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| SanD__ Netherlands. June 29 2012 05:11. Posts 28 | Profile # |
My first time trying some map making, been enjoying this. Let me know if you have some feedback for me.
Cheers!
EDIT: I will update this post with my maps instead of cluttering the Forum.
EDIT2: Inspiration for Retreating Seas
+ Show Spoiler +A sailing trip I undertook with friends on the 'Waddenzee' in the north of the Netherlands. The keel of our sailing ship was 1.5m deep in the water so we had to follow the sailing lanes very precisely. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/omJSN.png)
Retreating seas
Made by: SanD
Playable Bounds: <138x116>
Tileset: Mar Sara
+ Show Spoiler +
Urban Strife
Made by: SanD
Playable Bounds: <148x92>
Tileset: Tarsonis
+ Show Spoiler +
Sands of Mar Sara
Made by: SanD
Playable Bounds: <148x124>
Tileset: Mar Sara
+ Show Spoiler +
Last edit: 2012-06-30 21:36:35 |
| | Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential. -Winston S. Churchill |
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| FlaShFTW United States. June 29 2012 05:37. Posts 4963 | Profile Blog # |
map is too blocky. you need to use internediate direction ramps, not cardinal. this will help with walloffs. the mineral/gas placements are interesting. i feel that the map is a bit too big. those smaller, thinner high ground areas near the middle are pointless. should make then more like a bigger plateau area.
look at other maps first and try to follow those in terms of base placements and ramps and stuff first. |
| | Never Surrender. Never GG. Always Fighting. BW4LYF. Woo Jung Ho Never Forget. |
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| Guardian85 June 29 2012 05:48. Posts 155 | Profile # |
You've grapsed the general idea.
Ill take some time to walk through the basics i was thought when joining here.
Minerals, standarize, by copying and pasting them from official maps.
Map mirroring, Select your Terrain tool, and hit space so that the little tiny + mark is gone from your cursor.
Use the selection square to select half of your map, and then press CTRL+C ( i hit it twice to make sure )
Then zoom out your map a little, and press CTRL+V, you'll see a blue-purpleish square attached to your cursor, this is the already copied content.. now press [ * ] on your numpad, each press rotates 90 degrees, so hit it twice.
Try keep your cursor in the same position, and move it only a slight bit at a time whilst pasting and rotating, then placing the terrain.
its hard to match it on the first try, but after a little while you'll make it happen.
Then press G ( can be pressed 3 times ) and start polishing edges... because you want as few "straight" lines as possible.
The point of doing this is to create a map that has the same balance for game play, for both oponents, due to timing of the different paths etc.
Next is ramps.. since ramps provides different advantages and disadvantages depending on their placement and angle..
The standard seems to be set at Only and that means ONLY diagonal ramps. / \
In other words, dont place Vertical ramps | or any Horizontal ramps -----
When it comes to objects and textures, you just gotta mess around with it for a while.. try this and that, until you figure stuff out.
Ill try get you started with a few tips.
To create a pretty realistic look, put your increment on the brush to fairly low, around 8-25, then brush one texture onto the other, in a horse-shoe pattern, whilst there are 4 different brush types, and 3 different shapes.. i suggest try starting with a Elipse Circular tool, then choose one that does not have too heavy brush strokes, normally the two last brush types. on the right.
Test textures by brushing two patches of texture next to each other, then select blurr tool.
Whilst using the blurr tool, try put increment at 255, and heavy brush, then a medium size brush, and do some testing.
When it comes to open ground or map edges, you wanna make sure that units cant move there, except maybe air units.
to prevent this, try pressing H, this will bring up your Pathing tool.
Now press the S shaped arrow, that should be explained as painted pathing, then click the arrow, called Add pathing, and select the button named "no pathing".
The new red layer does not allow, units to pass the painted area.
Experiement with this if you want.
Then its doodads, you can look up doodads by pressing "D", or the little palm tree on the upper tool bar.
Then look around for doodads you like, and fits your theme.
To make your maps more naturally looking, go to terrain tool, and select foliage, where you can select generate foliage.
Set how much foliage you want, and press generate.
