@EternalWraith: Go
I seriously consider the "Dams" a major choke point problem right now. But than again they are big enough to have 4 Ultralisks next to each other. That's pretty damn big. But with the new LoS blockers it could become a hideout for traps and all that.
Maps always favor some races a bit more, that's the nature of things. With only 1 race, you could achieve balance.
I will hopefully get myself to spend a lot of time on Skyrim. I just love the Elder Scrolls a lot and Skyrim put a lot of shiny in my hands. It's also more of my genre, I really like fantasy stuff. Though I also dig Sci-Fi and Horror stuff. They are just more fun to work on since they are mostly not too bound by realism.
Currently placing even MORE rocks. Nearly done with all of the edges on the map, I can start doing textures and stuff afterwards =)
Also gotta make some roads. And I probably need to mix up my textures a bit more. Going to ignore Blizzards "you no haz melee map if you use this stuff" shit and just do something cool. I'm tempted to bring weather effects and day/night circles into this.
@Zolstice: Go
Ye, there are some very nice things there. But most of that stuff also took quite a while to make. And there is the factor that some of them only look good/work out while on a screenshot. I'm just way beyond the point where I want/can spend a lot of time on a single project, especially in StarCraft 2.
I really only get myself to spend that much time on actual projects that could make money and only if there is enough time on schedule to do it =)
At some point you just realize that spending the same amount of time in which you can terrain most of a map on a single area and having to come up with more good looking stuff for the ENTIRE MAP is just silly. Constant quality with a few POI's works just better overall =)
Except when you got the time to waste and only do stuff in StarCraft 2 - and you plan on spending the next 2 years making the same map all the time and release it somewhere around the time of Legacy of the Void.
I personally play a lot of games and also use a lot of different editors outside of StarCraft 2. But I know quite a lot of people who only do maps in StarCraft 2. For these guys it really makes sense to do it, because their StarCraft 2 projects might get some major attention. Also, if you ever had to light a level by hand instead of just setting up some stuff in the StarCraft 2 Editor, you know how comfi the Galaxy ED is (which is why I use it when I just wanna quickly do something shiny. Less annoying.)
Just saying :P Nice stuff, but I won't spend that much time on it ^^
is that a xel'naga tower right next to the natural? or are my eyes failing me. I cant seem to spot them in the green version visibly.
Put it there for the moment. It makes Terran too easy to play. Gotta find a better spot. The others are placed so that you can see part of both bridges as well as the center. But there is still a very small corridor to stealth your air through. Probably going to put a high-ground on the central Towers and put some on the "outside" path.
oh and LOS blockers, dont forget em. they change the game alot by allowing some baneling surprises and such.
Ye, I'm still testing around which ones to pick. I'd like to build some farms and make the "fields" some LOS blockers =)
@Mozared: Go
There, there *hands a cookie* All is well, I already took care of that, the shot just doesn't show it. There will be some fences to "cut off" the dam =)
Edit: I also asked a pall who's better at melee than me. His comments;
-High yields aren't being used in tournaments anymore.
-1 ramp to the natural means hugely risk free play that will lead to a lot of 2-base all-ins.
-Lots of chokes make siege tanks ridiculously strong.
-Combination of 2 and 3; if you add a second ramp to the natural, pull the third in a little bit closer and remove some of the water outside the naturals, all these problems should be fixed for the larger part.
I've seen quite a few tournaments lately and high yields where still around in those. Gonna keep 'em until I see them nowhere at all anymore.
Ye, will probably make a 2nd ramp to the natural with rocks - gotta see about Siege Tanks. Turtled Terrans aren't easy to catch on any map. You gotta make sure you hit them, while they move. I have more of a concern with Baneling mines. Most players will probably use the dam to cross over and those are perfect to blow half the marines up with a few Banelings.
Ye, the Gold is probably in too good a position. Guess I'll move them near one of the main attack routes.
The "dead-space" is actually planned out, don't worry. It just lacks the assets to make sense right now, they will be unpathable areas.
Some of the paths are very narrow, ye. Though the ones in the center currently are just placeholders, I got something unique in mind for them. I will probably work around the outside routes a bit more, by making their approaches broader and turning the gold into a regular expansion. I painted a few paths, so you get a better idea of where exactly the paths should go later. The "broken" lines are just a thought for Reaper/Infestor/Collosus play. I would like to break up the regular stuff we see in most games a bit and make it more favorable to use less "often seen" units for hit and run, you know?
