Between The Worlds

[Lexandritte]

There is a campaign a whole team of Russians are making on a far-far-away XGM website. By a weird and unbelivable coincidence, I am terrainer-maker, plot-writer and concept-drawer of that project (there are other terrainers, writers and artists, but only I do all three jobs at once). Since we lacked an ammount of praising comments that would satisfy us, I'm posting screens of campaign here as the most English person in the team (and it seems that I will have to single-handedly translate whole piece to English - dialogs, books, descriptions...)

Ferals, the cat-man terrain:







Updating the terrain:



Post-apocalyptic dwarves:









The tribal Tiruses, bird-like dwellers of barren rock world.







*This bunch of 7 lovely screens above are made by my collegue (or however you spell it) oGre_

And all-powerful magic-users draconids.

 

[raid1000]

holy shit! thats some awesome shit right there
and its all playable!!!1

 

[Nbah]

damn that's epic o....O

 

[Celaquil]

What the... >.>

Indeed a good terrain, good terrains more rather. But no-where near "epic" and "UBERAWEZOMEZZzzzz" <.<

Most interesting part is the barrens mountains. Else, everything looks neatly put together, and I quite dont have anything bad to say, only thing is that many of the terrains is... quite standard. Like ashevale forest, barrens desert and underground and dungeon, its like doing the same themes as Blizzard.

 

[Lexandritte]

I... agree with blizzard-themeness, but it was mostly done not because of our lack of imagination, but because of the plot. 3 of 4 starting locations are deep forest, barren-like mountains and underground, populated by furries, trolls and dwarves respectevely.

 

[AKAIMAX]

What did you use for the barrens rock? And how long did it take to make that playable?

 

[Corexx]

On the whole the screens are really good. I guess it´s nearly impossibile to improve a playable comc-style-terrain as you show here.
Okay, the forest isn´t that good ( besides the neat waterfall on screen #8 ), because it´s just alot of shrubs and too thick fog.
However I wonder if the terrain isn´t just good to look at, but good playable also ( many light effects, fog, huge mountains and valleys @ the barren screens ):
Which perspetive do you get? Normal-isometric or 3rd-Person?
Doesn´t these much doodads cause any lag? Do we recognize the sweetness of the screens ingame or is it just eye-candy for the promotionial screens?
I see barely some pathable ways, just alot of rocks and stuff. Looks more like a 'techdemo' than a playable project that contains more than ~2 hours of playtime ( reminds me all of "God of War" which was, unfornately, over after ~8 hours... ).

Nevertheless: Keep up the good work.
If the plot and the dramatique becomes as good as the terrain your project will be one of the best in wc3-history.

 

[Oziris]

Holy mother, god whatever! this looks wicked for playable. The Forest is simple and good, the cave looks great, i love the mushrooms and crystals, the barren is the best! i hope you guys can pull of the pathing blockers it will be hard! The last pictures look like Oblivion for some reason
All in all i think there will be lag for bad computers, too much rocks in the barren :/

 

[Lexandritte]

Which perspetive do you get? Normal-isometric or 3rd-Person?
Doesn´t these much doodads cause any lag? Do we recognize the sweetness of the screens ingame or is it just eye-candy for the promotionial screens?

Camera will be 3rd person. So far we tested it on different computers, no lags detected. What may cause the problem are animated trees in forest (yes, they wave and stuff), but you'd have to pick angle to see lot of them at once.

What did you use for the barrens rock? And how long did it take to make that playable?

We have our own sets of rocks and other decorations. For example, barricade in cave is done using craploads of different plank and plates doodads.

 

[Belgarath]

I thought that some of the barrens things looked absolutely incredible. The awesome valleys, huge mountains, the water, the height differences between actually seemingly walkable places - it seems you've put a huge amount of effort into this. The water was just, woah, I'm sure it's a custom model, and damn, I love it. Buuut, in the barrens, there are bad bits - the actual work at times is a bit too much of everything, one of this, one of that, one of those, etc, a bit more usage of similar tiles would be good IMO.
I'm only commenting on the barrens ones, seeing as I have dial up right now and CBF waiting for the others, but, from what I've seen, absolutely great. In play, it may be even better, because of units, effects, animation of doodads, etc.

 

[syltman]

Very beutiful indeed, I think they'll be really epic in-game

Edit: I like the barrens theme'd terrain most.

Edit2: The waterfall on the forest is really good aswell.

 

[Gilles]

The jungle is a bit too green. I really like the barrens pictures though.

 

[CloudWolf]

wow.... I have to say, that may well be the best terraining ive ever seen Especially if its playable

Great job to whoever made it!

I'de love to find out the doodad count per map :S lol

 

[Lexandritte]

Forest one is 128*128 and 20000 doodads I think.

 

[syltman]

Aye, I really like the height variation.

 

[Sephalo]

nice terrain!
May I guess the waterfall from the forest is made with small waterfall models recoloured a bit and the white smoke/dust model from the Glaive Thrower missile? I gotta know!

brilliant barrens!

