So far I've got 7 maps. Destination, Colosseum 2, Python, Blue Storm, Neo Medusa, God's Gorden and Heartbreak Ridge. I would really appreciate if you guys tell me if there is something wrong I could improve. Specially about the camera which is the hardest part, I think. These are the last 4 that I've done in these last weeks:
I recommend watching them all in HD. They're all in 480p ~9mb/s vbr.
These are all open to use. Don't need to ask me for permission. If you would like me to make something customized for you. Just let me know. If you want the source of anything, just ask me for it as well (it's about ~20mb each).
These are pretty cool. Just a little nitpick - the temples on Neo Medusa aren't just big pyramids, they've got a little reflecting pool thing down in the front of them. Other than that good job!
its really cool. i like it a lot. i think you can improve it by having some arrows on the map or something to show where likely pushes are going to be, or where the third base is gonna be, although that is all match up dependent, and you'll have to prepare 9x different animations for it.
Awesome as always, there's not much to say that I haven't said already in the previous blogs.
One little point though: the wireframe is a normal texture, which means you can't see it when zoomed out, but it starts to fade in blurrily when you zoom in. Looks weird. I noticed it in the Hearbreak Ridge one when you zoom into red's base. Also, I don't like the music (and it may cause copyright issues), but that should be the easiest of things to change.
Wow those are amazing, I don't know how I missed the first two blogs. I would give suggestions and stuff, but I'm just too amazed haha. If I do some more commentating or casting or something I'll try to use some of these!
In return, if you are still looking for a HD picture of Shades of Twilight I'm just uploading one now.(~16MB!!)
It's pretty big so it's been uploading a couple minutes. I'll post the link ASAP. Thanks VIB!
On June 20 2009 16:30 d3_crescentia wrote: Just a little nitpick - the temples on Neo Medusa aren't just big pyramids, they've got a little reflecting pool thing down in the front of them.
Aww.. I thought no one would notice that I just didn't build that extra thingy because it felt like unnecessary work. Does it looks way too different from the medusa temples because of that?
On June 20 2009 17:28 Railz wrote: God its been forever since I used Blender. I'm not sure how difficult that was, but for landscaping Bryce is a bit more lenient.
Actually, there is no "landscaping" in the sense of modeling at all. I'm cheating here. I just draw a bump map on top of the map picture using Gimp. White on high ground, gray on middle, black on water. Then set that texture as a displacement modifier in Blender. Then I can just change the bump texture from map to map and the landscape is done automatically. It's like 5-pooling, it's cheesy, cheap, fast, but can get you to D+
On June 20 2009 17:32 Scorch wrote: Awesome as always, there's not much to say that I haven't said already in the previous blogs.
One little point though: the wireframe is a normal texture, which means you can't see it when zoomed out, but it starts to fade in blurrily when you zoom in. Looks weird. I noticed it in the Hearbreak Ridge one when you zoom into red's base.
Actually, I reduced the terrain height like you said These last 4 have a lower difference between high and low ground. 28% less to be exact. I would be very interested to know, what do you think about them now?
Also, the wireframe only showing when zoomed in was done on purpose. By default it would always show regardless of distance. I had to put together some tricks for it to work like it does now. I even made it disappear sooner in these last 4 maps (33% sooner). Which is probably why you only noticed it now. I didn't want it to always show or else it would look "too white" when it was far away. The wireframe is mostly there to hide terrain defects when the camera is too close, under the excuse of making a cool effect.
Does it really look that bad?
On June 20 2009 17:32 Scorch wrote: Also, I don't like the music (and it may cause copyright issues), but that should be the easiest of things to change.
On June 20 2009 16:57 CharlieMurphy wrote: pretty cool but the music is lame.
You guys hate the music because it's just not your taste? Or because matching the lyrics with the map name is way too cheesy? To be honest I don't like much half of the songs there, I just put it there because I thought it would be funny to try to fit one on the other
On June 20 2009 17:49 Grobyc wrote: Well, it's a pretty big resolution IMO, idk if you can use it.
Here! Not providing direct picture or else it will take forever to load on everyone's page lol
Wow thanks a lot :D
Actually that is not "big enough", I've been using pictures 4x bigger than that. 4096x4096 pictures taken directly from the map editor. But of course, something is better than nothing. That is the best pic of Shades of Twilight that I have so far. If I finish all the current ICCup maps before Shades of Twilight gets added to their pack. Then I'll use your image. Thanks a lot again
request!! Can we have umm... Ride of Valkaryes? Just look at the huge ramps down the middle, zooming the cameras over it would give me a boner!
p.s. comment: The geyser looks abit too round and toy-like for my taste, if you want suggestions I'd suggest cutting some grooves and dents in the model for a more jagged shape.
largest one i can find i guess the backside would be tricky lol
On June 20 2009 19:08 evanthebouncy! wrote: nice music choice
request!! Can we have umm... Ride of Valkaryes? Just look at the huge ramps down the middle, zooming the cameras over it would give me a boner!
p.s. comment: The geyser looks abit too round and toy-like for my taste, if you want suggestions I'd suggest cutting some grooves and dents in the model for a more jagged shape.
