down) but it is supposed to be slightly big. Squares, triangles, trapezoids, diamonds are all non walkable areas either from doodads or cliffs whatever you want. Same with that middle area, also supposed to be big enough so that you can't hit each other from one side, that little hexagon in the center.
The performance loss from using Add texture is minor, and it is a hell of a lot faster to use (and will look better) when you use it properly.
Both have its uses, but if you want good looking terrain you can't limit people to a certain tool, especially since the performance change would be unnoticable. A more noticable performance hit would be to have too many doodads, or too many units around. Doodads are great for terrain detail, but you must choose over looks and performance. Since you are asking for a terrainer, I'm guessing you at least care a little about looks.
Anyways, I'm curious to know how far down the development you are. Also, what sets this apart from all the other DOTA maps around?
What Vexal said, though I could also see this working fairly well if you keep it mostly rigid with straight cliff lines - you could turn the whole thing into a glacier style kind of map.
The performance loss might be minor, but it does add up, especially on a large map that's repainted several times - eventually you end up with every texture virtually everywhere. Aside from that, I don't really see the use of the 'add texture' tool aside from "it's easier for the terrainer"? It's not like the terrain stops overlapping if you use several instances of replace texture instead of add texture, and the add texture tool simply hides the texture underneath it. I haven't used add texture since beta or so and have gone by without any problems. You're right about the doodads, though in the end I think neither will be a big problem on a map the size Keyes is painting it.
Do you have any proof to show the performance loss?
I've tried comparing a single texture map with one with 8 textures right next to eachother with no fps-drop whatsoever, since all 8 textures are still saved in the memory. If there is a performance hit it must be very minor. Add a few doodads or units however and the fps drops immediatly.
I do use replace texture frequently, but sometimes (or often, depending on the map), you want two or three textures on top of eachother overlapping, and you can only do this properly with Add texture, afaik.
Hmm, import that as a texture. Didn't know it was possible. But how would I fill the whole map with that picture? It's not like the picture is huge or anything.
Simply load up a new map, fill it with texture #1, and grab a fixed brush size. Use 'add texture' and add texture #2 on texture #1. Then paint texture #3 on top of the area you just painted with texture #2. Then proceed with texture #4, etc, all the way up to texture #8. Save the map, check its size. Then do the exact same thing, but use 'replace texture' instead of add texture. Your first map will be larger than your second map. Even if it doesn't lower performance FPS wise by pre-loading all textures ahead of time, at the very least it (needlessly) increases the size of your map.
That said; show me an example? 'Replace texture' is in all uses exactly the same as 'add texture' except that it doesn't place a texture *over* another texture; which doesn't matter, as you will never see the 'another texture' anyway if you're using 'add texture'. Which means you might as well use 'replace' to get rid of it altogether.
Didn't think about the map size. You might be right there, since the map will need more information.
I'll give you an example where Add texture is used. If you have one "cracks" texture, and one rock texture. And then you have a mud texture.
The rock could be covering the whole area. At certain places you might want there to be a bit mud on the rock, but not completely covering it. Also, you might want cracks on the rocks at certain places. Or even cracks AND mud on the rocks. (I'm not talking about completely overlapping the rock so it can't be seen)
Another example would be muddy asphalt or concrete, which I use a lot. E.g. you might want most of it concrete, but about 30% mud on top of it at certain places, to look more natural.
You can choose an offeset in the replace texture to fade a texture out, which is great, but still it doesn't give you the same control as Add texture. I'm just saying it does have its uses, especially if you don't care about map size.
Can we stop arguing about which is more efficient? Can we get back to helping me learn how to use import texture to get my crude drawing as a layout for my map.
I didn't mean it as a layout. I was suggesting using textures so that the end result looked like your layout (as in, everything in the map is flat and monochromatic).
I suppose it was sarcasm, but perhaps you could actually take the idea and make it good. I don't know.
All I know is that I was definitely not suggesting you import the texture to use as a layout. That's a huge waste of time. If you're worried about lining things up correctly, just count grid squares.
