Core Prime Industrial Area
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Core Prime Industrial Area
It's like the Core Contingency metal map, just a little smaller (80% of original dimension) because spring has some limitation on map size, and a bit more symetric. The pyramid center are also give a bit more metal, and the pyramid faces even more. Units can climb anywhere, but that's a spring issue. The steeper the slope the slower the units climb, but units always manage to climb anywhere, in spring. But otherwise it's the same as the TA map.
The shading is handled by Spring, so it perfectly follow the heightmap. I just changed tint of plateau so flat high part stand out more to flat low part. And I reduced contrast of pyramid faces so the core insigna are clearly seen.
Black sky and fog, and contrasted lighting to show it's an atmosphereless planet.
Download Core Prime Industrial Area from FileUniverse, only 2.5MB
The shading is handled by Spring, so it perfectly follow the heightmap. I just changed tint of plateau so flat high part stand out more to flat low part. And I reduced contrast of pyramid faces so the core insigna are clearly seen.
Black sky and fog, and contrasted lighting to show it's an atmosphereless planet.
Download Core Prime Industrial Area from FileUniverse, only 2.5MB
In spring units can climb anything, they're just slowed by slopes. So units can always go out of a crater. Considering the insane amout of starburt missiles that was constantly pourring on some parts of the map, I'd say terrain deformation is pretty low in fact. And bumpy ground never got in the way of my units in that game. In fact I had two adv kbot lab exit point set to the area that had been pounded by Rangers and Conquerors (which, I remind you, are level 2 ships) for hours, and it didn't even feel like they were slowed down by the craterised ground. Only the cliffs seemed to slow them notably.
No, I haven't experienced with darker water. But yes, that green on the shore is a bit too bright. I'll leave as it is for this map for compatibility reason, but if I do another metal map with water I'll probably try darker tones.
No, I haven't experienced with darker water. But yes, that green on the shore is a bit too bright. I'll leave as it is for this map for compatibility reason, but if I do another metal map with water I'll probably try darker tones.
Yes, I meant it's me who got confused between I and l.
I haven't used -L either. But, when enlarging the heightmap, in my image editor, I ticked the thing to interpolate the color of the pixels, so as to have smooth cliff, instead of awful crenels every x step. It's possible that this procedure also round the edges. I'll have yet to devise a way to smooth constant slopes but not the edges at the end of slopes. I think redoing the map entirely may be the best option. Since I already don't use the "texture" map, I'd just have to redo a clean heightmap.
Storm:
1) is easy. The heightmap is perfectly aligned because there is nothing it has to align to! That's true, for the texture map, I simply told to annihilator: fill the whole map with the same bland flat metal section. The Spring engine does the shading for me. Just use strongly contrasted values in the appropriate values of the .smd. It's the same way I used to get the green near-perfectly aligned to shoreline.
2) I can't get rid of the blue too. I just tweaked the sun, sky, cloud, fog, map ligthening, .bmp texture contrast/brightness etc.. until I felt I couldn't get anything better. Feel free to use my .smd or variants of my .smd for any metal map.
a 8192x8912
I haven't used -L either. But, when enlarging the heightmap, in my image editor, I ticked the thing to interpolate the color of the pixels, so as to have smooth cliff, instead of awful crenels every x step. It's possible that this procedure also round the edges. I'll have yet to devise a way to smooth constant slopes but not the edges at the end of slopes. I think redoing the map entirely may be the best option. Since I already don't use the "texture" map, I'd just have to redo a clean heightmap.
Storm:
1) is easy. The heightmap is perfectly aligned because there is nothing it has to align to! That's true, for the texture map, I simply told to annihilator: fill the whole map with the same bland flat metal section. The Spring engine does the shading for me. Just use strongly contrasted values in the appropriate values of the .smd. It's the same way I used to get the green near-perfectly aligned to shoreline.
2) I can't get rid of the blue too. I just tweaked the sun, sky, cloud, fog, map ligthening, .bmp texture contrast/brightness etc.. until I felt I couldn't get anything better. Feel free to use my .smd or variants of my .smd for any metal map.
a 8192x8912
In truth the texture.bmp isn't a straight tiled metal flat:
- The lighting on units didn't fit the lighting of the map. So I changed the contrast and brightness of the texture .bmp.
- The flat area up on the plateau looked exactly the same as the flat area down on the plain. If was difficult to see edges from behind. So, I roughly located the up flat area with a mask made of an enlarged heightmap, and tinted the area of the texture.bmp corresponding to up flat plateau a bit differently.
- I changed the contrast of pyramids so the textures on it look more bland and the core logos stand out better.
- The lighting on units didn't fit the lighting of the map. So I changed the contrast and brightness of the texture .bmp.
- The flat area up on the plateau looked exactly the same as the flat area down on the plain. If was difficult to see edges from behind. So, I roughly located the up flat area with a mask made of an enlarged heightmap, and tinted the area of the texture.bmp corresponding to up flat plateau a bit differently.
- I changed the contrast of pyramids so the textures on it look more bland and the core logos stand out better.
- [K.B.] Napalm Cobra
- Posts: 1222
- Joined: 16 Aug 2004, 06:15
I played that map online for a long game, and liked the terrain deformation. It never went in the way of gameplay. It always stayed reasonable. It made the game prettier looking, and better playing. Maybe at first it looks strange to have metal so soft, but I like the terrain deformation as it is. Since the TA manual states that projectile are made of plasma and anti-matter, it makes sense they are able to make metal melt. Anyway I don't feel like sharpening all the edges, and the smooth edges looks weirder than craters.
Other map makers may disable the terrain deformation for their new maps. I won't for this one.
Other map makers may disable the terrain deformation for their new maps. I won't for this one.
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- Posts: 57
- Joined: 01 May 2005, 03:18
9 nukes?? That's something not supposed to happen in a proper OTA game. Though it's a metal map. Games can quickly escalate to mass high level on those map, even with good players. But 9 nukes! I thought 2 were enough to kill anything (or was it only the comm that dies from 2?). Must have been some pretty fireworks. I gotta see that.
What is strange is that I've blown up a few commanders on that map and the height change was hardly noticeable.
Also, the default hardness is harder with new spring version.
And I really don't want to issue a new version and have two versions floating around. I'll think about harder terrain if I do a new metal map. Maybe (one can dream) if it gets included in the package of a new spring version it could use one with harder terrain and darker water (but the fluo green I grew to like too).
Edit: You may be right after all, the walls at the top just don't look straight after the commander explosion:
What is strange is that I've blown up a few commanders on that map and the height change was hardly noticeable.
Also, the default hardness is harder with new spring version.
And I really don't want to issue a new version and have two versions floating around. I'll think about harder terrain if I do a new metal map. Maybe (one can dream) if it gets included in the package of a new spring version it could use one with harder terrain and darker water (but the fluo green I grew to like too).
Edit: You may be right after all, the walls at the top just don't look straight after the commander explosion: