How a good terrain should be?

[GnaReffotsirk]

For me I start from sketching some possible terrains given any set of texture combinations and available doodads (SC2 related), which will give me an idea of what's possible in terms of pre-made content.

Then when I go into imagining the scene, I'd intuitively have a picture of what's there.

It would be ideal to start with a scene in terms of script. However, this often leads to creating new doodads, or needing textures that aren't already available. Hitting a brick wall when I'm on the roll and deep into imagination while working is very very taxing to my creative flow. So I try to minimize this as much as possible.

In SC1, I find terraining a bit constraining. It's both a gift and a curse. Gift being there's an excuse for reusing stuff and not going for realism, and a curse since it limits creativity and makes one think more logically than intuitively.

[zany_001]

Sorry for 1 month bump, but if you want to see some examples of how terrain can be pushed and themed, I suggest you check out this thread http://www.staredit.net/topic/3223/ and the SC1 Terrain forum in general over at staredit.net. There are tutorials there too.

[HelpMe]

@ Zany

I've browsed that thread (and a few others) a few months ago, there's some really impressive stuff in there. Some of my personal favorites:












Again, I own nothing!

[Lavarinth]

Those are all pretty good but the first one amazed me.

[AngelSpirit]

In case you're interested, that terrain was based off of this:

Which is, in my opinion, the most impressive piece of terrain I have ever seen.

[IskatuMesk]

Not a fan of the ridiculously mangled buildings and other stuff you are by far better off modeling on your own and doing that way, but the cavern place is decent.

[HelpMe]

@AngelSpirit

Do you know the name of that map? I agree, it's a very special piece. Never seen anything like it...

@Lavarinth

That first image is from a map called "Lost Civilization", I think. And yeah, it just oozes atmosphere. Wonderful concept IMO.

I wish I could terrain something as interesting as these.

[IskatuMesk]

Most of these are taking advantage of the ability to place terrain via actual tiles and not what Staredit calls tiles. It's the same concept you work with in diablo 2 mapping, really. Except Diablo 2 is a bit more powerful in several regards, such as access to multiple layers. In BW, you have access to what I understand to be sprites (probably from sprites.dat).

The problem with a lot of sprite/doodad heavy terrain is they all contribute to the sprite limit.

[HelpMe]

@Mesk

What do you mean by "modeling on my own"? Like using just regular StarEdit tiles or...?

[IskatuMesk]

I mean taking advantage of custom sprites through 3ds max or the such.

Let's say you have a snow map. You'd like to have some snow, mountains, ect. You can't normally do these in BW - not unless you kitbash them. But I have never had a love for kitbashing. The mangled edges and unusual perspective destroy the mood for me - only the few really stand out, like the cavern, because they avoid that. But the cavern still has very bad color depth in the blue fog-like tiles. And there's only so much you can kitbash... Snow? Mountains? How would you make that? Especially believable?


Model it, of course!

Or rip them from Age of Wonders 2 which would be perfectly plausible to do for mountains, but aside that, you can make your own structures and effects. Snow, you could render a large, animated sprite and then cut it into 250x250 chunks and spawn that as a single effect in Staredit, animated through iscript. Now you have snow. Rain. That blue fog - you could animate that with single, large animated sprites, and fix the color depth in the process. Buildings are much easier. Want weather? Make an effect that randomly cycles between storm and cloud effects in iscript with randcondjump and sprol's with varying offsets.

There are extremely few campaigns that have taken advantage of custom doodad graphics, yet there's so much you could do with them to make the above images 69 times more amazing. It is not difficult to learn 3ds max if you're willing to put in the time to make your own kitbashed terrain, it's just a different subject. Rendering is where most people will get it wrong - but I can provide my ITAS scene if you ever seriously wanted to attempt it. You don't even necessarily need 3ds max to get new graphics into the game, just some resources and a bit of work in paint shop pro. I could even by accident some mountains and doodads your way from AoW2.



The only problem now with custom graphics is a little different than kitbashing your own. There is a limit on how many graphics you can add in sc, because you can only replace graphics. So, if I was going to make a campaign, I would make a calculation of what tilesets I intend to keep or get rid of. I never use Installation, for example, so I would then cannibalize installation sprite/image entries for custom doodads and use them elsewhere. Armageddon Onslaught cannibalized both installation AND space platform. And all the neutral buildings. And all the unused entries. And the entire Zerg race. Well... no one said it would be easy or pleasant. But the possibility is certainly there to take advantage of. To me, it's a no-brainer to at least try it if I was looking at making a campaign.

