I'm about to start work on a new 18x16 map:



Since I do all my heightmapping by hand via photoshop and springmapedit, its going to be time consuming for me to make even a rough heightmap to work from.

I was wondering if it would be possible for someone kind and possessing skill with the various landscape tools/worldgen/carra etc to quickly throw outa rough heightmap I could work from- basically a big prevailing slope with four flat tiers on it, with ramps between them similar to the pic if possible. Would be much appreciated!

Why many of the maps are symmetrical ? for the balance.
The true life is unfair :D

we can give more resources (more metal spots) to one side, but the other side will be prized by better place starting.

spring players are picky and reject things that are variable. No one likes wasting time

But this is a game, not true life. : P

I like the design you've sketched up. (But I do not have the tools of which you speak.) What about just painting 4 tiers and smudging between them or painting with a fading opacity brush to get started in photoshop? (My impertinent suggestion.)

LOL, I've been wanting to make what you describe, though it certainly has its problems. Namely, how does one porcupine with fewer resources than the attacker, even if one is in a highly defensible location?

used your colors as height indicators. just spent a few mins, hence the inaccuracy. should all be vector shapes that you can muck around with / move in photoshop.

towers i think you should make as models and then add them into the map later. edit *not as features, but as models added to the heightmap a la frozen fort. but i'm not your dad, i can't tell you what to do

thanks man, what brush or tool do you use to make the smooth ramps? I have Photoshop CS4 but I'm still at the stage where I learn new things every time I use it. This will certainly save me a few hours on springmapedit.. depressing that it only took you a few minutes

I was going to make the towers using the prefabs or something similar, I don't have the technical skills to create features yet!

gradient inside of polygonal lasso

hmm... does that come with adobe illustrator? haven't got a new copy of shoop in a while. anyways... to make the ramps i'm using trapezoidal vector shapes, (rather than bitmaps) giving them a linear gradient fill from the "top" color to the "bottom" color and then distorting/rotating them into place

did it with fireworks because i find it faster; i prefer working with vectors for things like map concepts because it makes it easier to shift things about (and i always mess something up the first time through). i figure it's a standard technique for this kind of mapping; world machine for instance seems to encourage the use of vector shapes for layouts (and then of course said shapes are processed and you end up with a bitmap in the end)

prefeb is not a bad idea; but i should really make a tutorial on how to do the 3d model thing.

edit: yeah you can do the lasso-fill thing too if you want the ramps to be bitmaps. maybe its easier in PS, idk

This. Especially combined with a feathering of the lasso'ed selection. Makes a perfect ramp every time.

If you want to do it with keybinds, here is how:
Hit I to select low height. Hit x to swap foreground and background, hit I and select high height. Hit L to lasso the ramp, press shift f6 to feather the selection (5-10 pixels), G to gradient and draw your ramp.

Real trouble is, you dont get anything to show around, if you take them on on one of those uneven maps.

"7 on a slope" Archievment unlocked.

Draw a black to white gradient over whole image in photoshop, save it, open in carrara3d and run the plateu and terrace filters.

Ramps are the same principle, draw gradients in selected areas.

Doing heightmap is pretty easy, the inspiration and texturing is the difficult part..