ORC ENCAMPMENTS
From Camps to Cities
Setup:
For this tutorial, you need to have the Warcraft III World Editor, basic Object Editor skills, and your own sense of style, or essentially whatever looks good to you.
First, open the Warcraft III World Editor, and select the option "New Map" (File -> New Map). Select the Barrens tileset. Select a map size (Go for larger than 96x96). Make sure you select Deep Water for initial water level; you want the entire map to be water, you will see why in a little bit.
Base Elevation
Water
Now you have your map, and it should be all water. Select the "
Raise" tool in the Terrain Palette and select the largest circle. Raise the land from under the water so that there is no water left. Why do this? Because blizzard cliffs are ugly, and now all you have to do is lower the terrain and get water where you want. Be sure not to raise the terrain too much. Raise it so its just above the water line, make it too high and it will look bad when its lowered.
The Ground Elevation
Now that the terrain is all raised, move on to the shape of the base. I find that orc bases look best with curved elevation. In this case, I made a curved wall of elevation using the raise tool and a size-5 circle. Be sure not to make the curve too narrow, it will be filled with buildings and NPCs. (Non-Playing-Characters)
Tiles and Doodads
Tiles
Tiles are important in a map; having all the same tile looks bad, but sometimes it is good to have specific tiles set to different types of terrain. For example, under the barrens rocks (which are red), I put the rock tile. The rock tile under the similarly colored rocks makes it blend in and look more real. Also, it masks floating parts of the rocks. For the encampment ground, I prefer the dark desert. I personally think it looks the best. Then for the last part of the tiles, make a thin strip of either grass or grassy dirt in-between the rock and the dark desert.
Rocks
Rocks are necessary to make a cool orc base. First of all, the rocks should be edited in the object editor. Change the Minimum and Maximum scales. Change Min to 1, and change Max to 2. You can make different sizes, but that is what I use. When placing the rocks, always zoom in with Game Camera on, so you can look from an angle. Looking from an angle will show you where the floating parts of the rocks are. Try to use the rock variations to your advantage and place the rocks with less small chunks in the middle, and the more one or two piece rocks on the edge.
BUT, we are not done yet! The rocks still look like they float. Now its time for trees.
Trees
Now that the rocks are complete, it's time for trees. In my base, I used a Hive Workshop resource called "
HighResBarrensTree".
HighResBarrensTree .That tree is very nice, and ,once you have it imported into the game select a doodad anywhere in the game that
DOES NOT HAVE PATHING!. It's very important for it to have no collision size, so you can place the tree where ever you want. In my map I based it off the River Rushes. Be sure to place it in the editor and see if you need to increase the size. For my trees i used the same size for the rocks. Min 1, Max 2. Its important not to over-place the trees. Place them where it looks nice and where they can block some of those nasty floating rocks. I suggest placing the trees in clusters all around the curve, right into the rocks. Also, with the HighResBarrensTree, be sure to use an angle of the tree that is not floating. The tree placed at the correct angle will look like its coming out of the cliff, not floating next to it.
Other Plants and Doodads
Now, other plants and doodads will add detail and life to the base. In this tutorial, I will use a modified version of River Rushes (make the color Yellowish) and
Agave as a plant, and
Orc Signpost as a doodad. The plants follow the same concept as the trees: don't over do it. This is where your style comes in, whatever looks nice to you. The way I do it is I fill the empty spaces with the plants. For the sign post, you can place them around the camp. Make the sign post have no pathing as well so you can stack them, and make it look as if it were pointing in more than one direction.
Units and Buildings
Buildings
With buildings, there is a complicated process that they must undergo before being placed in the game. Also the number of buildings and types of buildings will change based on whether you are making a camp, town, or city, etc. The process for making buildings requires you to know how to use the Object editor, and I'm not going to teach you in this this tutorial. If you have trouble with this part of my tutorial, search the site for how to use the object editor. First, create a custom unit based on the orc peon. Name it whatever you like, I named it "
Orc Building". Now delete all of its abilities, and add the
Locust (unselectable) and
Invulnerable abilities. Change
Allow Custom Team Color to "True". Change the model file to whatever orc building you want, such as the Barracks. Change the Scaling value to 2, and change Shadow Image (Unit) to "None". Set the custom color to brown (it looks the best). Change
Attacks Enabled to "None". Change
movement speed to 0. Change
Collision size to 0.00. Make the
Food Cost 0. Change any
Structures Built,
Upgrades Used, and
Upgrades Available to "None". And then you can copy and paste that unit and change the model file to get different buildings. Like Pig Farms, and Watch Towers.
Units (Optional)
Units add a nice look to your base. In my base, there are grunts chatting with each other, and there are some zeppelins docked overhead. Make these units however you want. One special unit I would like to go over is a wooden overpass, using
LogBridgeSmall45. Import that model, and select the unit
Windrider. Change the Windrider's properties to the same as the Building: no movement, no abilities (Except Locust), no collision, and no food cost. Place it in-between small alley ways to make a cool overpass look. You can change the height of the unit by increasing its Movement Height.
Hope you can make some awesome orc bases! For the Horde! Download the demo map I used to see the whole thing; it includes a custom test camera, to explore the base. Just click "test map" in the Editor. The camera begins on its own.
Orcs!
