Post by Keith Heitmann on Nov 29, 2004 20:22:57 GMT -5
By Matt Zimmitti, Tilted Mill Team Member (QA and Dev. Support)
The first thing I tend to do before going into the editor is draw up a concept of what the map will look like. The fewer decisions you make with the editor open the better. So then, I drew a mockup on my whiteboard (see mockup.jpg below). Nothing too crazy, but it’s good to have something to refer to while you are in the editor.
Orange: cliffs
Yellow: desert
Green: grassland
Red: high flood
Brown: flood plain
Blue: river
Purple: dots are mines, squares are quarries
Now here’s the step-by-step of what I did…
1) Open the Editor
1.1) Write “SAVE OFTEN” on a Post-It note and stick the note to your monitor.
2) Set the Map Size
-Click the Map button
-Leave the default terrain set to grass
-Set the dimensions (in this case 150x150)
-Click Create New Scenario
3) Carve the River
-Click the Elevation button
-Set the brush to Tiny
-Select Paint Hills
-Whenever you make any elevation changes in or near the river it is wise to click Create River and make sure there are no errors.
a) First we paint High Flood areas. We are going to paint on everything that is brown or blue on the mockup. The slope elevation will actually take care of the High Flood area. This should make sense once you give it a try.
Settings are as follows:
Terrain Elevation: -1
Fine Elevation: 90
Slope Elevation: 6
b) Next we paint the Flood Plain areas. Here’s where things get interesting. Click the button called “Normal” under Flood Level if it isn’t already set there. There should be some jaggy water visible at this point <Lesson 1.2.scn>. What I do here is set the elevation to what’s listed below and paint from the center of the river outward until all the jaggies go away.
Terrain Elevation: -2
Fine Elevation: 89
Slope Elevation: 12
c) Finally we carve the riverbed. Similar method to step ‘b’, except this time I set the Flood Level to Low and use the following settings:
Terrain Elevation: -8
Fine Elevation: 0
Slope Elevation: 60 (80 for the tight areas)
Your map should now look something like <Lesson 1.4.scn>
d) Verify that you can place a reasonable amount of barge landings. To do this select Units->Land->Players and select Barge Landings from the list. Check to see if there is space by the river to build a reasonable number of barge landings by hovering over the river edge. In my case, I felt that there wasn’t, so I repeated step 3c and smushed out the riverbed a bit further in the spots that I wanted more barge landing possibilities. <Lesson 1.6.scn>
4) Cliffage
-Select Elevation
-Set the brush to Tiny
-Select Paint Cliffs
-Set the Height to 16 (just my preference)
a) I then used that brush to paint in the orange sections of my mockup. For every clump of cliff, I started out with just a height of 16 and painted a plateau.
b) Once I was sure the river had no errors I went back and set the height to random amounts between 20 and 36 and added some mounds. <Mounds.jpg>
c) Finally I used the Paint Cliff Paths tool with the brush set to Small and made the mounds more jagged. <More Jagged.jpg>
d) Do this one clump at a time, verifying the river if you are doing work near the water.
At this point we’re at <Lesson 1.10.scn>
5) Rough Terrain Texturing
-Select Terrain-> Desert Med
-Set the Brush Size to your preference
-Paint out the rough areas where your desert will be (yellow in the mockup for those of you playing along). Don’t worry about the cliffs, that’s a battle for another day.
6) Flood Plain Texturing
-Select Elevation and set the Flood Level to Low
-Select Terrain->Flood Plain
-Set the Brush Size to Small
-Paint this over the darkened area that is above water
-Avoid going all the way to the edge of the map (we’ll discuss why when we get into sprites)
7) Mud Texturing
This step is purely cosmetic and is used to indicate to the player where clay is likely to be found. It does not actually generate the clay. We’ll get into the madness that is clay tomorrow when we get into sprites.
-Select Terrain->Mud
-Set the Terrain Color to the reddish palette (4th from the bottom I think)
-Paint a few bands above the floodplain with this color. I tend to leave some spaces, but that is just my preference. <Lesson 1.13.scn>
And here’s where we leave off for now. The map looks reasonably similar to the mockup so I’m happy with that. Tomorrow we will first cover transitional texturing then we’ll cover sprites.
