Tips of the Trade

[XXXconanXXX]

I just wanted to make this thread so people can share various terraining tips. I've been thinking about posting this, and went ahead and decided to. The name as you can see, is taken from something very similar to www.wc3campaigns.com. I've noticed people (not just from this site) have been having some troube terraining, so maybe a few of these suggestions would help. So, if you have a good suggestion for terraining tips and such, you can just post it here.

I'll start it off.
--
Don't paint doodads onto a map
When you "paint" doodads onto a map, you are basically selecting a doodad and randomly stroking the map with it. It's better to make things random by selecting a doodad, placing a few, then selecting another. This can make for quite a nice effect.

When making forests, don't plan every detail
When you make forests and things that are 'wild' and untouched by intellegent beings, it's better to plan the basic outline of the terrain, but not fully detailing each part. This can also make for a very good randomness feel to it.

Don't give up on terrain before you even started
I have done this many times, so I wanted to point this out. When you start putting things on your map and then look at it, don't worry if it doesn't look good. It's better to place some things down, and keep going. Later when you come back then you can add the more detail, and rearrange things until it looks good.

Don't be limited to the doodads and destructibles in World Editor
Alot of properites in the Doodads and Destructibles tab in the Object Editor can be changed. You can change various things such as size, color, etc. You can also create your own doodads by making a new doodad and changing the model file to something from the abilities section.

Detail is your friend
When creating terrain, you want to add lots of detail like flowers, lights, cages, things like that. And if your creating a society or a village, trash, litter, and lanterns make for good details.

Water can be changed to look more real
You can create ponds and water without the slopes by going to Advanced and unchecking "Enforce water hieght limits". Then you can paint some water on your map, use the same level tool to make it solid ground again, then using the "Apply hieght: lower" tool where your water was and your water will still be there.

Don't make everything exactly even and paths exactly straight
Even when you make towns, you don't want everything exactly straight. Just like in the real world today, everything isn't exactly straight and symetrical.

Putting doodads together can make whatever you can possibly imagine.
Using your imagination, you can creat virtually anything with the right amount of doodads and placement. So, experiment with the different doodads, and don't be afriad to edit there properties to create something. Different doodads can create things they weren't created for. Like using the Wall end Tall model as a wall, using staes to create bridges, things like that.

 

[Rinpun]

Heheh, nice idea. I must say, I never learned how to "paint" water

Here are a few indirect tips (that don't apply as much as the tips you've given, conan)

(Edit: I've added pictures to give you an idea of what is wrong and right. In case you're noticing less important things in the picture, like lighting in the Noising picture, it's because I'm doing this in a changing editor that changed to morning light after I fixed my noise mess. If you're wondering why the pictures aren't the same just missing their mistake, it's because I can't and don't bother to perfectly position them. So the bad dude may be shifted to the left or may be a bit smaller than the good dude version.)

Army Formation
You know when you create an army of units in, say, an AoS or RPG? Well, you have to be pretty careful how you do it. Armies of guys like Rogues and Bandits should be out of place and facing slightly off angles--no clean 45-90 degree multiple here--or they might not even be an army. They should however, point at the targets in question--some people like to just throw them on the map without rotation and sometimes it looks pretty weird--what rogue stares at anothers butt and that stared-at rogue is looking at the trees you have surrounded them with?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/RoguesIncorrect.jpg

--In this case it is pretty illogical to place them like so, but if the area is rather freeway (not a "peninsula" surrounded by trees), it doesn't matter where they look--

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/RoguesCorrect.jpg

--Three are talking, the other two are reflecting/thinking or keeping watch--

Peasants
First of all, for realism in an RPG, I suggest you have a wander ability combined with a trigger that if a peasant leaves town he must stop and go back in a little ways. Anyway, you can make them do all sorts of funny/interesting things. Put opposite gender close to kiss, or put two males in a fenced in area with a crowd and simple trigger that heals them but orders them to attack--an on-going peasant boxing match I have in Virtua

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/Kissing.jpg

--Set the collision low and put two movement blockers (both) at the feet of this couple and you have a nice decoration--

