So heres just a few pics of how you can acheive amazing structures with doodads.
Here was my first image of the airlock.
i thought it was alright, but something seemed off. So it evloved into this.
Which i think is alot better, and here is the final product.
There are so many things you can do with doodads if your creative. If you elaborate more you can use doodads in ways that werent ment to be. For example the airlock uses 'SpacePlatformCliffDoodadLarge', even though it was meant for cliffs it creates a great effect as a door, same with the platforms to the right of the airlock. The generators to the left have been sunken down so that only the top part is showing which creates a nice sci-fi feel. And scale is also important, which shows in the "HavenDoodadCrates", different in height and scale can add thousands of variations of the same doodad.
And here is the outer part of the asteroid.
The mountains turned out well with a nice jagged and enourmous look.
It started out as a plan to make an asteriod with several airlocks around the map. So I did what i could, keeping Acolyte updated everybit of the way
With his aproval, i started making the terrain more detailed, but only with the terrain tab, there are no doodad. Its important to get the cliffs and height as close as you want it to before adding in units and doodads.
Everything was going good, but when you looked deeper into it, it didnt look much like an asteroid, I wanted to remake the asteroid from "Armageddon"
Then we hit a little speed bump, with braxis alpha tile set, there is only 1 natural texture. So while is was expirimenting around the terrain came to look like this.
Once i finish up most of the map, ill be posting screenschots of the ways you can apply doodads in various ways :].
Once again thanks to everyones support and feedback and everyone who has posted here.
Hey, the Char terrain is magnificent, especially for having completed it in 5 minutes!
I've been trying to replicate the effect somewhat because I might be using the Char tileset for my map, and I was wondering: How did you get the boundary between the lava and the base of the cliffs to look so good? Yours has a nice glow that makes it look like the whole lava layer is extremely hot. When I tried to recreate it, though, the border between them was jagged, which in turn made the lava look extremely two-dimensional. Is there some trick you used with the lighting or water settings? Any tips would be appreciated! Thanks.
Well it has to do with base height, and water height. For some reason you cannot change the height of lava.
This is what the default Char cliff looks like.
Now the height of the lava is around 15-20. So you need to change your map height accordingly.
Then you add the water and youll get the effect that the lava is really hot.
So, I'm fiddling around with the terrain, and I just realized that if I put cliffs on high raised terrain, it gives it a.. unique kind of look. I just can't tell how good it looks, and want a second opinion.
All 3 of the photos are on the same mountainside, I'm just seeing which one looks the best out of them
I do this currently in my maps. Its definently the best way to aproach mountains, but you cant just use terrain. Put some rock doodads in the little cracks of cliffs, too add to the more natural feeling. But be careful with height. If the mountain is too steep, it ruins it completly, so you just have to find the right mix of hight, cliff positions, and doodad positions.
Just finished the basic terrain layout for the canyon part of my map. It contains no doodads as of now. I used a temporary light setting just to show the elevation of the terrain.
Those are excelent!!! For anyone who wants to learn the basics of terrain. I recommend starting with the 'Mar Sara' tileset, the have great man-made and natural lookig textures. Also a wide variety or enviromental doodads and doodads that will match the theme.
Some real nice looking maps (the desert on is a bit brown tends to blend the map objects together, I have a hard time seeing objects in pictures. Im prolly just going blind lol)
But a few questions. You said you had like 1000+ objects in the map. (I have yet to focus on the terrain)
How or what effect do those objects have on FPS for the average players?
When the map is ment to be a 3rd person view what is its effect?
Does the game have any built in objects for effecting what is drawn and what is not, like the oclusion objects for Far Cry 2?
The SC2 engine handles really well. Its processing power is really impressive, i havnt had much lag with anything.
But as for 3rd person, this is a rough view of what the vision will look like.
The finished product would have the fog of war gradually 'fade out' the farther you would look, and ultimately turn black.
This will help the processing of computers with lower specs because it will not render ALL units/doodads at the same time.
I got started on the Char tileset, but I can't find a great amount of 'junk' that'll fill the scenery. Also, 100% cliffs here going for a very jagged look, since I felt the geology and terrain was pretty volatile. Lighting wasn't something I'd approached yet, so I just quickly darkened things a bit, with some type of ash-like clouds going up in a few spots. Could use some tips on aesthetics, and, well, textures, cause that's pretty uniform at the moment.
Ive always wanted to try the char tileset, so i made this one just for you.
Turned out pretty well for 5 minutes worth of work.
When dealing with cliffs i think its best to find the texture that best matches the color of the cliffs, in this case its 'Char Rock'.
And when dealing with doodads its best to match the theme of your map. It is sometimes necessary to use the 'custom color' option to mix and match the terrain to your doodads. For ex: The 'Operations' building in my other screenshots. Its pretty convincing to see it all as 1 building., but if i we to seperate it the doodads would be different colors and sizes. So i would replace all the ble crystals and but in the 'Char Crystal' and increase the scale.