Basic manouvering and selection..
just about any category your in, you can always press SPACEBAR, to enter selection mode.
Selecting a unit or structure, prop or Doodad, then hitting the ENTER key, will bring up its properties.
Camera paning, if you HOLD down CTRL, and press the arrow keys left and right, you can pan the camera for different view.
Holding ALT, while scrolling your mousewheel will let you directly hover up and down.
The rest if for you to find out.
Good luck, and happy map making 
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| SanD__ Netherlands. June 29 2012 06:12. Posts 28 | Profile # |
Tnx for your feedback FlashFTW.
About the smaller highgrounds in the middle: my thought here is to make 'em kinda useles, whilst ground armies will have some annoying sight blocking. With this I hope to provide a volatile battlefield through the middle.
For protoss this area will combine good with forcefields, but kinda sucks for zealots. For zerg the area is wide for the swarm, but Ultras and zerglings will have some trouble pathing and surrounding armies here. Terran will have trouble without Air units to go through the middle, but might benefit from cluttering the middle with supply depots and bunkers.
Nice thing about the canal in the middle is that it makes it so that the initial worker scouts will travel at different sides of the middle canal.
The Xel'Naga watchtower's sightrange will cover an important area for defending your third base.
Guardian85: very useful tips, I'll be sure to make good use of them during my next session.
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| | Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential. -Winston S. Churchill |
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| RFDaemoniac United States. June 29 2012 06:26. Posts 332 | Profile # |
I can't quite tell if the area to the right of the bottom natural is pathable or not. It almost looks like it's just the terrain height that's been changed.
I would encourage you to try starting with a template ladder map. You can change it completely, but it's nice to not work from scratch at first.
Something that can help with blockiness is using the circle brush, and now that you know how to mirror you don't have to worry about creating something that's hard to duplicate.
The little cliffs in the middle I really like, and I'm experimenting with something like this. This is a map feature that is avoided in competitive maps but I think it makes for interesting slow pushing/defense and really helps to break up the death ball.
Keep it up |
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| SanD__ Netherlands. June 29 2012 10:19. Posts 28 | Profile # |
Update: I did some updating on the map and also renewed the pictures in my opening post.
Changes: mostly cosmetic changes to the plateaus and textures to get a nicer feel, I adjusted the ramps to allow for blocking with structures, the main and natural seem to be close enough for zerg and locations have altered a little bit to prevent lame tank shelling on the natural, added a lot of doodads.
RFDaemoniac: That area was pathable indeed but I've adjusted it now to partly not pathable, to allow for a more defendible 3rd base.
Last edit: 2012-06-29 10:28:58 |
| | Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential. -Winston S. Churchill |
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| Guardian85 June 29 2012 11:33. Posts 155 | Profile # |
I can see you've tried out some texturing, and adding doodads.
It demands a lot of patience, to texture completely, i think i spendt 10 hours with out stop, on one of the maps i made.. and it turned out to not be that good afterall.
As much as i also want to stick with the projects i've spendt 20-40 hours making, sometimes i just gotta start with a new one.
Its still some ways to go, before you strike gold.
But only way forward is to keep trying
EDIT: i can also see you've put in diagonal ramps, thats good.Last edit: 2012-06-29 11:44:46 |
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| FlaShFTW United States. June 29 2012 14:04. Posts 4963 | Profile Blog # |
keep trying man. this is just ur first map. the idea seems good, i just don't think u are pulling this one off. if you haven't already, look at the other maps and try to copy them (not exactly, but follow a sense of their layout and stuff.)
GL HF. |
| | Never Surrender. Never GG. Always Fighting. BW4LYF. Woo Jung Ho Never Forget. |
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| SanD__ Netherlands. June 29 2012 16:47. Posts 28 | Profile # |
Thanks guys for being honest. The love for my little baby might have made me less critical, but just before reading your replies I was thinking that I might need to start from scratch again.
GG |
| | Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential. -Winston S. Churchill |
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| Guardian85 June 30 2012 15:02. Posts 155 | Profile # |
SanD__ Mate, try make new threads with each map or people will skip reading it, and it will not end up in recent list.
Even if its not published yet, you can just write WIP in the thread subject, to display your layout.
