Awesome terrain, definitely something useful for people who lack terraining skills (like myself). I will make sure to keep this in mind when i'm far enough with my project.
You are right, I probably sound too badass lol. Actually I just want to find a person who has serious desire to finish his project. No more, no less.
Also I didnt work on 12 projects at once. I had planned one campaign of 12 maps, but it didn't happen.
And after all dont underestimate terraining. It takes knowledge, skill, experience and artistic taste to do something good. One of biggest issues here is also being able to make your maps looking different with different feeling, even if you use one tileset.
Hello, I am a level designer, or terrain artist if you wish. A while ago I was actively working on big project of 12 maps, but had to abandon it because I do not have much time to deal with it anymore. Not likely I will return to map making, so I have decided to give away all 12 maps. They are 99% finished in case of terrain/objects, polished and ready for a trigger man and a data editor to come and rock'n'roll :)
I consider some of those maps pretty well designed and some are so-so. Also I have tried to use map space as efficient as possible (usually it works, unless I left free space for future cinematic scene). Take a look!
Now, what about giving them away? I am not going to let everyone to download it. Of course, every good map maker wants exclusive terrain. This means I give each map to one person.
The rules are following: If you want a map, you should send me a PM on the forums and tell me why should I believe that you will finish the project you are on and my terrain work won't go to waste.:)
Okay, enough talk. Now I am going to show the maps. I will show the minimap, high quality screenshots and a video (which is fairly poor quality, cannot capture better one without lag, that's the reason I attach HQ screenshots).
7. Oceanside. 256X200. This map is designed for using a boat most of the time and sometimes dropping troops to accomplish tasks on the ground. Has 6 spots for ground operations.
Check HQ screenshots before watching the video, please.
8. Oasis. 168x168. Pretty simple map with a player's base in dead center and 4 ways for enemies to come from. Good for some sort of defense gameplay. Has 2 enemies' bases.
9. Autumn. 256x144. Half of the map we run along a road and fight our way through block posts. Eventually we get into fairly big town with lot of interesting stuff in there.
11. Deadly beach. 256X184. 1/4 of the map is an ocean beach with a lot of soldiers there. After that we get high into mountains and appear in a jungle. As the player moves further he runs into ruined cars, dead people and eventually into zombies. There are 3 friendly bases we can hide into. There is a problem with the beach. I wanted mountains along the beach to be high and made the beach very low cliff level. Means no units can walk there, unless they are flying. The issue you should be aware of.
12. Night forest. 256x256. Beautiful alien forest with old ruins and strange plants, sometimes damn huge. I like the look of the map but there is a problem: I overdone amount of doodads and the map won't load in-game until it is reduced. I don't bother doing it, but removing all Foliage type of doodads should do the trick.
Hello, I am a level designer, or terrain artist if you wish. A while ago I was actively working on big project of 12 maps, but had to abandon it because I do not have much time to deal with it anymore. Not likely I will return to map making, so I have decided to give away all 12 maps. They are 99% finished in case of terrain/objects, polished and ready for a trigger man and a data editor to come and rock'n'roll :)
I consider some of those maps pretty well designed and some are so-so. Also I have tried to use map space as efficient as possible (usually it works, unless I left free space for future cinematic scene). Take a look!
Now, what about giving them away? I am not going to let everyone to download it. Of course, every good map maker wants exclusive terrain. This means I give each map to one person.
The rules are following: If you want a map, you should send me a PM on the forums and tell me why should I believe that you will finish the project you are on and my terrain work won't go to waste.:)
Okay, enough talk. Now I am going to show the maps. I will show the minimap, high quality screenshots and a video (which is fairly poor quality, cannot capture better one without lag, that's the reason I attach HQ screenshots).
1. Crystal valley. 224x176. The map contains 3 small expedition camps next to each other. The map is split by half and we can choose which side we go from main camp.
Check HQ screenshots before watching the video, please.
