For lack of a better theme name: Lava Jungle! Coming from Vossan's mind, this one plays into a terrain we're going to see when HOTS pops; we've seen plenty of Bel'shir and Aiur jungles, but none of them involving lava in an interesting way. This week's assignment is to go forth and add something hot to our standard jungles. Enjoy!
Here is my first (huge forest of lava) and second try (fountain of lava). I think the second try is better even if it is more simple. I don't think this is enough elaborated to go into the HoTS campaign, haha.
I also found something that intrigues me... Some of the Char trees have a kind of transparancy which remove water when you look through it.
Don't want to bring you down Brood, but I think it's your worst terrain so far =P. I think you went too big on this one; no need to fill out some huge map. It also doesn't help that there's nearly as much lava as jungle - I think for this to work you need a 80-20 ratio of jungle-lava. There's just not much to look at in your terrain - it's lava and jungle. That's not to say there aren't any interesting ideas in there though (like your lavafall-pillar).
Also would be cool to see a volcano in there, though I'm thinking we'll see some more of those lateron. Speaking of which, I guess I can join this week and submit this work from a previous Terraining Thursday.
I'd recommend that you add more small details like little patches of dirt in the jungle and some small rocks and some bigger rocks on the volcano's sides. Also the path up the volcano look very unnatural. maybe sort of outline it with some dirt? and make the path parts flatter?
Nah - I went over the terrain layer by layer and never really got down to smoothing the volcano path out much more - I couldn't get it to look the way I wanted it to. You're right though, it could use more detail.
That said - rocks didn't actually work. I played around with them for a bit but couldn't get them to look right. There's always more time to spend, but I think I'm probably better off without them here.
Well, my first try is just... "Boring" xD Anyway, Moz, I like your beach, I like the kind of leg for the volcano, I don't like the waves, I don't like the plants on the ground, it need more rocks around the trees, I like the water color and falloff, I don't like the form of the volcano and caus of that I don't like the path. When you look fast, it looks awsome, when you take your time... it's something else.
We learn (normally) that we must explain and not just say "I like or I don't like...". So, here is the "why".
Beach color looks realistic. In my creation, I did not changed the tileset or played with the texture. (One big reason why my try looks so bad) In your case, it awsome. I love it.
The volcano legs if can say it this way, don't know any other way... is pretty nice. Entering the water and making the volcano not only a circular thing, but deformed in some ways. If you try to make something realistic, don't make anything copy/past. Life is totally none linear. If you look how your cities roads are slowly cracked, deformed, etc, nowhere is the same deformations... (not sure how to explain, but anyway... xD)
I don't like the waves. It is like between, "I'll put hard waves" and "I'll make a calm water". I think it would be better with one of these extrem.
For the plants on the ground, I would have use LOS doodads with Z axe reduced so it looks like grass. That many different plants on a stupid island is pretty, unatural.
Rocks are of course a problem. How to correctly integrate rocks to make something looks realistic? Even with the HDR modification and size it is hard to get something correct. Though, I still think it needs rocks, not necessarly next to the volcano, but on the islands, next to the trees. The volcano texture make it looks like if there was rocks, so it's fine.
The water color is great just enought transparent. I'm not sure about the falloff. Is trasparent water really going to be that much teinted in low heigh? (I feal like the word selection is not the best hahaha)
The form of the volcano should be larger. It looks weird how it is almost a cylender. By making it larger, you can put more different textures on it.
Because your volcano is small, your path is very small, and making it nice is harder because you have less triangle that you can modify (if you put wireframe mode in view, you can see them)
In overall, it's great. 7/10, there is still place to amelioration.
There are probably some people that doen't think the same way as me, so my points might be cotradicted. Someone else could like the water waves for example.
Gj Mozared. I wish you could participate more often... and not just commentating, even if this is really appreciated.
I don't know what's up with this terrain i thought i did a good job but when i was gonna capture a screenie it didn't turn out so well... I think i went to random and generic without focal points, that usually happens when i'm doing natural terrains like forests and jungles. But hopefully i'm my own worst critic so you'll have something good to say ;) .
Hate to say it but that attempt looks like a half assed attempt. Try using more than one terrain texture next time. The use of cliffs look rather blocklike. Also the lighting does not do it justice.
