Belgarath's Terrain Showcase

[Belgarath]

Hiya,
these are my first terrain screen shots, after I found the ULTIMATE TERRAINING MAP, I got inspired and started right away. I'm not sure if they're good or not, so I'll leave it up to you to decide.
Feedback's very welcome.

Note on the units: They were made by Elenai, here's the 'epic' link to the 'epic' model: Gondorian Soldier
Personally, I love the model.

​

Note on the second screen shot; "Epic Waterfall":

The lack of variation in the terrain is because I thought it'd be nice if I simply kept to the theme of the screen shot; a mountain, river and waterfall.

Uncategorized

"Epic Snowstorm"

"Epic Waterfall"

"Farm"

"Plane of Rocks"

"Farm II"

"Village"

Planes of Hell

"Planes of Hell"

"Planes of Hell II"

"Planes of Hell III"

"Planes of Hell IIII"

"Planes of Hell IIIII"

"Planes of Hell IIIIII"

"Planes of Hell IIIIIII"

Planes of Peace

Planes of Peace - Original

"Planes of Peace"

"Planes of Peace II"

"Planes of Peace III"

Planes of Peace - Fixed

"Planes of Peace (Fixed)"

"Planes of Peace II (Fixed)"

"Planes of Peace III (Fixed)"

Fall Collection

Fall Lighthouse

"Fall Lighthouse"

"Fall Lighthouse II"

"Fall Lighthouse III"

Fall Planes

"Fall Planes"

"Fall Planes II"

"Fall Planes III"

​

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

Looks okay, though I don't see the "epicness" in this. The second shot is my favorite, I like the way it looks all foggy down at the bottom of the waterfall.

 

[Belgarath]

Epic as in "big". Not sure why I did add that, though ... I think there was something, but I forgot it.

 

[donut3.5]

Maybe add more foliage to the rock they're standing on? I think that would make it less plain.
--donut3.5--

 

[Belgarath]

True, although I was trying to rather get the attention to the waterfall and forest instead of the people.
Added another screen shot, a farm.

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

VERY nice farm. This third picture is a hundred times better than the first 2. Nice lighting, great use of doodads, everything is placed very well. Good tile variation and the hills are well made too. Only negative point is the big white wall doodad thingy that seems to just lie randomly for no reason? Why would such a wall piece made of marble lie in the middle of nowhere close to a farm?

 

[Belgarath]

Uhm ... I guess one of the farmer's a thief ... or there was an evil hurricane ... tsunami. I'm not sure why I placed it there.
Anyway, added Plane of Rocks (is it Plain or Plane?), which was sort of inspired by the cover of J.R.R. Tolkien's book The Children of Hurin.
I didn't know which rock tiles to use, so it might look kinda weird.

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

It's plane.

It looks okay, but not as good as any of the other 3 pictures though. Blizzard rocks does not look good in masses and the unit doesn't really fit in. Too light considering the large amounts of fog there is.

 

[Craka_J]

The first one is pretty good. I like the ice around the throne hehe. Only thing I don't like very much about it is the spire behind the throne and I think the center of the area is empty.

The second one is good. Though the only thing I don't like about it is how you over-used the Gondor Guardsmen model.

The third is very good IMO. You should tint the "River Rushes" doodad to a brownish orange and place them here and there. It'd make your terrain look a lot better.

The fourth is good too. I really like the line of soldiers that are barely visible in the background. But the rocks in the front of the guard seem too big and look like they're floating a little bit.
~Craka_J

 

[Belgarath]

For the farm, I used the orange kind of tinted grass, I think it's Animated Grass 1 or something.
In the first one, has anyone actually noticed the mushroom on the glacier?

/Edit: Added "Farm II", the 'spring version' of "Farm".

 

[Craka_J]

Farm II: Nicely made. Though I spotted a lot of flaws almost instantly! Some hills are too pointy, the tile variation is some-what messy and doesn't really look great together. Like cobble stone and dirt doesn't go well together in the middle of nowhere. It looks too random.
The grassy dirt and dirt was definately over-used, I'd suggest add a lot more grass to the left side mostly. You should also add some rocky tiles to some of the steep hills to give it a good steep feeling.

The shrubs seem too randomly placed. It's not always a bad thing to do that, but since the light tiles such as the dirt found on the left mainly mixed with the dark grassy doodads, it looks out of place and doesn't go very well at all. It'd look a lot better either if you added a lot more grassy tiles or spammed a ton more shrubs over there... your decision.

