Which Map do you want to have?

IceXuick · Post by **IceXuick** » 09 Apr 2006, 22:13

Okay just some map concepts: Let me know which one you like. So you can help me decide which one to make. Suggestions or improvement-tips are always more than welcome!

Map 1 - Canyoning

Map 2 - Grassy Dunes

Map 3 - Alien Crystals

Map 3b - Mountain Ranges

Map 4 - Rocky Islands

Map 4b - Desert Rocks

Map 5 - Desert Rock Heaven

Map 6 - four corners

Lemme know :)

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 09 Apr 2006, 22:32

Alien crystal!

Torrasque · Post by **Torrasque** » 09 Apr 2006, 22:47

The alien crystal and the rocky island look cooler than the other

Canioning and desert rocks look cool too, but they are more conventional.

genblood · Post by **genblood** » 09 Apr 2006, 22:57

I second for Alien crystal! ....

Will be looking forward to its release ...

Kixxe · Post by **Kixxe** » 09 Apr 2006, 23:39

Canyoning! It looks so awesome! But maybe round of the corners a litthe>.>

Quanto042 · Post by **Quanto042** » 09 Apr 2006, 23:39

O.o;;
Can't we have them all??????

Those are some awesome renders!

Dragon45 · Post by **Dragon45** » 10 Apr 2006, 00:59

The canyon one is best.

Ice mate... i practically just creamed my pants when i saw the stunnign qualit of those renders. Nice job!

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 10 Apr 2006, 01:03

yeay canyoning looks nice, but we don't have many crystal maps either, both? :>

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 10 Apr 2006, 01:35

Personally, I'd like to see something that didn't look like output from a quantum-physics experiment combined with a raytracer.

<begins rant>

Don't read if you don't want real critique.

None of these maps look like they're designed by a human with good gameplay in mind. They're pretty pictures, but that's about it. There's nothing about them that suggests that this is land worth fighting over, let alone an obvious attempt to make them good for gameplay. I am sorry in advance- everybody likes your random shader-generated designs, because they are so fractally bizarre. However, that's their main weak spot- they never come together and have a real sense of place. They're just random globs of math.

I am totally and completely unimpressed with maps that feature some artist's whacky interpretation of Nature without any context! Give me settled areas, places that look like they're being strip-mined, dirt roads... anything to suggest that there's been a human (or robotic, or whatever) touch- a real, tangible suggestion that the terrain is actually worth fighting over. These maps all look like you tweaked about 20 variables and then rendered the outputs. They are not interesting, and I could very easily duplicate them using Poser 5 in about an hour. Real maps design are in the painting, heightmaps, and placement of features- and on all but the last, you've let a random number generator do the work. I'm not impressed.

In the incredibly distant future of TA, let alone more near-future or present-day mods, nobody is going to fight over worthless terrain- if the planet/asteroid/whatever has strategic importance, it'll get nuked (or whatever equivalent pertains), but nobody's going to fight a ground war over it. Ground wars are about taking territory, preferably without destroying whatever made it valuable in the first place. This has been true since the ancient history of humanity, and it will remain true even in the impossibly distant world of TA.

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 10 Apr 2006, 01:52

erm...nanoblobs arena looks like a human has been there??? O,o sure...
point, kind of, taken though. some maps with terraforming or something would be cool (greencomet neone? :D)

Argh · Post by **Argh** » 10 Apr 2006, 02:14

Nanoarena is a site. Whether it's an unused reactor, the site of giant rocket launches, or a bizarre signalling device is up to the viewer. It's made out've concrete, metal, and other obviously manufactured materials. It's a place, and humans build places like this- you don't have something like this in your back yard, granted, but that's besides the point. I could've done an ordinary suburb, but I wanted a map with some very precise considerations, and with hrmph's help, that's what we got. Still wish the ocean surrounding the thing was right, but that's my only real complaint.

And yes, all of this is a very transparent excuse for a map that is entirely built for symnetry- but at least I gave it an excuse!

The vast majority of Spring maps are either symnetrical but attempt to be "natural" looking, which just looks stupid, with the rare exceptions like Comet Catcher, Ashap Plateau, or Lava and Two Hills, or they're entirely assymmetrical, look very pretty in screenshots, and don't play very well at all, ala Mars.

Personally, I really like aGorm's approach on Aftershock, where he achieved a real sense of place while also doing some interesting things to screw with players and force them to think. Ok, it's not entirely perfect- we do not have a "Dust2" for Spring- but it's conderably closer than most of the previous efforts, precisely because attention was spent making every element feel like an individual bit of a real world, not just a bit of math gone awry. Several of Foreboding's better efforts have also hit close to this mark, although I wish he'd pay more attention to the little details besides painting (water colors, the interplay of light and shadow) that make a huge difference in total feel. He's one heck of a painter, it's just the little stuff that's keeping him from reaching perfection.

The approach we're seeing right here would be just fine, if it was combined with painterly attention to detail, and real art... I just feel that what we're seeing here is just a random "best hits" after screwing around with a fractal shader.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 10 Apr 2006, 07:42

Rocky Island or Canyoning. They're both killer.

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 10 Apr 2006, 13:30

I was gonna say, the map concepts, while they look very gorgous, I don't see how they work very well in terms of gameplay balance... Asside from maby 4 corners which could be made balanced with a little elbow grease...

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 10 Apr 2006, 13:45

i don't understand Argh!
do u want maps which ARE symetricall and look man made?
or amps that are not symetricall (u mentioned comet)???
those sure aren't symetricall!

do u want semi symetrical??? XD

Azu · Post by **Azu** » 10 Apr 2006, 14:02

A nice balanced map where one side doesn't get signicant advandtage over the other side would be nice..

Doomweaver · Post by **Doomweaver** » 10 Apr 2006, 14:06

I like rocky islands

Torrasque · Post by **Torrasque** » 10 Apr 2006, 14:17

If the terrain is not symetrical, you can still balance the map with the metal distribution and the geo vents.

Forboding Angel · Post by **Forboding Angel** » 10 Apr 2006, 15:57

1 thing... Yes, the look gorgeous, however, you need to render them at maximum resolution, reason being... The bump mapping looks really wierd if you don't.

LathanStanley · Post by **LathanStanley** » 10 Apr 2006, 16:20

a WELL DRAWN, realistic map would definately be best argh...

but I still prefer these maps over the shear number of left vs right, mirrored grid-like horsecrap maps...

Crystal Harbor for example...

frankly, I enjoy irregularity in the terrain, but yes, if he could somehow alter it with a second pass... draw on terrrain deformations, erosion paths, SOMETHING to remove the "mathematical smoothness" of everything... it would look even better...

and no, not another fractical pass either, a hand drawn effort to some small extent..

possibly, ever so possibly, add a few "intentional" flat areas for defensive strongholds etc.

but again, I prefer something "fractical" over something "mirrored" or "geometric"...

just my .02

again, argh, I understand why you see this as "not so amazing" too... but hey, whatever works man...

emo_boy · Post by **emo_boy** » 10 Apr 2006, 18:25

alien crystals FTW!!!

Spring RTS Engine

Which Map do you want to have?

Which Map do you want to have?