Alrighty guys, here's one I was gonna contribute for the emotions WTE, but decided to leave it. Modified it a little bit for this one :)
And just in case anyone fancies taking some better screenshots, feel free - the map itself looks a lot more epic in the editor then my print screen will allow.
Maybe just add some more stuff like plants and small rocks in the jungle and use a different cliff type, maybe char? Or some other dark rock cliff? That jungle cliff into lava just doesn't look natural.
@DrSuperEvil: Go I'm assuming you talk about mine since you said "Blocky cliffs". If you would actually enlarged the second or third pic you woulda seen i used more then one texture, even though all the Bel'shir textures is pretty alike, but if anything textures is what i was happy about. Looking at it now i would agree a little with half assed but it was all i had time for and probably will unless my weekend opens up.
Alright, so let me get back to that now that I have more time. I have to say it's probably the best SC2 terrain I've seen so far, in general. If not, it's up in the top 3.
It's just... you perfected everything. The only comment I can come up with is that the little poles holding up your construction don't really look like they are capable of withstanding lava. Aside from that, it's just pure genius. The shape of your volcano works just right. The height play to create those outcrops create a sick ass look. Your texture play is just right, leaving exactly the right amount of Dirt near lava while keeping the whole thing look like a jungle. The way the lava flows downwards into that 'lake' is also planned out perfectly. Your monorail adds an epic sense of depth. Your station is well done and blends in with the terrain while still looking manmade. The way your lavafalls are positioned is ideal. And heck, even your background jungle looks like an actual awesome jungle from a distance. I cannot think of any way to improve your terrain.
I may not be the best terrainer out there, but I'm certainly not the worst, and this is a level of quality I don't think I could ever attain even if I had an endless amount of time. Not on this tileset, anyway. It saddens me to realize that, in a way. If anyone ever wants to make any kind of volcano or volcano/jungle combination terrain, they need but copy your entire setup - that would be my advice.
Please join in to more WTE's, this is astonishing work and should serve as an example to anybody out there wanting to create good terrain.
P.S. Could you raise the lava by .3 or such and post us a screenshot of that? I'd like to see what it'd look like if you tried to give it a 'flooded' idea.
Weekly Terraining Exercise #57
For lack of a better theme name: Lava Jungle! Coming from Vossan's mind, this one plays into a terrain we're going to see when HOTS pops; we've seen plenty of Bel'shir and Aiur jungles, but none of them involving lava in an interesting way. This week's assignment is to go forth and add something hot to our standard jungles. Enjoy!
The Global Information/Idea thread for Terraining Exercises can be found here:
http://forums.sc2mapster.com/development/terrain/14658-terraining-exercises-global-information-idea-thread/
@Mozared: Go
Interesting...
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Curse PremiumMozared, that's the WTE #57, not 56 =P
Here is my first (huge forest of lava) and second try (fountain of lava). I think the second try is better even if it is more simple. I don't think this is enough elaborated to go into the HoTS campaign, haha.
I also found something that intrigues me... Some of the Char trees have a kind of transparancy which remove water when you look through it.
Working on projects:
@Scbroodsc2: Go
That's a good start. I'd recommend adding some Char rock textures around the edges of the lava.
Don't want to bring you down Brood, but I think it's your worst terrain so far =P. I think you went too big on this one; no need to fill out some huge map. It also doesn't help that there's nearly as much lava as jungle - I think for this to work you need a 80-20 ratio of jungle-lava. There's just not much to look at in your terrain - it's lava and jungle. That's not to say there aren't any interesting ideas in there though (like your lavafall-pillar).
Also would be cool to see a volcano in there, though I'm thinking we'll see some more of those lateron. Speaking of which, I guess I can join this week and submit this work from a previous Terraining Thursday.
@Mozared: Go
I'd recommend that you add more small details like little patches of dirt in the jungle and some small rocks and some bigger rocks on the volcano's sides. Also the path up the volcano look very unnatural. maybe sort of outline it with some dirt? and make the path parts flatter?
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Curse Premium@Nebuli2: Go
He kind of did it pretty quickly...you'd have known if you watched...