Also, have some rocks! Abusing the pathing that cliffs already have :p
This view I don't understand. Even putting the 'eyecandy' stuff on the sideline, you say that melee maps are more about balancing and lay-out. But balance and lay-out are per definition terraining in a melee map. Tell me, what actions do you take to create a melee map that do not take place within the terrain editor? My point. I could see how you'd want to make an argument for eyecandy being of less importance, which I could get into, but that doesn't make all your arguments right. While you might have an easier time picking textures for a melee map, I'd like to throw in that you'll have a harder time actually texturing your maps well than in custom games. Due to the simple fact that you mentioned; a custom map with 3-5 different areas means you can just use two textures in each area and fiddle with the other 6 to make it look original. While in a melee map, you'd have to use these same eight textures over a huge stretch of land and make every single area look slightly different from the previous one. That is hard.
What I mean with that is that the overall layout is far more important than the actual terrain. This might sound weird, but you really don't need to pay attention to detail on the terrain as much as you need to pay attention to making the game fair. While it seems like terraining the map and layouting/balancing it are one and the same, they are slightly different. You could make a melee map with no textures at all. Just a giant dust bowl. And it could still be playable and very well build for the players to use tactical advantages and have very interesting battles. Basically, that is Level Design. Adding all the shiny to it, is Level Art. Adding Events and such to it would be Scripting. Keep in mind that I use a slightly different view on things and it gets easier to understand what I mean. Might sound a bit weirdish in the pure relation to StarCraft 2, I guess.
Actually it's a lot easier to work with textures in any top-down environment I find. You are further away and don't have to adjust the tiling or variation like you do with a TPS-like environment. If you are closer to the textures, you need to increase their resolution and people will notice that they repeat itself a lot faster. At least in my experience.
Well, like I said, we all have preferences; I for the life of me can't stand the global lay-out balancing aspect of terraining either. I can do it if needed, but I really don't like it. But I'd love to see you try. And after all, what's stopping you from following a melee map pattern but not spending ages to completely balance it all out?
Actually started a Layout. Gotta playtest it a few times to see if there are any major problems with it. The AI is just too damn fucking stupid. Picked the size of Metalopolis, but made it into a 2 player map. Not that I ever saw anyone play Metalopolis outside of 1on1.
Well, the definition of 'art' is something I wouldn't touch with a 10-feet pole because it's subjective as heck, but for me personally, I can call games art. My definition of art is "something made to convey emotions or feelings that also summons these emotions/feelings for the receiver". By that logic, Justin Bieber is art, but at least I've always got the distinction between crappy and good art. As for games: there are some I'd definitely want to give the title to. Portal 2 comes to mind, that gives the player a 4-5 hour long experience that doesn't only leave him thinking but actually makes him feel. The fact that this happens solely through the communication of robots and the feeling of specific areas make it even more well done. Assassin's Creed 2 falls into the same category. So does Mass Effect. So do Warcraft 3 (single-player), Starcraft 2 (single-player), and a couple more I've got on my list. You're right in that games do not require good psychological knowledge, but games that do have it are the good ones that I'd dub the nomer on. And the same is true for statues, movies, music, or any other form of expression.
Well, ye. People like to call their work Art, so it sounds more fancy, if you ask me. As I said, I think Development really is more like Engineering. Due to the fact that there are actually proven and scientific ways to influence player behavior. You might say "oh this is art" - as with your example of Portal 2. But actually it's a very finely engineered device to make you feel that way. Music, Animations, Visuals, Voice Actors. These all work together. Similar to a movie. Ever thought "oh this movie is such bullshit" ? - well, guess what, a lot of other will think that way too. Because you can easily tell that something is lacking. That's not art, that's sloppy work for me ;) Which is why I can't stand calling it art, as it seems to degrade the work it actually is =) Not that anybody will agree on this topic at all, I guess. I just don't like calling it "Art" - because while there are artistic values being added to this very fine mix of a awesome flavored cake, they are just a piece of the puzzle. Or would anyone call the guy who wrote the exceptionally well done GDD that made the whole project possible an "artist" instead of a genius?
