6p Taros Mining Facility

[zeetorq]

Hello. I've decided to give WorldBuilder a try, and ended up with a desert 3v3 map. As it is my first ride with WB, I'd appreciate any thoughts. It's nearly finished and ready for some tests.
Overhead(without objects):

Some pics:




Dl link:
http://www.speedyshare.com/NavNB/Taros.rar

[egewithin]

This is too good for a start.

[Batpimp]

very cool man thanks for doing this.

[Atlas]

Definitely need to see a picture of the mid VP, because that minimap looks very daunting for it.

[Torpid]

I would swap the power nodes @ near bases 4/3 with the req points, they look too natural. And that would give a nice trade-off between hunting down the contested VPs down bottom vs going for the nodes.

[Swift]

Since I'm no balance know-it-all, I'm going to critique based off aesthetics

It looks much better than my very first attempt at mapping, so that's a start, but it isn't of the same standard as the rest of the maps in game.

For demonstration purposes, I'm going to butcher my 1v1 map.

Non-playable areas: Whilst what I create isn't Max Power levels of detail, it does mean it can look acceptable at a glance during online play.



This, considering it's a glacial map and thus there isn't much you can do in the way of splats and splines, is probably acceptable detail. Four or five different tiles overlapping at certain strengths so the stone and ice can be seen beneath the snow, as well as making the stone appear it has an icy coating with a layer of blue glacier tile. Broken up by strong snow banks and the added lighter tile on the cliff face to the left, with blended cliff faces to ensure the terrain does not appear samey.

Playable area: The easiest way of adding detail to the playable area without overcrowding with objects, which by the way I like your placement of, not too many but some well placed and varied items to make that convincing, is to use splines.



In this example you can see how splines are used to divide the terrain, how they can add to the variety of the terrain on show, as well as hiding the edges. Never be afraid to stick to a pattern, be creative, stick splats on top of each other, put two splines next to each other, have wire splines going into splats etc.
This is how it would look without splats and splines:

You can see the edges don't blend very well, leaving blocky lines and awkward transitions, leaving a very unconvincing atmosphere. The snow tiles are more realistic as you don't always need to use splats for these natural looking tiles, but sometimes a snowy/dirty/slimy spline adds subtle differentiation. Open the Relic maps with an SGA reader, their maps are full of very subtle splines that help keep the map looking different. No splines, splats and varied textures makes for a soulless map, it may play like the ebst map in the game, but ultimately your casual gamer is not going to like playing it.

So how can this help you?
Make sure you have lots of tilesets to choose from, take this for example (laid out in a matter of minutes, so not realistic as such, but using varying levels of transparency):

http://i.imgur.com/x0qgATc.jpg

When looking to combine urbanised tiles with natural tiles, as you did in yours, best not to go right into each tile without partly obsuring the edge with splats or splines, adds little details that help to make the transition smooth.

http://i.imgur.com/k3ohRms.jpg

I appreciate I'm not the best with desert terrain, I've never used it before, but you get the idea. Combine splats and splines to obscure edges, create natural looking transitions (ignore the top part of that image ) as well as to provide variation to areas that would otherwise be default tile.

I hope this helped!

[Swift]

Looking back at what I posted, those desert shots are rank... oh well, never used the tileset.

Remember that splats always sit on top of splines, so don't layer too many splats that you cannot see the splines.

Here's a reasonably effective way of creating natural looking terrain with fewer splats and splines:

http://i.imgur.com/I69HuAv.jpg

You may see two edge splines, these act to vary up the path a bit, but otherwise the transition isn't so garish you notice it.

Now on two different notes:
- Is your non-playable area large enough? Because if it isn't then we'll all have a lovely time staring at the grey sky when capping peripherals
- Am I the only one who dislikes the name Taros Mining Facility? I sounds clunky and a bit unnecessary, you could probably lose the "Facility" bit and make it "Taros Mines", or "Taros Mine Something", not trying to make people confuse it with "Medean Cliff Mines", but I generally think maps work best when the name includes a proper noun followed by a common noun, or even an adjective before it, examples being "Quest's Heresy", "Calderis Refinery" and "Estia Province", short, snappy and sweet, though this is all personal preference, I just think Taros Mining Facility is too long and doesn't include relevant detail, whereas something shorter may be more memorable. Feel free to be ambivalent, we don't know what heresy Quest committed, but it clearly involved a submerged Imperial station, of which the name could apply to anywhere. I didn't intend to give you a lesson, and again this is all my own idea on how to name a map, I could write a longer essay on effective map names, but this is enough I think. Just shows what studying English Language does to you ^^

[Swift]

Any progress yet? I'm interested in how this develops.

[appiah4]

I think you should definitely replace the middle power node and the bottom middle req point. The bottom lane is way too req heavy and the middle power node is too close to contested VP to ever end up getting capped and noded/farmed.

While you're at it I would also suggest replacing the middle lane req and power nodes - there are enough natural power for each at the bottom lane. The middle lane could be made less natural and more open to genbashing. As it is, this map is prone to very easy power accumulation and a huge T3 superunit fight for the contested VP.