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One of the big things we use custom terrain for is doing stuff like making bridges into terrain, putting high elevation cliffs next to water, etc. Because of the terrain system used by blizzard, even though tiles work together in almost any arrangement, the isometric system forces fixed spacings and orderings, such that you cant have dirt next to installation wall or grass next to water, etc.

We all know by now that with enough creativity, almost any terrain type can be blended nearly seemlessly against another, and then some (bridges, stairs, temples, etc.) What if, as a feature of the new editors (or just an elaborate set of terrain brushes for starforge), it was possible to blend terrains against each other without tedious custom tile work?


If anyone else thinks this would be useful, I say we start a thread to make terrain brushes for starforge (as a start) to begin working out as many terrain blendings as possible. This could be extremely useful for map makers in easing up the process of custom terraining, but more importantly it would be a killer feature if included in an editor, especially if it is seemless with reqular ISO terrain.


I'm starting on some brushes now of terrain blends that I did a while ago, which I'll try to post sometime later today.

P.S. Me and a friend from my computer science department are thinking of cooking up a small program (for an assignment) that allows placing simple SF brushes, so we're trying to get some good brushes made for that. I doubt we'll make it any more complex than that, since its only an assignment and SF can already do that, but who knows? Maybe we'll make it into a full blown custom terraining app. I won't post it for now though because I don't have heim's permission to use his brush format, and if I do I plan to integrate custom terrain into the program itself instead of patching brushes clumsily together.

Yeah, I always have ulterior motives.

I don't think it'd be a good idea. Already as it is, we're playing around with higher and lower ground types so it has weird effects on your map.

How can more options be a bad idea? If someone needs/wants these terrain blends on their map, why shouldn't we try to make it? Of course if the map maker doesn't want to mess with higher/lower terrain problems/glitches they can just not use this program, and go back to X-tra or regular SF. I vote yes! Great idea.

Well not all terrain blendings are of diff elevations, for one thing. I think it would be a good idea because lots of maps nowdays use blendings anyway, and even though it would make custom terrain blending nothing sacred anymore (by making it readily doable by anyone), it would set a base for people to use more creativity in blending non-standard tiles together, without spending so much time and headache on simple blends.

Get my point?

So, from what I can gather from Tux's post... one of his points is to post custom brushes. Correct?

What do I need to translate my posts into spanglish or something?

I'm saying by making a small library of custom brushes for blended terrain, it would be possible to integrate terrain blending into an editor readily, thus allowing all the stuff people brag about (like docks, buildings, waterfalls, etc.) to be doable with an editor.

P.S. No offense yoshi but you really have to be deliberate to find a way to consider this a bad idea. I don't see why this hasn't been done or thought of sooner, frankly.

I've thought of it, just never posted it because I thought it would be deemed as a bad idea. I didn't think on it that much though....

Anyways, I'll try making some .sfb's, but I'm horrible at it (Some tilesets) .

This would be freaking awesome for people like me who are starforge terrain challenged. Well i've never really tried it but I don't have the paitance to sift through tons of little squares trying to find the one that fits next to another one. I SAY DO IT =D!

Yeah I know. I hate doing that to. It would be cool if you could simply put asphalt on water in iso mode and have it automatically use bridge edges instead of having to put dirt, then water/dirt cliffs, and then the water. Same goes with about a thousand other blendings.

Lol, Tux...
Uhm, what programming languages do you know?

C, C++, C#, Java, Javascript, ASM, a tad amount of Basic, DHTML (not a real language but meh), and about any other OOB language there is, by associate (that is, I don't know the languages but the concepts would be easy to translate).

Too bad I prefer maps over programming, traditionally. I think I'll start doing more programming soon when I can start finishing things I say I'll finish for a change.

EDIT- Back on topic. Ok I sense early pessimism over this, so should I just close this thread then?

I hope your idea works

I don't think this is going to catch on, Tux. But if you make any progress, definitely let us know.

I doubt even half of you have considered this with an even opinion. Maybe it's just one of those things that makes sense to me and no one else, or maybe I didn't post it clear enough, or maybe it's just because I posted it at all. That or I'm crazy. I just simply cannot see how this is a bad idea, and even less why it's not worth considering. Just how hard is it to put a few tiles together to make some brushes, I wonder?

I guess I'll stick with doing a tetris game for my assignment.

I see your plan and I can say that although it's a great idea to show of your terrain, it's not very good to import/export terrain in a similar way to triggers.

With triggers every variable is independent thus you can change a part of a trigger and you don't have to change anything else.

With terrain it's a different story. Terrain is very specific thus it will be next to imposible to find the exact terrain that you want. Terrain variables(tiles) are dependent frome ach other so changing one tile can mess everything up.