Also a nice glow effect can be added the the crystals by using the omni lights that match the color f the doodad. This can be used with plants, fire, colored doodads, and much more.
These are really, really impressive. I've never seen such beauty dealing with in-game terrain before. I'm having a few problems, however. I'm working on a detailed single player RPG. I know they aren't too popular, but the idea is getting a "party" together like in the Final Fantasy games. I'll likely make a remake once I get it all done to incorporate 4 human players, but for now, I'm having trouble with Terrain height. The raised terrain by default looks too low. I want my mountains to look like yours... Mountains! Also, when I lower the terrain, I get this blue fog. Is there a way to get rid of it? And any other informational tips on how to create realistic-height mountains would be greatly appreciated.
Once again, exceptional work. Blizzard should have hired you instead, TP =p. I wouldn't ask my questions to someone I didnt think could answer them. Also, the other posters here also have insanely well done work, and I welcome any advice from you pro terrainers =)
An easy way around the blue fog at the bottom of the map is to change the base height when creating a map.
As for creating mountains or hills, you just have to incorperate terrain height, cliffs, and rock doodads of all sizes.
Any chance we could find a link to your map somewhere :3? Maybe just the terrain shell? I can't seem to get the doodads the way I want them to like I could in War3... Or if you could recommend a tutorial or another map ^^
Cant uplaod due to the rise of map stealers :P However im working on a tutorial but its rather long, as there are so many thing you can do with doodads/terrain.
In the meantime I can help you with anything you need.
The second question was, how can I get light doodads to work? Or are they not doodads..? I'm putting some lights out, but they don't appear to be doing anything..
The lights from doodads will only show up if you have your game setting on high.
This can be achieved by:
File>Preferences>Video
And here is a complete list of doodads that create light. (Not counting fire)
This looks awsome, i was planning on doing the same thing in a similar map of mine. One thing that i want to do that ill pass on to you is a way to make the plants glow like in the movie 'Avatar'
Its a really simple step that just involves omni lights and plants. It takes about less than 2 minuts and really adds something to your jungle.
I want to mention that I completely agree with OP... also want to add that lighting is really important too. The following picture is from a map I'm working on... heavy modification of Korhal's light to be greener, contrasted, have high glow, etc... really enhances mood.
Greatwork, I love how the city is set up, and how you made the lighting bloom! I have a cinematic set up where a nuke goes off in the city and everything flares white as if the sun got closer. Using lighting can add great effects to your maps like his.
have you tried doing any of this map with just height variation and not cliffs? at least in some parts, i feel as if it always looks better, and you're not limited on height
Yes, in fact I have been playing around with mixing eleveted terrain an cliffs to get a really good looking 'mountain'. But my main problem is that its really hard do get a natural looking mountain.
However, this is a challenge im tackling right now. On the blank side of the minimap i plan to cover it with a huge mountain range that the player(s) will have to go through and look for 3 downed medivacs.
Awesome pictures. 2 questions..
How do you lower the lighting in the map so that lights work?
How do you get lights to work? I can't seem to make them do anything with the light doodads
Simply go to the Window Tab and look for the title 'Lighting'
From there you can choose or edit any Tileset Lighting through the various tabs.
Definitily looks pretty, but how is the performance. I hope you're not making it all pretty at the expense of butchering fps.
I will admit in the galaxy editor it is pretty laggy. But it is a 3rd Person Shooter game, the Fog of War mechanics will not show terrain unless your unit has vision of it, similar to how FOW worked in SC1, where unexplored terrain would appear black or very dim. Also since the SC2 engine is so great, i havnt had any major problem with playing the map on computers with lower specs.
Having terrain in your map is just as important as having triggers. Even if you worked months on triggering a map and have the triggers perfect, the fact is having ugly terrain can be an eye sore. As for me it is the most fun part of making a map.
Post your terrain works here.
This thread is meant to help users with their terrain, whether its with feedback or just tips on how to make some awsome groundwork.
Heres some pic's of my upcoming map series
Legends of War - Prologue [WIP]
Contains 1096 Doodads
[Pictures should resize, if not then refresh the page]
So heres just a few pics of how you can acheive amazing structures with doodads.
Here was my first image of the airlock.
i thought it was alright, but something seemed off. So it evloved into this.
Which i think is alot better, and here is the final product.
There are so many things you can do with doodads if your creative. If you elaborate more you can use doodads in ways that werent ment to be. For example the airlock uses 'SpacePlatformCliffDoodadLarge', even though it was meant for cliffs it creates a great effect as a door, same with the platforms to the right of the airlock. The generators to the left have been sunken down so that only the top part is showing which creates a nice sci-fi feel. And scale is also important, which shows in the "HavenDoodadCrates", different in height and scale can add thousands of variations of the same doodad.
And here is the outer part of the asteroid.
The mountains turned out well with a nice jagged and enourmous look.
Thanks to everyone for posting their support and feedback :]
For this post, I'll be showing the evoloution of a project from scratch to what it looks like so far.
