SC2Mapster

Hello there, folks. Yep, it's me, the "bridge guy".

Yeah, well, see, that reason I started early on that bridge topic was because I just got started in taking terrain modeling in a more serious term.

I'm kinda of making a separate work of mine, keeping it in the full dark 'til it's close to done, for now, which are twofold objectives: The first, obviously, is to deliver a decent-at-best experience to the player of my maps. The second is to train myself in making Starcraft II maps. Terrain, triggers, all of it is, at a part, my work and the other, my school lesson.

For now, I'm just focusing on terrain, which is the motive of this topic. I've got some preview images of my works, of which I'd like some criticism on what I could do best and what not to do on a stupid term. I'm ready for the flak, you just say it and I won't be afraid of reading it.

For now, it'll just cover the organic part, which are some jungle world photos, one of the three worlds my work involves (The other two are a volcanic planet and a Kel-Morian colony). Between those are two trips through space stations.

Next week I'll be coming with the city photos, as I'm finishing them just now. The next week is so I can give some advance on my next work after the city (256x256, just a hint), which will be a more detailed major temple complex for the jungle world.

Well, here it is, just remember to comment and critique about my initial steps.

FROM UP TO DOWN - The first image is a deep jungle set, of the fourth map, but by then I was somewhat advancing in terrain skills. The second is an attempt at a mountain, trying to make it more than just a hill painted with the rock setting. The third is a basical temple complex, just a base location for the Terrans plundering it, the fourth is a makeshift basic bridge, the fifth a larger mountain and the final one a waterfall construct, putting several rocks above it using the Meinhoff textures.

Please repost images correctly so we may view them in all their glory .

Fixed.

Its hard to see if you have done it - but remember that you can rescale models (inlcluding units such as buildings) If you are not going to make playable maps, this can add some really cool effects.

Trees are actually very good to rescale, both for visuals and for performance. If you make trees different in size the forest will look more alive

A more complicated thing is to rescale units/buildings: To change unit sizes, use a trigger that fires on a "onMapInit" event. Then use the ActorSendMessage and send the message SetScale. This way you can set scale of any unit. I'm unsure if you also have to create the model/actor thingy inside the trigger or if you can apply the scaling to the units already on the map.

Edit: Oh and play around with lights and cameras (cameras can blur distance) for the sake of making cool screenshots :D

@Monkalizer

Yeah, well, scaling is not so much of a problem. But I ought agree some trees could use some scaling, especially upwards. I was just afraid that the trees would overlap, clipping painfully amongst one another. Curiously this doesn't seem to be a problem with rocks...

Also, I take those pictures directly from the editor, hence the lack of excessive fog like you people love here.

@DrSuperEvil

Yeah, well, greenish fog isn't exactly my especiality, although it's acceptable. Some fog is better than none I guess, in immersion terms. :)

As for the mountains, I've tried finding the jagged surfaces akin to what one of you used in one of your WTEs, it was even covering a crater. I couldn't find it, so I'll have to deal with this later, I'm too occupied with the Protoss temple, right now. Also I wished there could be some 'spiky" rocks facing in the diagonals and upwards, instead of just up or aside, like those cliff spires.

BTW, thanks for the vine tip, it helped somewhat my waterfall models. :)

You can use site operations to make new doodads that aren't straight up and down. There's a few tutorials for it lying around here.

Alright, I finally got around to this. Haven't read the replies yet so my input is untainted, though it might overlap somewhat with what has been said.

First picture:
+Looking good. I like your kind of forest, very good use of the different tree types. The fog finishes it nicely.
-No focal points. This kind of terrain serves brilliantly as a map border, but if I walk around on the dirt 'path' when playing your map, how am I supposed to know it is even a path? And where am I supposed to look? Add some rocks, brushes around them... that kind of deal.
-The cliff that overlooks the 'pond' is a little bit too steep. This kind of 'rough wall' effect could work, but then the whole thing needs to be a canyon - right now the left, right and back borders of the pond are all quite gradual.

Second picture:
+Your height play is decently done.
-Everything else is pretty terrible. Don't want to be rude, but pretty much all I see here is a ridiculous amount of overlords and random rocks sticking out of a mountainside. Get rid of all the overlords, turn the mountains into proper mountains (fiddle with the rocks until it feels right or get rid of them altogether, then add some trees, brush and that kind of stuff) and maybe play with the creep a little bit more; make it go around corners, not grow in certain spots and in general make the Zerg base look like some kind of cancer that has grown over the landscape.