Maybe I should ask this, since I always want very precise things, how many grid squares is a decent sized map? I always count out squares and then don't know whether I'm doing too many or too little and then I start worrying about that and it causes me to stop what I was doing.
I'll give one last reply and then stop cluttering up Keyes thread; you can achieve the effect of all examples you mentioned by using replace texture by simply using the noise brush. In 99% of the cases, if you pick one specific 'pixel', there is always only one texture shown anyway, which makes 'add texture' somewhat redundant by default. For those areas where you do want two or three textures on one 'pixel', you can simply lose the 'Smudge Textures' function and not lose any performance.
Aside from that, Keyes, what I originally took Vexals message to mean is that it would be a bit of a paper-world DOTA. There was somebody around not too long ago who was working on a map in that style. As for size... it depends on what you want, really.
The pacing of a map is dependent on the size of the terrain and the speed of units. You should figure out how long you want it to take for players to get from one spot to another. These considerations affect gameplay a lot.
For my current map, I've gone through three iterations of terrain because the size produced pacing I was not pleased with.
Here's an example: do you want it to be an "undertaking" to run to the center of the map and fight? Do you want it to always matter heavily where a player is? Having a larger map increases the importance of planning attacks and scouting, because once you head somewhere, you won't be able to return to base any time soon.
On the other hand, you might prefer a strict importance on actual combat. You might think it unfair for fights to be a matter of players being in the right place at the right time. If so, you could make the map smaller.
This is just one example of the huge influence of map size. There are many other things it affects, as well.
I've been trying for a couple days to make the terrain and I just get even get the basic layout. I know basically what I want I just can't make it. Everything looks wrong to me when I try making terrain myself which pisses me off and then I end up getting nowhere. What I'm looking for is a terrain using Niflheim texture set which is easy enough to set up and using the flying ash doodad colored white with high hdr so it looks like snow. Everything else can be whatever you feel like making it look like. I'll be uploading a picture of the layout soon.
I was going through tutorials for terrain textures and saw Mozared said that some lost of performance is from using add texture instead of replace, using add just puts another layer on which causes both layers to render. If you could not do that it'd be great.
EDIT: Next to the triangles are supposed to be like a trapezoid but with one side being slanted while the opposite is flat. The little diamond looking things next to the trapezoids are supposed to be long and thin creating a pathway two pathways. I kind of put too much space in the middle pathways(up and down) but it is supposed to be slightly big. Squares, triangles, trapezoids, diamonds are all non walkable areas either from doodads or cliffs whatever you want. Same with that middle area, also supposed to be big enough so that you can't hit each other from one side, that little hexagon in the center.
It'd be really cool if you just imported that as the textures.
Make it a flat land DotA.
The performance loss from using Add texture is minor, and it is a hell of a lot faster to use (and will look better) when you use it properly.
Both have its uses, but if you want good looking terrain you can't limit people to a certain tool, especially since the performance change would be unnoticable. A more noticable performance hit would be to have too many doodads, or too many units around. Doodads are great for terrain detail, but you must choose over looks and performance. Since you are asking for a terrainer, I'm guessing you at least care a little about looks.
Anyways, I'm curious to know how far down the development you are. Also, what sets this apart from all the other DOTA maps around?
What Vexal said, though I could also see this working fairly well if you keep it mostly rigid with straight cliff lines - you could turn the whole thing into a glacier style kind of map.
@Xan0: Go
The performance loss might be minor, but it does add up, especially on a large map that's repainted several times - eventually you end up with every texture virtually everywhere. Aside from that, I don't really see the use of the 'add texture' tool aside from "it's easier for the terrainer"? It's not like the terrain stops overlapping if you use several instances of replace texture instead of add texture, and the add texture tool simply hides the texture underneath it. I haven't used add texture since beta or so and have gone by without any problems. You're right about the doodads, though in the end I think neither will be a big problem on a map the size Keyes is painting it.
@Mozared: Go
Do you have any proof to show the performance loss?
I've tried comparing a single texture map with one with 8 textures right next to eachother with no fps-drop whatsoever, since all 8 textures are still saved in the memory. If there is a performance hit it must be very minor. Add a few doodads or units however and the fps drops immediatly.