This is a preveiw for a project called Scylla's Hatred with the project leader AcolyteFright from the team Fighting Polygons
It started out as a plan to make an asteriod with several airlocks around the map. So I did what i could, keeping Acolyte updated everybit of the way
Everything was going good, but when you looked deeper into it, it didnt look much like an asteroid, I wanted to remake the asteroid from "Armageddon"
Then we hit a little speed bump, with braxis alpha tile set, there is only 1 natural texture. So while is was expirimenting around the terrain came to look like this.
Once i finish up most of the map, ill be posting screenschots of the ways you can apply doodads in various ways :].
Once again thanks to everyones support and feedback and everyone who has posted here.
Well it has to do with base height, and water height. For some reason you cannot change the height of lava. This is what the default Char cliff looks like.
Now the height of the lava is around 15-20. So you need to change your map height accordingly.
Then you add the water and youll get the effect that the lava is really hot.
I do this currently in my maps. Its definently the best way to aproach mountains, but you cant just use terrain. Put some rock doodads in the little cracks of cliffs, too add to the more natural feeling. But be careful with height. If the mountain is too steep, it ruins it completly, so you just have to find the right mix of hight, cliff positions, and doodad positions.
Just finished the basic terrain layout for the canyon part of my map. It contains no doodads as of now. I used a temporary light setting just to show the elevation of the terrain.
Tell me what you think. :]
Those are excelent!!! For anyone who wants to learn the basics of terrain. I recommend starting with the 'Mar Sara' tileset, the have great man-made and natural lookig textures. Also a wide variety or enviromental doodads and doodads that will match the theme.
The SC2 engine handles really well. Its processing power is really impressive, i havnt had much lag with anything. But as for 3rd person, this is a rough view of what the vision will look like.
The finished product would have the fog of war gradually 'fade out' the farther you would look, and ultimately turn black.
This will help the processing of computers with lower specs because it will not render ALL units/doodads at the same time.
Ive always wanted to try the char tileset, so i made this one just for you.
Turned out pretty well for 5 minutes worth of work.
When dealing with cliffs i think its best to find the texture that best matches the color of the cliffs, in this case its 'Char Rock'.
And when dealing with doodads its best to match the theme of your map. It is sometimes necessary to use the 'custom color' option to mix and match the terrain to your doodads. For ex: The 'Operations' building in my other screenshots. Its pretty convincing to see it all as 1 building., but if i we to seperate it the doodads would be different colors and sizes. So i would replace all the ble crystals and but in the 'Char Crystal' and increase the scale.
Also a nice glow effect can be added the the crystals by using the omni lights that match the color f the doodad. This can be used with plants, fire, colored doodads, and much more.
An easy way around the blue fog at the bottom of the map is to change the base height when creating a map.
As for creating mountains or hills, you just have to incorperate terrain height, cliffs, and rock doodads of all sizes.
Cant uplaod due to the rise of map stealers :P However im working on a tutorial but its rather long, as there are so many thing you can do with doodads/terrain.
In the meantime I can help you with anything you need.
The lights from doodads will only show up if you have your game setting on high.
This can be achieved by: File>Preferences>Video
And here is a complete list of doodads that create light. (Not counting fire)
[Am i missing any?]
This looks awsome, i was planning on doing the same thing in a similar map of mine. One thing that i want to do that ill pass on to you is a way to make the plants glow like in the movie 'Avatar'
Its a really simple step that just involves omni lights and plants. It takes about less than 2 minuts and really adds something to your jungle.
You can turn this...
Into this...
Greatwork, I love how the city is set up, and how you made the lighting bloom! I have a cinematic set up where a nuke goes off in the city and everything flares white as if the sun got closer. Using lighting can add great effects to your maps like his.
Yes, in fact I have been playing around with mixing eleveted terrain an cliffs to get a really good looking 'mountain'. But my main problem is that its really hard do get a natural looking mountain.
However, this is a challenge im tackling right now. On the blank side of the minimap i plan to cover it with a huge mountain range that the player(s) will have to go through and look for 3 downed medivacs.
Ill try to get the 'terrain' done by this week.
Simply go to the Window Tab and look for the title 'Lighting'
From there you can choose or edit any Tileset Lighting through the various tabs.
I will admit in the galaxy editor it is pretty laggy. But it is a 3rd Person Shooter game, the Fog of War mechanics will not show terrain unless your unit has vision of it, similar to how FOW worked in SC1, where unexplored terrain would appear black or very dim. Also since the SC2 engine is so great, i havnt had any major problem with playing the map on computers with lower specs.
Just 3 more
Having terrain in your map is just as important as having triggers. Even if you worked months on triggering a map and have the triggers perfect, the fact is having ugly terrain can be an eye sore. As for me it is the most fun part of making a map.
Post your terrain works here. This thread is meant to help users with their terrain, whether its with feedback or just tips on how to make some awsome groundwork.
Heres some pic's of my upcoming map series Legends of War - Prologue [WIP]
Contains 1096 Doodads
[Pictures should resize, if not then refresh the page]
