1
- sometimes when you edit roads, etc... it accidentially selects water polygons or trigger areas and moves them, which can be highly annoying, to prevent that, disable the "Show Trigger Areas" in the "View" menue, untill you need to edit water/areas.
When you start making youre Map, and you want to have much Highground, it´s quite hard to do it when you hold down the Mouse Button and having the biggest Size of the Brush. It laggs.
Thats why I recommend just to use 1 or 2 Klicks, that way you see how it looks.
If you just hold down, you can still get youre Mountains, but you wont see them, until you stopped pressing.
Even then, it needs like 3 Seconds to show you where you all edited the Terrain.
- E.V.E.
In maps, It looks pretty good to add different ground textures to roads. Thereby, giving a road, a different and better look.
on the toolbar there is a tool called alpha-blend (i think) it is a black square. use this and blend 1 tile like usual and it will blend all the unblended tiles of same texture next to it automatically.
Write your map on paper first, before you even begin starting up the WorldBuilder
Butchered BFME 2 Mapping tips:
Quote
Command&Conquer Generals Map Design & Beautification Hints and Tips
This document is intended to show the philosophy and theories behind why we do what we do. Understanding the concepts in this guide will enable you to solve general problems with maps and help your maps look better, play smoother, and be more fun!
Size:
1: We usually keep our maps between 250x250 and 500x500. As maps get larger, it creates a greater strain on the older computers. On map larger than 500 x 500 the pathfinder also gets less accurate. If you want lots of people to be able to play your map, keep the map size down.
Pathfinding:
1. Make sure all choke points are no less than two and a bridges wide or to determine the correct size needed, use the "TempChokePoint" Object from Civilians/Structures in the "ObjectsList"
2. Structures and props which block pathfinding should be clustered close together or separated by large gaps. Small gaps between impassable areas (mountain and map edge, rocks and building, etc.) cause pathfinding slowdown. Clearing out unnecessary blockades or tight passages can significantly improve the performance of your map.
3. Make sure that your major battle areas are wide and expansive to allow for the giant armies to battle on. Units on the battlefield have plenty of things to worry about, so keep conflict spots clear of unnecessary barricades.
4. Avoid stress cases that mess up the unit pathing. Tight ravines, mazes, cul-de-sacs, S-pathing, etc that are incredibly out of scale size-wise can be troublesome. Units need room to move around tactically and the engine performs very effectively with large open battle areas.
Terrain elevation:
1. Most terrain should be flat to allow structures to be built. When terrain slope is greater than 15º, workers or dozers can not build structures.
2. Terrain elevation can give units a tactical advantage, choose height carefully. If one player has a lower start location, he is immediately at a disadvantage. The phrase “an uphill struggle” can be very much a reality in Generals or Generals ZeroHour.
3. Terrain tessellation occurs when the ground is not flat. This slows down framerate and many large units, like the Overlord Tank, have a hard time pathing over wavy terrain. So try to keep ground flat whenever possible.
4. In order to prevent camera issues, the terrain should start as low as possible and be built upwards instead of carving down. Unless your map needs to have deep cavernous rends in the ground (such as Twilight Zone), maps should start at a “Height” of around 20-30. This leaves plenty of room for oceans and rivers while leaving significant room for mountains.
5. In order to keep the camera from either going too high over mountains or clipping into the mountains, there should be a max mountain height of 250 without camera constraints, or max mountain height of 300 with camera constraints set to 250. We’ve found that mountains that are tall for the sake of being tall are not cool—they’re annoying.
Tech Buildings:
m. Placing a capture flag next to a tech building is extremely easy and works automatically with a nearby tech building. Placing tech buildings too close together will cause programming conflicts among their capture flags, so keep them spaced out.
n. Make sure you place a clearing within 100 feet of the tech building. Also make sure the flag does not block units from exiting a production building like the Inn.
Triggers:
o. Trigger areas and waypoints should use as few points as possible.
p. Avoid placing area triggers within each other.
i. Be sure to give your trigger areas names that are instantly recognizable and states what exactly this trigger area covers.
ii. Any units that don’t need to be on the map when the mission starts either get spawned in or built at their appropriate times. The less you have running in the background, the faster the mission will run.
iii.If you feel the need to place trigger areas inside each other (called ‘Nesting’) make sure you do not place more than 8 triggers inside any other trigger.