Third picture:
+Are those cliffs custom? Either way, your cliffsides look nice. They're original, having focal points (the pillar in the foreground), good doodad play and in general do not look very boring. I'd only recommend you add some kind of focal point to the left cliffside, north of the bridge.
+Your Terran base set-up is pretty decent. There's too much supply depots in that back left corner, but otherwise you placed the buildings decently well, considering you have so many. Which brings me to my first minus point:
-Do you need that many buildings? I suggest you look at the Horner campaign level where you have to take the Odin to the radio towers. If you use fewer buildings you can group them up better and make the base lay-out feel more organised overall.
-Last minus-point: though your decal play is great (I'm thinking you got your ideas for it from Cloud Kingdom... am I right?), your textureplay is non-existant. The whole plateau is one carpet of the same tiles. Press control+U and see how ugly the plateau suddenly looks. Try and add in some different textures. Make a path, do something different near the cliffsides, maybe make a path through the base with a different tile texture... just play around and go with what's best, really.

Fourth picture:
+I like your kind of dam-bridge. It's a nice piece of eye-candy in a playable map. Doesn't really need much more.
-The surroundings do, however. There's pretty much only foliage on either sides, and the 'inside' of the temple (where the Protoss units are) looks too 'natural' for a zone that is supposedly mostly man-made (we just crossed a man-made bridge to get there and the cliffs to the water are man-made). Perhaps you can do some textureplay here and get in some Protoss tiles. In a similar fashion, the bottom right corner of the map is completely empty. I'm not sure if this is WIP or the map edge, even in the case of the latter; at least add a little bit of a forest or a path leading away from the bridge here so the are makes sense and crossing the bridge doesn't put you in a random wasteland with some small plants.

Fifth picture:
+Original set-up. Pull this kind of desolate area off right and you have an inaccessible canyon that looks different from any other area in the game due to the fact that it uses very few doodads.
-It's not quite there yet. A lot of rocks still look odd and out of place (the two half-floating ones on the left, for instance) and it isn't at all clear what areas are walkable and which aren't. Reposition some of the odd looking rocks, maybe add some more (can never have enough rocks) and make the borders between accessible and inaccessible areas a little bit steeper in height. In a similar fashion, make sure the accessible path is more uniform in height. Last but not least, add some more... stuff to the area. The desolate feel is good, but a few gray/brown/dead plants, smaller rocks or maybe some man-made ruins or such will make the area properly interesting to look at and not just 'a decent (though original) terrain'.

Sixth picture:
+Great start. Looks like you read/viewed some tutorials on waterfall-making. If you didn't, very good start.
-Aside from the obvious suggestion of 'add more stuff' (this area seems very much WIP), I'd say you can probably remove some of the rocks on top of the waterfall. If you play a little bit more with them and reposition/delete some of the rocks that lie further back, I'm sure you can still hide the water's borders but make the rocks near the waterfall seem less explosive.
-You kind of made the 'mistake' of trying to build a waterfall diagonally to how your water squares are placed. If you can't make it look better with the above tips, I'm 100% sure it'll end up better if you remove the whole deal and make a waterfall that flows just from the left or bottom border of that lowest square of water - it makes it way easier to hide the borders without having to overdo rocks like you did and really just to make a waterfall in general.

I hope this helps :)

I really, really, like the bottom 2

Well, since the week has passed (And believe me, I fought myself to avoid showing these too soon, hehehe.), I keep my promise of showing you my personal 256x256 Terran city. There are some notes I ought to make first.

This is an outdoor city, which means I only put simple buildings in here (except for those special circumstances which required I make a kitbash), but I made my most honest of all efforts to fill it with details. I think I'm quite satisfied with this work, but I felt this city could've been better were not for the lack of man-made doodads from Blizzard's official library. There are more tree variations than housing variations (Those larger-middle class ones, not the kitchenette trailers).

Second, I'm showcasing over twenty images of the city, therefore, this will be a double post. Also, this is a map meant too to be played in my future project. There will be two versions of it, this one, in pristine condition and the destroyed, infested version. And, just to let you curious, yes, you'll be the Zerg who'll attack this city.

