Map design concept / WIP. mean streets of the deathstar

[smoth]

I don't have the 3ds max but I can Photoshop the hell out of the textures

[KaiserJ]

was just thinking that maybe you'd prefer to have the model and uvmaps to work with; theres a fair amount of mirroring on the tiles (well... not really these ones... but the ones im working on currently; lil buildings and the like)

also : in case anyone feels like makin' tiles, the basic shape of the tiles is a 1 x 1 x 1 cube... height iterations are 0.5, and the curb height is 0.05.

some progress with the tiles; little buildings to give these maps a more citylike appearance, as well as some badly needed ones (an inside corner to match a long slope with a short slope, as well as a 3-way intersection)



a few more of these and i'll start putting pxtls design together :>

[Pxtl]

I love how you refer to my one-character suggestion as "Pxtl's design".

[KaiserJ]

http://img18.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=render1e.jpg

haha i say it because if the map fails to be fun... ALL YOUR FAULT!

a WIP losely based on that layout

[SirArtturi]

This is really great KaiserJ. Fantastic work!

Now could be the time to use the some of the unused features that have been provided?

For example Mech Commander Industrial pack:
http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.ph ... 47&start=0

and maybe some of the industrial features from smoth's maps?

placement should be pretty easy with springmapedit...

Haven't played your map yet. Maybe I will soon when I have time, but I assume that for example map hardness is at maximum? Cos' otherwise after intesne play and explosions, your heightmap starts to bend and look silly.

I also agree with Basic that sky could be more scary looking, darker and maybe some little extreme lights.

[Frostregen]

Some progress:

-loading Prefab Data works:
Heightmap and Texturemap.

-placing Prefab Data works:
Heightmap and Texturemap get copied into current Map.

I've added the basics for adding Features into prefabs too.
Could be used for easy placement of some Structure (==Feature) together with specific Base Texture and Base Heightmap

TODO:
-nice GUI (similar to FeatureSelector)
-inmap preview ("ghosted" Preview of what will happen if you click)
-rotation
-height scaling (needs just a GUI counterpart)
-grid alignment

PS: Not related, but I've animated the currently selected Feature within FeatureSelector (it rotates around itself).

[hrmph]

This is win. Coolest metal map tiles by far.

You should release a map even if it is just four to six repetitive areas and a wide open plain. I'm looking forward to slaughtering some chickens..

[KaiserJ]

@ artturi : i have tentative plans to add features like radio towers, skinny ones that will sit atop the heightmapped buildings... not a massive fan of features in my maps, but i can agree that with the urban setting, it would be foolish not to.

i dont think i do ANYTHING here without stealing from smoth :D

afaik the map hardness is set properly on the Lammas map, but as it was just sort of a proof of concept anyways, i didn't spend much time on the SMD... for the next one, which i hope will be a well accepted map, i will be spending a lot of time and care to get it looking exactly how i like (and you can be sure that deformation will be off)

Question : to create LLTA complex, did you use a similar method?

@ frost : sweet! i haven't had a peek yet but be assured that i will; and let me know when you'd like the next batch of tiles (or maybe i can assemble it myself now that the framework is in place? hmmm)

@ hrmph : well, the WIP i have now is 18x18 for 8 way FFA... next will probably be a 18 x 8 chicken map with metal balance for 5 or 6 players. after that? we're taking tabula into the future and mangling it; i promised/threatened hunter with a tabula inspired map ages ago, and now that i can actually make something that looks half decent... who knows!

to all : making maps with tiles is like playing with legos. i highly recommend it for enjoyment of the creative process alone.

[Pxtl]

Need to make a Tiled (http://mapeditor.org/) plugin that uses little effigies for each of your simple map tiles and generates a Spring map for it. That would be wicked-cool.

[knorke]

when seeing the screenshots i thought it would only look good when zoomed out. but it actually looks good at playing distance too.

with a few features it will look even better.

maybe also use black, void water to create a plattform floating in space? like starcraft: http://classic.battle.net/images/battle ... /2/xss.jpg

[Frostregen]

@KaiserJ:
Would indeed be nice if you put the tiles together yourself,
cause I can only guess how some tiles should look.
Your first batch of tiles is fully converted by me. (Look at first post for a link)

Currently my conversion steps looks like this:

Preparation:
-Open texturemap_large and heightmap_large in GIMP.
-Add heightmap as a new layer into texturemap.
-Add transparency to both layers.
-Select black border with magic wand with 0% variation, disabled AA.
-Remove black border in both layers (should be transparent now)
-Invert selection
-Auto Normalize the heightmap layer. (Stretch color values from black to white)
-Save as .xcf (This stores selection too)

Now for each tile:
-Use Rectangle selection tool (in intersection mode) to select a single tile.
-Select heightmap layer. Copy.
-New Image from Clipboard
-Scale down to 79x79 (or multiples of 79)
EDIT:
No, not multiples of 79, but (78 * x) + 1. So valid sizes are:
79x79
79x157
79x235 etc...

