Staredit Network

I'm currently in the process of planning out a currently unnamed map. I will not disclose any information other then: The areas depicted in these screenshots and the beach I posted in the terrain competition will be in it (though they may undergo heavy alteration).
First of all: A quiet mining town. (The Academy is an Inn, the Science Facility is a currently undesignated shop).
[attachmentid=15971]
A cave interior.
[attachmentid=15972]
A mountain pass.
[attachmentid=15973]

i cant see the bottom 2
can u get screenshots that are close up and not in fog?

the first one isnt special...just a road that's blocky

There's no "close up" mode in Starcraft. Just click on the thumbnail and look at the full size image. As for the fog of war, for one thing, it's to help the ambience in the cave (dark), and I don't want to expose every single detail since, besides what's revealed, there's not much to see. I tried to use fog of war to give the pieces some feeling.

Please point out these blocky spots, and no, there is more then just "a road that's blocky", if you'd bother to look at it thoroughly, there's actually a town. I though the inn and item shop placement was neat too, but some people don't apprieciate anything unless it's "shiny" and fully custom terrain. Oh well. If you don't like it, that's just great.

the areas where you used the bridge ending tiles with the ruins will show you where the blockyness can be found

I dont like the placements of the buildings of that "town", because realistically, no person would want their home in a non-fenced/gated area where a road goes through. It would leave the town vulnerable to attacks from any threat, and too many people would be going through there, causing all kinds of disturbances for the townsfolk.

im just saying... =/

The town is situated in the mountains (near abandoned mines), The only reasonable way to get there is by air. There's nothing to attack anyways. 20 people? Pff. And the road is fairly dilapidated and unused. I could add a gate, but there's not much reason.

if you're a small group of bandits and you need food, are you gonna look for a big city to pillage or a small, isolated town like that?
i think you should make the path to get there either very tough or add gates to it

I like them! One question though, how did you get such a large in game screen shot its so long.

[sub]Well executed. There is no visable blockyness, ignore the idiot that said there was. Theres nothing really new or exciting that I can see. The path is a very simple blend, and I see some stacked cliffs, and some custom mud spots, but thats about it for extended terrian. Your use of FoW was greatly done, gives a neat effect for the map.[/sub]

There IS visible blockiness, but nothing can eb done about it. unless you find ruin pieces that blend into dirt/bridge better.

On the subject of the blockiness in the path, there is a "fix", though it does not irradicate it entirely. I will not use bridge tiles, because they give the appearance of a newly made road. The fix uses the grassless ruins tiles that you can find grouped with the edges (ya know, that go between the grass and the ruins proper). However, these only have about a half the amount of "randomization" as the ruins tiles, and half of this is from mirroring.

Looking inbetween the screenshot and the map itself (I just changed all the tiles over to grassless ruins, haven't saved), I think I will go with the grassless ruins (with a few normal ruins bits in there to mix things up). I'm not going to screenshot it again (I have to crop the editor window out of the screenshots and then merge the pictures together, very tedious business). So, you're not going to see the changes for awhile.

no-0b, I'm not sure if this whole gate business would really be worth it. It's very deep inside the mountains (and right next to the cave in the ss, which opens into the mountain pass, which will presumably lead into a path going up the mountainside). Besides, I'm not really aiming for realism here, I'm trying to put a town into a 12x40 space. On the subject of "New and interesting", to maintain a sense of level, I did some fairly interesting blends, I intend to release the maps terrain as a unitless, triggerless, soundless, locationless map sometime in the future. You can't copyright putting together a puzzle, can you? Extended terrain isn't much different.

Those look good Wilhelm I like the houses with chimneys.

i liked it also. I reckon it would be a little better if there wer 3 ways into the city, like at hte moment its like this: --- it would be good if it could go: --t-- (just the bottom of the t though..)

i just reckon that would make it feel more like a town.

Good job so far though, the atmosphere is good. I cant see any blockiness, but i can see some parts at the far right that dont blend together completely.


keep it up

I saw this piece in-game with Wilhelm. It is well done, and deserves from layout respect.

No complex blends, but that wasn't what Wilhelm was going for... Obviously.

If you look closely at the mountain pass piece, you'll see that i have a level that sits on top of the highdirt (preserves the sense of level). I used some pretty interesting stuff there. But, yeah, nothing super complex. It's all about the feel.

So you quit that "Zeldaesque" map?

I like it... It's not overly uber-complex like Wooden's map, but it achieves an effect well without such complexity.

It's too bad you didn't put on a picture of the flaming crabs

The town you made doesn't give me a good feeling of being in a town at all. The terrain is not bad but the town does not seem like a town.

Actually, the houses is too scattered for my taste, I mean, the houses in a town should have some connection to eachother, which they seem to not do. But anyways, pretty good job!

Yea, that's what I was thinking too kinda. It seems more like random house placement than logical house placement.

It's good that someone's with me!

I did the town first anyways. I think I'm gonna redo it today. It admittedly could be better.

Just keep in mind that towns are normally designed with shops and such in the center of town, and houses generally center around rather open ares. (Not many people I know build next to a cliff ) Although I didn't see much problem with the earlier design, I've used similar designs in the past. It is a good way to add variety to the cliff faces.

I've got several new bits of terrain that I'd like to share.

First off, the renovated town layout. The problem with the wide open spaces suggestion is that there isn't much space in the area. I did try, but I don't want it to become cramped and unwalkable. I probably should've designed the isom layout better.
[attachmentid=16150]

Nextly, a bridge on the world map (it's small to keep with proportions, mind you).
[attachmentid=16151]

A custom tree doodad (high dirt).
[attachmentid=16152]

And last of all (but I think the best), the Inn interior! Yeah I know, the stupid clerk's facing the wrong way.
[attachmentid=16153]
(It's kinda QPirateKingsy, ain't it?)

I'd like to see further feedback on the project, perhaps even blending suggestions. If all you can do is point out blockiness, well, whatever. Hope you're happy with your life. Freak.

How does the guy in the middle top house get home?

I like the bridge.

The inn looks empty, qPK's would have people and items in it.