Hey guys, this is my first post to SC2 Mapster! Anyway, I was wondering what the community felt about the terrain I'm producing for a little self - terrain project I'm working on.
Some things to note:
-The map is meant to be a campaign - style map, so there are open, non doodad filled flats for structures.
-The map is not 100% complete, I still have some areas to fill in with doodads, and possibly some cliff reworks (if you think that it isn't that great)
-Mission explained: The player (Terran) starts this map, and is introduced to banshees for the first time in the campaign. Your goal is to get 1 SCV to the terrazine node. Once it has been gathered, you must defend the terrazine canister for a few minutes until a dropship comes to pick you up. Destroying the Protoss bases is optional, but the more you kill decreases the power of the Protoss as they try to retake their terrazine. Also there are some bonus artifact pickups.
-"Mission explained" is theoretical. I don't have the expertise whatsoever to do what I would want with this map on the technical side.
C) Just going to point out something Blizzard did in their campaign maps. Usually, they give the player a feeling of backdoor security by putting doodads in the back edges of the base (open Welcome to the Jungle for info, that has a good example). Also, the base is usually stuck farther in the corner, unless you explicitly intend for the Protoss to use a backdoor strategy when attacking.
D) Another thing: even on Brutal I don't think there are that many guards for relics. The current amount of guards you had would dissuade Chuck Norris from breaking and entering.
E) Just a side note. Are you attempting to make a better campaign than WoL? That would be epic... and probably not as hard as it seems if you were to assemble a nice team.
F [edit]) Wait, I think the middle line in the haiku is currently 6 syllables.
Welcome! Let me see if I can give you some useful feedback. I quite like your stuff already, but I'll go over it picture by picture so you can get some direct hints of improvement.
Picture 1:
I like what you did here. The whole terrain in this scene's a picture perfect. You have the high-low-high cliff setup to introduce perspective to the player, which is always a plus (it's my own favourite piece of eyecandy in RTS games), the low ground jungle looks believable and doesn't need any more stuff to make it look well and the outpost has a believable and solid location as well as a 'lookout tower'. My only three small points of improvement would be these:
1) Add some kind of wall doodad(s) to the natural cliff wall to make it more engaging.
2) Add a doodad or two to the top-sides or cliff of the outpost.
3) See if you can retexture the outpost. Grassy stones don't work as well here because this is clearly a manmade structure distanced very well from any sort of plant growth. A more straight up brick texture might make it stand out more and should make it look more realistic.
Picture 2:
Like this as well. The basis for a good Protoss base area is set. Textureplay's there too. Only recommendation would be to add some more doodads on the scene. It's hard to find the right ones since they quickly look out of place within a unit-based base, though some smaller doodads, cliff-doodads and possibly statues/pillars at inaccessible areas might work. Think the pillar to the left of the bottom right photon cannon that is incorporated into the cliff - that kind of idea, except more exhuberant.
Picture 3:
Same comment as picture one. Really like this, but again you lack wall doodads and stuff on the inaccessible higher ground areas. You don't need to fill up your entire map with doodads, but if I focus my attention on your cliffs I find that they stand out as being boring in terms of terrain. Which kind of contrasts to the canister place and background jungle which both look awesome.
Picture 4:
Perfect background/mapborder. Loving the subtle little river and waterfall. Well done. Two boring areas on this screenshot at the cliffs at the top right and at the bottom left. Again, the same comment goes - add something there. I realize you left them empty because you didn't want to go overboard with the trees (though tbh I think you could add trees on both cliffs if you wanted to without ruining your terrain, especially so for the top right area), but if it's not trees then add wall doodads (tree roots), rocks, small temple statues or even just texture-play. As long as there's SOME kind of eyecandy.
Picture 5:
This is very much WIP, right? I'll note that I like your little 'temple attachment' with the hidden object at the top right. I guess what you're going to need to make this look interesting is lots of trees and brushes filling up the cliff edges.
Picture 6:
This is the first of your pictures that I don't mostly like. Your units make the terrain, which is bad - every area of your map should look at least somewhat plausible and interesting when pressing control+U in the editor. I can't blame you for having this area look worse than the rest - making bases good looking is one of the hardest aspects of terraining. I recommend some more texture play, especially near the cliffs, again more (cliff) doodads and possibly some trees near the natural cliffs up at the top right to draw the attention away from what is otherwise a fairly bland area. I'll also note that it's definitely not all terrible - a lesser terrainer would have straighter cliffs at the edges of the base and not done the whole ramp/cliff thing in the middle of the screenshot. You started off with your terrain lending itself fairly well to base-building, which in itself is a job well done.
