Spring RTS Engine

Appearently there are some ways to export heightmaps from starcraft 2 maps:


http://www.sc2mapster.com/wiki/sc2-api/ ... eight-map/
Maybe possible with this editor?
http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Galaxy_Map_Editor
Do not have SC2 so can not test, but maybe it is of interesst for others.

From the above image I made this, which was quite easy and fast:
I changed the layout a bit, added blur & median filtering, then used Springmapeditors "autotexture" function:

(minerals sold separately)

Could you make us a version with this texture? http://www.sc2mapster.com/media/attachm ... fort.0.png

correct me if I'm wrong, but dont starcraft 2 heightmaps suck a fat chode? its the textures we need

i find the layouts are often more thought out than what the ones in spring.
to get that texture press F1

1v0ry_k1ng wrote:correct me if I'm wrong, but dont starcraft 2 heightmaps suck a fat chode? its the textures we need

Confirmed, except I think it's not great textures as much as nice shader tricks.


Don't let me cramp your style though knorke.

knorke wrote:i find the layouts are often more thought out than what the ones in spring.

True, but to fix that we need thought out maps made for specific games instead of copypasta made to fit something else without attention to detail.

i'm sort of with johannes on this one with my evo/ba/zk mindset when looking at maps...

but then again it sure would be nice to have sc2 style maps for games with reclaimable resources (save some time on designs... would also appeal to sc2 fans via advertising)

if you'd like i can show you (or just do) a few more procedures to your completed sc2 maps to have burned-in bumps and occlusion and get them looking sexy... probably spent more time with the auto-texturer than anyone

(pro tip... make 2 scripts for texturing, one of which will be bumpmapped versions of the regular textures, then combine in your 3d editor of choice with lighting and render it)

yes, for *a those maps would not be suited. Not for the eco, but with large weapon ranges that shot across the whole map and the whole "base crawl" thing it is kind of a waste to make such detailed layouts.

if you'd like i can show you (or just do) a few more procedures to your completed sc2 maps to have burned-in bumps and occlusion and get them looking sexy... probably spent more time with the auto-texturer than anyone

You mean making a textureconfig that creates the bump maps?
Actually I am more looking for quick ways to make maps and not for the latest eye candy. Guess such tutorial would be nice but not sure if it is for me
Atm the best for me seems to adjust the heightmap a bit with gimp etc (mostly c&p parts, adding blur etc), then make a textureconfig thing for Springmapeditor. At the end use sme to clean up some things and paint more textures.

knorke wrote:i find the layouts are often more thought out than what the ones in spring.
to get that texture press F1

If we think of that heightmap for example it's really not that special, layout-wise. Actually it's pretty simple, I'd say pretty dull even.

We have much more sophisticated and more carefully thought layouts than that. When thinking about gameplay I think we put much more effort in our maps than any similar rts game. This is because we have so many different mods, such a vast scale of gameplay units and a vast amount of different roles they carry out in different terrain.

Imo sometimes we are even overdoing the designs and maps become very busy and complicated, this can lead into too stressful games. We could easily simplify more.

So I kinda have to disagree with you guys about that.

What really kicks in sc2 maps however, is the cool artistic style and how they have been carried out consistently right from the beginning. Even the heightmaps are finely detailed and consistent.

Our maps are artistically inconsistent, and the heightmaps tend to become either too busy or plain -- It's just silly to see maps with great layout and uber textures but a landscape where you can see the authors photoshop basic brush strokes on it.

Some of us update our maps and try to use shared features to create a sense of belonging within the set... just saying, some games(KP, CT, GRTS) have consistent maps.

smoth wrote:Some of us update our maps and try to use shared features to create a sense of belonging within the set... just saying, some games(KP, CT, GRTS) have consistent maps.

Yes of course smoth, but thats only a part of the consistency I'm after.

Some of the inconsistency of our maps comes naturally because we have so many individual mappers and so many individual visions and so many different tools.

What I'm basically after is the artistic style, which is much more complicated thing.

Let's take CT maps for example: Very simple, some could say that too simple, but yet they manage to have certain type of artistic/visual style, which is consistent in at least in most parts of their map design. It's like while they have simple layouts, they are not going totally crazy with the textures or feature either.

The point being is that you need to think the style from the very beginning.

So you want all spring maps to be a like?

Duh...

I'm saying that people should also think how they heightmaps look and feel and not only how they play.

SirArtturi wrote:people should also think how they heightmaps look and feel and not only how they play.

Who doesn't?

Everyone who feels a twinge from my argument.
Do you smoth?

I think you are missing my point.

It's cool that knorke found out a way to export sc2 maps, but we can do as cool maps ourselves if we learn the secret.

SirArtturi wrote:we can do as cool maps ourselves if we learn the secret.

our maps are not cool enough because? I don't see the point or reason you guys exalt starcraft's maps so much. I just don't see it. They are decent maps but much of the crap people find impressive beyond the bumpsplatting is just nice shaders or models. OH and better handling of map edges with a, and this is IMPORTANT FIXED CAMERA..

point here from artturi seems to be that visual consistency is important for game-oriented maps (kp is a perfect example) the secret i'm sure is that starcraft maps are built from a massive set of premade tiles, and have armies of people working on them.

we could have it in spring no doubt, but it would take all of the mappers working together a good many hours to even approach the level of detail and quality

there is nothing cool about starcraft.

anyways knorke i made it sound more complicated than it should be...

1) make all textures and corresponding bumpmaps with whatever image program you use (or find them on the net)
2) make a texture script for SME with the "diffuse" textures
3) once you're happy with the distribution and tolerances and have rendered a basic texture, re-save the script as another file, and change all texture references within to reference the bumpmaps instead
4) take your big shiny bumpmap and diffuse map into a 3d program of your choice, add lighting, take a snapshot in orthographic view from above
5) crop 'n' resize with your electro-tronic scissors
6) profit

and now, before you immediately argue nonono it's too complicated and fancy for a gentleman-about-town such as myself, i might remind you that brickcraft although simple graphically still employs the use of shading to make units visible and viewable and pleasing... a bumpmap applied even to a "minecraft" texture with light AO shadowing does worlds in terms of implying visual depth

and since you still aren't convinced just leave a heightmap here and once i get all my appz installed (new computer yesterday, hooray for me!) and take a break from battlefjord 3 i'll just do it for you, shan't take me naught more that an hour i dare say mayhaps be tally ho scripts included etc

I still don't get it..

KaiserJ wrote:point here from artturi seems to be that visual consistency is important for game-oriented maps (kp is a perfect example) the secret i'm sure is that starcraft maps are built from a massive set of premade tiles, and have armies of people working on them.

Armies you say? What factions are they split into? Have there been any recent advances? What weapons do they wield?

smoth wrote:our maps are not cool enough because? I don't see the point or reason you guys exalt starcraft's maps so much. I just don't see it.

SC maps are good firstly because of good visual clarity, what you see is what you get, whereas most or all mappers here have ambiguous places where you cannot exactly see where stuff can pass or where a unit will path even in the game the map was designed for. Of course that's really hard to completely avoid in Spring, but surely we could do a better job anyway.

Other good thing in SC maps is just how refined gameplay-wise they've gotten, it's both the overall good concepts and the attention to details that can be done when you've got so much knowledge gathered on how the game plays on different maps and manpower to test and refine them.
SC2 maps are probably not so good in this regard naturally, not yet at least.