If sharp edges are present in heightmap: scale with no interpolation,
selective gaussian blur afterwards. Else scale bicubic.
-Save as heightmap1.png

-Large image again: Select Texture layer. Copy
-New Image from Clipboard
-Scale down to 624x624 (or multiples of 624)
This is: (79 - 1) * 8
-Save as texturemap1.png

Create a new Textfile "tile1.tdf" with following content:

Code: Select all

[PREFAB]
{
	Name=My First Tile;
	Category=test;
	Heightmap=heightmap1.png;
	Texturemap=texturemap1.png;
	Featuremap=features1.fmf;
	Height=0.25;
}

Finished.

The tdf is quite selfexplaining, just some notes:
-Featuremap is currently not used. May be ommitted.
-You may create a prefab with texturemap only, or heightmap only.
-Height:
Since I normalized the heightmap beforehand, we need to set an height-value.
The tiles heightmap values will be multiplied by this value before setting it in SME. (In SME heightmap values range from 0 to 1.)

Current Progress:
-Alignment done. Just select a 1x1 Tile, scale it, hit "Align 1x1 Tile".
Now the brush aligns to this size.
-GUI nearly done.

PS: Keep sending tiles, makes development more interesting for me

[Warlord Zsinj]

Very cool. I'd love to explore this stuff more for IW, but it's far down on the to-do list. coruscant or cloud city maps would be awesome, and are all totally possible to do pretty well, they'd just take ages to do.

Still, looking forward to playing IW on this. I'd like to see some areas where the height of the greebles are greater and the space between them is tighter; perhaps important strategic areas with high metal, so that there are some interesting 'urban warfare' type situations. Right now the large spacing between everything makes it look a little like a sexed-up sci-fi kernel panic map. But I realise at this stage you're just messing around conceptually and not worrying too much about layout.

[KaiserJ]

@ pxtl : i didn't even realize that "tiled" program existed. i went through hell and back trying to come up with a map format for a side-scrolling flash-based action game (well, for many, unfinished ones.) its going in the vault.

@ knorke : thx for the kind words; one thing i really need to address is the detail texture; it looks a bit funny when you zoom REALLY far in. features will come not next map, but the map after.

@ frost : that looks incredible. omg. looks like a little bit of distortion occurring in the screenshot where the top of the ramp meets the flat panel, but other than that, wow. people are going to shit bricks when they see how awesome this is. once the next map is done (having a bit of trouble with sizing / scaling issues again) then i'll release the next set of tiles. i have yet to test out the integration into SME; just been way too busy this week.

@ zsinj : been a fan of every spring art asset i've ever seen from you; so a compliment from you is a big deal. and yeah; you're quite right about me experimenting with the implementation... just want to make sure im doing it right before i bite off more than i can chew.

might need some tricky lua to get the cloud city looking perfect; something like the effect on arghs platforms from that other thread. certainly a theme worth considering though.



brb, pooping off the side!

also : played 6v6 on "New Lammas v1". thanks for all who tested; it seemed pretty fun i thought! metal balance seemed better than my other maps (far from perfect. but it was encouraging)

[Frostregen]

Ignore the little distortion:
This was me assuming the streets are flat (using the same flat-heightmap for all streetlike tiles), which they are not. Has been fixed already, but I hoped nobody will notice it in the image

After adding rotation it will be usable and I'll make a release.

[Gota]

Kaiser.
New lammas is a great map!we played a 3v3 on it yesterday.
A small note.
Can you please change it a bit so that the places kbots and vehicles can or can't go are more obvious and make more sense.
ATM it's impossible to guess where your units can move and where they can't.

Maybe vehicles should only be allowed onto certain,few ramps while kbots should freely climb any ramp?and places that have no distinct ramp would be closed for everyone but all terrain units.

[Gota]

-

[KaiserJ]

@ gota : hmm. it certainly can be done, and easily... just gotta set the maxheight and re-export it. and yeah, i had sort of the same problem; my initial idea was to make only the shallowest ramps accessible by bots, and then the others would be all-terrain only... but yeah, the accessibility bleeds, and bots can walk in strange places.

good suggestion... accepted... i'll get on that tonight

@ frost : haha i thought you'd already released it :> silly me. i await!

also @ all : im losing too much heightmap information on the "#".... the mini buildings like like shite. im going to have to rework the design and give it fewer vertical sections methinks.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

hows this coming?

[Gota]

By the way....
Think you can make the texture a bit more blend?
I know this is a strange request but the texture is quit busy and sometimes it's a bit hard for the eyes to spot all the units right away.
If you make it just a bit blender this issue will disappear.

[Wombat]

hrhr i know him