Spring RTS Engine

So I toyed around a bit with the mapping tools people suggested here and this is what my result was



For now called "twolakes" and a 1v1 map

Yeah I know the map features do not look very natural (hills and waterlines for example), that's why I need some influx.. especially:

How can I make the hills look like real hills?

it's so far away for me to see the shoreline.

Well what I can see it doesn't look aweful.

But seriously, let there be LIGHT!

I actually don't think those hills look that bad...

Most people seem to find it easiest to render their hills using something like L3DT or Terragen.

What you are aiming at doing is having different textures at different altitudes, as well as having some slope dependent textures. Really steep bits expose more 'rock,' pockets trap vegitation or snow, that kind of thing. I belive both Terragen and L3DT will allow you to apply different textures based on altitude and slope.

If you want to do this manually, start off by creating a layer with a resized heightmap and create masks (and/or curves in Gimp) based on the data there.

There are all sorts of ways to proceed from there... The usually involve lightly bumping layers and the creative use of selection masks...

If you are interested in spending hours on end making hills, some stuff I did WAAAAY back in the day (like as in stuff for the old map format):




Both of those were experiments into making terrain by hand... And they both took hours on end...
[FWIW I had to hax0r up files to get the last shot, and the terrain detail level was REALLY low... And yes the grass/hill interface looks totally dumb now ]

It is much more difficult to draw 'good looking hills' then it is to render them is the long and short of it.

Forboding Angel wrote:it's so dark that I can't really see what you are talking about.

O_o
I can see the geography plain as day

FizWizz wrote:

Forboding Angel wrote:it's so dark that I can't really see what you are talking about.

O_o
I can see the geography plain as day

Cyberwal's terrain isn't nearly so dark as to cause me problems discerning detail.
Between this and the 'they are not bright' bit on the original canyons
I'm starting to think that there is something particularly foo-tastic about your monitor :/

(heh btw give up trying to see the first image *I* posted )

FA:
While I think it's not TOO dark, I made it a bit brighter by editing the smd (which I took out of one of your map files, I hope you don't mind), but with mother's infos I'll re-render the terrain anyways and maybe go for another look completely


Mother: Thanks, I'll have to toy around in l3dt (which is what I used for those) to find these features, awesome.


I'll tweak it a bit and add visible metal spots, I'll post the result in this thread later. Thanks for everyone's informations and suggestions. :)

Cyberwal wrote:How can I make the hills look like real hills?

Try using a different texture on the slopes, a rock texture is popular or maybe a different grass shade.

To detect slopes you could use L3DT but there are other ways.

The Gimp has some good edge detection filters, apply them to a copy of your height map. Up res the result, you may need to adjust the contrast, and difuse the edges so that it looks nice. Then use it as a mask for your slope textures.

Beware, the more complex you mask becomes, the bigger the final map file size will be as you will be creating many more unique tiles.

People will only tolerate a big filesize if the map looks good.

Another slope detection method, convert your height map to a normals map and split out the blue channel.

mother wrote:

FizWizz wrote:

Forboding Angel wrote:it's so dark that I can't really see what you are talking about.

O_o
I can see the geography plain as day

Cyberwal's terrain isn't nearly so dark as to cause me problems discerning detail.
Between this and the 'they are not bright' bit on the original canyons
I'm starting to think that there is something particularly foo-tastic about your monitor :/

(heh btw give up trying to see the first image *I* posted )

Is this addressed to me or Forboding Angel?

Forboding, sorry Fiz!

arugh, good lord, you can not see intimate detail on a distance shot at that level of brightness


make sense now? ffs

He asked about the shorelines, ya I can see them, but with the funky atmospheric colors and the fact that I was on my work computer at work (if you know what that is mother :p ) combined to make it so that I can't really see the shorelines clearly.

Maybe I should have said, Zoom the fuck in so that I can see how the water meets the shoreline?

Cyberwal wrote:FA:
While I think it's not TOO dark, I made it a bit brighter by editing the smd (which I took out of one of your map files, I hope you don't mind), but with mother's infos I'll re-render the terrain anyways and maybe go for another look completely


Mother: Thanks, I'll have to toy around in l3dt (which is what I used for those) to find these features, awesome.


I'll tweak it a bit and add visible metal spots, I'll post the result in this thread later. Thanks for everyone's informations and suggestions. :)

Aww hell dude, I don't care :D

I am curious to know which map. If it was hills and valleys (which is what it looks like), make sure you set the fog distance to .5 otherwise it won't look right.

The starting fog was at .5 I think...

Forboding,

Your first post (complaining that the map was too dark) was not only "wrong" (it wasn't too dark) but it was nothing but you complaining! And no, 'too dark,' still makes no sense to me, for f' or anything elses sake

I don't know what monitor you were looking at it on. In all fairness this isn't the first time you've had this problem where other people don't agree on brightness levels with you- and you always think something is darker.

Im sorry that I thought the problem might have been your monitor not the non-computer part of the equation. Jeesh! (er ffs!)

He asked about both hills and shorelines, and you know darned well you could have easily posted helpful information instead of <points around himself> all this. Even from those screenies.

I can't think of anyone better to speak to tweaking L3DT environment settings then you.

arg jesus dude, I wasn't trying to turn it into an argument. WTF do you waht from me dude, an apology? For me to say that I was wrong, that the brightness / contrast was wrong on my monitor at work? Please dude, just let it drop.

At the distance of the screen from the shoreline I could not see where the textures meet (it's a very finetune thing) or if the same texture goes underwater (tiles better if you can get away with it). The hills are not important for me to know about as you will see below, so the first thing is to find out about, are the textures above shore and underwater.

Ok ,cyberwal, in l3dt I need to know what ratio your are doing the terrain at.

1 to 8, 1 to 2, or 1 to 1. It makes a very large difference and from what I am seeing it could be either of the above. Before I can tell you how to make your hills look realistic I need to know.

Those screenies are pretty dark in my monitor, and my monitor has the brigtness chocked way up. I wouldn't be able to decern anything at all in those screens from the monitors at school.

Swiftspear- you know you just made a post that added nothing of value- and is arguable intended to cause trouble, right?

Yes just like Im doing now... LOL

How about we let the thread get back on topic now, m'kay?


People with broke-ass eyes and or monitors FTW!!! :idea:

Mother, you just made 3 posts above mine on exactly the same topic with points on the exact same argument that were arguably quite a bit less polite then mine was...

I'm just saying I tend to agree with forboding's initial analysis. The map looks like it's lit for evening or night from the ground and water shades, however there's a bright barely clouded blue sky above it. However, cyberwal said he upped the brightness anyways, so I suspect the arguement is null either way.

Difference being, SwiftSpear,
a) I was involved in this discussion, you weren't
b)The subject was *droppped* at the request of FA

Please dude, just let it drop.

See?

Can the moderator and I stop hijacking this thread and risking to cause a degeneration into a flame war now?

k thx.

this isn't the place to debate mother's conduct -moderator

Cyberwal, I am truly sorry that your thread got completely hijacked. When you read this pm me and we can continue through that avenue.

Once again, sorry