@Zolstice: Go
They called it a game, but nobody really takes it for one. As I said: elaborate graphics demo. Their games are 90% done to sell their engine and make it look real fancy.
I just woke up, so if there are mistakes, those are related to sleep. Could be that a sentence or two ends in nothingness.
I'm not saying Melee maps don't require a certain skill-set or are of "low quality". I just personally believe that the terrain is less of a focus point for them, which in turn makes them require a lot less work than a high quality environment for other game types. They are quite a bit more simplistic.
You don't have to really worry about hand-lighting the entire map, sound-effects and ambient, player-pickups, events, etc. There is quite a bigger rats tail on a good custom map than a melee map, due to all the features you can and probably will build into it.
Melee maps don't have to deal with these, but they have to work around their limitations due to the gameplay, the approach of Blizz to make you see anything at a moments notice, balance, etc.
But so do custom maps. You can't go above certain numbers of doodads on your screen at any time or the game will become a lag-fest. You only can build with so-and-so many textures at any time. Hell, you probably have a easier time picking textures for a Melee map, due to the fact that it won't require 3-5 different areas on the same map, that are entirely different in their style.
For example: I could probably build a very awesome looking Zerg Terrain for a Melee map. But it wouldn't work, because putting Creep somewhere gives Zerg an unfair advantage. Such, I'm limited by the game (which I personally don't even play anymore, which makes it even more of a nuisance) as well as the performance and balance. Maybe if the game was less-hectic and have a less importance on visual feedback, I could bring myself to do it. As it is now, I just don't see myself enjoying the work and since I don't get paid to do it, I will also not force me to build anything in that area. I could probably "pimp" a map without spending all the time on layout and balance, but meh.
I personally think I'm a lot more suited to work on campaign like stuff that doesn't require me to personally limit what I can pull off with the tools at hand outside of performance limitations. I could probably build some very nice Terrain for ANNO, due ot the fact that it's not as hectic as StarCraft 2 =) Which is the reason I'm pretty happy about the Skyrim SDK - it's an RPG, I can go as mofo crazy with the terrain as I wish, as long as the performance is alright. I just like building worlds and experiences, not a perfectly balanced Melee map with a lot more work on the numbers instead of the level art.
Also, comparing Crysis and Angry Birds, doesn't work very well. Crysis is a elaborate graphics demo, while Angry Birds is a actual game. Crysis focus on graphics and atmosphere is way too heavy, they neglected nearly anything else in the process, because they want to sell the engine to other people. Their Artstyle is not very good either. If you actually wanted to compare two games against each other, take something from the same game type that were developed by about the same number of people with about the same budget. Otherwise you compare an apple to an orange.
Keeping something simple and still visually pleasing is a good thing. No argument there. I just don't like it in my map work. Now if you were to put a curvy redhead in a simple black dress and put a curvy blond in some elaborate death-trap of designer clothes next to that ... well, choice wouldn't be that hard. Redhead wins hands down :P
I could probably make a good looking Melee map if someone else did ALL the number crunching and just handed me the done layout. Should probably be done with Agria as a tileset. Also, with a big hole in the center. I think I'd like to build a farm-lands area with a giant central power-structure to deliver energy to the entire area. Some deep-cliffs that run around the map to put cables in. That kind of stuff. Damn you Mozared, now I got an idea and wanna try it.
On a sidenote:
The term "artistic" has held itself for years now in this area of work and I still don't think it fits in any way. Games are not art, they are entertainment. An interactive experience. Which means while they require a good degree of artistic and psychological knowledge (as well as a lot of other knowledge), they are - like movies - not focused on a single subject like the classical arts, but become a blend of a lot of them. And they require a fucking huge load of hard work. Actually, the "art" part of games and movies is about equal to the "let's get this done with, we have a schedule to meet". Most people I've met that talked about how their games were "Art" and the players just didn't understand it, had some games that were just goddamn fucking horrible in any respect. I remember someone saying a quote along the lines of "We are no Artist. We are Engineers." I think that fits what we do a lot more than the "art" description. We engineer an experience. Be it Melee maps, Shooter maps, a TD or a campaign. It all comes down to putting parts together. Like building a car. It should look good, but what the fuck is it good for if you can't drive it.
@Mozared: Go
Most Melee maps - no matter what you do with them - just seem very boring from a top-down view. And they have to be, because the players have to be able to easily grasp any situation they see without getting distracted by eye-candy. If you take a close look at what I did with the Infestation video, you will notice how much attention to small details I took there, from mini rocks to little plants and grass. It's perfectly made for the regular game angles, but it is highly impractical outside of the gameplay it has been planned for.
Melee Maps do not heavily focus on art, they focus massively on easy visuals, balance and layout. They are functional, not artistic, in that sense. While they have quality, that quality is only related to terrain in a very small area. A lot more work goes into layout, planning, balance, testing and such. Terrain is not the primary focus of Melee maps and should never be, which is why I do not see me ever doing one, as I have a heavy focus on atmospheric work and do not enjoy the limitations of working on Melee maps. I actually would probably enjoy the limitations in a different game, like a shooter, because while you have to watch for balance and layout, you have a lesser importance on distinct visuals like SC2 does. I could probably build a CTF map that is balanced in it's entire build-up for all teams, but would still go pretty crazy visual wise. SC2 does not allow me to do that, due to the fact that high level play requires players to be able to notice something with just looking at it once, not lingering on it. Which is the reason that professional players actually have their game set to the lowest of the low settings. It's much clearer and defined.
I put a very strong focus on building areas that convey certain atmospheres and add scripting later on to improve these. For example by the use of music, sound, background noises, limitation of ammo, etc for a horror situation. There are many ways to play with light and shadows, too. Which is why I mostly decide to work with a shooter-like environment. It requires quite a few unique tricks and allows for some very atmospheric environments, that drag the player in. Melee maps are just too boring in what I can do with them for me, to be of any interest.
I could probably pull something very nice looking off if I spend a lot of time on one of them, because I can think of quite a few unique things from the top of my hat that would still be very well playable (but would require a massive amount of testing, tweaking and detail work), but I personally think that the amount of time building it would stand in no feasible relation to the time I have at hand or would be willing to spend on them. This could also be related to me not being really interested in playing regular SC2 matches, because I stopped doing those regularly about 2 months after the game was out. It's just too much damn stress and annoying as hell if you don't play for a while. You need to constantly play regular SC2 games if you want to keep your skill level up and going.
@Nebuli2: Go
If I actually wanted to spend a lot of time on just a small area to make it as detailed as possible, I'd have to be a primary SC2 mapper, which I am not anymore. Haven't been for a long time. That Terrain didn't even take 6 hours to make and it actually covers quite a big area, I just hop into the editor from time to time to see if I can build anything fun with it. Usually ends up being better than most of what is flying around the forums being build in the same time.
Not to mention that building the entire area out of doodads, while a nice idea, proved to be a shitty one a long time ago. The map is 256x256. If I went all-out-bad-shit-crazy that would mean I'd easily put half a million assets on that map. Easily. I have done this kind of crazy shit before and it always ended with someone's PC (mostly mine) dying. And this thing can run Crysis 2 / Battlefield 3 on max details without breaking a sweat. Streaming becomes a no-go with that many assets, due to the lag it would create while streaming them. Not to mention SC2 actually renders anything it sees (because Blizz never thought that we would do this) and such has technical-based issues already. There is a reason games in this perspective only render what should currently be visible and we delete the backfaces on assets in actual productions.
Performance is a huge-ass issue on that "build-what-you-want-when-you-want"-map and since it's not a release project or anything, I can't be bothered to spend an entire week to make it as good as I probably could. There is a lot that could be done with both the walls and the floor alone, ranging from breaking it up with some of the Tarsonis terrain objects to cables, creep or more texture variation (entire area currently uses 4, some other textures have been taken for creep-caverns, a forest and a desert, so I'm limited on textures anyways).
All in all: Meh, why bother :P
@Selfcreation: Go
Which is why the "regular" terrain of video 2 is in there, too. But you are right, 90% of the Blizzard customer base have horrible PCs. So bad in fact, that bothering with releasing anything for SC2 has become too much a bother for most people that do highly visual terrain.
But there are some ways to work around it. I agree though that there are massive performance issues, which is why some of the projects got canceled. As nice as it looks and all, it just isn't up to a required quality standard.
