..:: Althora Construction Screen Shots ::..

[IceXuick]

Okay, here are some new screenshots (some retouched with photoshop for the effect :).

Still in the works, without features yes i know, so don't flame me on that. I'm interested in the reactions, and if i should continue tweaking the map, or start working on my new water map with ridges...

overview minimap:



overview centre of map:



low altitude depth of field shot:



topdown view:



overview #2:



low altitude depth of field shot #2:



side view:



comm explosion :)

[Maelstrom]

The terrain looks great, but what about a minimap?

[Das Bruce]

Doesn't appear to line up properly?

[IceXuick]

no indeed. That's one of the things i must work on, before releasing it. It's that the rendered map, was slightly shifted before i rendered it, and the heightmap was a little offset.. moved and also rotated.. so need to get that right.

Minimap will come, sorry for that.

First some sleep, it again is (6:38 in the) morning

if i have time, i will upload the minimap tomorrow.

[Das Bruce]

Ahh good, nothing worse than textures that don't line up...

[SinbadEV]

it looks great... but for some reason I can't put my finger on... it looks "small" like a toy model... I can't figure out why...

[Maelstrom]

I think its the Depth of Feild effect thats doing that.

[LathanStanley]

is it just me... or do his maps look to support bumpmapping??

[SwiftSpear]

It's just an illusion but it looks very natural.

[NOiZE]

looks very nice!

i'm wondering what program do you use to render the texture?

[Warlord Zsinj]

I think some of the "sediment lines" (for want of a better term) on the cliffs need to be sorted out. In some areas, they look good, in some they look a bit silly.

Definitely a great looking map though.

My only other suggestion is that you make the high bits higher, so that there is a more clear distinction between "low ground", "middle ground" and "high ground". Greater contrast makes for a more interesting map, too.

[Lord JoNil]

Love It!

[Forboding Angel]

My only other suggestion is that you make the high bits higher, so that there is a more clear distinction between "low ground", "middle ground" and "high ground". Greater contrast makes for a more interesting map, too.

Bad idea. You can trick the eye by rendering with huge altitudes so that it LOOKS like the hill is hugely high, but when you use mapconv to compile... Only have a height difference of 300 for example:

-x 400 -n 100

Reason being, is that if you have your hills over that even kbots will have a tough time getting over them, plus, while high heights look really cool, they play like crap.

Go try Horst and Graben if you don't believe me. 2 valleys is another good example (even though it actually manages to get away with super high heights well enough, Not good, but well enough). If you disagree with me thats fine, but trust me, I know this.

high heights = bad gameplay

[IceXuick]

Oke first of all. I will post the minimap within the hour.

Second. I think i know what you mean with, "can't get my finger on it".. And i agree. Also because of the fact that some 'sediment lines' curve around long stretches of mountain, which makes it tiny, and when these lines don't line up everywhere it just doesn't work.

For the low, med and high ground. Most of my mapping time is already in the tweaking for the maximum ammount of mapheigt, so that atleast kbots can travel over the routes i wanted them to. Forboding Angel explains exactly what the problem with higher heights is, and it.. kinda sucks.. You should be able to define the height, but not like, higher = unpassable terrain, but higher = visible heiger, travel/pathfinding map should stay the same (or should be set seperately)

And as much as i do understand that for example 3 heights (l/m/h) can work out great (also is in my newest concept map) this map has just like 2 heights => all passable terrain and the mountains that divide the map.

Maybe i will try to enhance the map, remake it. (some basic things that need to be re-rendered and remapped.

thx for all info and reactions anyway! :)

ice out

[Forboding Angel]

ice, you can use typemaps to achieve unit movement... I reccommend against it though. Types maps generally do more for screwing up a maps playability than helping it.

The best thing imo is to render the map at a huge height and then compile it an normal heights. This way it tricks your eyes into thinking that something is higher than uit really is.

[Decimator]

Also, when playing with map heights, this utility is your best friend: http://taspring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewt ... smf+editor

[Warlord Zsinj]

As Ice said, and as I could see from the images, it was quite clear that the cliffs were unlikely to be passable; hence, steep regions could be allowed, with 'ramped' areas to allow procession between the two.

A similar system as the one used in "The Pass" could be used, where the cliff faces are even voided to ensure that units are not confused in any way by these slopes. The Pass is a very good looking map, has extreme heights, and plays well.

I think that people really don't explore the height variations in maps very much. Many maps tend to make things very flat, for evident gameplay reasons; but this ultimately makes for relatively bland gameplay, in my opinion, as well as less visually impressive maps. If Spring is really causing critical issues with the ability to adjust height, then perhaps it is an issue that needs to be addressed with Spring, as opposed to simply making flat maps.

[Weaver]

Does height difference help as mucjh as it should? ie. How much does altitude affect the range of any weapon type that we have?

Lasers and beams should be unaffected.

Missiles probably have limited propellent burn time rather than a hard range limit. (Other possible factors gravity and wind?)

Ballistics should gain the most but I not sure if they do. They should be limited by muzzel velocity and trajectory. (Other factors gravity and accuracy)

I am aware that some of the ballistic projectiles are plasmas which themselves have an effective lifetime, but again it's time not range.

[Dragon45]

Don't listen to forboding! He eats puppies!

Serious: Don't use "visual tricks" to make your maps appear prettier at the expense of gameplay (which forboding is suggesting with his height-scale fudging). If I see a giant ridge, it sohuld bea giant ridge, not some little piss thing that the mapper just thought looks good from one angle or another. There was one map I remember that was absolutely *terrible* to play on because of this same problem; it was made from composite satellite WWII images or something, with a large lake on one side and a giant mountain on the other and just positively SUCKED. If it looks like it should be huge visiually, then the heightmap shold reflect that.

[mufdvr222]

I agree, the games pathfinding should be sorted rather than us compensating with maps that have limited height scale, one of the games major improvements over TA is a decent height scale, units not being able to access high areas seems to be the main complaint but I had to typemap a map I made "Battle Range" to keep kbots from walking up near vertical cliffs so the pathfinding in Spring is pretty screwed up.