Picture 7:
We've seen some of this in picture 5, so I'll skip over that. I like your island, though you should perhaps see if you can turn the black ruins into believable yellow ruins that fit more with the style of the rest of the map. It might not be an improvement, but try it out - it could become a better focal point. Additionally, the set-up for that 'bridge' you've got just south of the Protoss base looks pretty cool already. It'll need some more things (likely cliff doodads) to make it end up interesting, but again a solid basis.
Picture 8:
Overall your map's lay-out looks interesting. Every part of the map has a bit of a theme to it and you've handled this really well. The only usefull suggestion that comes to mind from looking at this picture is the one to possibly add more of those 'islands' (like in picture 7) to the bottom and left side of the map to make for an interesting background that isn't just water.
I hope this helps you - overall I think your basis is really solid and there's only small things to nitpick about in the areas that seem like you consider them finished. If you finish this up in the style you're going you'll only be a couple of steps away from having a downright good terrain for your map.
Thank you so much for the feedback! I'll be sure to apply the improvements.
P.S. Yes, this map is still a WIP - I was thinking of adding more islands but since they take a good deal of time I decided to post this now.
P.P.S. Oh, and the 6 - syllable core of the haiku is supplemented by the "When I make a Starcraft 2 haiku!", which transforms it into a long (25 syllable) haiku.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I do terrain stuff.
...
And in a Starcraft haiku,
...
That's all I can do!
Hey guys, this is my first post to SC2 Mapster! Anyway, I was wondering what the community felt about the terrain I'm producing for a little self - terrain project I'm working on.
Some things to note:
-The map is meant to be a campaign - style map, so there are open, non doodad filled flats for structures.
-The map is not 100% complete, I still have some areas to fill in with doodads, and possibly some cliff reworks (if you think that it isn't that great)
-Mission explained: The player (Terran) starts this map, and is introduced to banshees for the first time in the campaign. Your goal is to get 1 SCV to the terrazine node. Once it has been gathered, you must defend the terrazine canister for a few minutes until a dropship comes to pick you up. Destroying the Protoss bases is optional, but the more you kill decreases the power of the Protoss as they try to retake their terrazine. Also there are some bonus artifact pickups.
-"Mission explained" is theoretical. I don't have the expertise whatsoever to do what I would want with this map on the technical side.
A) Welcome to SC2Mapster.
B) Brilliant signature.
C) Just going to point out something Blizzard did in their campaign maps. Usually, they give the player a feeling of backdoor security by putting doodads in the back edges of the base (open Welcome to the Jungle for info, that has a good example). Also, the base is usually stuck farther in the corner, unless you explicitly intend for the Protoss to use a backdoor strategy when attacking.
D) Another thing: even on Brutal I don't think there are that many guards for relics. The current amount of guards you had would dissuade Chuck Norris from breaking and entering.
E) Just a side note. Are you attempting to make a better campaign than WoL? That would be epic... and probably not as hard as it seems if you were to assemble a nice team.
F [edit]) Wait, I think the middle line in the haiku is currently 6 syllables.
Welcome! Let me see if I can give you some useful feedback. I quite like your stuff already, but I'll go over it picture by picture so you can get some direct hints of improvement.
Picture 1:
I like what you did here. The whole terrain in this scene's a picture perfect. You have the high-low-high cliff setup to introduce perspective to the player, which is always a plus (it's my own favourite piece of eyecandy in RTS games), the low ground jungle looks believable and doesn't need any more stuff to make it look well and the outpost has a believable and solid location as well as a 'lookout tower'. My only three small points of improvement would be these:
1) Add some kind of wall doodad(s) to the natural cliff wall to make it more engaging.
2) Add a doodad or two to the top-sides or cliff of the outpost.
3) See if you can retexture the outpost. Grassy stones don't work as well here because this is clearly a manmade structure distanced very well from any sort of plant growth. A more straight up brick texture might make it stand out more and should make it look more realistic.
Picture 2:
Like this as well. The basis for a good Protoss base area is set. Textureplay's there too. Only recommendation would be to add some more doodads on the scene. It's hard to find the right ones since they quickly look out of place within a unit-based base, though some smaller doodads, cliff-doodads and possibly statues/pillars at inaccessible areas might work. Think the pillar to the left of the bottom right photon cannon that is incorporated into the cliff - that kind of idea, except more exhuberant.
Picture 3:
Same comment as picture one. Really like this, but again you lack wall doodads and stuff on the inaccessible higher ground areas. You don't need to fill up your entire map with doodads, but if I focus my attention on your cliffs I find that they stand out as being boring in terms of terrain. Which kind of contrasts to the canister place and background jungle which both look awesome.
Picture 4:
Perfect background/mapborder. Loving the subtle little river and waterfall. Well done. Two boring areas on this screenshot at the cliffs at the top right and at the bottom left. Again, the same comment goes - add something there. I realize you left them empty because you didn't want to go overboard with the trees (though tbh I think you could add trees on both cliffs if you wanted to without ruining your terrain, especially so for the top right area), but if it's not trees then add wall doodads (tree roots), rocks, small temple statues or even just texture-play. As long as there's SOME kind of eyecandy.
Picture 5:
This is very much WIP, right? I'll note that I like your little 'temple attachment' with the hidden object at the top right. I guess what you're going to need to make this look interesting is lots of trees and brushes filling up the cliff edges.
Picture 6:
This is the first of your pictures that I don't mostly like. Your units make the terrain, which is bad - every area of your map should look at least somewhat plausible and interesting when pressing control+U in the editor. I can't blame you for having this area look worse than the rest - making bases good looking is one of the hardest aspects of terraining. I recommend some more texture play, especially near the cliffs, again more (cliff) doodads and possibly some trees near the natural cliffs up at the top right to draw the attention away from what is otherwise a fairly bland area. I'll also note that it's definitely not all terrible - a lesser terrainer would have straighter cliffs at the edges of the base and not done the whole ramp/cliff thing in the middle of the screenshot. You started off with your terrain lending itself fairly well to base-building, which in itself is a job well done.
Picture 7:
We've seen some of this in picture 5, so I'll skip over that. I like your island, though you should perhaps see if you can turn the black ruins into believable yellow ruins that fit more with the style of the rest of the map. It might not be an improvement, but try it out - it could become a better focal point. Additionally, the set-up for that 'bridge' you've got just south of the Protoss base looks pretty cool already. It'll need some more things (likely cliff doodads) to make it end up interesting, but again a solid basis.
Picture 8:
Overall your map's lay-out looks interesting. Every part of the map has a bit of a theme to it and you've handled this really well. The only usefull suggestion that comes to mind from looking at this picture is the one to possibly add more of those 'islands' (like in picture 7) to the bottom and left side of the map to make for an interesting background that isn't just water.
I hope this helps you - overall I think your basis is really solid and there's only small things to nitpick about in the areas that seem like you consider them finished. If you finish this up in the style you're going you'll only be a couple of steps away from having a downright good terrain for your map.
Thank you so much for the feedback! I'll be sure to apply the improvements.
P.S. Yes, this map is still a WIP - I was thinking of adding more islands but since they take a good deal of time I decided to post this now.
P.P.S. Oh, and the 6 - syllable core of the haiku is supplemented by the "When I make a Starcraft 2 haiku!", which transforms it into a long (25 syllable) haiku.
Pic 5 could do with more undergrowth in the lower parts.
Contribute to the wiki (Wiki button at top of page) Considered easy altering of the unit textures?
https://www.sc2mapster.com/forums/resources/tutorials/179654-data-actor-events-message-texture-select-by-id
https://media.forgecdn.net/attachments/187/40/Screenshot2011-04-17_09_16_21.jpg
Piggybacking off of Mozared's comment on the first picture, a list of good replacement textures:
1) Monlyth Bricks
2) Aiur Small Bricks
3) Bel'Shir Small Tiles (though this one I assume is already used)
4) Tarsonis Concrete?*
5) I guess Monlyth Tiles are OK. Personally I don't like them much and don't see them working on Bel'Shir cliffs but that's just my opinion. (?*)
6) Tyrador Big Bricks?*
7) Valhalla Small Tiles?*
?*: Never tried said texture in Bel'Shir lighting but it might work.