___
Also, the Skyrim SDK comes out soon. I can go really badshit crazy with that one. I actually hope that I have the time to build a high-quality content mod for Skyrim. That should actually interest me enough to make me do a "release" project, instead of just messing around with the editor, like I do in SC2 for the most part now.
Lots of UDK work going on though. Lots of assets missing, too...
Can't really see that work out. Melee Maps have to be very clean and defined, you can't go crazy with assets at all. Otherwise it will become problematic for the players. Which is the reason we don't see a lot of high quality terrain work on these.
Second one is unrelated to the TPS stuff I usually do. It was more of a change of pace to design campaign style maps. And let some Infestation take it :P
Also, while I'd like to go badshit crazy with Doodads, due to the engines limits, I can't do that, if I want to keep it playable in that kind of view. Game hates many things on it's screen. Had to delete half the map just to get 30 FPS on this one X_x
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@Mozared: Go
I'm still placing rocks on all cliffs and testing them with Reapers. So. Many. Rocks.
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@EternalWraith: Go I seriously consider the "Dams" a major choke point problem right now. But than again they are big enough to have 4 Ultralisks next to each other. That's pretty damn big. But with the new LoS blockers it could become a hideout for traps and all that.
Maps always favor some races a bit more, that's the nature of things. With only 1 race, you could achieve balance.
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@Zolstice: Go
I will hopefully get myself to spend a lot of time on Skyrim. I just love the Elder Scrolls a lot and Skyrim put a lot of shiny in my hands. It's also more of my genre, I really like fantasy stuff. Though I also dig Sci-Fi and Horror stuff. They are just more fun to work on since they are mostly not too bound by realism.
Currently placing even MORE rocks. Nearly done with all of the edges on the map, I can start doing textures and stuff afterwards =)
Also gotta make some roads. And I probably need to mix up my textures a bit more. Going to ignore Blizzards "you no haz melee map if you use this stuff" shit and just do something cool. I'm tempted to bring weather effects and day/night circles into this.
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@Zolstice: Go Ye, there are some very nice things there. But most of that stuff also took quite a while to make. And there is the factor that some of them only look good/work out while on a screenshot. I'm just way beyond the point where I want/can spend a lot of time on a single project, especially in StarCraft 2.
I really only get myself to spend that much time on actual projects that could make money and only if there is enough time on schedule to do it =)
At some point you just realize that spending the same amount of time in which you can terrain most of a map on a single area and having to come up with more good looking stuff for the ENTIRE MAP is just silly. Constant quality with a few POI's works just better overall =)
Except when you got the time to waste and only do stuff in StarCraft 2 - and you plan on spending the next 2 years making the same map all the time and release it somewhere around the time of Legacy of the Void.
I personally play a lot of games and also use a lot of different editors outside of StarCraft 2. But I know quite a lot of people who only do maps in StarCraft 2. For these guys it really makes sense to do it, because their StarCraft 2 projects might get some major attention. Also, if you ever had to light a level by hand instead of just setting up some stuff in the StarCraft 2 Editor, you know how comfi the Galaxy ED is (which is why I use it when I just wanna quickly do something shiny. Less annoying.)
Just saying :P Nice stuff, but I won't spend that much time on it ^^
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Level Editor Rule #45: If you still find places to put rocks ... YOU HAVE NOT USED ENOUGH OF THEM!
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Alrighto, the dam is now secured. Time to place more rocks today :P
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Put it there for the moment. It makes Terran too easy to play. Gotta find a better spot. The others are placed so that you can see part of both bridges as well as the center. But there is still a very small corridor to stealth your air through. Probably going to put a high-ground on the central Towers and put some on the "outside" path.
Ye, I'm still testing around which ones to pick. I'd like to build some farms and make the "fields" some LOS blockers =)
@Mozared: Go There, there *hands a cookie* All is well, I already took care of that, the shot just doesn't show it. There will be some fences to "cut off" the dam =)
I've seen quite a few tournaments lately and high yields where still around in those. Gonna keep 'em until I see them nowhere at all anymore. Ye, will probably make a 2nd ramp to the natural with rocks - gotta see about Siege Tanks. Turtled Terrans aren't easy to catch on any map. You gotta make sure you hit them, while they move. I have more of a concern with Baneling mines. Most players will probably use the dam to cross over and those are perfect to blow half the marines up with a few Banelings.
