Before I terrain my first map...

[hobby villain]

My first map is going to be 480*480. I have a rough idea of the major geography of it and I've checked some terraining guides. It seems to me however that I may as well experiment with hills and waterfalls and whatnot on the actual map I intend to use them on. If something looks bad, I can edit it.

Yet, is there something I really should do first? On the level of, your map will need this and you can only include it from the start; if you don't do that you will have to start over from scratch or it would be faster to start over from scratch than to fix it.

One particular concern that comes to mind is whatever occult hacking ritual I need to perform to circumvent the 16 texture tileset cap. I haven't figured that out, only heard legends about it, and for now I can easily busy myself for a week without requiring that. Still, eventually I will need it... or right away?

So, can I start my trial and error with the terraining or is there something I should absolutely do first?

P.S. I'm sure 480*480 sounds like a bad idea for my first map but I have a vast story in my mind, one that begins and spends the majority of its first time in this land. If I started somewhere else I wouldn't be adequately sure what's going to happen or exist there. And this land IS large, large enough that even 480*480 will not be able to represent the real town sizes and such. If I could make it 4800000*4800000 I probably would, so don't try to talk the idiocy out of me

 

[Sieben]

There shouldn't be any problem if you start right away. Things like increasing the tiles limit can ben done later.

 

[LordDz]

Good luck with your project, just bear in mind that everything usually takes x3 the times one thinks they would.
So be careful with going over your head. It's often better to start small and if you need, you can increase the map size later. It will also make the map save faster if you keep it small.

 

[hobby villain]

Oh, I don't have a time plan to begin with, so I can't get it wrong.

Are you saying I can start with a tiny map and keep expanding it, rather than starting with a tiny map and manually copying my work to a larger one when I'm satisfied with it? I'm not sure I would want to do that even... always working with the large map might be good for helping me keep proportions.

 

[Sieben]

Yes, you can start off with a small map and expand it (Scenario > Map Size)

 

[nedio95]

Have in mind that starting with a small map will reduce your loading time early-on.
Even an empty 480^2 map would take several minutes to load on my old PC while a 32x32 or 64x64 would take 10-15 sek. (all empty)

This point is mainly for potato PC's though.

 

[Rheiko]

One particular concern that comes to mind is whatever occult hacking ritual I need to perform to circumvent the 16 texture tileset cap. I haven't figured that out, only heard legends about it, and for now I can easily busy myself for a week without requiring that. Still, eventually I will need it... or right away?

It's all nothing but legends. ~

 

[LordDz]

The UMSWE Editor allowed for more than 16 tilesets, also pretty sure newgen jass does it.

But I'm not sure if they're up to date with the newest patch yet.

 

[nedio95]

It's all nothing but legends. ~

I thought it is possible with JNGP/Some-other-modded-editor, but still there was a max of 24 (or something around) and it often bugged the maps?

 

[Sieben]

You can have up to 16 tiles with Hive WE. And it is 16 tiles: it removes that silly tile size (you know, tiles that take 1 or 2 slots). It should be enough for most projects I suppose. I haven't tried it yet though.

 

[Rheiko]

It was supposed to be sarcasm. Oh well...

 

[LordDz]

Sarcasm or not, it didn't help him get his answer. This is the editor help zone, not offtopic

 

[hobby villain]

Sarcasm? I'd get it if you said it was a joke. Before making this thread I tried some SharpCraft thing to help with the tile limit, but for lack of aforementioned occult ritual it seems it actually has a lower limit (13, and still 2-tile things) than default.

I hope you meant joke because googling about this stuff turns up all kinds of outdated info, suggesting programs that no longer work, yada yada. This Hive WE thing seems to be doing the trick though. I was able to expand the tileset there and then load the map in the normal WE without any complaints. Saved the map just fine (with all tiles placed somewhere) and launched the map just fine in-game.

I believe I now have 480*480 somethings worth of land to raise from the shallow sea. Gul'dan got nothing on me. Cheers for the help.

 

[Dr Super Good]

One particular concern that comes to mind is whatever occult hacking ritual I need to perform to circumvent the 16 texture tileset cap. I haven't figured that out, only heard legends about it, and for now I can easily busy myself for a week without requiring that. Still, eventually I will need it... or right away?

