Tunis

[8thJinx]

I guess this is how it starts, right?

Baby steps.

[ghostdancer]

You are right, one step at a time and nice step.

[bustr]

Now map your field\strat\port\vBase positions and see how Hitech responds. I found that he dosen't say anything if you have a sound development going. Keep posting and asking questions or comments about your work like I do to help keep yourself inspired. He will drop a hammer on you when you exceed his sensibilities quickly, and that is a great learning experience about how he sees his game. He wants you to succeed as much as you do because your finished product enhances his product experience for his customers. You have seen how the community responds to "new" terrains.

I have no clue what your dream is inspiring this terrain and what your finished image of it is. So go for it and follow any requests or directives from Hitech. Terrain builders usually don't interfere with other terrain builders because there are no wrong terrains, and Hitech will step in if you go somewhere he feels won't work for the Melee arena.

Just remember to live by a copy of the terrain editor manual where it talks about field spacing and setup. Tips for MA submission and make sure to get the rides enabled correctly for all field types. And the grid that is created by the make map, don't change the orientation of the grid lines to get rid of the upper and right hand border 1\4 grid space. Or you can let Waffle create the production CBM map when Hitech asks for your project files. Oh, tagging the three uncapturable fields, the function for doing that can be flaky. You usually can get the very first one tagged, that generates a (.fla) file you can edit with notepad. When you get to that point just ask about it. The AH2 wiki for terrain building has a section on feilds and describes setting a field as uncaptureable. You will see the numbering format when you then edit that file.

As you create spaces for tank combat, test them in person with a tank and use a stop watch for transit times. Seven minutes to get anywhere is about the longest time players really have a tolerance for in a tank. The more clever and complex you get, chances are the complexity will be a negative to players versus just getting out and shooting at other tanks. And the grass tile is your freind for opening vistas for tankers and at least 1\2 mile off the ends of runways. I do a mile to keep tank gun barrels out my pilot's ear when I spawn.

Looks great, keep at it, and have fun.

[8thJinx]

This is northern Tunisia.  This is what I'm going for.

[8thJinx]

This is my initial pass at it.  Needs work.

[bustr]

Using the default Euro tile set for a Tunisia location in the Med? There is a Med tile set, jsut no nice farm houses and little french villages.

[bustr]

Try drawing your water runoff with a narrow brush then pull up hills and small mountains above them. Think working from the highest points down instead of pulling up mountains from some level like 100ft that is global across the terrain. The Atlas mountains in that region are old and weather worn with gentle shapes like in your photo. You can even take your CBM bitmap and draw out your runoffs and mountain spines so you can transfer that to the terrain by tracing it. Then pull up your mountains and shape the runoffs. Most runoffs are tiny streams in that region.

There is a Med tile set that has many of the features from your photo. It doesn't have villages like the Euro tile set. You are not so far into this terrain that a global swap out of the tile sets will set you back very far. Your trees are all western European trees.

[8thJinx]

That's the Euro summer tile set in the image.  The Med set does not have villages anywhere.  I'm not using the med set specifically because of the lack of villages.  Too boring.

And yes, working from high to low works best in most areas, particularly valleys.  I only pull up in a small set of specific cases.

How do I modify my CBM file?  Will any photo editor do the trick?

[bustr]

Yes, your terrain is a 2048x2048, so edit it and work with 8pixel=1mile. Then draw your mountain ridges and runoff system. When you open the terrain editor use the map to guide tracing your lines and then start razing ground between your runoff lines(stream). You keep making new map files to look at the progress of your work.

[8thJinx]

Wait, do I start this outside of the TE then?  Just a fresh 2048x2048 square bitmap image file? 

Edit: wait I see what you're saying.  Modify the clipboard map bitmap outside of the TE, some when you have it in the TE, it's a guide right there. 

I've read that you can start the process off with a black and white (or grey scale) image and import it into the TE, and it makes the land for you.  A "signed height map."  Does it save you any time doing it that way?  I think you can make one in L3DT.  I read the guys at HTC made the buzzsaw map in 4 days through L3DT.

[8thJinx]

I gave L3DT a whirl.  Seems like there's a lot more tools.  But I don't think I have the scaling right.

[Easyscor]

I've read that you can start the process off with a black and white (or grey scale) image and import it into the TE, and it makes the land for you.

That statement is out of date.

[bustr]

Then how did I just accomplish that with a 16bit grayscale old school method converted to unsigned RAW format?? Now I'm really confused......

[Bruv119]

keep up the excellent work Jinx,  the shape looks good and the terrain colour something different.   

Cant wait to see it live in the MA.   

[8thJinx]

Thanks Bruv.  I actually enjoy map making.  Maybe it's my years of doing commercial site planning.  Whatever it is, I enjoy it.