Trees:
q. Trees should be limited to 500-600 trees maximum. Maps with lots of trees will run slower. Smaller maps should have less than 400.
r. Each map can have no more than 14 different kinds of trees, or else there will be a memory error. It is tempting to add lots of tree types, but it is more realistic and game-friendly if you stay under the limit.
Cliffs:
s. Cliffs shouldn’t have a ‘lip’ on them, because lips block units’ line of sight.
t. Cliffs that face the camera can be vertical, but cliffs that face away from the camera should be more sloped so units don’t get lost in the valley.
Shadows
v. Generals's SAGE uses “shadow volume” technology. It is hard-edged and crisp and sometimes retarded, but can easily be exploited. Shadow volumes can be very demanding on the processor when stretched too long. So, again, shadows should be kept short whenever possible or face the lag monster.
An Artistic Eye
w. Trees, rocks, grasses, etc. look best when in clumps. We never place objects randomly, which is why the maps are so artistic. Usually, 3 different object types look good together (i.e. a rock clump, a tree, and some grass)
x. Also, when clumping props, pay attention to whether or not they have collision extents. Placing a clump of rocks that have extents in the middle of a battlefield will create pathing problems. Trees in BFME2 do not have collision extents, so these do not block pathing. To view the collision extents of a selected object, go to View>Show Bounding Box.
y. Sinking a building or a rock cluster into the ground is usually a bad idea. It will still block the units’ LOS (line of sight) or Weapon's even though only a small tip of the structure is showing. This is because an object’s extents do not sink. So even if you think a structure looks better under the terrain, units will path around the location as if the structure was still above it.
z. Oases of interest are good. Think of little areas like dioramas or memorable landmarks. Little islands of trees, rocks, etc in the sea of terrain.
aa. The player should be able to tell his location on the map just by looking at the game screen. A radar map shouldn’t be required to get your bearings. This means that each general region of the map should have a specific “look” that is a variant on the overall theme. Example: if you were creating a city map, one area may be the city
square, one might be industrial, one might be the river district, and one might be the suburbs. You do not want a large sprawl because players might get lost.
bb. Use roads or open areas to guide the player toward mission goals or the enemy’s base. Also place garrisonable buildings, capturable tech buildings in central locations so the player isn’t drawn toward the edge of the map.
Passability
cc. After you’ve finished, you should clean up the impassables. All mountainous areas should be completely filled in with impassables. Impassability should overlap the river and cliff edges. Make sure the impassable painting is done in “blocky shapes”. It is better to go for straight edges instead of creating nooks and crannies. You should also look for stray impassable cells in open areas that should be pathable. Stray impassable cells forces the pathfinder to do unnecessary work. Cleaning up the impassability can really help the pathfinding.
This document is intended to show the philosophy and theories behind why we do what we do. Understanding the concepts in this guide will enable you to solve general problems with maps and help your maps look better, play smoother, and be more fun!
Size:
1: We usually keep our maps between 250x250 and 500x500. As maps get larger, it creates a greater strain on the older computers. On map larger than 500 x 500 the pathfinder also gets less accurate. If you want lots of people to be able to play your map, keep the map size down.
Pathfinding:
1. Make sure all choke points are no less than two and a bridges wide or to determine the correct size needed, use the "TempChokePoint" Object from Civilians/Structures in the "ObjectsList"
2. Structures and props which block pathfinding should be clustered close together or separated by large gaps. Small gaps between impassable areas (mountain and map edge, rocks and building, etc.) cause pathfinding slowdown. Clearing out unnecessary blockades or tight passages can significantly improve the performance of your map.
3. Make sure that your major battle areas are wide and expansive to allow for the giant armies to battle on. Units on the battlefield have plenty of things to worry about, so keep conflict spots clear of unnecessary barricades.
4. Avoid stress cases that mess up the unit pathing. Tight ravines, mazes, cul-de-sacs, S-pathing, etc that are incredibly out of scale size-wise can be troublesome. Units need room to move around tactically and the engine performs very effectively with large open battle areas.
Terrain elevation:
1. Most terrain should be flat to allow structures to be built. When terrain slope is greater than 15º, workers or dozers can not build structures.
2. Terrain elevation can give units a tactical advantage, choose height carefully. If one player has a lower start location, he is immediately at a disadvantage. The phrase “an uphill struggle” can be very much a reality in Generals or Generals ZeroHour.
