Is this project even possible for a newbie?

[stormy]

Good day to you,

I am looking for general advise from experienced terrainers on converting WoW locations into War3 terrain. I know some maps have terrain that is loosely based on WoW (Azeroth Wars, LTA/LTF/KTA being a shining example of good terraining in my book). What I need to do is to have the resulting terrain abide more to War3 mechanics rules (creep camps, mines, impassable slabs of lumber, naval, etc) and also be bigger in scale than WoW, meaning it's not like I have to do 1-for-1 representation.

To be more precise, I will be converting exactly this:

Minus Alterac (maybe just a bit of a shore area with some lumber, creeps and a mine or two). Maybe minus The Sepulcher and Bulwark as well.
Plus Undercity (with sewers entrance) and inside of Lordaeron Palace being "off-map" locations available via "teleports".

I feel I am totally in over my head
I know how to do object manager and scripting and with the stuff available on the HIVE, I am confident I can do ALL of it myself. But all of it will be ruined if terrain is mediocre and I haven't ever done terrain.

So, my questions are:
1) If I do ALL of scripting, imports, object manager stuff, etc, etc that can be possibly done before terraining, what are the chances I can actually get someone with terraining skills to participate on the project? Does that even ever happen with noname folks like me?
2) If that is possible, what is maybe a terraining minimum I need to provide to said person? Like general outlines of mountains/water/roads/walls/mines, etc? Will that improve my chances? Or maybe I shouldn't do any of that at all to not mess with that other person's intentions?
3) If that is not possible, can you give some general advise? I am starting with object editor today, as for terrain I am currently reading through terraining guides and etc. Like, is there maybe some particular terraining challenge you can see right now that I, as a newbie, totally don't realise is there?

Spoiler: About Battle for Lordaeron scenario:

"Battle for Lordaeron" is a 3v3 custom map recreating a WoW scenario of the same name, but with a twist - instead of just copying how battle went in BFA, I would like to mess with lore and lay of the land to give players more options in both attack and defence of the city. I am heavily inspired by Lordaeron: The Foremath.

Six playable factions: Stormwind, Ironforge, Black Moon, Orgrimmar, Darkspear, Forsaken.
Three routes into the city: Front Gate, Sewers, Lake Lordamere.
Special events: SI:7 Infiltration, Release of Plague, Sewers Breach, etc.
Win conditions: Sylvanas or Anduin defeated.
Creeps: Scarlet Crusaders, Scourge Remnants, Infested Wildlife.
Lore: reddit thread link, also just picked up Tides of Darkness by Aaron Rosenberg as I've been hinted it contains a Lordaeron siege scene.
Otherwise, balance and gameplay trying to stay close to vanilla Warcraft 3 with minor changes like smaller unit "hitboxes" and QWER hotkeys.

Thank you!

 

[lord_Turin]

Totaly doable, you'll learn on the job.
Check out other strategy sized maps like Battle for Middle Earth, Roberts Rebellion and the maps you named.

1). its highly unlikely to find someone to do terrain for you on a big project.
2). If you do find someone, he'll either A. want to make everything himself. or B. upgrade things you have already made (this would be a lazy unreliable person)
3). This is big one:

-Start with an idea how big you want you map.
-How big are citys? forests?
-decide where you want players to be fighting, from city to city or more open fields or at important chokes.
-how are you going to incentivise people from not camping?
-Will there be a resource system? when yes, how will that function? does that need space in cities or outside?

and a bunch more things, i could write a book about this. I've started like 50 projects of which only 3 actually saw the light of day xD

Good luck in any case.

 

[stormy]

Thanks! I read there are actually alternatives to World Editor available. Do any of those allow to put a semi-transparent image over the actual terrain to use as reference? Kinda like you can do in 3D modelling software. Because it crossed my mind I can simply use that image I posted earlier if I lay it over terrain somehow. It won't really work that well if I have to view it in another window.

 

[lord_Turin]

there are such resources ye. but they are pretty wonky to my experience.
besides that, you will want to play with the dimensions a lot more. making an exact replica will most likely be terrible for gameplay.

Gameplay(balance) should always trump lore/aesthetics/map accurancy.

 

[stormy]

Okay, I managed to solve this via third party software (ImageOverlayUtility-0.7.8.5). Thing is - to figure out how big a map I need, I have to determine the size of Lordaeron Ruins first, to be sure I can place all doodads, mines, lumber and enough space to put at least 2 player bases inside the city (Forsaken will enjoy a luxury of an "underground" base, while Orgrimmar and Darkspear main bases will be topside inside city walls). So far it looks like I will have to work with at least 352x352. A LOT of that will be cropped early tho, but still bigger than I expected.

 

[lord_Turin]

352x352 for a 3v3, that sounds INSANE, especially for a starting terrainer.
the sheer size of it will be hard to fill with terrain, not even talking about playing a 3v3 in such a big map that will take forever.

i would suggest toning it down to 256x256, and take some artistic liberties are changing some scales around.
With a 3v3 putting people in the same bases seems a bit shit for gameplay too me.

But heck its your map, go nuts