New Map - Avalanche

[SirArtturi]

Yo!

New map called Avalanche...
Small 8x8 1v1 or 2v2 map with winter landscape

Download:

http://spring.jobjol.nl/show_file.php?id=1686

Screens:

http://spring.jobjol.nl/show_file.php?id=1686

[Pxtl]

Can BA kbots take those steep slopes? I assume the ramps are for vehicles.

[FLOZi]

Looks good! We need some new winter trees features though.

[SpikedHelmet]

Looks fuckin beautiful. One of the best-looking maps ever. Maybe even THE best.

[SirArtturi]

Can BA kbots take those steep slopes? I assume the ramps are for vehicles.

Yes they can. And ramps are for vechs

[Beherith]

Looks damned wonderful!

[Argh]

Looks great!

Can we see it with shadows on, though?

The lighting angle looks off, and the ambient for the trees looks really bright, and doesn't have enough blue, imo.

[Warlord Zsinj]

This map looks nice, but it does suffer a little bit from C&C-syndrome, where the map is typically cordoned into two or three accessible areas delineated by 'cliff' tiles and 'ramp' tiles.



Feels like Spring's complex heightmap abilities are capable of more...

[SirArtturi]

Looks great!

Can we see it with shadows on, though?

The lighting angle looks off, and the ambient for the trees looks really bright, and doesn't have enough blue, imo.

Hmm... True. I completely forget to adjust these aspects right because i myself usually doesnt use shadows.

Question is should i do revision ?

[SirArtturi]

This map looks nice, but it does suffer a little bit from C&C-syndrome, where the map is typically cordoned into two or three accessible areas delineated by 'cliff' tiles and 'ramp' tiles.

Feels like Spring's complex heightmap abilities are capable of more...

I remember you complaining this before and i repeat again. It is unpossible formula to make same time playable and realistic terrain. Sure I can do realistic maps, but who will play them... none. It's not worth of doing map that is only for couple snaps/screenshots....

[Warlord Zsinj]

I think it's certainly easier to make playable maps this way, but I don't think it's impossible to make playable maps with less artificial terrain.

I also think that it is possible to achieve a similar 'delineated zones' design there, and still have the terrain feel a bit more natural, without using the C&C conceit. Here is an image of a map that beherith is working on for us, which basically shares the same overall design approach as yours, with a lowground and a highground divided by a cliff section and with ramps for access - but by spending a bit more time on the cliffs (I also really like the larger height differences) to make them look more natural, you have a more immersive map.

That being said, you do have a high output of good looking and very playable maps, so again I can understand why you're sticking to your guns.

[Gota]

High cliffs usually look fail in spring.
Maybe that's one reason mappers don't make many maps with them.

[Warlord Zsinj]

I think the trick is to make plenty of foothills, rather then having a sheer vertical cliff, as you can still make it impassable but you don't have to have as much vertical stretching.

[Gota]

I suppose.

[Beherith]

I think it's certainly easier to make playable maps this way, but I don't think it's impossible to make playable maps with less artificial terrain.

I also think that it is possible to achieve a similar 'delineated zones' design there, and still have the terrain feel a bit more natural, without using the C&C conceit. Here is an image of a map that beherith is working on for us, which basically shares the same overall design approach as yours, with a lowground and a highground divided by a cliff section and with ramps for access - but by spending a bit more time on the cliffs (I also really like the larger height differences) to make them look more natural, you have a more immersive map.

That being said, you do have a high output of good looking and very playable maps, so again I can understand why you're sticking to your guns.

Wz, xelric draw (linked map) has a few major pathing issues
Its pretty and detailed and all, but smoother areas are just needed for smooth gameplay. Btw, Artturis method of making cliffs is superior to mine. His are designed to look good, to not allow vecs to pass yet allow bots. I usually skip out on the amount of cliff detail as my lack of good technique makes me resort to alternative, more time consuming methods.

On xelric the impassability is achieved with a halfway hack.
On the whole, for *a mods, delineated areas just play better. Large height differences also dont work too well, no matter how nice they look.

Not saying I dont agree with the artificiality of most maps, but at one point you have to draw a line between play and looks.

Edit: you got in before me; foothills really can really break up a flat area and negate high ground advantages because units will be less likely to go on the foothills than the base of the foothills, thus farther from anything perched on the cliffs high side

[ralphie]

The problem with making your heights "natural" is you need to play the map with f2 on to know where your units can actually go.

"Ramps", "slopes" and "flat bits" makes it a hell of a lot simpler.

[BaNa]

Another problem with realistic heightmaps is spring pathing. For a while i didn't understand why people would whine about it, after all, units generally went where i wanted them to go in my usual games. When I made Aberdeen I tried to make the terrain a bit more hilly, a bit more craggy.

It fucking fails ingame. I had big plains with passable, smallish hills and slopes on them everywhere. I tried to make a group of 100 flash drive thru. They went in a bloody line! And yes, I mean 1 path! They could have gone everywhere, but no, they all took 1 path, even when I ordered them to spread out at the end. It takes huge amount of micromanagement (like drawing lines every inch with group move widget) to make the fail tanks spread out.

All in all, height "levels", with cliffs to separate them make the map playable.

[Gota]

Yep.
I wish that there were a few pathing systems from which modders could pick.
But we only have one with very distinct disadvantages...better than nothing though.

[Otherside]

awesome map

but yeh we need new winter trees :/

[Pxtl]

Well, you could do "natural-looking" slopes and make it visible to the user by adding some texture hints to show where the different movement classes can go - like grass for vehicle-grade terrain, dirt for kbot-grade terrain, and exposed rock for nothing-but-spiders.

You'd still run into the pathfinder problem that such maps tend to produce a single "line of least resistance" that causes all the units to spread into a single line.

Is there a way to say that, for mild slopes, units have NO slowdown? Like a dead-space in the slope mod? That might improve the pathing... although that would make those slopes effectively graphically-only.