This is the city of Pride, one of the three Kel-Morian cities that has it's name based on one of the Seven Sins (The other cities are called Greed and Envy). Contrary to the other cities, which both are stationed directly in Moria, Pride is situated in a border planet of exclusive Kel-Morian possession, in which the Dominion only has a small representation through it's embassy, with it's personal security. The border planet itself is responsible for supplying over 40% of the products consumed by the Combine. The planet's disadvantage is the distance, as it takes up to a week, without Warp Drives, for any reinforcements from Moria to relief the colony. Not to mention the days it takes to prepare the reinforcements, concerning not only physical supplies, but also manpower and the bureaucracy and interests of the Kel-Morian heads.

This city design draws practical inspirations from about everything and everywhere, not only movies but games, especially concerning open-world ones (GTA, Batman: Arkham City, the Saint's Row saga and Scrapland, namely). Also, in a personal note, I inspired to make this city in order to correct the bludgeon amount of mistakes Blizzard did when making that SUPPOSED downtown in Korhal, in the WoL Media Blitz mission. I felt no inspiration in playing it, it was a simple map decorated with doodads, sacrificing important amounts of detail and design in the name of gameplay, thinking shoving buildings below would be enough and that we were playing on heights. Worse yet, building placement was very messy. I feel I'm making this particular city in order to correct those mistakes for myself, only placing the military bases where they actually need to be, and on a more larger and satisfying scale than with a smaller map, like Blitz was.

I fought against two major fronts concerning making this city: Detail X Accessibility. I wanted to compensate for the lack of details, but I also had to make some issues concerning gameplay. Not only in view, but also in pathing: This city is supposed to make a hell out of maneuvering the player's forces, both ground units and flyers. Also, the harassment with vision added to the difficulty in earlier stages.

The Gates of Pride, or at least the south-eastern entrance. Inspired by the Priest movie.

A front commercial part of the city, or rather a food court, with all food-related billboards hanging around. The lack of umbrellas and plastic chairs, which were supposed to be in the open spaces, only demonstrates the lack of small details Blizzard could make to make the city even more enjoyable and complete. Also, in the bottom left corner, it's an idea for an open tunnel, a little gimmick of mine, using all those archway catwalks.

A Kel-Morian military base, fortified, walled and contained to avoid cluttering city movement, like it's supposed to be, instead of what is on Korhal.

One of the four halves of the city's industrial district. This part showcases one of the power stations and what's supposed to be civilian vehicle mounting facilities. But since there's none of that too, the Thor's scaffolding had to make due. True sad, if you ask me.

The second part of the industrial district. This time it's the Vespene refinery, an aircraft assembly factory on the higher level and a supposed simulacrum of some airship repair pads.

The third part of the industrial district, being a huge Mineral Processing Facility. Below should have been some sort of scrap/garbage processing station, but there was also lack of this type, other than those Doodads from Deadman's Port.

The aircraft assembly factory, in a more closer look.

A zoomed-in version of the Power Plant. One of the several, at least...

The city's private area for Kel-Morian Mercs, which is smack dab on purpose right in the middle of downtown, hence the side open-air tunnels to allow accessibility. Both the excessive archways for tunnels and an improvised rooftop made this area one of my enjoyable worksites, I might add.

The Dominion's Embassy, also on downtown. Besides being an Embassy, it's also a recruitment post for new Dominion personnel, which are then shipped off to the core of the Terran sector.

Next images on the next post.

The second row of the city's images.

One of the city's parking lots. Every self-respecting city with cars and traffic should have theirs, right?

A water treatment plant. The people drink water too, even in a game.

One of the housing blocks, immediately denoting the change of scenery out of heavily urbanized and industrialized areas. I wished I could make a better sidewalk, but I'm already busy making the rest of the maps. That's a lot of work, those sidewalks!

Yep, it's the city's spaceport. Honestly, my spaceport would be a 256x256 area on it's own, with a complete set of buildings, more landing areas and HUGE Battlecruiser pads (The circle doodads) than these are, but this is an outdoor map, so I had to fit this. Also, changed the lightning to better show the lights, as this is a night map and I only showed "day" photos so far.

The Kel-Morian Capitol Building, AKA Planet Hall. I kinda liked it as it seems a keep to an overly huge castle. :)

The city park area, close to the Capitol Building. One of the areas that I liked working, as it curiously made me calm. It reminds me of the public gardens in my city, that must be why...

An improvised Bus Stop. Not everyone walks on subway or have their own cars.

A small scrapyard. Simple as that.

A true meaning of a Gas Station, in my view.

One of the edges in downtown, with a double road of it's own and a custom bank, one of the targets of the invasion.

Closer view of an open-air tunnel.