There is no way to bypass the 16 tile type limit. WC3 only allocates 4 bits for tile type which gives a maximum of 16 possible values. One can technically specify more than 16 tile types but only the first specified 16 will be able to be allocated to terrain nodes with the rest forever being unused.

One can also technically specify and use 16 cliff types. However each cliff type implicitly loads a tile type (counts to tile type limit) and only the first 2 cliff types will have correct meshes with the rest incorrectly recycling those meshes.

P.S. I'm sure 480*480 sounds like a bad idea for my first map but I have a vast story in my mind, one that begins and spends the majority of its first time in this land. If I started somewhere else I wouldn't be adequately sure what's going to happen or exist there. And this land IS large, large enough that even 480*480 will not be able to represent the real town sizes and such. If I could make it 4800000*4800000 I probably would, so don't try to talk the idiocy out of me

Terraining a 480*480 map properly will take several years. Filling it with content even more so.

 

[hobby villain]

There is no way to bypass the 16 tile type limit. WC3 only allocates 4 bits for tile type which gives a maximum of 16 possible values. One can technically specify more than 16 tile types but only the first specified 16 will be able to be allocated to terrain nodes with the rest forever being unused.

Even if we count the 16 tile limit with all having an actual cost of 1? I mean, I'm pretty sure it worked to overcap that. WE said I had 18 used, but it'd be <16 if not for some of them having a 2 cost. I was able to use them all and load the map and they were there.

Terraining a 480*480 map properly will take several years. Filling it with content even more so.

I'm... not sure how terraining is gonna take nearly that long. Maybe I have too low standards I'll consider myself warned.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Even if we count the 16 tile limit with all having an actual cost of 1? I mean, I'm pretty sure it worked to overcap that. WE said I had 18 used, but it'd be <16 if not for some of them having a 2 cost. I was able to use them all and load the map and they were there.

Tile type "cost" is entirely a WorldEdit feature. It was designed to help limit graphic memory usage, back in the time of 32MB and 64MB graphics cards. This feature is utterly pointless in 2018 as even the cheapest dedicated GPU will have >1GB of memory and all integrated GPUs are attached to systems with >4GB RAM.

As far as Warcraft III goes it is not aware of any such cost limits. It loads entirely the list of tile cliff types and tile types specified by the .w3e file. Only the first 16 cliff and tile types can be used because of implementation limitations. It is entirely possible to load 16 extended (512x256) palette tile types.

I'm... not sure how terraining is gonna take nearly that long. Maybe I have too low standards I'll consider myself warned.

With exception of some RTS maps, I have never seen maps fully utilize 480x480 map dimensions. With most RPGs leaving large amounts of the area blank or marked for future content. For example Daemonics uses a 480*480 map and has filled ~1/10 of it with water around the boarders of the main play area.

 

[daverave1212]

Before you start, it may be a good idea to make the default map contain ALL shallow (or deep) water and do it from there. That is because if you want to do smooth water and islands and such, it will be a nightmare if you start from normal ground.
Also, make sure you increase the default terrain level (default is 2 I believe). That way you can lower terrain even more (this is from memory, haven't done it in a long time, I may be wrong).

 

[hobby villain]

With most RPGs leaving large amounts of the area blank or marked for future content.

Yeah, uh, how do I put this. The whole map is based on a series of books I have in my head that I can't motivate myself to write. For the first book the party travels roughly from the northwest to the northeast corner of the map. There isn't an army of monsters and a dozen dungeons between that (it's a rather peaceful land), so I'm not going for this size to have space for multiple tiers of RPG elements or anything. It's simply because it's a large land and I want it as accurately represented as possible.

I have some ideas for making it more entertaining and knowing myself, I will get more by just making the map, looking at an area I've designed and finding a way to put a quest there that the party would care to do. In the books the excitement is more about social interactions and occasional fights than constant trash mobs, but I'm very fond of single player small party of heroes adventures, so I will look for opportunities for meaningful combat, just not mobs right in the middle of my peaceful land that only attack me. No story is ever gonna be fight level 5 kobolds until you can handle level 6 kobolds and fight those until you can handle level 7 kobolds, on and on until you kill the kobold king.