I was gonna do Return of the King next because I wanted so much to use "King of Kings" by Motorhead, which is one of the best songs of all time ^^ But Ride of Valkyries would be a big challenge, large ramps are the hardest thing for me to do. So I'll do that one instead for the fun. No idea what song I could put with that tho :S
I thought about doing exactly what you're talking about on the Geysers. I only didn't because I thought it would be unnecessary delay. Since no else talked about it I just leave it. But since you noticed that, I'll see if I can come up with something fast and cute.
On June 20 2009 17:49 Grobyc wrote: Well, it's a pretty big resolution IMO, idk if you can use it.
Here! Not providing direct picture or else it will take forever to load on everyone's page lol
Wow thanks a lot :D
Actually that is not "big enough", I've been using pictures 4x bigger than that. 4096x4096 pictures taken directly from the map editor. But of course, something is better than nothing. That is the best pic of Shades of Twilight that I have so far. If I finish all the current ICCup maps before Shades of Twilight gets added to their pack. Then I'll use your image. Thanks a lot again
Oh I just noticed this map is on TLPD, I can get the image myself now. Thanks anyway ^^
On June 20 2009 17:49 Grobyc wrote: Well, it's a pretty big resolution IMO, idk if you can use it.
Here! Not providing direct picture or else it will take forever to load on everyone's page lol
Wow thanks a lot :D
Actually that is not "big enough", I've been using pictures 4x bigger than that. 4096x4096 pictures taken directly from the map editor. But of course, something is better than nothing. That is the best pic of Shades of Twilight that I have so far. If I finish all the current ICCup maps before Shades of Twilight gets added to their pack. Then I'll use your image. Thanks a lot again
Oh I just noticed this map is on TLPD, I can get the image myself now. Thanks anyway ^^
Hmm that's the thing. I found it on there and downloaded it and unprotected it so I could open it, but when I went Save Image that's the only size it saved for me
On June 20 2009 17:49 Grobyc wrote: Well, it's a pretty big resolution IMO, idk if you can use it.
Here! Not providing direct picture or else it will take forever to load on everyone's page lol
Wow thanks a lot :D
Actually that is not "big enough", I've been using pictures 4x bigger than that. 4096x4096 pictures taken directly from the map editor. But of course, something is better than nothing. That is the best pic of Shades of Twilight that I have so far. If I finish all the current ICCup maps before Shades of Twilight gets added to their pack. Then I'll use your image. Thanks a lot again
Oh I just noticed this map is on TLPD, I can get the image myself now. Thanks anyway ^^
Hmm that's the thing. I found it on there and downloaded it and unprotected it so I could open it, but when I went Save Image that's the only size it saved for me
Weird, didn't you change the image after that? I just used the save as image function on SCMDraft 2 and it saves it as 4096x4096. I mean you said your pic had 16mb but you uploaded a 250kb one, something is wrong.
Bad ass models! I think if you found some nice angles and took some screenshots to make it look great and make some high resolution wallpapers from them, it would be highly sick!
On June 21 2009 07:16 Pape wrote: Bad ass models! I think if you found some nice angles and took some screenshots to make it look great and make some high resolution wallpapers from them, it would be highly sick!
A starcraft map as a wallpaper? Someone would actually use that? Well if you want one, just say map and angle and I make you one.
On June 21 2009 07:16 Pape wrote: Bad ass models! I think if you found some nice angles and took some screenshots to make it look great and make some high resolution wallpapers from them, it would be highly sick!
A starcraft map as a wallpaper? Someone would actually use that? Well if you want one, just say map and angle and I make you one.
I had Ride of Valkarye has wall paper before just that you know haha
why not make a poll asking if they'd be interested in a map wallpaper?
On June 21 2009 08:57 Shattered wrote: hmm one thing that seemed weird was the ramps they seemed extremely steep but other then that it was great nice work !
What ramps on what maps? I thought I had fixed that
On June 21 2009 09:56 evanthebouncy! wrote: why not make a poll asking if they'd be interested in a map wallpaper?
Because it's really fast and easy to make one. Takes ~5min, so it's faster to take each one individually. If you want a wall paper just tell me what map / angle and I do one for you. (from the maps I have videos of, already)
wow generally very nice, but one thing i'd say to add is maybe turn up the "Norm" for the texture on some of the parts of the map, cuz it looks too smooth to me.
On June 20 2009 17:32 Scorch wrote: Awesome as always, there's not much to say that I haven't said already in the previous blogs.
One little point though: the wireframe is a normal texture, which means you can't see it when zoomed out, but it starts to fade in blurrily when you zoom in. Looks weird. I noticed it in the Hearbreak Ridge one when you zoom into red's base.
Actually, I reduced the terrain height like you said These last 4 have a lower difference between high and low ground. 28% less to be exact. I would be very interested to know, what do you think about them now?
Haha damn, I didn't even notice it. Shows how much attention I actually pay But now that I watched both versions again, I do indeed like the new versions much better. It's easily enough to distinguish high and low ground, but makes the ramps much less steep. The old ramps were so steep that it would have been difficult for any units to actually crawl up there.
