User:Enetheru/mapping2

Overview

Maps are the fields on which the battles are fought, made with the implicit contract that they shall not alter game mechanics. They are made up of images and text files which describe the environment and its features, such as height, colour, background, details features, atmosphere and lighting etc.

[put some images here]

These images and text files are then zipped up for distribution, and voila a new map is borne.

Kick Start

• Baby Steps, getting your legs, do this first
• Official Map Blueprint

Map Feature Specifications

These arent tutorials but rather technical documentation for the features, Its Implementation and Flexibility/Limitations, and discussion with pro's and cons for how to implement them.

• mapinfo.lua
• SMT File Format
• SMF File Format

• Texture Map
• Height Map
• Mini Map
• Metal Map
• Resources/Geothermal
• Water/Lava/Whateva
• Terrain Type Map

• Gravity
• Wind

• Specular Map
• Detail Map
• Splat Map
• Normal Map
• Grass
• Features
• Dynamic Features

• Sun
• Sky Box
• Clouds
• Rain/Snow/Dust
• Fog

• External Geometry

• Music
• Lua Shaders

Howto's

how to create a specific type of map for game types, or emotional content, can include full tutorials, or anything

• Space
• Cave
• Sandy Dunes
• Snow
• Map Lighting

Tools

Tool Specific Tutorials.

• SpringMapEdit
• [1] ImageMagick
  • Joining Images
• MapConv
• MapConvNG
  • Optimisation
• [2] GIMP
• [3] Blender
  • Sculpting Terrain and rendering a height map.
  • Rendering the Diffuse Map
  • map feature placer and exporter
  • modeling features and exporting them
  • animating units and exporting them
• Start Position Editor
• Das Bruce's Mapconv frontend
• Feature Placer
• [4] 7Zip
• [5] L3DT

Typical frustrations

Blender

• Blender will crash when you run out of ram, either reduce the complexity of what you are doing or upgrade hardware.

[6] GIMP

• Dealing with alpha channels