I do use replace texture frequently, but sometimes (or often, depending on the map), you want two or three textures on top of eachother overlapping, and you can only do this properly with Add texture, afaik.
Hmm, import that as a texture. Didn't know it was possible. But how would I fill the whole map with that picture? It's not like the picture is huge or anything.
@Xan0: Go
Simply load up a new map, fill it with texture #1, and grab a fixed brush size. Use 'add texture' and add texture #2 on texture #1. Then paint texture #3 on top of the area you just painted with texture #2. Then proceed with texture #4, etc, all the way up to texture #8. Save the map, check its size. Then do the exact same thing, but use 'replace texture' instead of add texture. Your first map will be larger than your second map. Even if it doesn't lower performance FPS wise by pre-loading all textures ahead of time, at the very least it (needlessly) increases the size of your map.
That said; show me an example? 'Replace texture' is in all uses exactly the same as 'add texture' except that it doesn't place a texture *over* another texture; which doesn't matter, as you will never see the 'another texture' anyway if you're using 'add texture'. Which means you might as well use 'replace' to get rid of it altogether.
@Mozared: Go
Didn't think about the map size. You might be right there, since the map will need more information.
I'll give you an example where Add texture is used. If you have one "cracks" texture, and one rock texture. And then you have a mud texture. The rock could be covering the whole area. At certain places you might want there to be a bit mud on the rock, but not completely covering it. Also, you might want cracks on the rocks at certain places. Or even cracks AND mud on the rocks. (I'm not talking about completely overlapping the rock so it can't be seen)
Another example would be muddy asphalt or concrete, which I use a lot. E.g. you might want most of it concrete, but about 30% mud on top of it at certain places, to look more natural.
You can choose an offeset in the replace texture to fade a texture out, which is great, but still it doesn't give you the same control as Add texture. I'm just saying it does have its uses, especially if you don't care about map size.
Can we stop arguing about which is more efficient? Can we get back to helping me learn how to use import texture to get my crude drawing as a layout for my map.
@Keyeszx: Go
I didn't mean it as a layout. I was suggesting using textures so that the end result looked like your layout (as in, everything in the map is flat and monochromatic).
I suppose it was sarcasm, but perhaps you could actually take the idea and make it good. I don't know.
All I know is that I was definitely not suggesting you import the texture to use as a layout. That's a huge waste of time. If you're worried about lining things up correctly, just count grid squares.
Maybe I should ask this, since I always want very precise things, how many grid squares is a decent sized map? I always count out squares and then don't know whether I'm doing too many or too little and then I start worrying about that and it causes me to stop what I was doing.
@Xan0: Go
I'll give one last reply and then stop cluttering up Keyes thread; you can achieve the effect of all examples you mentioned by using replace texture by simply using the noise brush. In 99% of the cases, if you pick one specific 'pixel', there is always only one texture shown anyway, which makes 'add texture' somewhat redundant by default. For those areas where you do want two or three textures on one 'pixel', you can simply lose the 'Smudge Textures' function and not lose any performance.
Aside from that, Keyes, what I originally took Vexals message to mean is that it would be a bit of a paper-world DOTA. There was somebody around not too long ago who was working on a map in that style. As for size... it depends on what you want, really.
@Keyeszx: Go
The pacing of a map is dependent on the size of the terrain and the speed of units. You should figure out how long you want it to take for players to get from one spot to another. These considerations affect gameplay a lot.
For my current map, I've gone through three iterations of terrain because the size produced pacing I was not pleased with.
Here's an example: do you want it to be an "undertaking" to run to the center of the map and fight? Do you want it to always matter heavily where a player is? Having a larger map increases the importance of planning attacks and scouting, because once you head somewhere, you won't be able to return to base any time soon.
On the other hand, you might prefer a strict importance on actual combat. You might think it unfair for fights to be a matter of players being in the right place at the right time. If so, you could make the map smaller.
This is just one example of the huge influence of map size. There are many other things it affects, as well.
I tried to copy off that picture of yours and this is what I came up with: http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g403/JordanDurlandSC2/Terrain013.jpg