3. luminescent forest. 136x256. Switching between normal jungle and alien luminescent forest. There is fast river on the map. Also contains 3 bases in different places.
4. A town and ruins. 256x112. There is a town on the map. It has a lot of corpses, fires. Looks like there was intense combat not long ago. On map 5 there will be the same town, but cleaned from blood and some debris by good guys. After exiting the town we get into the jungle and then run into ancient ruins.
5. The town and even more ruins. 120x256. The town looks more peaceful. After leaving the town we get into the wild, crossing a river and run into ancient ruins.
6. Foggy landscape. 256x256. I am proud of fresh mountain fog feeling I managed to create here. On the map we run along rivers until eventually we get on top of huge mountain (of course – “huge” is an illusion, wink).
I might be reading you completely wrong, but are you (perhaps unknowingly) bringing up the philosophical argument that young people have the enthousiasm but lack the experience (and thus have the "sod it, I'm gonna make this shit" mentality) while old people have the experience but lack the enthousiasm (and thus have the "I've got a brilliant idea all thought out, but I guess I misthought somewhere so I'd better not make this" mentality)?
If so, my hat goes off to you sir, that's a good point you're making that's both valid to the discussion and something I hadn't considered yet.
Hm... Not exactly but close. When you lack experience you go like "wow, that idea is freaking badass, Im gonna make it right now!" and rarely oriented towards result. With experience you involve alot more planning to be sure that the result will be cool. But in the same time you may lack motivation when it comes to things you are not sure about or don't have enough knowledge and experience in.
Thats the thing. Not all successful artists do as you say, either now or in the past - but some do.
It also depends on what level you're doing it at. If you're doing it for fun, as a hobby, you want care what "Philosophy" goes into your picture. That doesn't mean your picture looks bad. (If the drawer has enough technical skill)
See what I'm saying?
Anyways, I support planning - I'm just often too lazy to do it with things I'm just doing for fun. =)
Yeh, I agree if you do something for hobby you just go straight forward no matter what result you get. I tend to have a deal with larger projects so my workflow involves too much to be able to work without planning :) therefore I project the same approach to smaller tasks.
In my opinion the more professional a person gets the more well thought his work becomes. The younger (not by age, but by experience) person is the more relaxed he is in terms of this kind of work.
@unit187: Go you don't create a word document saying "There will be a tree, 3 centimeters from the right, that acts as the primary focus of the picture... Blah Blah Blah" because while that may be true, the picture is fueled from their artistic vision which is what they're really relying on, and its their technical skill that allows them to draw it masterfully.
Then we probably decided what the planning actually is. For me good artist is planning and thinking about his artwork pretty damn alot. Surely he doesn't write it down, but he still knows where he will put focus, how will viewer's eye move, where are the points of interest, how the elements will create mood and atmosphere. If you are doing designs, you think a lot about materials stuff is made of, about it's function etc.
More advanced artist puts an idea, philosophy into his artwork. That doesnt happen often novadays. People tend to paint with mouse in cracked photoshop some useless anti-artistic trash with trollface onto their faces.
The thought comes to my mind concerning what needs planning and what not.
A movie definately needs. Thats obvious because it is so complicated that a single person cant hold everything in mind. Plus he must share this information with other workers and also follow budget and schedule.
A computer game needs a lot planning. In Russia most of our games fail because producers and other leaders understimate importance of planning. At the end they fall behind schedule and lose money. After all they get very rough product.
A book needs. Take as example "War and Peace" book by Lev Tolstoi. He did a LOT of research and all kind of planning before he actually has written the book. As a result - genius creation.
An oil painting needs. You have to do lot of sketches, then underpainting, then painting itself while you have to know a lot of technical stuff like how long the oil dries and when you can paint over dried oil to get more finished look etc. Basically any painting (including digital painting, matte painting etc.) needs, unless it is some rough free sketch.
But if you do some small project it often makes sense to let it flow without schedules and stuff. Basically I think anything that is fairly simple doesnt need planning and can even hurt the flow of creativity. I didn't play Vexals maps but I guess they aren't too complex so importance of planning isn't big enough here.