Related Images:
www.tiltedmill.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=4393 www.tiltedmill.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=4394
www.tiltedmill.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=4395
Related files:
1. Lesson 1.2.scn
2. Lesson 1.4.scn
3. Lesson 1.6.scn
4. Lesson 1.10.scn
5. Lesson 1.13.scn
The first thing I tend to do before going into the editor is draw up a concept of what the map will look like. The fewer decisions you make with the editor open the better. So then, I drew a mockup on my whiteboard (see mockup.jpg below). Nothing too crazy, but it’s good to have something to refer to while you are in the editor.
Orange: cliffs
Yellow: desert
Green: grassland
Red: high flood
Brown: flood plain
Blue: river
Purple: dots are mines, squares are quarries
Now here’s the step-by-step of what I did…
1) Open the Editor
1.1) Write “SAVE OFTEN” on a Post-It note and stick the note to your monitor.
2) Set the Map Size
-Click the Map button
-Leave the default terrain set to grass
-Set the dimensions (in this case 150x150)
-Click Create New Scenario
3) Carve the River
-Click the Elevation button
-Set the brush to Tiny
-Select Paint Hills
-Whenever you make any elevation changes in or near the river it is wise to click Create River and make sure there are no errors.
a) First we paint High Flood areas. We are going to paint on everything that is brown or blue on the mockup. The slope elevation will actually take care of the High Flood area. This should make sense once you give it a try.
Settings are as follows:
Terrain Elevation: -1
Fine Elevation: 90
Slope Elevation: 6
b) Next we paint the Flood Plain areas. Here’s where things get interesting. Click the button called “Normal” under Flood Level if it isn’t already set there. There should be some jaggy water visible at this point <Lesson 1.2.scn>. What I do here is set the elevation to what’s listed below and paint from the center of the river outward until all the jaggies go away.
Terrain Elevation: -2
Fine Elevation: 89
Slope Elevation: 12
c) Finally we carve the riverbed. Similar method to step ‘b’, except this time I set the Flood Level to Low and use the following settings:
Terrain Elevation: -8
Fine Elevation: 0
Slope Elevation: 60 (80 for the tight areas)
Your map should now look something like <Lesson 1.4.scn>
d) Verify that you can place a reasonable amount of barge landings. To do this select Units->Land->Players and select Barge Landings from the list. Check to see if there is space by the river to build a reasonable number of barge landings by hovering over the river edge. In my case, I felt that there wasn’t, so I repeated step 3c and smushed out the riverbed a bit further in the spots that I wanted more barge landing possibilities. <Lesson 1.6.scn>
4) Cliffage
-Select Elevation
-Set the brush to Tiny
-Select Paint Cliffs
-Set the Height to 16 (just my preference)
a) I then used that brush to paint in the orange sections of my mockup. For every clump of cliff, I started out with just a height of 16 and painted a plateau.
b) Once I was sure the river had no errors I went back and set the height to random amounts between 20 and 36 and added some mounds. <Mounds.jpg>
c) Finally I used the Paint Cliff Paths tool with the brush set to Small and made the mounds more jagged. <More Jagged.jpg>
d) Do this one clump at a time, verifying the river if you are doing work near the water.
At this point we’re at <Lesson 1.10.scn>
5) Rough Terrain Texturing
-Select Terrain-> Desert Med
-Set the Brush Size to your preference
-Paint out the rough areas where your desert will be (yellow in the mockup for those of you playing along). Don’t worry about the cliffs, that’s a battle for another day.
6) Flood Plain Texturing
-Select Elevation and set the Flood Level to Low
-Select Terrain->Flood Plain
-Set the Brush Size to Small
-Paint this over the darkened area that is above water
-Avoid going all the way to the edge of the map (we’ll discuss why when we get into sprites)
7) Mud Texturing
This step is purely cosmetic and is used to indicate to the player where clay is likely to be found. It does not actually generate the clay. We’ll get into the madness that is clay tomorrow when we get into sprites.
-Select Terrain->Mud
-Set the Terrain Color to the reddish palette (4th from the bottom I think)
-Paint a few bands above the floodplain with this color. I tend to leave some spaces, but that is just my preference. <Lesson 1.13.scn>
And here’s where we leave off for now. The map looks reasonably similar to the mockup so I’m happy with that. Tomorrow we will first cover transitional texturing then we’ll cover sprites.
Related Images:
www.tiltedmill.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=4393 www.tiltedmill.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=4394
www.tiltedmill.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=4395
Related files:
1. Lesson 1.2.scn
2. Lesson 1.4.scn
3. Lesson 1.6.scn
4. Lesson 1.10.scn
5. Lesson 1.13.scn