Tutorial:MapDesignHelp(IceXuick)
How to build a map
Hello, welcome to the IceXuick map Design help. On this wiki page i will try to make a complete and organized 'topic' how to build a map, from A-Z. Tips, add-ons or other suggestions are always welcome. OKAY.
What do you need:
First of all i'll sum up the thing you need:
- Photoshop / Gimp (or other image editor)
- Bryce / L3dT (optional, if you don't want a great looking texture)
- Mothers MapConv (map converter program)
- Patience & passion
If you have most of these things, you can start thinking about the map you want to make. It is very smart to make sketches of your map, before creating it. Try to design the map, so that in your 'mind' it could play well. Think of possible problems as porcing probabilities, turtling, strategic important places, but also metal layouts, geo-vent locations, and maybe even feature-placement.
What are you going to make:
Well, how much different things you might have read, these are the things i use, and work very well, so i suggest you use this, and nothing else :). To know how big your map will be, the factor is 512 times the TA:S size: here are some (total)map sizes and corresponding dimensions:
TA Spring ---- Actual Pixels
32 x 24 ------ 16384 x 12288
16 x 12 ------ 8192 x 6144
8 x 4 -------- 4096 x 2048
- Heightmap - bmp 24-bit - 1/8 +1 of Total map size
- Metalmap - bmp 24-bit - 1/8 +1 of Total map size
- Featuremap - bmp 24-bit - 1/8 +1 of Total map size
- Typemap - bmp 24-bit - 1/16 of Total map size
- Texturemap - bmp 24-bit - Total map size
The Heightmap:
Here are in following order the things that are to be done:
- roughly outlining large mountains/valleys
- go deeper into detail by lowering size of drawing brush
- finalize details with 15px brush (in Photoshop)
- make slopes/passages on your map with smudge/blur tools
- Texturemap - bmp 24-bit - Total map size
The heightmap is one the the most important things you make for a map, and therefor i always start with it. After you have drawn your concept of your map (sketches) you may want to digitize them (if you don't already have that) and you should think which mapsize would be best. If you want your map to be a 8x8 map you should (first) also make the heightmap this size. By doing so, you can use Bryce or L3dT to render your texture at the highest possible quality.
So you now are going to start working in Photoshop (or other image program). Try to remake your sketch by drawing different shades of grey. White is the highest (255) and black (0) is the lowest. You can start drawing roughly, to outline every hill or valley. After that, try and go deeper into detail, and finally use a brush size of 15px in Photoshop for the final details.
To make your map work for all the units, it should have passable slopes and passages: use a 'Smudge'-tool (optionally also Blur-tool). A lot of programs have this, so you should be able to figure it out. For every slope or passage that needs to be passable, the gradient from the lowest to the brightest color of that slope should be as smooth as possible. You need to get the feel of the smudge-tool in Photoshop, but after a while you'll get the hang of it. Also try to make slopes that have a big difference in highest and lowest point, long and smooth.
When you think everything is smooth and detailed, save that image as Height.bmp, which is 1/8th of the size of the Total map, +1 pixel (x and y)
The Metalmap:
Okay, for playtesting value, you can now make your metal map. This is at first quite simple, and easily done, but the placement and balance is very hard. You can only try and think of good locations, and the output should be 15 metal per player (non-moho), if they have their part of the map (on a four player map, this would be 1/4th of the map)
In Photoshop, make another layer onto your heightmap, and put metal places around the map. Use a 6 or 8px PENCIL for the metal patches, and paint with red 255 (make sure there is no antialiasing, so that every pixel is RED 255.
When done, you can safe this file as Metal.bmp (1/8th of Total map size +1).
The Featuremap:
