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
- Compiling your maps with Mothers MapConv
- SMD file - script of all kinds of things, including atmosfear, colors of sky and water, fog settings, but more important, metaloutput, winds, tidal, start locations and terraintypes.

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 FullHeight.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 save this file as Metal.bmp (1/8th of Total map size +1).

The Featuremap:

In the featuremap you can place Geo-vents, Trees, grass, and extra features like rocks, palms, energy spires. You need to have these 'extra' features, later to be compiled within the map. Geo's, tree's and grass will work automatically. For the extra features, you need to get the whole pack, which consists of a couple of maps with files for the model, the texture and the script. Check the "maps" forum for features that were created.

Geo's are represented by GREEN (255), single pixels. Every green (255), pixel will (most likely) be compiled as a geo-vent.

The shades 200-215 of GREEN are different Tree-types. Remember to use 1 single pixel for tree's as well.

BLUE represents the ammount of Grass to be placed, where black means none, and BLUE (255) means full spreading of grass)

Than Last but not least, RED, for the Features. In the FS.txt file (that comes with Mothers MapConv, you can list all your features, that you want to use. The first feature that is listed in this file, will be represented as RED 255. The second feature will be RED 254, the third RED 253, and so on. Also features will need only one pixel.

Try to make sure that no one of those pixel are next to each other within 4-5 pixels. This may crash during compiling, or gives strange results in-game.

The Typemap:

Okay, the Typemap, also known as the TerrainType map, let you set the terrain name, for the unit categories speed multipliers, and also the hardness multiplier. This map works again with RED only. Every Shade of RED can be set in the SMD file, on which i'll return later on. The Typemap that worked for me is NOT the same as the height- and metalmap, but is 1/16th of the Total Map size.

So an 8x8 map is Total 4096 x 4096 pixels. If we then do the math: 4096 /16 = 256. (otherwize there will be a default terraintype (that you did not set) between different terraintypes, and this can be very annoying)

Draw your 'terrain' onto your heightmap (make sure you again use the PENCIL mode, without antialiasing around your pixels), and save it as a BMP in 1/16th of the Total Map size.

The Texture:

Remember the heightmap "fullHeight.bmp" we made bigger than we eventually will need? Well now you will see. Personally i use Bryce for rendering maps. I makes them nice and gives a perfect OTA feel to them. If you have Bryce, you must do the following steps:

- create a terrain
- edit the terrain, go to the picture tab, and load "FullHeight.bmp"
- optionally add some height- or slopenoise, but do not overdo this
- set the material, choose one, alter it a bit, so you like it!
- set the atmosfear, light angle, and play with the icons and colors
- last but not least, make the camera settings right!

To do this you need to enter camera mode (you'll a camera icon). Then you must click the grey triangle next to the round sphere thing. There you can click on "edit current camera". In this menu, you must set the following where A an B are variables:

- - - - - x --- y --- z
origin -- 0 --- A --- 0
pos - -- 0 --- A --- 0
rotate - 90 -- 0 --- 0

FOV: 1 degree Scale: B

Only the first time, you need to tweak this, then you can save it as an template. The scale B should at least be 100% (but bigger ain't a problem).

After that, you need to set the 'altitude' of the camera with A. You need to tweak this, so that you terrain completely fills the map. It will be a large number, my template uses 25600. If you have a square map, set your document settings to square (800x800 for example). If it's not, make that change, just make sure the map fits the scene/screen.

When you are sure your map 'fits' you can start your render. You must "Render to Disk" and you should also set the antialiasing to ultrafine for the best results (you can do this also in "document setup").

If you are not sure the map fits 100% (in any case, don't make it TOO big, because you will 'loose map' that way), than you should consider rendering a bit larger, let's say 3-5% bigger (for a render of 8192, render to 8500) and you can then later cut of the edges and change it to the desired size of your image in Photoshop. (Although this is NOT recommended)

Voila, after a couple of hours (depending on your system en scene settings) you'll probably have a nice render. (on which you can work later, to add more details...)

Compiling your map:

more to come...