Also, the wireframe only showing when zoomed in was done on purpose. By default it would always show regardless of distance. I had to put together some tricks for it to work like it does now. I even made it disappear sooner in these last 4 maps (33% sooner). Which is probably why you only noticed it now. I didn't want it to always show or else it would look "too white" when it was far away. The wireframe is mostly there to hide terrain defects when the camera is too close, under the excuse of making a cool effect.
Does it really look that bad?
Your reasoning is sound, the wireframe is of course not needed when zoomed out. What I meant was I'd like it if the wireframe was actual lines of 1 pixel, not textures which easily become blurry. I don't know how hard that is to implement. No worries though, it's not bad at all.
On June 20 2009 17:32 Scorch wrote: Also, I don't like the music (and it may cause copyright issues), but that should be the easiest of things to change.
On June 20 2009 16:57 CharlieMurphy wrote: pretty cool but the music is lame.
You guys hate the music because it's just not your taste? Or because matching the lyrics with the map name is way too cheesy? To be honest I don't like much half of the songs there, I just put it there because I thought it would be funny to try to fit one on the other
It doesn't fit my personal taste, but you'll never satisfy everybody. I do find it a bit cheesy though (except the Blue Storm one is cute ). Anyone who uses your video can just mute it and overlay it with their own sound if they don't like it. Therefor, it doesn't matter much. Some people like the music and some don't, so purely as a matter of taste it's no big deal either way. A more tangible reason to get rid of the music would be to prevent copyright issues, which you already had problems with, as you said.
On June 21 2009 19:29 Scorch wrote: Your reasoning is sound, the wireframe is of course not needed when zoomed out. What I meant was I'd like it if the wireframe was actual lines of 1 pixel, not textures which easily become blurry. I don't know how hard that is to implement. No worries though, it's not bad at all.
The wireframe is not a texture. It just draws 1 pixel on the edges, just like you're saying. I added the blurry glow later on top of it because I thought it would be cool. If you notice the first 3 videos don't have such blur and are 1 pixel only. On the last 4 I made the wireframe glow stronger but also made it only show when really close to the terrain. Which one do you think is better? The last 4 or first 3?
On June 21 2009 19:29 Scorch wrote: Anyone who uses your video can just mute it and overlay it with their own sound if they don't like it. Therefor, it doesn't matter much. Some people like the music and some don't, so purely as a matter of taste it's no big deal either way. A more tangible reason to get rid of the music would be to prevent copyright issues, which you already had problems with, as you said.
Meh guess you're right, I'll just keep using cheesy music because it's funny then ^^ I'm not too worried about copyright issues. Youtube disabled the audio on the last one, but it wasn't hard to work around that and put it back. Apparently there is some kind of US law that protects me if I only use it for "educational" purposes. :S
On June 21 2009 08:57 Shattered wrote: hmm one thing that seemed weird was the ramps they seemed extremely steep but other then that it was great nice work !
What ramps on what maps? I thought I had fixed that
On June 21 2009 09:56 evanthebouncy! wrote: why not make a poll asking if they'd be interested in a map wallpaper?
Because it's really fast and easy to make one. Takes ~5min, so it's faster to take each one individually. If you want a wall paper just tell me what map / angle and I do one for you. (from the maps I have videos of, already)
On June 21 2009 08:57 Shattered wrote: hmm one thing that seemed weird was the ramps they seemed extremely steep but other then that it was great nice work !
What ramps on what maps? I thought I had fixed that
On June 21 2009 09:56 evanthebouncy! wrote: why not make a poll asking if they'd be interested in a map wallpaper?
Because it's really fast and easy to make one. Takes ~5min, so it's faster to take each one individually. If you want a wall paper just tell me what map / angle and I do one for you. (from the maps I have videos of, already)
Looks like it yet? I use that to generate the terrain, looks so funny on Rides of Valkeries. Now I'm gonna start doing the ramps, will take a little while ^^
On June 21 2009 08:57 Shattered wrote: hmm one thing that seemed weird was the ramps they seemed extremely steep but other then that it was great nice work !
What ramps on what maps? I thought I had fixed that
On June 21 2009 09:56 evanthebouncy! wrote: why not make a poll asking if they'd be interested in a map wallpaper?
Because it's really fast and easy to make one. Takes ~5min, so it's faster to take each one individually. If you want a wall paper just tell me what map / angle and I do one for you. (from the maps I have videos of, already)
EPT
I just didn't build that extra thingy because it felt like unnecessary work. Does it looks way too different from the medusa temples because of that?
These last 4 have a lower difference between high and low ground. 28% less to be exact. I would be very interested to know, what do you think about them now?
![[image loading]](http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/e/ee/Vespenegas.png)
![[image loading]](http://img2.pict.com/3b/ed/97/41fb397b749de833f8f9bdead6/vCM5G/rovbump.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img2.pict.com/18/d5/13/24621193f373d56eae53dacbb2/D8MqZ/rovwp03.jpg)