@yukaboy: Go
How quickly?
6 minutes and 42 seconds.
Nah - I went over the terrain layer by layer and never really got down to smoothing the volcano path out much more - I couldn't get it to look the way I wanted it to. You're right though, it could use more detail.
That said - rocks didn't actually work. I played around with them for a bit but couldn't get them to look right. There's always more time to spend, but I think I'm probably better off without them here.
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Curse PremiumWell, my first try is just... "Boring" xD Anyway, Moz, I like your beach, I like the kind of leg for the volcano, I don't like the waves, I don't like the plants on the ground, it need more rocks around the trees, I like the water color and falloff, I don't like the form of the volcano and caus of that I don't like the path. When you look fast, it looks awsome, when you take your time... it's something else.
We learn (normally) that we must explain and not just say "I like or I don't like...". So, here is the "why".
There are probably some people that doen't think the same way as me, so my points might be cotradicted. Someone else could like the water waves for example.
Gj Mozared. I wish you could participate more often... and not just commentating, even if this is really appreciated.
Working on projects:
@Mozared: Go
You could get the rocks to work by creating a new set of rock doodads using models with the same rock models but with the Char tileset textures.
I don't know what's up with this terrain i thought i did a good job but when i was gonna capture a screenie it didn't turn out so well... I think i went to random and generic without focal points, that usually happens when i'm doing natural terrains like forests and jungles. But hopefully i'm my own worst critic so you'll have something good to say ;) .
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ModeratorsHate to say it but that attempt looks like a half assed attempt. Try using more than one terrain texture next time. The use of cliffs look rather blocklike. Also the lighting does not do it justice.
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
Alrighty guys, here's one I was gonna contribute for the emotions WTE, but decided to leave it. Modified it a little bit for this one :) And just in case anyone fancies taking some better screenshots, feel free - the map itself looks a lot more epic in the editor then my print screen will allow.
@madlibrarian: Go
Maybe just add some more stuff like plants and small rocks in the jungle and use a different cliff type, maybe char? Or some other dark rock cliff? That jungle cliff into lava just doesn't look natural.
Hello gents!
Here's my version of a lava jungle; I added a mining operation on the volcano since making structures is my favorite part of terraining =X.
Had to make a cormpromise Neb, as if I did that the rocks wouldn't work for the waterfall unfortunately.
Mind = blown.
@Mozared: Go Indeed.
@F0xtail: Go Best one so far.
@DrSuperEvil: Go I'm assuming you talk about mine since you said "Blocky cliffs". If you would actually enlarged the second or third pic you woulda seen i used more then one texture, even though all the Bel'shir textures is pretty alike, but if anything textures is what i was happy about. Looking at it now i would agree a little with half assed but it was all i had time for and probably will unless my weekend opens up.
@F0xtail: Go
Alright, so let me get back to that now that I have more time. I have to say it's probably the best SC2 terrain I've seen so far, in general. If not, it's up in the top 3.
It's just... you perfected everything. The only comment I can come up with is that the little poles holding up your construction don't really look like they are capable of withstanding lava. Aside from that, it's just pure genius. The shape of your volcano works just right. The height play to create those outcrops create a sick ass look. Your texture play is just right, leaving exactly the right amount of Dirt near lava while keeping the whole thing look like a jungle. The way the lava flows downwards into that 'lake' is also planned out perfectly. Your monorail adds an epic sense of depth. Your station is well done and blends in with the terrain while still looking manmade. The way your lavafalls are positioned is ideal. And heck, even your background jungle looks like an actual awesome jungle from a distance. I cannot think of any way to improve your terrain.
I may not be the best terrainer out there, but I'm certainly not the worst, and this is a level of quality I don't think I could ever attain even if I had an endless amount of time. Not on this tileset, anyway. It saddens me to realize that, in a way. If anyone ever wants to make any kind of volcano or volcano/jungle combination terrain, they need but copy your entire setup - that would be my advice.
Please join in to more WTE's, this is astonishing work and should serve as an example to anybody out there wanting to create good terrain.
P.S. Could you raise the lava by .3 or such and post us a screenshot of that? I'd like to see what it'd look like if you tried to give it a 'flooded' idea.