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@Zolstice: Go
Ye, the Gold is probably in too good a position. Guess I'll move them near one of the main attack routes.
The "dead-space" is actually planned out, don't worry. It just lacks the assets to make sense right now, they will be unpathable areas.
Some of the paths are very narrow, ye. Though the ones in the center currently are just placeholders, I got something unique in mind for them. I will probably work around the outside routes a bit more, by making their approaches broader and turning the gold into a regular expansion. I painted a few paths, so you get a better idea of where exactly the paths should go later. The "broken" lines are just a thought for Reaper/Infestor/Collosus play. I would like to break up the regular stuff we see in most games a bit and make it more favorable to use less "often seen" units for hit and run, you know?
Also, have some rocks! Abusing the pathing that cliffs already have :p
Update: Here is what I had in mind.
And the current Layout
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What I mean with that is that the overall layout is far more important than the actual terrain. This might sound weird, but you really don't need to pay attention to detail on the terrain as much as you need to pay attention to making the game fair. While it seems like terraining the map and layouting/balancing it are one and the same, they are slightly different. You could make a melee map with no textures at all. Just a giant dust bowl. And it could still be playable and very well build for the players to use tactical advantages and have very interesting battles. Basically, that is Level Design. Adding all the shiny to it, is Level Art. Adding Events and such to it would be Scripting. Keep in mind that I use a slightly different view on things and it gets easier to understand what I mean. Might sound a bit weirdish in the pure relation to StarCraft 2, I guess.
Actually it's a lot easier to work with textures in any top-down environment I find. You are further away and don't have to adjust the tiling or variation like you do with a TPS-like environment. If you are closer to the textures, you need to increase their resolution and people will notice that they repeat itself a lot faster. At least in my experience.
Actually started a Layout. Gotta playtest it a few times to see if there are any major problems with it. The AI is just too damn fucking stupid. Picked the size of Metalopolis, but made it into a 2 player map. Not that I ever saw anyone play Metalopolis outside of 1on1.
Well, ye. People like to call their work Art, so it sounds more fancy, if you ask me. As I said, I think Development really is more like Engineering. Due to the fact that there are actually proven and scientific ways to influence player behavior. You might say "oh this is art" - as with your example of Portal 2. But actually it's a very finely engineered device to make you feel that way. Music, Animations, Visuals, Voice Actors. These all work together. Similar to a movie. Ever thought "oh this movie is such bullshit" ? - well, guess what, a lot of other will think that way too. Because you can easily tell that something is lacking. That's not art, that's sloppy work for me ;) Which is why I can't stand calling it art, as it seems to degrade the work it actually is =) Not that anybody will agree on this topic at all, I guess. I just don't like calling it "Art" - because while there are artistic values being added to this very fine mix of a awesome flavored cake, they are just a piece of the puzzle. Or would anyone call the guy who wrote the exceptionally well done GDD that made the whole project possible an "artist" instead of a genius?
@Zolstice: Go They called it a game, but nobody really takes it for one. As I said: elaborate graphics demo. Their games are 90% done to sell their engine and make it look real fancy.
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@EternalWraith:
You have time for anything these days? I don't think so! Go back to slaving away! ;D
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@Zolstice:
I just woke up, so if there are mistakes, those are related to sleep. Could be that a sentence or two ends in nothingness.
I'm not saying Melee maps don't require a certain skill-set or are of "low quality". I just personally believe that the terrain is less of a focus point for them, which in turn makes them require a lot less work than a high quality environment for other game types. They are quite a bit more simplistic.
You don't have to really worry about hand-lighting the entire map, sound-effects and ambient, player-pickups, events, etc. There is quite a bigger rats tail on a good custom map than a melee map, due to all the features you can and probably will build into it.
Melee maps don't have to deal with these, but they have to work around their limitations due to the gameplay, the approach of Blizz to make you see anything at a moments notice, balance, etc.
But so do custom maps. You can't go above certain numbers of doodads on your screen at any time or the game will become a lag-fest. You only can build with so-and-so many textures at any time. Hell, you probably have a easier time picking textures for a Melee map, due to the fact that it won't require 3-5 different areas on the same map, that are entirely different in their style.
