Screen shots of new terrians from AI-HQ

[Scott]

Screenshots of the new terrain files that were posted eariler from <a href="http://www.ai-hq.com" target="_blanl">AI-HQ</a> are not avaliable for download from AI-HQ site http://www.ai-hq.com/main/pages.php?page=terrains

[Steve]

IMHO they don't look too good, sorry.
colours look a little weird, no sence of depth or contours or shadows on the colour maps, some very bumpy pieces of ground.

[morales]

But i think they look kool,with a little sky change and neat objects you can get a good effect.
Heres one iam working on now:
http://www.mindsetsnipers.com/lookscool.jpg

[Steve]

cool looking map m8.

the other problem is that only deset cammo available :/

[Worm]

I accept your comments as constructive criticism StevieB. I read your tutorial before starting out and found some useful tips there too....

All maps were rendered in a freebie program called Terragen. I actually used a conmbination of pshop and Terragen. The way that the terrains look is deliberate actually. I wanted to get away from the terrain type in TFD because these are more suited to CQB than my type of game. But if you just walk across a bare terrain, then yes, you could conceivably get the impression that it looks a bit bare. But as Morales's SS shows, maps take shape when you add vegetation, buildings etc. Given that you can add water, change sky colour which itself will change the look and feel of the terrains, I take the view that mapmakers will find a lot of enjoyment with them :) Also, in the midst of a firefight, players tend to pay little attention to their immediate surroundings and concentrate more on staying alive :)

As for camo colour, yes I was aware of that, but at anything over 100 mtrs a target becomes little more that a dot on the horizon anyway, so I don't think that's a relevant factor. But that's a personal opinion of course.

More opinions are welcome of course though.

Worm †Ai†
http://www.ai-hq.com

[Steve]

hiho

thanks for posting your comment :)
it's nice to hear from the makers of things.
i'm glad you accept my opinion, which is afterall only my opinion and not the whole community.

i really like the fact that people like you ( and AI in general ) do positive things for the DF Community, and i hope my comment doesnt affect ur attitude. it's sometimes good to get feedback from both ways as i have experienced myself.

hehe i bet ud like to say some things about my terrains now lol. well thats ok ;)

good luck with your future projects

[Worm]

Np at all m8. I think you've contributed hugely to the DF community yourself and your tutorial at http://stevieb.dfhq.net/Games/landwarrior/tutorialsmenu.htm was my source of inspiration, although I must admit I stepped back in horror when I tried running Bryce5....lol. It wasn't at all what I'd expected.
I tried using your tutorial for that, but although I made a terrain, I couldn't figure out how to make the height map for it and there isn't much on the web that deals with that aspect. So I dropped back to Terragen and combined that and the terrains I created in pshop. Incidentally, use filter/difference clouds 2-3 times and then go to image/adjust/equalize. Repeat that combination and you'll get better effects IMHO :)

But I'll have a go at Bryce again when I get more time.

Thanx once again for the encouragement though :)

[Steve]

yeah Bryce kinda knocked me also.
it took me ages to figure out where the File, Edit n similar menus were hiding at the top.
but thanks to the df community i got help.

i totally agree with height maps, tricky business. i dont know any other way than in PS. i havent tried doing them in Bryce, i dunno if u can export the heigh map or not, i would think so though :/ i wish it would be easier to draw it rather than relying on the cloud filter :(

i'll have to try terragen, ive had it for ages but aint got a clue how to use it :P lol

[wildman2]

export hieght map as pgm from bryce while in the elevation screen make sure its a grid of 1024 if it will be used as is.
also there are buttons that say fractal if you click on it pick a fractal then click and hold the button drag back and forth it will add or subtract that fractal image overtop of the elevation map already there. ;) have fun (can do the same with the erode button)

[Ice Cannon]

huh? i am confused lol with all this terrain jiberish (well thats wat it is 2 me lol)

[Worm]

Well, Terragen was a very innovative program for it's time and it's even been updated recently. But it wasn't designed for making maps. So although you can render quite spectacular scenery and even make a movie of it using Bink, you're still constrained with not being able to mould the terrain in the way you want to. If you use Terragen alone, you get nice smooth rounded hills that don't look natural at all. If you try to create mountains, they all come out spikey and although you could conceivably use them, the main problem is that you can parachute in TFD / LW and that would lead to players getting stuck in crevices and having to self-destruct in order to escape. Also, ppl would put bases on top of flat top mountains which you'd never be able to climb.

So what I did was use pshop to create a ridged terrain with lots of stringy outlines, then render them in Terragen by flattening them (squash button) and then place hills over the top of those hence the bumpy effect :)

I turned off the sun because I thought the game would create shadows (read that on another tutorial somewhere), but I forgot to check it when I tested the terrain :(

One small criticism I had of the EXP terrains is that there were either open spaces that were far too wide or hardly any flat areas at all on which to build. The stock maps had really weird skies and the whole scene didn't look natural at all. Also the terrain colours were a bit odd, blue grass on the Mount St. Helens map I seemed to recall? Any camo colours used on those looked totally out of place IMHO. So I wanted to get away from that concept too.

TFD stock maps at first glance look quite spectacular, but once you get into the game (TDM) you soon realize they're not suitable for sniping. It takes too long to get to a good spot and you have to walk over totally flat open land. Maybe TKOTH lovers will like them, but the TDM maps suck. Also, TFD seems to have been designed for indoor rather than outdoor play and Zombie got their sums wrong in that respect IMHO. Or at least, I don't want to see DF being turned into a Quake type game.

But I'll have another go at Bryce I think. I think I"ll be able to figure it out with a little help from yourself, Sic, Emperor perhaps? Thanks for the tip btw Wildman2, I'll have a look at that :)

[wildman2]

if ya need a hand with anything in bryce just holler.

[Worm]

Thanx Wildman2...I might take you up on that :)