Mapping Project: "The River"

[Reactor Worker]

For a few weeks now I have had this idea for a map brewing in my head and I have finally taken the plunge and have started work on it. The map will basically be a valley with a river running through it, accompanied by a nice collection of flora (and possibly fauna) to add value to it. The main reason for making the map is to try and push the envelope a bit on what really makes a quality map. Slate and slope edits are all fine and dandy, but few are really taking advantage of modern hardware, nor do they provide much in the way of eye candy.

Main Goals of the project:

• Realistic terrain (no random spiky hills or lumps)
• Collection of objects (plants, rocks, etc)
• Practical - level ground for building

Secondary goals:

• Animals populating map
• easter eggs and special areas to discover
• Limit reuse of preexisting textures, models, skyboxes

The title isn't very creative, I know, but I figured the map needed a name if I was to make a topic on it. Subject to change.

Anyway, I plan to update the thread when I make more progress on it. For now...here is a flower that will be featured in the map...

[Ad Bot]

[Lemurdecatta]

Very nice flower...

[rkynick]

flower brick would be awesome.

Could you make it place-able?


also, it might be better to use foilage if you are going to have a lot of flowers.

[Reactor Worker]

flower brick would be awesome.

Could you make it place-able?


also, it might be better to use foilage if you are going to have a lot of flowers.

Bricks are very different from DTS shapes. Making the same flower brick to be placeable would take a lot more effort.

I will be using the foliage replicator to place these throughout the map.

[Monty]

You could have a brick object that creates a flower at it's position, then destroys itself.

[laremere]

Or have the brick object go invisible so when you hammer it, the flower goes too.

Also, I agree on the mapping needs to be better, I have a few ideas for good maps that I'll get around to doing eventually...

[Reactor Worker]

You could have a brick object that creates a flower at it's position, then destroys itself.

I have spoken to both Ephiliates and Badspot briefly on the idea of using DTS shapes as pseudobricks but both maintained the same stance. Essentially they both said that using a DTS shape would be a step backwards towards the 0002 version which did use DTS shapes for bricks. The same concept applies, too many DTS shapes can lead to lag.

I suggested limitations on the special DTS bricks per player or per server (like vehicles) but no compromise could be met. As it stands, the only way to currently make a new complex brick is to write the coordinates out by hand.

Anyway, back on topic. I have been experimenting with the heightmap feature which generates the terrain from a png file. Its working fine, but the mission editor really over exaggerates the various heights, so what was supposed to be a relatively low lying map ended up being a series of canyons. I'm torn between making a new heightmap from scratch or just going with whatever the editor spits out. Problem is that cliffs look rather ugly in TGE.

[Dread]

I love that flower.



 

[Swholli]

I can help with textures. Perhaps a cartoony look? Hell I can even do photo realistic. So that way, not only are the textures original, they're custom. Just a thought.

[Reactor Worker]

I can help with textures. Perhaps a cartoony look? Hell I can even do photo realistic. So that way, not only are the textures original, they're custom. Just a thought.

I'm not quite sure how I want it to look. On one hand, the flowers and the players and the bricks all use plain colors but  the trees and everything else typically use photo-like textures.

If I went with cartoony style, I guess I could save myself some trouble and would make textures irrelevant.