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SWTA Hoth map released.

Posted: 05 May 2005, 17:10
by Storm
Map originally made by Gnome and ported by me, I present the snowy blizzard world Hoth known from certain Star Wars films. All metal patches are (of course) snowed in, so you have to go with the other system.

Image

This is a two or three-player map, and I hope, rather balanced for both types of play. Keep in mind that kbots can climb all hills, so don't feel too protected.

Now, as a side note, this map was a bitch to look somewhat good in-game. What annoys me beyond reasonable comprehension is that every pixel of height uses up 25% of it's width on both sides to align to the neighbouring pixel and the rest is plain, which leaves disgusting black rows on the backsides of the mountains. I was able to remove them, by upping the non-lit ground to 1 1 1, but then craters left no shadow no matter how much I upped the sunlit function. In fact, going over 1.5 1.5 1.5 in the sunlit values directly fucks things up, no matter how dark the rest of the map is because craters stop leaving "lighter" shades (it's those brighter parts on the opposite sides of the shadow parts).

Now, I don't know what I didn't try, but it seems that if I color the unlit ground, say blue and the lit to yellow (opposite color), the map shows up as whole dark blue and the light parts of craters shows up as yellow. So I thought that if I up the unlit shades a lot, to get rid of the ugly lines, but drop one color and then, in the lit cheme up that exact color to make it change, but no, it doesn't work. Going over 0.4 0.4 0.4 and 1.2 1.2 1.2 in any way, removes the possibility of having normal shadows while having them, or under, makes the otherwise WHITE map look pale GREY. The values seem to follow no kind of logic.

Also, upping the sun to over 2 2 2 makes it swallow parts of the map if you look from a corner to another. And if you have less, it adds up to coloring the ground more grey than it is.

Now, another funny thing I noticed was the mist. In my desperation to make things looks a bit whiter, I set a nice 1.5 1.5 1.5 mist value (any lower gives grey), but no matter what I put as the mist factor, it didn't work... until I got any value over 1, in which case it drained everything in so thick, you couldn't even see the mist for the mist. Now, in fact, to get a nice mist factor, you have to start out with 0 and go towards negative values. Very very odd indeed.

Anyway, download from FileUniverse.

Posted: 06 May 2005, 07:22
by [K.B.] Napalm Cobra
You didn't render with shadows on did you?

Posted: 06 May 2005, 08:27
by smoth
he did and it still looks fabulous.


btw.. how are my maps coming?

Posted: 06 May 2005, 09:37
by Phoenix
Great map. :D

Cant wait to try it, Yes, How are smoths map going?

I wanna play them so bad.

Posted: 06 May 2005, 09:48
by Storm
You didn't render with shadows on did you?
I sure did and they look great in fact.

Posted: 06 May 2005, 10:21
by [K.B.] Napalm Cobra
But doesn't Spring do terrain shadows anyway?

Posted: 06 May 2005, 10:27
by smoth
napalm, not for everyone.

Posted: 06 May 2005, 11:19
by [K.B.] Napalm Cobra
Yeah, played it and the shadows are good, but what i did notice is that somebody saved the heightmap as a jpg.

Posted: 06 May 2005, 19:10
by Buggi
So, where's the rebel base? :twisted:

Posted: 06 May 2005, 22:58
by Storm
As a .jpg? What?

I never even dreamed of trying to compile a .jpg heightmap. All of the files used are 24 bit .bmp images.

Posted: 08 May 2005, 17:43
by CaptainExo
Looks nice... and in reply to Buggi;

Hidden, of course. You'll need probots to find it. ;)