Last, but not least, a Radio or TV station of sorts.

Comment, critique, beat me, whip me, enjoy it. :)

• Jaw drops and crashes through concrete floor*

Props on the impressive realism. On a side note, do you use custom models?

Well, it's pretty nice, though in my opinion, there are a few changes you could make that might make a big difference. For one, I think you could probably try to do a little bit more with your ground textures. A lot of areas look to be just one solid texture; you should try to mix it up a bit. Throw in some different concretes and such, maybe. Also, you might want to try to add more grass and trees. This might not be the look you're going for, though it's a simple way to make things look better.

And on a final note: rocks.

@Nebuli2: Go

Yeah, well, I kind of agree that the cityscape simply sounds too clean. But the problem is the terrain texture sets are too heavy even with subtle changes. A single click on this type could easily wreck the painting and you gotta be too careful here.

There's also the limitation issue, in which you can only use eight textures, remember? Asphalt, brown concrete, white concrete, grass, white slabs and industrial metal. There's also the dirt and rock for variation, like it's outside the city (Gate pic) and in the scrapyard terrain, dude.

Finally, there's the time. I'm kind of an a tight schedule, with tech school bothering me and I still gotta make a buttload of maps to finish the campaign. I also don't like being stuck on a simple map because I can't fix small issues.

Also, on the rocks? There's one for deco in the city park, buddy. :) But I can check on it later, when I'm on trigger stage or something.

On one final note, everyone, I'm finishing the fortress-temple, and I kinda like it. Did considerable improvement to mountain making and terrain deco as well. :) Will show it next week, by which I'll be making the space station. Unfortunately, I can't promise to dirt-mingle it like our buddy wants, except for asteroid sets, of course.

@DeltaCadimus: Go

I understand what you're saying, but it's still possible to add a little bit of color variation to textures with very light touches of other textures. VERY light. Another thing is that you don't always need to use textures for the ground. Sometimes you can use doodads, like the installation ceiling doodad, on the ground to add some more texture to the ground. Plus, with those, you can have a lot more flexibility with your ground.

Also, relating to rocks, I think you could probably do some more with the part outside the gates. Maybe add some small rocks and scrubby trees and bushes. Just plain dirt really is boring to look at.

That said, I'm not saying you need to do all of this. Maybe just take some of this feedback into account when you do your next terrain. If you don't have the time to perfect this one terrain, that's fine, but it doesn't mean you can learn from it :)

@DeltaCadimus: Go

@DeltaCadimus: Go

EYYYYYYYY SEXY CITY Op, op, op, op, oppan starcraft style

Quote from DeltaCadimus: Go

One of the housing blocks, immediately denoting the change of scenery out of heavily urbanized and industrialized areas. I wished I could make a better sidewalk, but I'm already busy making the rest of the maps. That's a lot of work, those sidewalks!

Tell me about it...

Good job overall though - you did what I've never been able to; finish up a full-sized large ass showcase terrain. I once started on Stormwind in the WC3 editor but didn't get far there. Got further with Port Raynor, but it's still only 20% done.

Overall most of it looks pretty cool, but I dislike some of your factories (the airship assembly) and you sometimes lack detail. Take the water treatment plant for example; overall a really good look, until you start looking in between the buildings and realize it really is just a bunch of doodads on a one-texture, flat ground. That's the kind of stuff you could really improve on. Overall, props to you on pulling through, though.

It looks pretty good and there is a good amount of detail given the huge amount and size of it. Theres quite a few more things that i could say about it but what i really wanted to point out, that like some people of are saying, are some of the placements are random and therefore look unnatural. I think the best example i see is in the golds mineral factory; doodads are just placed in a line or rather randomly and looks out of place. They don't really tell a story as you can't follow the process with the eye; i want to be able to see that theres a pits of minerals that leads to a conveyor pulling them out to the next machine chopping them up to a machine sorting and liquidifying to and set of trucks transporting it away (if that makes any sense). It things too like why is there not a security fence with a checkout/gate around big danger zone like an large power plant or processing plant where you naturally wouldn't want people wonder. Basically use the doodads and terrain together to create a background store whats plausible , or simply everytime you place a doodad as yourself what is this doodad doing in relation to the environment around it and how does it interact with it.

I think my fav part tho is the space port and the use of the zerg pens and lights to create landing pads. The points on texturing are correct too; i used to be largely into the melee map scene on tl and i can say that the biggest factor by far that made maps interesting was the natural use of the texture set.