Sure if you do an RPG map with strong story, interesting lfe-like characters - you have to write down all this information to be able to make solid map which is interesting and preotect if from falling apart. I always liked the way Blizzard designs their maps. You feel that every corner of the map is well thought and plays along with the story and action which takes place on the map. You can barely find any useless pieces of playable area.
@Vexal: Go
Some people just function better under a Schedule, Planning, and Order, and others don't.
Yeh, but the thing is the one who is planning appears to be much more successful and produces quite better quility (and sometimes genious) stuff, rather then those who dont plan things.
i think all steps are equally important but you can make awesome things without planning and you cant make awesome things just with planning xP so ;p
Doubt it. Well it can happen, but it is so rare and look like spark of genius come from nowhere. You can take as example any book of classic master. If you start dig into it you will find out very well thought structure and dramaturgy. "Normal" person will never know that it exists, but it is there. Basically you have an idea, then you build up dramaturgy and stuff (you can call it planning) around it and after that you polish it with beautiful words and phrases, which make people think that those words are what makes you great author.
I see it the other way around. I see people who plan as inferior. It appears to me that their minds are closed and single-tracked. A more nimble, open, and flexible mind can quickly jump in the best possible direction at any given point in time.
Sorry, but wrong. I am film making school student and we are doing a lot of reseach concerning planning and having very strong structure. All successful films, no matter if it is Casablanca (1941) or The Godfather or Shrek (which are closer to our time) have very strong foundation. And I am not talking about technical planning (sir, we need 300 high poly models with fur rendered by 30th of Ocrober!) but more about ideas and inventions.
If you dont have written on paper what is your film about, what do you want to say with it to audience, then you more likely cannot formulate it youself. It is easy to see if a movie director worthless piece of crap by asking him what is his film about. If he starts to mubmle something like "oh it is so hard to explain, I just feel it!", then you can be absolutely sure that the film will fail.
Its a little different with games and modmaking, but a lot of rules apply to them anyways. Maps are much less complex and don't need that much planning but still it is obvious that you cant make strong solid map without any kind of planning at all.
as a basic rule of thumb, go Terrain>Data Editing>Triggers
From my experience as terrain artist (read: level designer) for an MMORPG it actually makes sense to make rough terrain at first, then you do scripting (triggering) and after that is done you are left doing 2 things in the same time: polishing terrain and polishing scripts.
The thing is you might spend days/weeks/monthes... on terrain and suddenly it appears that you have to change a lot of stuff losing a lot of time. Been there, done that. Bad planning ruins stuff, motivation, takes too much time to fix.
Team Recruitment is really inactive for some reason. Your thread has quite a bit of detail in it though, so it's probably best to just bump it every now and again and wait.
Guess so. It looks like SC2 is not quite friendly to mappers as it was with previous games and people just leave it :/
F) Aside from that, most projects started never finish or even reach a halfway point. This has made people very cautious about joining something like that.
Your post was pretty good, so I think there's simply little interest in people wanting to make single-player stuff, let alone single maps. Most of these maps are made by single authors, anyway (as demonstrated by my map, 'The Turning'). I recommend you give at least the triggering a try, as it should be fairly easy to do.
Talking about "F", I was hoping that my post would show that the project is already beyong half point since most of stuff is already done :/
It seems for me that good singleplayer map can be far more popular then average multiplayer one because of the way bnet works, there are only 2 ways map can go: your map is on top of chart or no one plays it at all. Singleplayer map is not replayable but everybody play it at least once :)
Talking about triggers: I did some of it, I am experienced in lua also and now I am sure enough that I prefer to leave coding/triggers/math for other person who enjoys it, rather then trying to do it myself and suffering pain - its boring and annoying for me.
Maybe it's just me, but the whole reason I learned how to work the GE is because there is something specific that I wanted to do. I would think people who go thru the trouble of getting good at it don't do it so they can then go work on somebody else's idea. For me learning and doing the technical side of things is merely a means to an end. If I'm not working towards something I really want then there is no enjoyment in it.