 

[Lexandritte]

Waterfall is imported FXWaterfall from UTM, but with all the waterdust and waves cut out, and waterdust is Eerie Fog from UTM as well.

 

[Sephalo]

Oh oke!
And may I ask you something else. What do you do with pathing blocking? In my RPG I place multiple pathing blockers which takes alot of time. What are you doing for this?

 

[Lexandritte]

Place hellowa pathing blocks manually =)
I don't use any decorations with paths whatsoever (except platforms), and just go over them with blocks. There's a few ways you can speed things up - use blocks that are larged than usual "large" one, like paths of buildings etc, and if you need long segments you can just copy-paste blocks in the line.

For very thin decorations we however use invisible unclickable invincible non-moving units

 

[Slaydon]

i luv the mine

 

[Megafyr]

Definitly the sexiest playable terrains I've seen in a long time, probably the sexiest ever.

 

[Sheephunter]

One Question:
WHEN WILL IT BE DONE OMFG?????

 

[Goldendemon]

one question, where can we get the underground stones?
i just now the 2 barrens the grey, white, snow and ice stones and the ugly underground ones

 

[Lexandritte]

One Question:
WHEN WILL IT BE DONE OMFG?????

So far we aim to release demo (that 4 maps on the screens) as soon as possible, but judging how things go... It may take some time.

one question, where can we get the underground stones?
i just now the 2 barrens the grey, white, snow and ice stones and the ugly underground ones

That's just a new texture we made, not sure if I may reveal it... Models are all the same as in pack.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

Me want, me want, me want!

The crystal cave is too dark to say what it has besides the crystals and mushes but it's great. The barrens is incredible, really, perfect, like from a fantasy book. I don't like the greeny terrain.

 

[Ebisux]

How do you make that lava in the last screenshots?

 

[Lexandritte]

It's standart lava tile from dungeon and red light source.

 

[Ebisux]

Oh by the way if you need some help with english translations,
i know english very well, i can speak russian, however i dont know the alphabet (cant read or write)
if you need some help, you can type the russian word in english .. like privet
and i ll probably understand

 

[Goldendemon]

more screens pls

 

[Kimm2y]

Lexandritte,who r u on xgm?

 

[Belgarath]

Just wondering: is the water used in the barrens pictures up for use? It's so damn good. (and non-wc3)

 

[Lexandritte]

>> Just wondering: is the water used in the barrens pictures up for use? It's so damn good. (and non-wc3)

I'm not entirely sure, since it's not mine work, but I think it's rip from icecrown loadscreen.

>> Lexandritte,who r u on xgm?

So hard to guess? I'm LLlypuK

 

[Belgarath]

The texture/looks about right, but the colour... That's just amazing :/

 

[Ebisux]

Hey. could you pm me that waterfallFX without the water waves?

 

[De.Facto]

Nice scapin'. I like the three last ones.

There is no single cliff, and the rocks are well placed.
But i might be careful with using such bridges.

.. they could fall into the darkness if the lava goes crazy ((;

 

[greasontim]

the barren wasteland pictures look more photoshoped than done on a game but holy shit they look epic im surpised that those terrains were done warcraft 3 thats how good they look

 

[Lexandritte]

I swear on whatever you want, they are 100% WE work. I've seen the map myself.

 

[Sheephunter]

Needs more SS!! GIEF!

 

[Lexandritte]

I'm still alive...

Update, anyway =) We are still rolling, and getting closer to release date (it's still unclear when it will happen, unfortunatelly)

P.S. I guess we are going to be the first team ever to put mirror water in playable map...

 

[DudeSpirit]

Well so far it looks like it's going to be one of the best playable terrains ever..
Is the game going to be in English? I hope so..

 

[De.Facto]

nice, pretty nice. (;

 

[Reaper51]

Excellent terraining, unlike most maps which leave it to the end.

 

[Lee_Go]

this is ridiculous, never have i seen so many great terrains, amazing.

 

[PlasmaBear]

:O I'm stunned!

 

[schluk]

mhm, which model pack u are talking about?
And alle the wooden things in the mine? Is this from xgm.ru ?

 

[Verhalthur]

That terrain is damn impressive.
I look forward to the english translation.
Really, that barrens terrainer should get so much money for that.
It's that good.

 

[Lexandritte]

mhm, which model pack u are talking about?
And alle the wooden things in the mine? Is this from xgm.ru ?

Model pack people were talking about is probably oGre_'s stone pack (can be found on XGM, and I think here and on W3C too).

All wooden and metal stuff from mine are set made specifically for campaign, and it's not released to public yet.

 

[Lexandritte]

Updating the Ferals



New plants and maaaad lava effects.

 

[Sephalo]

Updating the Ferals



New plants and maaaad lava effects.

Looks really nice Lexandritte.
Is that map single or multiplayer?

 

[Lexandritte]

4 single maps, as demo of campaign.