3. Terrain tessellation occurs when the ground is not flat. This slows down framerate and many large units, like the Overlord Tank, have a hard time pathing over wavy terrain. So try to keep ground flat whenever possible.
4. In order to prevent camera issues, the terrain should start as low as possible and be built upwards instead of carving down. Unless your map needs to have deep cavernous rends in the ground (such as Twilight Zone), maps should start at a “Height” of around 20-30. This leaves plenty of room for oceans and rivers while leaving significant room for mountains.
5. In order to keep the camera from either going too high over mountains or clipping into the mountains, there should be a max mountain height of 250 without camera constraints, or max mountain height of 300 with camera constraints set to 250. We’ve found that mountains that are tall for the sake of being tall are not cool—they’re annoying.
Tech Buildings:
m. Placing a capture flag next to a tech building is extremely easy and works automatically with a nearby tech building. Placing tech buildings too close together will cause programming conflicts among their capture flags, so keep them spaced out.
n. Make sure you place a clearing within 100 feet of the tech building. Also make sure the flag does not block units from exiting a production building like the Inn.
Triggers:
o. Trigger areas and waypoints should use as few points as possible.
p. Avoid placing area triggers within each other.
i. Be sure to give your trigger areas names that are instantly recognizable and states what exactly this trigger area covers.
ii. Any units that don’t need to be on the map when the mission starts either get spawned in or built at their appropriate times. The less you have running in the background, the faster the mission will run.
iii.If you feel the need to place trigger areas inside each other (called ‘Nesting’) make sure you do not place more than 8 triggers inside any other trigger.
Trees:
q. Trees should be limited to 500-600 trees maximum. Maps with lots of trees will run slower. Smaller maps should have less than 400.
r. Each map can have no more than 14 different kinds of trees, or else there will be a memory error. It is tempting to add lots of tree types, but it is more realistic and game-friendly if you stay under the limit.
Cliffs:
s. Cliffs shouldn’t have a ‘lip’ on them, because lips block units’ line of sight.
t. Cliffs that face the camera can be vertical, but cliffs that face away from the camera should be more sloped so units don’t get lost in the valley.
Shadows
v. Generals's SAGE uses “shadow volume” technology. It is hard-edged and crisp and sometimes retarded, but can easily be exploited. Shadow volumes can be very demanding on the processor when stretched too long. So, again, shadows should be kept short whenever possible or face the lag monster.
An Artistic Eye
w. Trees, rocks, grasses, etc. look best when in clumps. We never place objects randomly, which is why the maps are so artistic. Usually, 3 different object types look good together (i.e. a rock clump, a tree, and some grass)
x. Also, when clumping props, pay attention to whether or not they have collision extents. Placing a clump of rocks that have extents in the middle of a battlefield will create pathing problems. Trees in BFME2 do not have collision extents, so these do not block pathing. To view the collision extents of a selected object, go to View>Show Bounding Box.
y. Sinking a building or a rock cluster into the ground is usually a bad idea. It will still block the units’ LOS (line of sight) or Weapon's even though only a small tip of the structure is showing. This is because an object’s extents do not sink. So even if you think a structure looks better under the terrain, units will path around the location as if the structure was still above it.
z. Oases of interest are good. Think of little areas like dioramas or memorable landmarks. Little islands of trees, rocks, etc in the sea of terrain.
aa. The player should be able to tell his location on the map just by looking at the game screen. A radar map shouldn’t be required to get your bearings. This means that each general region of the map should have a specific “look” that is a variant on the overall theme. Example: if you were creating a city map, one area may be the city
square, one might be industrial, one might be the river district, and one might be the suburbs. You do not want a large sprawl because players might get lost.
bb. Use roads or open areas to guide the player toward mission goals or the enemy’s base. Also place garrisonable buildings, capturable tech buildings in central locations so the player isn’t drawn toward the edge of the map.
Passability
cc. After you’ve finished, you should clean up the impassables. All mountainous areas should be completely filled in with impassables. Impassability should overlap the river and cliff edges. Make sure the impassable painting is done in “blocky shapes”. It is better to go for straight edges instead of creating nooks and crannies. You should also look for stray impassable cells in open areas that should be pathable. Stray impassable cells forces the pathfinder to do unnecessary work. Cleaning up the impassability can really help the pathfinding.
Edit it if you guy's see something weird
I might want to point out the 'Passable' tool. Under the Textures tool, you can see a tool that says "Paint Passable/impassable terian". You can use that to make certain objects 'impassible, ie: Rocks, road barriers etc. You can also set the max heath for walls to be higher. 1000-2500 is a good number as now walls actually slow down units.
