New 16 player FFA map - Mearth V2

[Beherith]

Hello again folks!
Seeing the popularity of 16 player FFA games, and the only properly done map for this game style being neurope, I decided to try my hand at making a new one.

This is a 20*30 very large 16 player FFA map. The start spots are quite balanced, as well as they can be for an asymetric map. Roads are 60% faster than normal terrain, and are a bit wider than their marks on the texture suggest.
The two sea start positions only get filled up with 15+ players.
Features are not present for maximum frame rate on most computers.
Flagships and subs can pass through the rivers and shallows, making them wonderful for shelling all other bases or launching surprise attacks.

Maplink:
http://spring.jobjol.nl/show_file.php?id=1670

[Gota]

Kul.Hope you wrote the names...

[Pxtl]

I see what you did there.

Dibs on Mordor.

[BaNa]

having uninstalled spring for a bit, i cant playtest this with you, but it looks nice. I like the blueness of the rivers from the screenie. I'll mosey over sometime and check it out. 2 gripes based on the screenie:

• I think writing names for all the territories would be cool, you could even do it in each areas own language and font (im pretty sure the LOTR enthusiasts online can help with that one) :D
  The terrain could be a lot more varied. We are talking a continent here, IMO there should be deserts and snow and shit like that. I know what a hueg work it would be, but i feel it would add such a lot to the map. I mean at least desaturate mordor, it should be gray/black

Looks like a whole lot of fun!

[Satirik]

really nice

[Gota]

having uninstalled spring for a bit, i cant playtest this with you, but it looks nice. I like the blueness of the rivers from the screenie. I'll mosey over sometime and check it out. 2 gripes based on the screenie:

• I think writing names for all the territories would be cool, you could even do it in each areas own language and font (im pretty sure the LOTR enthusiasts online can help with that one) :D
  The terrain could be a lot more varied. We are talking a continent here, IMO there should be deserts and snow and shit like that. I know what a hueg work it would be, but i feel it would add such a lot to the map. I mean at least desaturate mordor, it should be gray/black

Looks like a whole lot of fun!

True about colors and making mordor look angry.

[Beherith]

The different schemes for different lands was planned, but I aint touching this 1.2gb texture .psd file with a ten foot pole unless I really have to. Its whiney bitch to edit with only 2gb ram

[BaNa]

crap man i probably couldnt even open that tex...

BME resources? Or does comp lab not have PS?

[KaiserJ]

boil em, mash em, stickem in a map!

excellent concept sir.

and i don't blame you, 1.2 gigs is a massive psd... have you ever tried working with vector images? (i.e. png files) you would possibly be able to save a fair amount of space and actually be able to work with a texture of these dimensions; just a suggestion because i've had a bit of success using them on my tired old computer, and since you're a GOOD mapper... hint hint

[Beherith]

boil em, mash em, stickem in a map!

excellent concept sir.

and i don't blame you, 1.2 gigs is a massive psd... have you ever tried working with vector images? (i.e. png files) you would possibly be able to save a fair amount of space and actually be able to work with a texture of these dimensions; just a suggestion because i've had a bit of success using them on my tired old computer, and since you're a GOOD mapper... hint hint

Sam sez: MO NAKED HOS
But they dubbed over it

IIRC png is not vector, just compressed, still needs to be decompressed to ram to work with it.
I cant use vector for this, cause i had to merge 2 200mb and 2 100mb texture tiles into the final 450meg texture, plus a layer for metal patches, a layer for roads.

[BaNa]

I cant use vector for this, cause i had to merge 2 200mb and 2 100mb texture tiles into the final 450meg texture, plus a layer for metal patches, a layer for roads.

ah but beh, the metal and road layers can be left out of this, you only need to fool around with the actual map texture... Adding the road+metal at the end will be less of a bitch because they do not need masks and brushes, just add layer and save as. (tho tbh if you want to be a maximalist i guess you would need to make the roads different colored in the different regions... brrrrrrr [maybe just have them use some blending type which turns green into brown but grey into black, and so on?])

[SpikedHelmet]

It barely looks like ME I didn't even recognize it when I first saw the screenshot without being told what it was supposed to be.

[KaiserJ]

heh sorry, sometimes i have clarity issues when i'm trying to explain something.

when i'm trying to place things on a map texture, details like roads and words etc, i find it useful to work using vectors instead of bitmaps purely because it reduces the filesize and processor strain until you're ready to turn the vectors into nice shiny bitmaps and create your final product... much kinder to the cpu during the editing process.

i'll probably be doing a mini tutorial eventually about the method, i think maybe others could benefit from it, especially ones with computers like mine.

[Pxtl]

Well, World Builder has support for decals, doesn't it (iirc, they're invisible units that have groundtextures beneath them)? Could you do the text as World Builder units? Then you wouldn't have to edit the landscape file.

Still, the lack of differentiation between mountains, swamp, barren wastes, etc. really hinders the map. What tool did you use to make this? It didn't have support for multiple climates in the same map?

[Beherith]

I used WICed to texture it, but to be honest, I didnt put too much work into making a new climate for it, I just used one of my older ones which i thought fit just fine for it. WICed doesnt really support multiple climates in the same map, its really hackish to do that, better to just make 2 render passes and blend in photoshop. Oddly, wiced textures blend real nice like that, even if theyre from different climates.

Seems there is a genuine interest to add the names to the map; one of the reasons I skipped it is because I thought it would be very tacky. But seeing it ingame actually tells me that no matter how much of a ripoff of neurope they are, it actually really boosts ingame player communication.

Never tried worldbuilder, is it even released?

Edit: The roads are photoshop paths, do those count as vector gfx?

Edit 2: Another reason for not making multiple climates, is that the map file itself is huge, 55MB. Now this is with .9 compression in mapconv, which although it makes the texture look like shit, was ultimately nessesary for fast dls and less GPU use. Adding more climates would increase filesize even more. It is already the 5th largest map file there is, while not being in the top 10 largest areas.

[BaNa]

I wonder, isnt mapconv compression the sux? I seem to recall reading that mapconv can take jpg's as a source too (forum search isnt helping me on this one), maybe that could be the solution?

[Beherith]

I wonder, isnt mapconv compression the sux? I seem to recall reading that mapconv can take jpg's as a source too (forum search isnt helping me on this one), maybe that could be the solution?

Mapconv can take jpg as input, but it will decompress it to make tiles. Tiles are mapconvs compression; it searches for increasingly similar looking 32*32 tiles, and uses only one for each similarity class. It doesnt do any other lossy or lossless compression on the tiles iirc. Tiles help to use the minimal amount of gpu ram when the map is decompressed.

[BaNa]

Mapconv can take jpg as input, but it will decompress it to make tiles. Tiles are mapconvs compression; it searches for increasingly similar looking 32*32 tiles, and uses only one for each similarity class. It doesnt do any other lossy or lossless compression on the tiles iirc. Tiles help to use the minimal amount of gpu ram when the map is decompressed.

AFAIK it actually only makes tiles of parts that are exactly the same, something that is visible on quantos maps for instance but impossible to do with wiced's splattered goodness. Meh there should be an option for a better lossy compression, i thought maybe prefeeding jpgs was the answer.

[Beherith]

AFAIK it actually only makes tiles of parts that are exactly the same, something that is visible on quantos maps for instance but impossible to do with wiced's splattered goodness. Meh there should be an option for a better lossy compression, i thought maybe prefeeding jpgs was the answer.

False. Take a good look at mearth from close up. You will see the epic tiling, especially on green areas.

Edit: Had to forgo my usual mild detail texture to counter the tiling

[ginekolog]

good map it seems