For example: I could probably build a very awesome looking Zerg Terrain for a Melee map. But it wouldn't work, because putting Creep somewhere gives Zerg an unfair advantage. Such, I'm limited by the game (which I personally don't even play anymore, which makes it even more of a nuisance) as well as the performance and balance. Maybe if the game was less-hectic and have a less importance on visual feedback, I could bring myself to do it. As it is now, I just don't see myself enjoying the work and since I don't get paid to do it, I will also not force me to build anything in that area. I could probably "pimp" a map without spending all the time on layout and balance, but meh.
I personally think I'm a lot more suited to work on campaign like stuff that doesn't require me to personally limit what I can pull off with the tools at hand outside of performance limitations. I could probably build some very nice Terrain for ANNO, due ot the fact that it's not as hectic as StarCraft 2 =) Which is the reason I'm pretty happy about the Skyrim SDK - it's an RPG, I can go as mofo crazy with the terrain as I wish, as long as the performance is alright. I just like building worlds and experiences, not a perfectly balanced Melee map with a lot more work on the numbers instead of the level art.
Also, comparing Crysis and Angry Birds, doesn't work very well. Crysis is a elaborate graphics demo, while Angry Birds is a actual game. Crysis focus on graphics and atmosphere is way too heavy, they neglected nearly anything else in the process, because they want to sell the engine to other people. Their Artstyle is not very good either. If you actually wanted to compare two games against each other, take something from the same game type that were developed by about the same number of people with about the same budget. Otherwise you compare an apple to an orange.
Keeping something simple and still visually pleasing is a good thing. No argument there. I just don't like it in my map work. Now if you were to put a curvy redhead in a simple black dress and put a curvy blond in some elaborate death-trap of designer clothes next to that ... well, choice wouldn't be that hard. Redhead wins hands down :P
I could probably make a good looking Melee map if someone else did ALL the number crunching and just handed me the done layout. Should probably be done with Agria as a tileset. Also, with a big hole in the center. I think I'd like to build a farm-lands area with a giant central power-structure to deliver energy to the entire area. Some deep-cliffs that run around the map to put cables in. That kind of stuff. Damn you Mozared, now I got an idea and wanna try it.
On a sidenote:
The term "artistic" has held itself for years now in this area of work and I still don't think it fits in any way. Games are not art, they are entertainment. An interactive experience. Which means while they require a good degree of artistic and psychological knowledge (as well as a lot of other knowledge), they are - like movies - not focused on a single subject like the classical arts, but become a blend of a lot of them. And they require a fucking huge load of hard work. Actually, the "art" part of games and movies is about equal to the "let's get this done with, we have a schedule to meet". Most people I've met that talked about how their games were "Art" and the players just didn't understand it, had some games that were just goddamn fucking horrible in any respect. I remember someone saying a quote along the lines of "We are no Artist. We are Engineers." I think that fits what we do a lot more than the "art" description. We engineer an experience. Be it Melee maps, Shooter maps, a TD or a campaign. It all comes down to putting parts together. Like building a car. It should look good, but what the fuck is it good for if you can't drive it.
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@Mozared: Go Most Melee maps - no matter what you do with them - just seem very boring from a top-down view. And they have to be, because the players have to be able to easily grasp any situation they see without getting distracted by eye-candy. If you take a close look at what I did with the Infestation video, you will notice how much attention to small details I took there, from mini rocks to little plants and grass. It's perfectly made for the regular game angles, but it is highly impractical outside of the gameplay it has been planned for.
Melee Maps do not heavily focus on art, they focus massively on easy visuals, balance and layout. They are functional, not artistic, in that sense. While they have quality, that quality is only related to terrain in a very small area. A lot more work goes into layout, planning, balance, testing and such. Terrain is not the primary focus of Melee maps and should never be, which is why I do not see me ever doing one, as I have a heavy focus on atmospheric work and do not enjoy the limitations of working on Melee maps. I actually would probably enjoy the limitations in a different game, like a shooter, because while you have to watch for balance and layout, you have a lesser importance on distinct visuals like SC2 does. I could probably build a CTF map that is balanced in it's entire build-up for all teams, but would still go pretty crazy visual wise. SC2 does not allow me to do that, due to the fact that high level play requires players to be able to notice something with just looking at it once, not lingering on it. Which is the reason that professional players actually have their game set to the lowest of the low settings. It's much clearer and defined.