-Take time
-Dont place to many detail on one place
-Always check for texture errors
-Dont make your map size to big.
Never ever cut off the access for infantry to oil derricks, be it through fence objects, mountains or water, the AI will lag like hell trying to capture it.
Always start out with a high heighth, so u can edit from there..if u start out too low u may not be able to get the results you want if you decide to add lower levels.
Create extra Way-points with Non-scripted names, this way you can remember where u may be putting a waypoint...or where an old one used to be.
When mapping base-to-base waypointsm you may need to turn off labels to prevent lag from happening.
-Lord_Atlantis
When trying to make cliffs in FinalAlert, always use Wireframe mod.
When youre building a line of Fences, and you want to move them arround without loosing them all again, just select the Option " Select and Move"
and select the Fence to move it around.- E.V.E.
A quick tip for great looking made from scratch roads.
Use a texture like concrete and put it in staright line where you want your roads to be, then apply a road texture like say, one of the misc white lines with dots in it.
It results in a great looking road texture with your own personal touch. It also works for making: Airfields, docks, and industrial areas.
Got anyway example Tic?
Like in the EA map Front Line, see how nice the roads are?
<Unit '???' EXACTLY follows waypoints, beginning at Waypoint Path '???'> is the reason when units like civilian cars drive under bridges, pass and dive water areas, drive through objects and can't be crushed. They simply move through the tank that tries to crush them...
Use <Unit '???' follows waypoints, beginning at Waypoint Path '???'> instead.
When doing AI perimeters for skirmish maps, do not have either the inner or the outer perimeter encompassing the starting supplies.
-Lord_Atlantis
When scripting in map effects (Explosions, etc.) Remeber that maps have thinking limits too...try not to go to heavly on effects, it may just ruin a perfectly good map.
You can change a buildings look by editing the "Z" value in the little pop-up menu.
If you want a map with a symetrical look, start of a new map by making it look like a chessboard (use 2 contrasting textures; brush size 10 or whatever size it is you need), so you can use the tiles as a reference point for the maps layout.
You can also use waypoints for this, but I think it takes more time that way.
Texturing hills is like painting (Just like all other Texture jobs).
You should first start off by choosing a base''colour''. It should be in the Mountain_Rugged department.
After having chosen a good basecolour, add it onto your painting. You should now have a cliff without repeating textures.
You can from here on add other textures onto the painting.
¸.•*´¨¨¨¨*•.¸¸.•*´¨TIP¸.•*´¨¨¨¨*•.¸¸.•*
Don't be afraid to mess with scripts, if you try and ask others, it may either end up confuseing you more, or confuse the teacher themselves, as it is not easy to teach over the web.
That was a Short Stuff Tip!
Never completely fence in tech bluidings, when trying to capture them the game wil lag as hell.
When creating a Grove of trees, click and drag and the trees will appear randomly inside the lasso when you let go.
Dimanti San said:
Never completely fence in tech bluidings, when trying to capture them the game wil lag as hell.
It has already been said
Texture variaty makes maps interresting.
You stole my tip! Kisama! >_<
Always add the little details, to compliment the big ones.
It might be that bit of texture or small piece of rubble/scrap that gives that extra sense of realism.
The most important tip of all:
NEVER, AND I MEAN, NEVER RUSH A MAP!!!
I learned that the hard way...
Texture Screw ups can be easily undone if you use the Ctrl+Z combination.
Scripts make a map fun
So remember to use some to make the terrain better then it is (Ex. Traffic on a street)Autosave intervals can be changed in the Worldbuilder.INI in Mydocuments/ZeroHourData
Me no find worldbuilder ini file
Take care when modifying Z-axis data for objects. Structures that are half-sunk beneath the terrain (for instance, the AmericanAirport with only the tower sticking out of the ground) still take up space, so even though they occupy only a small area visually (the tower) it creates a large area in which units cannot move and buildings cannot be built, even though it appears like open space.
Also, for vehicles and infantry, these objects will ignore Z-axis data and fine position modification and will instead snap to the terrain and to a large grid in-game unless you use the Held script on them, which will however prevent them from ever moving at all and will also prevent terrorists from using them for carbombs. (Got that one off of Teukka.)
Edited by Revantheemperor, 03 November 2007 - 12:21.
