Volcano Terrain attempt #3

[tml616]

I am completely redoing my terrain for my volcano map to use all the cool doodads from the UTM. So I worked out the "cave" portion of it today and want some feedback. This terrain has to be playable so I have to leave it roofless for now, maybe sometime I will get translucent rocks or something, but for now I am just trying to IMPLY a cave through the atmosphere I made. The bad MSPaint image is the concept of the map for you so you can see where the cave fits in to everything. Then there are 2 images taken with zoom and then 2 images at in-game settings.

map concept

Oh yeah and if you can suggest some models to replace the red waterfalls, they look kinda bad.

 

[chilla_killa]

Get the waterfall of the UTM and tint it orange/red.

 

[Azurot]

Actually the other waterfall is uploaded to this site, but i suggest you to never use that for lava, as lava flows together as you have done here, the only problem is there has yet to be a model capable of making good flowing lava. Your best bet is to just make your own, and base it off of the wc3 waterfall, or just learn to use the wc3 waterfall correctly.

You could ask lexandritte about how he got his\his projects lavafalls since they are epicly awesome.

 

[Lexandritte]

Already better, one thing I don't get is where the lights are coming from? It's not the underground, and there does not seem to be any sort of light-emanating crystals inside (there are crystals outside, and they don't glow)

The problem with your lava is the remaining waves from them waterfall. My advice -- do as little lava falls as possible. Restrict yourself to lakes (by the way, you can really make it look like lava if you play around with orange and yellow glows -- once again, have a look in my thread).

And don't stretch standard stones further than 2.00-2.50. I know it's easier to pack the space up with bigger ones, but overstretched texture looks terrible.

 

[tml616]

the down spotlights are supposed to make it feel like its inside when you're playing, since i cant put a roof over it and have it playable. I used LOS blockers so its pretty dark except for the cavern

 

[WherewolfTherewolf]

The way the lava tile is stretched up the wall is pretty ugly, some tiles (well most tiles, but some are excusable) just don't take stretching well.

 

[tml616]

The way the lava tile is stretched up the wall is pretty ugly, some tiles (well most tiles, but some are excusable) just don't take stretching well.

yeah that part isn't done, I just did the cave for now. Everything else is just set up as volumes with rough tilework at the moment

 

[Lexandritte]

Um, yeah, about the "inside cave". Use the vertical ones, and stretch them so they are higher than the screen edge. If you use side ones, make them more or less on the same angle. Light does not bend. Also, in the unplayable areas, you can make it look like the column of rocks is stretching out roof-like (letter "Y" style). Add more stalagmites and arcs. Set the day time to midnight, although in Dungeon it may not work... Yeah, change the lighting settings to something else, put midnight on, and with the help of glow effects make the lave light. That would be much better.

 

[tml616]

Since no one commented on the edit, I redid it again:

jokes

Ok I redid it again and I like this look a lot better.

Here is an in-game shot of the entrance. I did this in test mode so I can see how my LOS blockers work. (is there any way to turn off all doodads except LOS/path blockers? Really hard to get them right)

1 - cave entrance

Next is 2 shots of inside the cave. I put some LOS blockers in the cave so it is split into 4 "segments" of vision to prevent people from seeing ahead very far and keep lots of fog of war around them inside the cave.

2,3 - cave interior

And finally started working on the exterior ramp, which is another entrance to the base that runs beside the cave. The main trade-off is visibility (you can see more but so can the defenders). It is also more accessible from midfield. A few LOS blockers were used on the tall trees and tall rocks.

4,5 - ramp up/down

Finally a shot of #5 in the editor because there was no sky rendered in my test mode game. Of course now there is no fog of war so it looks too bright.

6 - with sky