I put a very strong focus on building areas that convey certain atmospheres and add scripting later on to improve these. For example by the use of music, sound, background noises, limitation of ammo, etc for a horror situation. There are many ways to play with light and shadows, too. Which is why I mostly decide to work with a shooter-like environment. It requires quite a few unique tricks and allows for some very atmospheric environments, that drag the player in. Melee maps are just too boring in what I can do with them for me, to be of any interest.
I could probably pull something very nice looking off if I spend a lot of time on one of them, because I can think of quite a few unique things from the top of my hat that would still be very well playable (but would require a massive amount of testing, tweaking and detail work), but I personally think that the amount of time building it would stand in no feasible relation to the time I have at hand or would be willing to spend on them. This could also be related to me not being really interested in playing regular SC2 matches, because I stopped doing those regularly about 2 months after the game was out. It's just too much damn stress and annoying as hell if you don't play for a while. You need to constantly play regular SC2 games if you want to keep your skill level up and going.
@Nebuli2: Go If I actually wanted to spend a lot of time on just a small area to make it as detailed as possible, I'd have to be a primary SC2 mapper, which I am not anymore. Haven't been for a long time. That Terrain didn't even take 6 hours to make and it actually covers quite a big area, I just hop into the editor from time to time to see if I can build anything fun with it. Usually ends up being better than most of what is flying around the forums being build in the same time.
Not to mention that building the entire area out of doodads, while a nice idea, proved to be a shitty one a long time ago. The map is 256x256. If I went all-out-bad-shit-crazy that would mean I'd easily put half a million assets on that map. Easily. I have done this kind of crazy shit before and it always ended with someone's PC (mostly mine) dying. And this thing can run Crysis 2 / Battlefield 3 on max details without breaking a sweat. Streaming becomes a no-go with that many assets, due to the lag it would create while streaming them. Not to mention SC2 actually renders anything it sees (because Blizz never thought that we would do this) and such has technical-based issues already. There is a reason games in this perspective only render what should currently be visible and we delete the backfaces on assets in actual productions.
Performance is a huge-ass issue on that "build-what-you-want-when-you-want"-map and since it's not a release project or anything, I can't be bothered to spend an entire week to make it as good as I probably could. There is a lot that could be done with both the walls and the floor alone, ranging from breaking it up with some of the Tarsonis terrain objects to cables, creep or more texture variation (entire area currently uses 4, some other textures have been taken for creep-caverns, a forest and a desert, so I'm limited on textures anyways).
All in all: Meh, why bother :P
@Selfcreation: Go Which is why the "regular" terrain of video 2 is in there, too. But you are right, 90% of the Blizzard customer base have horrible PCs. So bad in fact, that bothering with releasing anything for SC2 has become too much a bother for most people that do highly visual terrain.
But there are some ways to work around it. I agree though that there are massive performance issues, which is why some of the projects got canceled. As nice as it looks and all, it just isn't up to a required quality standard.
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Also, the Skyrim SDK comes out soon. I can go really badshit crazy with that one. I actually hope that I have the time to build a high-quality content mod for Skyrim. That should actually interest me enough to make me do a "release" project, instead of just messing around with the editor, like I do in SC2 for the most part now.
Lots of UDK work going on though. Lots of assets missing, too...
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@Mozared: Go
Can't really see that work out. Melee Maps have to be very clean and defined, you can't go crazy with assets at all. Otherwise it will become problematic for the players. Which is the reason we don't see a lot of high quality terrain work on these.
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@madlibrarian: Go
Second one is unrelated to the TPS stuff I usually do. It was more of a change of pace to design campaign style maps. And let some Infestation take it :P
Also, while I'd like to go badshit crazy with Doodads, due to the engines limits, I can't do that, if I want to keep it playable in that kind of view. Game hates many things on it's screen. Had to delete half the map just to get 30 FPS on this one X_x
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Nuff said'
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> <iframe width="420" height="315" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> <iframe width="420" height="315" src="" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>All of these show playable Terrain btw