Peasant Talking
If you're making an RPG and you want the peasant to talk, please take the time to make more variables of talking. This perhaps will be fixed by Mind, but his chatting is very simple. A child talks like an adult and will talk about secret places without a childish "accent". So, I suggest you create 3 different pools of chatting with 3 triggers. It only sizes up your map 1-5 KB (1/1000th of a MB for those who don't know), which is pathetically small. Anyway, you can have it so that Women may give shopping tips of possible random sales in the merchants (make two items of the same name of function but different prices and replace them every several minutes or so in particular marketplaces), the Males talk about fighting areas that you may not know about if it's your first few times through the game, and the Children talk about all the little nooks and crannies they found, for which you can stick a few barrels with one containing a special item.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/PeasantTalkMan.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/PeasantTalkWoman.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/PeasantTalkChild.jpg

--Get the picture?--

Random Fighting
If you're map isn't an AoS and still an RPG, this is something I've gave a thought to in my map. To minimize the polygons and units put on the map (to give room to doodads and eye candy that are always included in the initial loading), you can make a rather repetitive system of three triggers per fighting area to do Random battles. Simple make a boundaried and detailed close-up of the area--like if it's in the middle of a wilderness (dirt and strange trees), add a fence or two (that aren't in the wilderness otherwise--because arenas are zoomed in pictures), a skull on a pike, and perhaps a few of those strange trees--not to mention the texture (dirt and a few hills and valleys...if you have them in your wilderness).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/RandomFightingBattle.jpg

--Sorry, it's too hard and I'm too lazy to get him to walk--

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/RandomFightingArena.jpg

--And here he is fighting. Or, at least, a fight about to begin.--

Terrain "Layering"
To continue on what conan was talking about--namely with textures and doodads and eye candy in general.... Take note of which textures seem to go together. Cobblestone goes well against grass--that's obvious. But for instance, if you're using a Cityscape-based texture set, don't use white and black tile with the other tiles except on the inside of the squares and circles. Why? Because for some reason the white and black tiles slide underneath your decorating spiral pavement and it just looks bizarre. Who double bricks their highways? White marble and black tile go well together to create libraries (no wood floor texture :/), and black tile and blight make very cool undead castles. And, from what I can tell, 1 square of blight surrounded by dirt and then lowered in terrain makes a very nice entrance pit (via region, if you know what I mean).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/WhatNotToDo.jpg

--Well this could work depending on what effect you want, but take into consideration that white tile has no border to grass trim or pavement--it seems to go underneath and look somewhat lousy. Same with normal grass and the ordinary city tile--

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/UndeadCastle.jpg

--Intricate patterns (I can do better) with black tiles on blight does look pretty cool for a castle--

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/Library.jpg

--White marble and black tile make good libraries, as I've said. Unfortunately, I was too lazy to set the bookcase doodads in place, so they look kind of cruddy--

No Unit and Doodad Shadowing!
If you're making an open RPG with a changing sun and all the cool gizmos along with (sort of) custom units, take off their shadows in the object editor! Not only does it look stupid to have a practically 2d black disk/cloud floating over your units head, but it may cover your boundaries weirdly, an error that Blizzard most likely won't fix. If you're a shadow and perspective geek, you will be satisfied with cliffs, which should keep their shadows (yet I don't know if you can remove them anyway). In case you're wondering how to get the shadows updated or completely made, do the Calculate Shadows and Save Map. It may take a while, but it's worth it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/ShadowProblem.jpg

--I'd have to take a few more angle shots, but if you look from underneath the unit the shadow will magically disappear. If you rotate it, it is clear that the shadow is above the guy's head--

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/ShadowFix.jpg

--Just set Shadow Image from Normal or Flying to NONE and you will get this result--

Noising
Cyclical says this is bad but from my experience it is quite ok. Don't be tempted to rush a large square over your map and noise it though, for it isn't that simple. You need to tweak what noise does because it messes up your cliffs and water, and it makes way too sharp hills or pits. Simply run smooth over the noise over and over again and you can get some steady slopes. Using the raise and lower terrain is more painstaking, but profitable. If you seek to finish the basic idea of the map, noise it, but if you seek perfection first, don't bother.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/NoiseProblem.jpg

--See the mess? Usually you don't want hills dented as evilly as that.--

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/NoiseFix.jpg

--All better. Smooth, maybe some plateau, and some raising and lowering. I did very little on the latter though so this picture is a probably a bit too shallow for what you'd usually have in mind, but alas, it's not like this is a picture of your map now, is it?--

Fencing
Making fence in bizarre shapes for gambling dog races or detailed courses? Turn the pathing texture to NONE and use small Movement blocker (Both) doodads to fill in the parts where you don't want the unit to walk through the fence. On the side you can make your fence setup look good (no more squares--angled fences will fit together when the pathing texture is NONE).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/UhOh.jpg

--The Bug exposed better. It's kind of covered up by my white circling, but you should still notice it--

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/Blake341/FencingCorrect.jpg

--A lot more freedom is given when you turn off the pathing textures. Now you can move them around freely and align them how you like. Unfortunately, you need ugly box-shaped movement blocker doodads, but it's better than having to deal with the cruddy fencing otherwise--

 

[XXXconanXXX]

Noising
conan says this is bad but from my experience it is quite ok. Don't be tempted to rush a large square over your map and noise it though, for it isn't that simple. You need to tweak what noise does because it messes up your cliffs and water, and it makes way too sharp hills or pits. Simply run smooth over the noise over and over again and you can get some steady slopes. Using the raise and lower terrain is more painstaking, but profitable. If you seek to finish the basic idea of the map, noise it, but if you seek perfection first, don't bother.

Actually, Cyclical said it was bad. I highly suggest noising.

 

[Rinpun]

Oh, really? My bad

 

[Darg]

wowee, really impressive you two! Where did you guys learn all this stuff?!? very advanced!

just about the noise thing, noising a large area can tend to look very unnatural, its randomness only goes so far. If you are going to do it then make sure you go and manually raise/lower a few bits and pieces to make it look more random.

 

[Rinpun]

1) I've learned it from my own experience in Virtua

2) I believe I somewhat mentioned that in my Noising paragraph--like to go over it with smooth and then go up and down.

On a side note, I'm now adding some example pictures for some of the tips.

 

[XXXconanXXX]

Just to let you know Rinpun, this is a thread for terraining tips. Keep your tips, hey can be very helpful, it's just more a suggestion.

Stacking doodads can create totally different things
If you remove the pathing of acertain doodad and place lots of them on the same spot, you can create some very nice effects. For instance, if you stack the "Blighted mist" doodad over and over again, you can create an effect similar to that of the Undead Summoning ability.

Use trash often!
For encampements of semi'intellegent beings, use lots of trash, cratees, and empty crates doodads to make the encampment seem more realistic, you aren't going to see a medeival town that has no trash whatsoever.

breaking the barrier between art and playability
Probably one of the most difficult things for any terrainer is breaking the barrier between art and playability. Most playable non-campaign maps are not very well detailed, and have some pretty bad terraining jobs. Only when you are able to comfortably play your map and stop at the same time to experience the world you created, then you know you have broken that barrier.

Convert abilit effects to doodads
You can create some very nice effects by converting the abiltiy effects into doodads. Such as converting the "Entanglin Roots" abiltiy effect into a doodad, then you can place it on top of a pillar and create a nice looking pillar with vines effect.

That's all I got for now, when I think of more I'll share them.

 

[Rinpun]

Those are some I forgot, thanks

My Virtua Rogue Encampments (strays that aren't random and don't respawn after being slain) are littered yet still navigatable.

And I've mixed Wall End Lanterns to create a larger lantern.

And probably my best accomplishment on my map that maybe you'll see and maybe I should take a picture of--the Noose.

Size up, take off the pathing texture (though I don't think there is much of one in the first place) and make the dungeon chains floating and stick them in the middle with a certain rotation. Then, make two support columns (if you've played the Blizzard Founding of Durotar campaign, it's the things you have to blow up with the sappers) that can't be selected or targeted in-game--and take off their pathing texture. Rotate it and surround it with movement blocking doodads and viola, you have a cool-looking noose.

 

[XXXconanXXX]

I'm still crying over this one. I have a new god.

Go to this link and look down until you see some pictures of Gitlich's superb Gobbo Central.

http://www.wc3campaigns.com/showthread.php?t=57768&page=4

(This really isn't a tip, but I had to point this out.)

 

[Rinpun]

*Takes a while to cool down*

Wow, that's taking Warcraft III to it's max! It looks BEAUTIFUL, but it's probably at 10000 doodad count already. I mean, he may have set it as terrain, but he still has to have a lot of doodads for his incredibly wonderful map.

Needless to say, he should've designed the Blizzard campaigns. Looking at the bottom three screens, he's not bad at non-mechanical things either.

 

[XXXconanXXX]

Gitlich is a terrainer, not a map maker. He terrains maps for the sole purpose of making them look pretty, he doesn't make them playable. I should know, as seeing I'm his new follower. Back to the thread point, though.

I know, his terraining jobs are outstanding, and when I see his work he literally makes me cry. ANy terrainer can be as good as him, but it takes ALOT of imagination,a s most of his uber terraining jobs are creations of other

Combining doodads and different effects can create things you can't even imagine.
When you create doodads, youc an use your imagination and combine them with other doodads to create some very nice effects. Such as scaling up a Crypt doodad and stretching it byselecting it in the previewer and pressing page up and down, it creates a nice Undead Church type thing.

 

[Rinpun]

Correct. But as a Terrainer, he's a lot better than the Blizzard folks. The idea is to have every so often a large piece of eyecandy. For Blizzard it's a pile of rocks, for Gitlitch it's a fancy terrained doodaded rock or a tiny city.

One of these days I have to make a massive campaign with only three main maps. I can use submaps and then I can make the main maps world maps with random battles and mini cities that you can enter and go to a Submap. The idea of having more than one main map is to change the world every now and then. Perhaps after doing enough stuff, it goes to Map 2, which has a few cities destroyed, a few new ones built, some terrain moved around--that sort of thing.

 

[Rinpun]

bump

Sorry, I know this is an "old topic" but I'd consider this a "useful old topic".

 

[Shadowy Fear]

This is a section related to water effects that I have gathered and created

Bubbly Effects: My own idea actually ; place bubble and steam doodads at a waterfalls base to give it a more realistic water splashing and frothing effect.

Rocks and Plants: place rocks, coral, plants, etc. in your waterfall to give it a more natural effect; be careful not to place too many, or you wont be able to see your waterfall! This is useful for creating large waterfalls, where you dont want all of it to be uniform, and having rocks jutting out gives it a nice effect.

Lining the Falls: if you have an urban waterfall, then try placing low stone fences around it to make it look like the city officials actually bothered about your safety, lol ! It DOES look nice , but if you have multilevel terrain, you'll likely have to stack your walls in complex patterns for it to look right.

Fountain Falls: do you have a fountain in your city center that you want to be spectacular, and yet it just seems to fall short? Place a waterfall of two in it to supplement the water effect and make it look like its GUSHING water! (originally posted by conan) Check out the centerpiece in ToB to see what I mean

Waterfall Entrance: do you have a river that just seems to start at a random point and go off the map without really seeming to have any direction or beginning? Try this: create a cliff or raised terrain around the place you want to start your majestic river, place a waterfall on the cliff, moved down so that the cliff is a little higher than it, and then scale down an arch, tint it brown, and place it over the waterfall! Voila, you have a custom wooden plumbing system You can even place pipes along the cliff and do the same thing!

Pipes: you can put pipes in your map and then make water appear to be coming out of them, or you can make other things appear to be coming out of them . Place a pipe off the edge of a cliff, and then place a fire or frost trap inside it for the ultimate unsuspecting trap effect

Bridges: so, you are bored with the basic bridge shape? Place a few walls (DOODAD walls, mind you ) that match the tileset alongside water-based bridges, and then raise them up to be just visible. You can alternately stack them as well! Using this method, you could even create an entire covered bridge if you use arches!

Ambience: I almost ALWAYS modify the waterfall loop sound's volume so you can hear it, and then create regions on your waterfalls and assign the sound to it. As it is, you have to zoom in really close to actually hear the waterfall sound :/

Fish: dont underestimate the importance of fish! It usually isnt wise to just plop down a few fish doodads; take time in deciding where to place them, and place fish where fish would normally go. For really detail oriented people, create a neutral passive unit witht he fish model, scale it down, make it unselectable, and give it the wander ability to actually move, instead of bobbing up and down and not really going anywhere.