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Some help with terraning

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Hi, i am an amateur terrainer. Right now i am trying to terrain northrend, and am currently working on Icecrown Glacier. I feel as if there is something missing and there could be some improvements. Any suggestions? Bear in mind this is still WiP

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Level 32
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Hey, I'm not a terrain master, but here are my 2 cents.

The height feels a little robotic, if that makes sense. It's like there's no fluidity to the terrain, and instead, it has three layers of height. The bottom is water, the middle is flat ground, and the tall doodads make the third.
Try making it look more natural by varying the height more, especially on the sides of the paths. Don't go overboard with tools like noise, though.

The tiles also look a bit in random positions. You can keep most of it random, but ultimately, having some sort of pathway style will look more pleasing.
I think it's missing some smooth contrast, because it's all ice and snow. They kind of clash more than you'd like. Some sort of earthly or path tile would look good in small doses.

Also, what type of map or scene are you trying to make? It looks like a strategy map. If it is a strategy map, I highly recommend you take a look at @Marshmalo 's maps, Rise of the Vampyr, Lordaeron the Aftermath, and Planetary Domination. Even if they're pretty advanced in terrain, you can be inspired by them. Strategy maps with decent terrain that aren't that advanced are Dark Ages of Warcraft, Azeroth Wars, and Warcraft Total War. Most of the maps I mentioned have good Northrend / Icecrown terrain.

It's on okay start, but there's a lot of improving to do.
 
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It is a strategy map. Lodaeron Aftermath, Azeroth Wars, Dark Ages of Warcraft.... I looked at them and tried to replicate theirs. But it always ended up as an abomination(mine, not theirs).

I tried to make them look like cliffs but i think you are right.. it looks weird.
For the tiles, i did not get your "smoothing". What did you mean back there? Did you mean to add some earthly tile like "dirt" or something like that?
 
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Must say.... it sort of worked...

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@T77df Nope i dint, Since it was going to include the entire Northrend, eastern kingdoms, parts of the Twisting Nether, Outland and other underground or insides. I didnt set the sky. It would be weird to be in outland and see blue skies for example :)
Also this is alternate history(i made it up)... and the Frozen Throne isnt in a cave, it is in a ruined citadel.

(New Pictures added to top)
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Level 28
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Well okay, you seem to have improved with the new tile variation you're doing, but some of your tile transitions (look image below) look too sharp and contrasting, which makes the overall terrain seems... missing, as you mentioned.

6feedback.jpg


You can play with which tile blends with which tile by changing their order from left to right in the Advanced > Modify Tileset window.

Other than that, size of the doodads and lack of details seem okay for a strategy map, but I would group them tighter (place them while holding the Shift key so there won't be any space between the rocks, crystals and trees).

Also not being afraid to try other things, and to delete your progress to re-do it once again. Trial and error. For example, the violet crystals and trees on the green grass look strange right now, you can try to blend it with some regular coloured rocks, or tress, or changing the tinting value - I don't know! Looking at image references from the internet might help.
 
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Okay, here is my analysis of what you've posted.

upload_2017-4-3_18-24-1.png


1: Try to avoid using stand alone doodads like this, they are poorly made by Blizzard so they don't 'connect' with the floor correctly resulting in 'floating' doodads.

2: As you can clearly see the glacial doodad is floating, try to avoid this by either using more rocks underneath the doodad to make it look realistic - OR by adjusting the Pitch/Roll angles of the doodad in world edit, to make it sit comfortably on the ground respective to the angle of the ground it is on. Warning though this will make them face straight out in this instance as your cliff is almost vertical.

3: I don't know if you'll be able to see this part of the map while playing, but try to avoid this, either using a fog effect, or using doodads & islands in the distance. While there isn't much to be done about this (Shit feature in worldedit) it doesn't look the best when playing or during cinematics.

4: Same situation as 1, you can see that the models don't connect correctly with the floor, this can be fixed by lowering the model file using (Alt + page down) i think - if that doesn't work let me know and i will find out exactly what it is, still a bit rusty with world edit since coming back.

5: Avoid this, flat, really flat terrain, no variation to the ground whatsoever, very unlikely in most places that there wouldn't be at least mounds or smooth hills. Specially in somewhere like this, where there would often be blizzards resulting in snow drifts, which would make mounds of snow in between sections of the ice. In this instance, simply raising the ground slightly where snow is present would suffice.

upload_2017-4-3_18-43-5.png


1: Avoid these sheer drops on playable maps, sometimes units can go near these and spaz out causing horrible gameplay, plus if you're going to use them, try to avoid using different tiles on them, as you can see in the image the 'Ice' tile is stretching like a mofo trying to cover 1 tile which is massive, try to stick to 1 tile like 'Snow' - this will at least give the cliff a smoother look.

2: From what I can see from this angle there is far too much going on in that tiny space, try not to clutter doodads to fill in room, for example you have flame doodads ontop of rocks, ice and crystals, this doesn't look realistic at all, and even in fantasy worlds I don't think this would happen - Try to think quality over quantity.



Sorry if that was alot and you're not happy with it, just wanted to give my opinion, feel free to disregard it.

Cheers.
 
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1: Try to avoid using stand alone doodads like this, they are poorly made by Blizzard so they don't 'connect' with the floor correctly resulting in 'floating' doodads.

Hmmm, I think it is too much to say to avoid them only because of that, you can use Ctrl+Page Down to lower them to the ground, as you said on your 4th topic.

Avoid these sheer drops on playable maps, sometimes units can go near these and spaz out causing horrible gameplay

You can get past this problem by placing pathing blockers on these ramps! And yes, if he's going to use those sheer elevations it s better to use other tiles just as you said.

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Well those are my only remarks, but I think that was a nice feedback given from xDeathKnightx!
 
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