I don't enjoy working with triggers and data editor. Basically I hate it :) I can do terrain, cinematics, story, modelling etc. but when it comes to coding and such - I pass. That's why I am trying to find a person to work with.
0
Giving it a little bump :)
0
Nah, you were actually right :)
Thank you :)
0
You are right, I probably sound too badass lol. Actually I just want to find a person who has serious desire to finish his project. No more, no less.
Also I didnt work on 12 projects at once. I had planned one campaign of 12 maps, but it didn't happen. And after all dont underestimate terraining. It takes knowledge, skill, experience and artistic taste to do something good. One of biggest issues here is also being able to make your maps looking different with different feeling, even if you use one tileset.
0
Hello, I am a level designer, or terrain artist if you wish. A while ago I was actively working on big project of 12 maps, but had to abandon it because I do not have much time to deal with it anymore. Not likely I will return to map making, so I have decided to give away all 12 maps. They are 99% finished in case of terrain/objects, polished and ready for a trigger man and a data editor to come and rock'n'roll :)
I consider some of those maps pretty well designed and some are so-so. Also I have tried to use map space as efficient as possible (usually it works, unless I left free space for future cinematic scene). Take a look!
Now, what about giving them away? I am not going to let everyone to download it. Of course, every good map maker wants exclusive terrain. This means I give each map to one person.
The rules are following: If you want a map, you should send me a PM on the forums and tell me why should I believe that you will finish the project you are on and my terrain work won't go to waste.:)
Okay, enough talk. Now I am going to show the maps. I will show the minimap, high quality screenshots and a video (which is fairly poor quality, cannot capture better one without lag, that's the reason I attach HQ screenshots).
7. Oceanside. 256X200. This map is designed for using a boat most of the time and sometimes dropping troops to accomplish tasks on the ground. Has 6 spots for ground operations.
Check HQ screenshots before watching the video, please.
http://i.imgur.com/bduMH.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/2AoDz.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pECgD.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zzjTe.jpg
8. Oasis. 168x168. Pretty simple map with a player's base in dead center and 4 ways for enemies to come from. Good for some sort of defense gameplay. Has 2 enemies' bases.
http://i.imgur.com/XMn8s.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/xm590.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/17S8N.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/k0OKZ.jpg
9. Autumn. 256x144. Half of the map we run along a road and fight our way through block posts. Eventually we get into fairly big town with lot of interesting stuff in there.
http://i.imgur.com/bjxaI.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/cemFL.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/kZ7A9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9ZmQ3.jpg
10. Alien night. 256x184. Dark moody alien forest. After a while a player finds vast ruins with some sort of Xel'naga look.
http://i.imgur.com/ZOFB6.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/wMXAX.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/FuaXN.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ff0Zs.jpg
11. Deadly beach. 256X184. 1/4 of the map is an ocean beach with a lot of soldiers there. After that we get high into mountains and appear in a jungle. As the player moves further he runs into ruined cars, dead people and eventually into zombies. There are 3 friendly bases we can hide into. There is a problem with the beach. I wanted mountains along the beach to be high and made the beach very low cliff level. Means no units can walk there, unless they are flying. The issue you should be aware of.
http://i.imgur.com/Il3mH.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/YX8AJ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/R9eSZ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/l5POg.jpg
12. Night forest. 256x256. Beautiful alien forest with old ruins and strange plants, sometimes damn huge. I like the look of the map but there is a problem: I overdone amount of doodads and the map won't load in-game until it is reduced. I don't bother doing it, but removing all Foliage type of doodads should do the trick.
http://i.imgur.com/4jaVA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Gdo0D.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/EZPTO.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Ha9Ic.jpg
I hope I didn't mess with any link. Too many videos and screenshots at once :)
0
Hello, I am a level designer, or terrain artist if you wish. A while ago I was actively working on big project of 12 maps, but had to abandon it because I do not have much time to deal with it anymore. Not likely I will return to map making, so I have decided to give away all 12 maps. They are 99% finished in case of terrain/objects, polished and ready for a trigger man and a data editor to come and rock'n'roll :)
I consider some of those maps pretty well designed and some are so-so. Also I have tried to use map space as efficient as possible (usually it works, unless I left free space for future cinematic scene). Take a look!
