Which Layout do you want to have? .: poll :.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 15 Apr 2006, 23:06

I voted for Center Rock because it looks very unique, but both it and Bowl look like fun maps.

How large were you thinking these would be? 12x12?

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 15 Apr 2006, 23:07

In my opinion the crossing points on center rock need to be larger, otherwize you're setting your most stringent bottle neck too far forwards and the tiered defenceive structures higher up won't serve any point. The center should be defendable, but not easily. It should take more then 3 HLT frying a few dozen peewees to block that passage off compleatly.

LathanStanley · Post by **LathanStanley** » 16 Apr 2006, 01:49

I like the dry river, its the only one thats not a f'in mirror or rotational symmetry...

its the only "realistic" one...

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 16 Apr 2006, 03:11

agreed lathan :)
but still, the others would be fun if he were to make them after :)

IceXuick · Post by **IceXuick** » 16 Apr 2006, 03:13

Haha, min3mat!

first of all: I am (partially) devoting my specialisation phase of my study to TA:spring. so all the time i put in mapping and designing is for my study :D

second.. those test maps are far from being good maps. I have to create better heightmaps (much higher res), retouche the extreme high res texture that will come out of it, and then well-place the metal/geo's, and after that i need to get familiar with features and understand how they work. (which i don't @ the moment). After that i have to play test, play test and playtest.. to get to know, if the crossings are big/small enough (like swiftspear said), for battles to advance there.

anyway thx for the comments :)

The map size... that one, i also do not know yet. I thought of 16x16 (again) but maybe bigger (or maybe smaller works better in the end...)

Just keep on 'polling' and posting things that might come in handy during the building of this map.

ice out.

Min3mat · Post by **Min3mat** » 16 Apr 2006, 03:14

(legend)

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 16 Apr 2006, 03:21

IceXuick wrote:The map size... that one, i also do not know yet. I thought of 16x16 (again) but maybe bigger (or maybe smaller works better in the end...)

12x12 or 16x16's good. That makes it work for 1v1s or 2v2s (at the low end) or 2v2s or 3v3s (at the high end).

Also, while a symmetric heightmap's not exactly realistic, it is very easy to balance, which is much more important for a map in a video game. TA's not exactly realistic to start with, so the maps just have to look good enough to pass.

Zoombie · Post by **Zoombie** » 16 Apr 2006, 03:40

I like centril rock the most. For one the island is a really really cool choke point. I'd love to see all the evil things you could do with that (Make sure it has valubal resourses on it).

dry river also looks neat from a art standpoint, but i'm not sure it would translate well into good gameplay. But hell, give it a shot anyway. If you can balence it then all is well, and we have ANOTHER good map.

IceXuick · Post by **IceXuick** » 16 Apr 2006, 04:28

alright then 12x12 - 16x16 it is!

Here is a new test, this time of the 'dry' river:

Let me know what you think of the 'C&C style dirt tracks'... And the map as a whole.. color settings, texture.. etc..

Warlord Zsinj · Post by **Warlord Zsinj** » 16 Apr 2006, 06:31

That looks quite nice, although the colours, I think are a little to "bright" and "happy" (;)) for my likings. I prefer the more red colour theme of your earlier version.

Can I also put in a request, if you find the time, of a small 3 player map? Spring is really lacking in this regard. All I have to play at the moment is sparewood. The (few) other 3FFA maps available are either enormous, or have extremely high metal (or both!), making 3FFA's difficult to play if you want to go for less than 2+ hours.

Zoombie · Post by **Zoombie** » 16 Apr 2006, 06:35

Don't listen to him! The colour scehime is hillariously perfect! Make it look like a paper machee thing, with nifty paper tree's and mabey some cartoon black lines, making the entire map look like Cartoon Land.

Now that would be a really cool map....Cartoon Land.

LathanStanley · Post by **LathanStanley** » 16 Apr 2006, 09:42

Zoombie, you lost your mind...

if I added my .02$ to the color, I'd say add "patches" of grass that are "layered" over different colors of dirt....

to resemble patchy grass over mud, or weeds in dry cracked dirt, etc.

rather than a green carpet look, but alas, there's prolly ALOT more detail than what we see... since the REAL map is about 20x by 20x that size

IceXuick · Post by **IceXuick** » 16 Apr 2006, 13:33

Yes indeed, i was a little prepared for those reactions.. I did desaturate my first renders already, but not enough. The dry dirt and cracks are good idea's.. Just need to find the best way to do it.. Or in the heightmap and with render engine.. or with photoshop enhancement.. which will take some time..

unfortunately, its eastern here.. and need to see family and stuff..

This already better?

tomorrow more on this..

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 16 Apr 2006, 16:12

Warlord Zsinj wrote:Can I also put in a request, if you find the time, of a small 3 player map? Spring is really lacking in this regard. All I have to play at the moment is sparewood. The (few) other 3FFA maps available are either enormous, or have extremely high metal (or both!), making 3FFA's difficult to play if you want to go for less than 2+ hours.

The Cold Place?

Dragon45 · Post by **Dragon45** » 16 Apr 2006, 18:35

Nice work mate :D

AF · Post by AF » 16 Apr 2006, 18:47

Make them brighter again, when you see them in spring they'll get dulled byt eh texture spring overlays.

Just look at some of the other maps, for example one fo genbloods latest screenshots shows a map whcih looks dim/dull, but it looks brighter and nicer int he minimap...

Thata dn there've bene complains a lot that units look too bright and from some that spring overall is too dull, I blame the maps,

Also the TA colourschemes are still with us, red/orange maps green/browndirt maps wierd ice maps, they're all the rage, with only picasso's maps such as yilith seeming to deviate and OTA remakes/ports

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 16 Apr 2006, 19:03

Tweaking the contrast of the detailtex.bmp can do wonders.

Maelstrom · Post by **Maelstrom** » 17 Apr 2006, 12:03

I vote Dry River and The Bowl. If done right, even Argh wont have reason to complain! Just need to work out a reason for Dry River to be a good place to fight over.

The Dry River texture needs more brown dirt in it, or a richer green. Either would look good, but that green is just to fake. Something to consider, as it is a 'Dry River', make the grass really brown and dead, with green patches only around the river, and make the river bed muddy, cracked, and mabey slow tanks down.

Egarwaen · Post by **Egarwaen** » 17 Apr 2006, 19:41

Maelstrom wrote:The Dry River texture needs more brown dirt in it, or a richer green. Either would look good, but that green is just to fake. Something to consider, as it is a 'Dry River', make the grass really brown and dead, with green patches only around the river, and make the river bed muddy, cracked, and mabey slow tanks down.

As an aside, that's something I'd like to see more of. I've seen a lot of maps with terrain that gives movement boosts (sometimes insane movement boosts), and a lot of maps that use steep slopes to make terrain impassable, but very few with terrain that's passable but slows down certain types of units. It might be interesting to use this to create a map where, say, Hovercraft are actually worth using, because they can cross swampy terrain that slows down KBots and Vehicles.

Dragon45 · Post by **Dragon45** » 17 Apr 2006, 23:17

Ice, you rock.

And I would say... Bowl shape! :)

Spring RTS Engine

Which Layout do you want to have? .: poll :.

Which Layout