I like the general layout, but i think either simon or vess already mentioned how boring an ice map actually looks. Duststorm only uses 1 material, but it looks nice, warm and sunny. Add a few tropical trees and you have an environment in which people really like to play. Use 1 material that looks blue/white with light that looks the same and you get a very boring looking map. Interesting: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/234836/emp_ds2_wip0013.jpg Not interesting: http://users.telenet.be/samhannes/mapping/emp_frost/emp_frost0223.jpg I've been trying to make an interesting ice map for a while now, but so far with no succes. An ice map needs more than any other stuff to make it nice. With frost i tried to do this with ice sculptures, slippery tunnels, blue water, etc ... but since the engine couldn't handle it i had to remove 90% of the sculptures and the map just became very boring to look at. When i was working on frosty (frost2 if you like) i tried to use a lot of textures to make the map look interesting, instead of complicated brushes or displacements. Currently i do believe i can make it look good by using a combination of different textures and shapes in the geography, i just need some more inspiration. All i have are some experimental materials: http://users.telenet.be/samhannes/mapping/frosty_the_clown/materials silk/ So if you continue with this map, as weird as it may seem, i really think it's the look of the map you'll need to improve first. - Maybe adding some light snowfall could already help make the map more alive. I'm not saying add a blizzard, but seeing a few tiny snowflakes fall every minute could help. Or add some sound, like wind (not too harsh though) - Add some details everywhere. If you add most of the details on the edges of the hill, you do not decrease the size of the buildable surface or openess of the map, but it will give limited cover to infantry nonetheless and make the environment more interesting. Details could be anything from places with other textures to interesting shapes and objects. In bush for example the biggest graphical improvement i added was when i started blending 2 cartoony green looking grass textures instead of using 1 texture everywhere. It's barely noticable, yet it's so important: http://users.telenet.be/samhannes/mapping/emp_bush/OB/emp_bush_rc10007.jpg For an ice map you'll need more than that though. - Use pleasant light and make sure your terrain casts nice looking shadows. If your hills/elevations are low, the sun shines from straight above and the lightmapscale is too high, the sides of the hill will be colored exactly the same as the ground. VERY boring. For this i used another texture, gave the map more ambient light and lowered hdr a bit: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/234836/emp_frozensummit_b10001.jpg Not sure if this would be an improvement, but i hope it gives you an idea of what i mean. Good luck ... whatever your final decissions will be.
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback, Silk. Honestly, I was always a fan of your maps. I liked frost, and had been wondering if you'd considered releasing a frost_ob2. I've always liked vehicletraining (I just wish it wasn't so hard to convince a failteam how to capture flags in order and be waiting at the next flag). I definitely like bush. Arid is alright. I see what you mean. Originally we wanted to go for a desert map first, but on a whim decided we'd try snow. I do think that it's difficult to get a snow map looking good. Your suggestions are definitely some things we could try. I purposefully darkened the fog colors, but people using HDR will still be blinded by bright light, as with glycencity. I think we're likely going to start on a few other projects, and let this map sit on our minds for while as we ponder ways to improve it (cosmetics as well as game play). For now it's in rotation on at least Nachos and Juicebox, so we'll see how it does and how the players take it for a while.
Silk seems to have learned to make good enough looking maps, maybe one can be fun sometimes? Snow isn't a good outdoors full map, snow needs to be close combat. The reason is that snow drowns everything in whiteness, and you can add detail in close up areas. A full snow map means all the small details are just drowning in whiteness, so it can't be that big.
Shit man im gonna stick up for this map I really really enjoy the gameplay, really. Give it some attention and it will SHINE with the older players (thats my thought) Its basically duststorm but with all the hills it gives it chokepoints, so it pleases both worlds. Drunk n shit but I really did have a fun game on this map and if you kept the work up more people will too
seems to me that a bright blue skybox, like you sometimes get a super bright blue sky in the winter, would help this map be less dreary. and a real focal point, something that makes the team say "must... get.. to NW/SE/middle... asap!" would help with the aimless wandering that seems to be happening early game in this map currently. I kinda like it too, but it needs more panache.
Why not change the setting to a subpolar tundra-like region, where you can have snow and ice but also dark-green grass and brown terrain zones?
I actually already thought of that, and even mentioned it to Keef. I think that'd be something to try in a different map though. It's definitely considerable.
Actually I used Nem's terrain generator for the initial displacement work in frozensummit, sent it to Keef, he declared it was fail (and I agreed), so he redid them all manually. Nem's TG is actually quite frustrating... I find it too limiting and it often crashes due to some unhandled exceptions in Nem's code.
ya I see nems terrain gen as the computer equivalent of sketching on paper. use it to get all the general shapes in the proper positions then draw the real map on top of it. Basically I had 2 visgroups, 1 that was nems(for general mountain positioning) and the other was the real terrain I just made by hand.
http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?p=8 Its like 1000 times better than the limited tools you have in hammer... You will never get so much control over the displacements in hammer.
Maybe if you suck at displacement work, but I have more control that Nems has. Gasp! Also, we have had this conversation about Nems terrain thing. The more talented but more egotistical people like good old fashion work.
Mayama, I guess you didn't read my post you quoted? lol I already have it and have used it, but it often crashes on me & the 3D view becomes stuck. I might update it next time Nem releases a newer version.
You build it on your own in that nems terrian creator you build it like in hammer with more controll... I DONT TALK ABOUT A HIGHMAP PROGRAMM To shandy: It never crased here, do you use vista?
No way, I'm an XP SP3 user. There are more than several exceptions that go unhandled, after which the 3D view gets stuck and then I can't see what I'm doing, much less click anything in the application.
It never crashed for me (yes vista), but the result was always just full or glitches so i had to redo everything manually every time. Since then i've always done everything myself.
Dont use the painting option it doesnt give you nice results. But if you use it as a pure displacement programm its awesome.
Some of the biggest problems are getting it to divide into displacements of the proper size and proper power.
I have now played a real game on this map and i don't really understand the negative attitude that keef and shandy have towards this map. It is fun to play. Yes it is white in white, but it is perfect for tank battles. Some points: - The north-west corner needs some buildings (landing zone for the zeppelin?) and is considerably poorer to defend than the south-east, because of that hill between the two ref points - the two refs at the lake are an exercise in building and destroying refs, since the control of this area changes constantly. I would remove atleast one ref spot there and make it easier to hold it. - if you add to the skybox a NF zeppeling that "fights" the BE one that would mean more contrast to the bright sky box and add to the ambience.