Now, what about giving them away? I am not going to let everyone to download it. Of course, every good map maker wants exclusive terrain. This means I give each map to one person.
The rules are following: If you want a map, you should send me a PM on the forums and tell me why should I believe that you will finish the project you are on and my terrain work won't go to waste.:)
Okay, enough talk. Now I am going to show the maps. I will show the minimap, high quality screenshots and a video (which is fairly poor quality, cannot capture better one without lag, that's the reason I attach HQ screenshots).
1. Crystal valley. 224x176. The map contains 3 small expedition camps next to each other. The map is split by half and we can choose which side we go from main camp.
Check HQ screenshots before watching the video, please.
http://i.imgur.com/D3w29.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rYXF8.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/xIzIJ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RlUHx.jpg
2. Brown forest. 160x224. The forest switches between normal jungle and brown/purple alien forest.
http://i.imgur.com/htS5L.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/uql2o.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mRiEY.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/uCR9w.jpg
3. luminescent forest. 136x256. Switching between normal jungle and alien luminescent forest. There is fast river on the map. Also contains 3 bases in different places.
http://i.imgur.com/8vgTs.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mVZ7o.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/yp9Xl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/bwiQ8.jpg
4. A town and ruins. 256x112. There is a town on the map. It has a lot of corpses, fires. Looks like there was intense combat not long ago. On map 5 there will be the same town, but cleaned from blood and some debris by good guys. After exiting the town we get into the jungle and then run into ancient ruins.
http://i.imgur.com/8ct0s.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mu3L4.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tDJUx.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/YTneh.jpg
5. The town and even more ruins. 120x256. The town looks more peaceful. After leaving the town we get into the wild, crossing a river and run into ancient ruins.
http://i.imgur.com/5MRO1.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ZrFxY.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/QCI6O.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/G9lR0.jpg
6. Foggy landscape. 256x256. I am proud of fresh mountain fog feeling I managed to create here. On the map we run along rivers until eventually we get on top of huge mountain (of course – “huge” is an illusion, wink).
http://i.imgur.com/mTrWu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vKIGl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/TkrCN.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/vBwzl.jpg
I hope I didn't mess with any link. Too many videos and screenshots at once :)
0
Hm... Not exactly but close. When you lack experience you go like "wow, that idea is freaking badass, Im gonna make it right now!" and rarely oriented towards result. With experience you involve alot more planning to be sure that the result will be cool. But in the same time you may lack motivation when it comes to things you are not sure about or don't have enough knowledge and experience in.
0
Yeh, I agree if you do something for hobby you just go straight forward no matter what result you get. I tend to have a deal with larger projects so my workflow involves too much to be able to work without planning :) therefore I project the same approach to smaller tasks. In my opinion the more professional a person gets the more well thought his work becomes. The younger (not by age, but by experience) person is the more relaxed he is in terms of this kind of work.
0
Then we probably decided what the planning actually is. For me good artist is planning and thinking about his artwork pretty damn alot. Surely he doesn't write it down, but he still knows where he will put focus, how will viewer's eye move, where are the points of interest, how the elements will create mood and atmosphere. If you are doing designs, you think a lot about materials stuff is made of, about it's function etc. More advanced artist puts an idea, philosophy into his artwork. That doesnt happen often novadays. People tend to paint with mouse in cracked photoshop some useless anti-artistic trash with trollface onto their faces.
0
The thought comes to my mind concerning what needs planning and what not.
A movie definately needs. Thats obvious because it is so complicated that a single person cant hold everything in mind. Plus he must share this information with other workers and also follow budget and schedule.
A computer game needs a lot planning. In Russia most of our games fail because producers and other leaders understimate importance of planning. At the end they fall behind schedule and lose money. After all they get very rough product.
A book needs. Take as example "War and Peace" book by Lev Tolstoi. He did a LOT of research and all kind of planning before he actually has written the book. As a result - genius creation.
An oil painting needs. You have to do lot of sketches, then underpainting, then painting itself while you have to know a lot of technical stuff like how long the oil dries and when you can paint over dried oil to get more finished look etc. Basically any painting (including digital painting, matte painting etc.) needs, unless it is some rough free sketch.
But if you do some small project it often makes sense to let it flow without schedules and stuff. Basically I think anything that is fairly simple doesnt need planning and can even hurt the flow of creativity. I didn't play Vexals maps but I guess they aren't too complex so importance of planning isn't big enough here. Sure if you do an RPG map with strong story, interesting lfe-like characters - you have to write down all this information to be able to make solid map which is interesting and preotect if from falling apart. I always liked the way Blizzard designs their maps. You feel that every corner of the map is well thought and plays along with the story and action which takes place on the map. You can barely find any useless pieces of playable area.
0
Yeh, but the thing is the one who is planning appears to be much more successful and produces quite better quility (and sometimes genious) stuff, rather then those who dont plan things.
0
Doubt it. Well it can happen, but it is so rare and look like spark of genius come from nowhere. You can take as example any book of classic master. If you start dig into it you will find out very well thought structure and dramaturgy. "Normal" person will never know that it exists, but it is there. Basically you have an idea, then you build up dramaturgy and stuff (you can call it planning) around it and after that you polish it with beautiful words and phrases, which make people think that those words are what makes you great author.
0
Sorry, but wrong. I am film making school student and we are doing a lot of reseach concerning planning and having very strong structure. All successful films, no matter if it is Casablanca (1941) or The Godfather or Shrek (which are closer to our time) have very strong foundation. And I am not talking about technical planning (sir, we need 300 high poly models with fur rendered by 30th of Ocrober!) but more about ideas and inventions. If you dont have written on paper what is your film about, what do you want to say with it to audience, then you more likely cannot formulate it youself. It is easy to see if a movie director worthless piece of crap by asking him what is his film about. If he starts to mubmle something like "oh it is so hard to explain, I just feel it!", then you can be absolutely sure that the film will fail.
Its a little different with games and modmaking, but a lot of rules apply to them anyways. Maps are much less complex and don't need that much planning but still it is obvious that you cant make strong solid map without any kind of planning at all.
0
From my experience as terrain artist (read: level designer) for an MMORPG it actually makes sense to make rough terrain at first, then you do scripting (triggering) and after that is done you are left doing 2 things in the same time: polishing terrain and polishing scripts. The thing is you might spend days/weeks/monthes... on terrain and suddenly it appears that you have to change a lot of stuff losing a lot of time. Been there, done that. Bad planning ruins stuff, motivation, takes too much time to fix.
0
Thanks mate, but I have over 2 years of experience in doing terrain as main job so I am fairly good at it myself :)
0
thanks guys :>
Guess so. It looks like SC2 is not quite friendly to mappers as it was with previous games and people just leave it :/
Talking about "F", I was hoping that my post would show that the project is already beyong half point since most of stuff is already done :/
It seems for me that good singleplayer map can be far more popular then average multiplayer one because of the way bnet works, there are only 2 ways map can go: your map is on top of chart or no one plays it at all. Singleplayer map is not replayable but everybody play it at least once :)
Talking about triggers: I did some of it, I am experienced in lua also and now I am sure enough that I prefer to leave coding/triggers/math for other person who enjoys it, rather then trying to do it myself and suffering pain - its boring and annoying for me.
I don't enjoy working with triggers and data editor. Basically I hate it :) I can do terrain, cinematics, story, modelling etc. but when it comes to coding and such - I pass. That's why I am trying to find a person to work with.