[HelpMe]

That's very interesting. I would love to create weather effects like hail, with the appropriate sound and everything. There are some doodads I'd like to have such as tables -- I'll need to implement these at some point, I've considered asking Taeradun for his table doodad used in Aeon of the Hawk.

For someone clueless as myself, which would you say is more appropriate, 3ds max or paintshop pro? Considering the learning curve and requirement of any prior knowledge.

[AngelSpirit]

@AngelSpirit

Do you know the name of that map? I agree, it's a very special piece. Never seen anything like it...

Unfortunately, no. I stumbled upon the screenshot by pure chance somewhere on SEN (and saved it to my harddrive), but have since lost track of which thread the screenshot was in.

In any event, a scene like that would hit the sprite limit ridiculously quickly if used more than once.

[IskatuMesk]

Photoshop is insufficient to make sprites unless you are already at mastery level. You will need to model them. All original assets in sc/d1/d2 were created either in a third party particle editor or in 3ds max. Otherwise it's far, far too difficult to make anything unless you are already extremely experienced in photoshop. I have 10 years experience with image editing and wouldn't even attempt to draw my own sprites.

Sounds are easy. If you ever need any sound effects throw me a PM with what you need.

Graphics will be a big time sink. I wouldn't really recommend attempting it unless you really, really want to do it and use it for something.

[Taeradun]

There is a limit on how many graphics you can add in sc, because you can only replace graphics.

if you just create stuff as pure doodads without a sprite, there's a bit more flexibility as there is some blank space in each tileset you can use - but it's still limited (though again there may be plenty of static doodads you're happy overwriting as well). Of course the benefit with sprites is that not only can you animate them but you can also have them as "overlays" - that overgrown city posted above looks awesome but would suck for actual unit pathing since tall buildings in that city appear to have an uncanny ability to block movement behind them (the alternative isn't necessarily much better though - where ground units can move but instead are "invisible" to their commander/the enemy's commander).

edited: oh the other cool thing though is that you can take advantage of shadowflare's program that makes it load mod content from the map file, so if you had eleventy billion maps in your campaign you could have completely different doodads/sprites in each map

There are some doodads I'd like to have such as tables -- I'll need to implement these at some point, I've considered asking Taeradun for his table doodad used in Aeon of the Hawk.

sure, I guess - you might want to check with Meta since I intended them to be used "exclusively" for his campaign, but it's had exclusivity for years now and I'm all for the sharing of resources between modders (I strongly doubt he'd mind either)

In retrospect though, I'm kinda embarrassed at how I designed those tables without thinking about how they'd actually be used - like, those ones with the computers obviously get used for someone's office or something, so then it looks like they have this honking great square table that's totally empty except for one computer - it just looks weird. Also the way the skyscrapers were done was pretty stupid, I aimed to make it flexible so Meta could create them with variety, but it ended up meaning they contributed a jillion sprites towards the limit and were probably a pain to place manually as well.

but yeah go ahead


p.s. I find it amusing if I cherrypick these 2 quotes out of context:

There are extremely few campaigns that have taken advantage of custom doodad graphics, yet there's so much you could do with them to make the above images 69 times more amazing.

I wouldn't really recommend attempting it unless you really, really want to do it and use it for something.

p.p.s. the last few days I've been considering making a campaign for SC1 again, I think I'm going insane

[HelpMe]

Thanks man, I'll try to contact Meta and see if he's ok with it. Those tables may not be perfect but they're a very welcome doodad addition. Especially for an installation setting, I think it will look nice.

On a side note, it really aggravates me how the installation tileset is so limited... the terrain layers are difficult to work with, and it's got such a small number of doodads to choose from. It's hard to make it feel lived-in and convincing. So I think your custom doodads would help me with that.

About making a campaign: I think you should totally do it, if you feel like it. You have prior experience so that's definitely a bonus. I can't say the same for myself. I'm currently writing the script for my first campaign attempt while making some preliminary terraining to help me envision the story. I have zero experience in modding so I'll have to learn it in the process -- at least how to replace portraits and perform minor unit customization, as well as implementing those doodads (if Meta gives the ok).

And yeah, Mesk's words kinda confused me -- "you should totally do it, it's a no-brainer" then "nah, don't bother with it". Wut?