I really like your concept on your 3rd idea there very much, i think with the right texturing and doodads it'd be awesome looking.
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| Guardian85 June 30 2012 15:05. Posts 155 | Profile # |
Oh and you know your first map, how you made them steep cliffs using the height tool..
I've done this before and it adds a very nice looking effect, if you use it towards the bigger pools of water, where the "beach" kinda meets open water if you use the height tool to make a transition, it will look like its getting deeper and deeper, into the "sea".
But then you must choose the right type of water texture, or it will be not transparent enough. |
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| Guardian85 June 30 2012 15:14. Posts 155 | Profile # |
Your layout looks cool, but even though i see your using Diagonal ramps, theres another thing about ramps you need to remember.. the tighter the ramp is, the more chocked, and favours armies of different kinds.
A very small ramp, means that protoss micro play, will have an easier use of sentries, because their whole army is gatherd in one spot, the shielding is easy to cover more units, and forcefields easily block a narrow ramp.
But for like zerg, they need the space to surround units, and to bring in their hand to hand units, like Lings primarily.
Terran does pretty ok on smaller ramps, but if they start bringing Thor's and lots of Tanks, they will be chocked too.
Most mappers that i've been reading about prefers the average size of a ramp to be a 6 grid square, that means if you hit the G for grid in editor, until you get the smallest grid pattern, you will see the blue highlight of the ramps.. now count the "WHOLE" squares from one side to the other. But can however use 8 grid squares on "larger" ramps, and down to 4 grid squares if you really want to chocke something.. but try avoid 2 grids. (it seems you currently have 12, 2 grid ramps on the sea map)
But in some cases, i belive it is a viable choice for 2 grid ramps as main chocke, but it all depends on the map layout.
EDIT: PS - Using destructible rocks allows different stages of the game, allowing to expand ramps ( be careful not to "over use them" )
(Destructible rocks can be found in the unit section, under destructible )
Last edit: 2012-06-30 15:45:04 |
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| Guardian85 June 30 2012 15:33. Posts 155 | Profile # |
Just remember your doing great, and improving fast, theres one more thing to take to consideration. ( i know its a lot of directions, but noone said its easy ).
The other thing to keep in mind is so called "dead space", where like you need to consider Land distance, out of bounds distance, and map edge distance.
Like take Retreating seas, for example.
Your mains are pretty "safe" in a Horizontal perspective, but in a vertical perspective, theres a lot of space both north of the map and south of the map.
This doesnt need to be a problem. but imagine this..
If i were to build a defence, at my Nat "second base". And put in a minor force there.
Then i wait for my enemy to attack.. and while holding them at my doorstep.. i've been preparing a significant airforce, that i was able to sneak across the map, from my main base, over the seas, all around and right outside my enemy's nat, just waiting for him to strike.. keeping his army occupied, i can then send my airforce to devastate his nat, and possibly parts of his main, before he is able to respond with his army.
Map control is of course the key here, to scout the areas, to know whats going on.. but able to slip past on both south and north side, with mostly any airunit, will bring some challenges.
You can adjust this, by Clicking on the "MAP" menu, on your toolbar, and click map bounds. Check the checkbox for Camera, and map bounds modification.
Then click the arrows.
On a side note, if you ever experience that your unable to mirror your map due to the terrain always ending in the same spot, or it will never align to where you want it, expanding the map bounds during the paste proccess will help.
Then decrease the bounds after your done.Last edit: 2012-06-30 15:37:00 |
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| Guardian85 June 30 2012 15:39. Posts 155 | Profile # |
I hope some of the tips might help you mate, im glad to see your eager
Your very creative, and persistant which will be very useful.
And i wish im not misleading you in any way.
Best of luck
GuardianLast edit: 2012-06-30 15:41:47 |
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| SanD__ Netherlands. June 30 2012 21:41. Posts 28 | Profile # |
Thanks Guardian85, awesome of you to give me so much feedback. I will definitely work more on the Retreating Seas map to see how far I can take it. I can't reply to all your posts right now, but be sure that I will read them carefully.
Cheers. |
| | Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential. -Winston S. Churchill |
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