I see you attempted to make a good stack of barrels once or twice in the back by the mill and house. I take it that you used the destructables instead of remaking the doodads as pathingless doodads (Regular doodads with "NONE" pathing give you a lot more freedom)
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Village: This is good too, but again the tile variation isn't that great. It looks way too randomly placed. What makes it look randomly placed is the how much the tiles don't go well together, meaning on how well they blend with each other. If you used tiles that blend well such as one dark grass with another dark grass and randomly placed it, you'd probably have a harder time figuring out if it was randomly placed or planned placements.

The top right where the mountain is definately needs rock tiles. Make it actually look like a mountain please!
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Planes of Hell 1,2, and 3: They're all pretty well made and decent IMO. The camera angles aren't that bad either. The sky is well chosen and so is the fog. Everything seems to blend well. The selection of doodads and the rate they were placed is pretty well too. My only problem I see is that it can use more different tiles, like darker dirt on maybe hills or something.
But overall I'd say it's nice.
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Planes of Peace 1,2, and 3: The grass doodads are way, way, way too bright to be placed on such dark tiles. So either tint the grass doodads a lot darker to blend better or remove them all together.
It kind of feels messy with how much you placed stuff all around the terrain. Some parts look pretty nice though, such as where the rocks are on the horizon and the little elf house by the trees.
Although I know you went wild with placing stuff randomly in this terrain piece once I noticed the wooden support in the middle of nowhere.
The tile variation isn't that great either. Looks like one or two tiles, but I know there's more. I want to be able to see the variation a lot easier, so you may need to replace some tiles.
I like the fog and sky though. They both blend well with each other and reflect nicely on the terrain. Some obviousness of random things is what makes this piece not so great though, such as the Light House in the middle of a plains of hills the wooden gallows thing. Although I think you were just exploring to see how things would turn out; apparently it wasn't that great IMHO.
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Nice work though. Nice to see that you're continueing and trying to improve.
~Craka_J

 

[Belgarath]

Alright, I 'fixed' the "Planes of Peace". The base colour of the grass is bad, so the tinting was kinda difficult, it might not be perfect.

 

[Craka_J]

The darkened grass is a severe improvement and the new camera angles are nice as well.
~Craka_J

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

Those planes of hell shots are nice, my favorite of your work so far.

 

[Craka_J]

Fall Lighthouse II is an amazing terrain shot. Very good work. Your terrain skills have improved by a lot.
~Craka_J

 

[Gilles]

You keep getting better. Dang you! lol, good work on the new stuff. I don't think the rocks blend well with everything else. I find them too shiny or something.

 

[Belgarath]

I was thinking about making two sets of three screen shots, one with barrens rocks and one with lordaeron / village rocks. I think I actually still have this terrain, I might do that today - but I don't think I'll be posting too much today and tomorrow, I'm watching some DVDs. I will have a few works though

 

[Gilles]

Sounds good. Maybe tinting lordaeron rocks brownish/gold would look nice.

 

[Belgarath]

Good idea! I'm gonna do that now.

 

[madman9800]

pretty good terrain, i like the planes of hall

 

[Belgarath]

Alright! I added the newest screens
+
Categorized everything, it should be a lot cleaner and organized now.

 

[Gilles]

I actually don't care for the new organization.

Anyways, I like the new plane I guess. Nothing terribly special or unique. The camera angles are nice, and there really isn't anything wrong with it.

It's more of a safari then a plane of fall.

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

It's more of a safari then a plane of fall.

Exactly what I think!

 

[Belgarath]

That's why it's called planes of fall!

 

[ragingspeedhorn]

Why not call it "The Savana" or something then?

 

[Belgarath]

Weeeeeell, I'd have to edit the screens, take the text out, and then put new text in ...
Just thinking about using Irfan View and Picture It! 9 so much makes me sick ...

Even though it's just about as much as cropping one ... but no one needs to know that ...

 

[Gilles]

It's not a big deal. Just leave it.

 

[~Void~]

Hmm... sorry to dig this up... but Belgarath these are probably your best terrains. You should go back to doing stuff like these, only with new techniques, because they actually have some kind of original style, unlike your newer "madsen imitations".

 

[Belgarath]

River rush spam? I've been thinking about doing another lighthouse, and I prolly will, but BTW:
- I only had one madsen imitation
- NUICE THRUD RUVIWAL N0OBZOR (don't take this one seriously)