And now to add to my crazy, this wouldn't be the only map I'd need for the entire series, but certainly I would only need like one more freakishly huge map. ^^

Before you start

Yeah I did that, it was great fun to raise a 480*480 map I've moved over to the UTM now. With this doodad list I'm getting more of an appreciation for how daunting the terraining task could be.

Could use some advice about the tileset though. The map (in my head) primarily has farmlands, towns and forests (and water and that stuff of course). There's also a large wetland and a sizeable "volcanic" area (maybe 1/6th of the map). So I kinda want to use everything from Village, Lordaeron Summer and Outland, but that's too many tiles, and I'm not sure which ones I should leave out. I could make the volcanic area inaccessible and just load a different map for it, but I'd consider that an inelegant solution. The area is called the Burning Hills and I really want the red look for it, even if that might not be how volcanic areas look. I say volcanic over and over though because its most important feature is a volcano of great plot significance.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Yeah, uh, how do I put this. The whole map is based on a series of books I have in my head that I can't motivate myself to write. For the first book the party travels roughly from the northwest to the northeast corner of the map. There isn't an army of monsters and a dozen dungeons between that (it's a rather peaceful land), so I'm not going for this size to have space for multiple tiers of RPG elements or anything. It's simply because it's a large land and I want it as accurately represented as possible.

Large forced periods of no action in empty environments is not how one designs a high quality game/map.

Could use some advice about the tileset though. The map (in my head) primarily has farmlands, towns and forests (and water and that stuff of course). There's also a large wetland and a sizeable "volcanic" area (maybe 1/6th of the map). So I kinda want to use everything from Village, Lordaeron Summer and Outland, but that's too many tiles, and I'm not sure which ones I should leave out. I could make the volcanic area inaccessible and just load a different map for it, but I'd consider that an inelegant solution. The area is called the Burning Hills and I really want the red look for it, even if that might not be how volcanic areas look. I say volcanic over and over though because its most important feature is a volcano of great plot significance.

If the map is single player break it into a campaign with many smaller maps. Use the TFT bonus orc campaign mechanics of moving between the maps. Sure the world will not feel as open but it solves a lot of the limitations that Warcraft III has and gives players overall higher in game performance than massive 480x480 maps that Warcraft III is not really designed to cope with.

 

[hobby villain]

If the map is single player break it into a campaign with many smaller maps.

This has tons of advantages and I don't know why I didn't consider it. Not just what you mentioned, but I can stop worrying about proportions too, more liberty with the tilesets, and I can get really detailed when I want to. It would also be easier to simulate the actual size of the land when I can say three days passed from small map one to small map two, rather than... I'm not sure what approach I would even use to pretend that a map that takes a few minutes of playtime to walk across (without obstacles, anyway) is actually a journey of several weeks. I'll just use a drawn map for the loading screen, and...

Not to mention that I get bite-sized challenges. Think I'm going to take on the starting village now, on a dramatically smaller map.

 

[LordDz]

While we're at it, a tip for the campaign:
Use the campaign object editor to edit your object data, instead of the normal object editor.
That way your object data will be the same across all maps you have in your campaign.

 

[hobby villain]

Oh. Then I guess I should somehow copy the UTM doodads into the campaign custom doodads? Or does that not matter since I can use UTM as basis for every map anyway? It'd be nice to get rid of some of the insane doodad size variances in UTM but I guess I can just do that in the UTM template anyway.

 

[LordDz]

You can use the UTM map multiple time and it'd be a pain in the ass to copy the imported files over to the campaign editor.

But for your own object data and imports, keep them to the campaign editor.

 

[Neruvatar]

A huge map definitely takes the heat out of the designer, unless you really can shape it with contents. Just like other people who had replied you, map of such size would take years, and if it's an RPG or campaign, you are looking at your calendar pages flip on and on and your project would just progress at a... (miserable) pace. I would suggest start with a good planning first. Terraining can come much later. How your gameplay will be will affect the quality of the map.

Good luck!