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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RziUSIL.jpg) Veridian( by Fatam) Map Size: 156x158 Horizontal spawns are disabled. Published on: [NA] [EU] [KR] [SEA](click on images to view larger version)![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ahxcnwH.jpg) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/M6i8q26.jpg)
Introduction / Map Concept:
I made a fairly large 4 player mirrored-symmetry map that (due to its size) promotes macro play. Yet, because of the relatively unsafe natural, earlier aggression is viable. As with most 4 player maps, there are two ways to expand. One third protects from drops coming into the main and is more choked up, while the other is open and provides an easier fourth.
Horizontal spawns are disabled. The Xel'Naga towers on the far left and right of the map may come into play quite a bit if you spawn vertically from your opponent.
Aesthetics:
+ Show Spoiler +
About Galaxy eSports:
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You can easily find all Galaxy maps by searching for "galaxy" in-game.
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Is map has absolutely gorgeous textures. The non-standardness of it lead to really interesting games the times that I played this map. I hope some people check it out and keep an open mind. There is some really innovative stuff here.
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United States10109 Posts
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On April 12 2013 10:43 FlaShFTW wrote:
no forge fe -.- From the looks of it you need a single pylon to plug the back entrance into your natural.
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It's a 4 square choke (same size as a force field) so you need 2 buildings (2 small ones or 1 small + 1 large). It ends up being fairly trivial to take care of your nat against early ling stuff, since cross spawns are really far and vertical spawns the tiny choke is the only one that has a small rush distance. Decent scouting and you should see if any early lings are coming and take the appropriate action. (most zergs will probably fast 3 hatch in PvZ on this map anyway)
If you ever build a cannon at that choke it's pretty good since it can cover the rocked entrance as well, so you don't feel like you wasted your minerals.
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I wonder what the rush distances are; they looks really big, even with rocks down.
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Awesome aesthetics. Can't comment too much on balance but I'll try playing on it and test it out.
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On April 12 2013 15:18 ScorpSCII wrote:
I wonder what the rush distances are; they looks really big, even with rocks down.
Cross-spawn they are a bit shorter than Tal'Darim Altar cross-spawn (I checked liquipedia and TDA cross main-to-main is 186, while here it is 164 or 170 depending on which way you go). Still bigger than on most maps, to be sure. Of course, the other nice thing here is that you only have 2 spots to scout instead of 3.
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I think the name is much more pleasing to look at when spelled w/ an e. I didn't realize there were any "viridian" maps in general, though.
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I love the quality of the design in this map, just gorgeous to look at. Good work!
Did you use the lighting layers to change the colors of those textures? Or just a simple export/import?
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It's just 4 different textures, imported. Lighting is standard korhal platform iirc.
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Dear god.... How did you manage to make these textures without making them appear extremelly shiny? i have tried to make my own textures and recolor others but it doesn't matter how much i try it always ends up looking something like this
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/mbmf40q.jpg)
The map looks astonishing is really beatiful fatam and i don't really see big flaws with the concept of it, i loved Carl Sagan (dragons of eden iirc is the other name of the map) and hell i love this one.
One thing i have seen is that you can't really make open naturals in maps which have long rush distances since that creates an awkward position for non zerg users, because they need to open with some kind of pressure builds, or risk themselves with an awkward FE and pray for the zerg to not do ling run-bys, if they open with a pressure build then the zerg can see it comming from a long time and has alot of time to prepare and usually that means the zerg will hold the pressure without problems and counter attack.
This is no way a dead sentence for the map, it's just a call for other mapmakers to be aware of these problems when they start doing more maps with open naturals, I still need to test this kind of situations more, but that is what has being happeing in some of my Volume II maps (Monlyth Heights specially since it's an extreme example of an open natural)
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I feel like the only matchup where "long rush distance --> hard to put on early pressure" could be a huge issue is TvZ (it's kind of unlikely to affect PvZ since the only rush distance-dependent early pressure in PvZ is the immortal all-in, but no one would immortal all-in that open of a third regardless of rush distance). For TvZ the issue would only exist for cross-spawn (so 50% of the time) and that problem also exists for any large map ever made (TDA, Whirlwind, etc. etc.). With drops being soo prominent right now in TvZ, though, I don't think it's as big a deal as it used to be.
You might end up being right though. I'll definitely be monitoring how things go on the map (Galaxy is starting to work with a couple master/gm teams to get the maps playtested)
p.s. - @ walling for FFE, there's a couple things you can do:
a) You can fully wall the front of your nat (no hole for zealot) and put your next pylon on the highground above the smaller choke. Then if your probe scouts lings coming to the small nat entrance (there's a chance they may go to the other one, in which case you're fine for now) you can place a gateway on the lowground (takes up 3 of the 4 squares) and hold position your zealot there. This works great since in PvZ you will want to expand to the third on that side anyway.
b) The other way to do it is a bit more complicated - it basically abuses the fact that the 2 natural entrances are very far away from each other for the attacker. Have your probe stick around as long as possible (you should usually do this, but I know some people like to hide it) and then when the first lings pop out either guide them to the side you want them to go to, or if they aren't chasing your probe, follow them to see which side they choose. Leave a hole in the side that they aren't going to (for now) and wall the side that they are. This way you don't have to spend any extra resources early.
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@ the texture thing, I have not tried to make my own textures yet (these are just recolored). If I remember correctly (it's been 2-3 months? since I made the majority of this map) the easiest way to do it is to find an existing texture that you like, then export the .dds file. Edit the .dds file in gimp or photoshop, then when you're done you'll import it. You'll want to leave the "normal" file alone and edit the other one. So if you wanted to make a recolored version of Agria Foliage, you would edit Agria_Foliage.dds, not Agria_FoliageNormal.dds. I think I used the colorize feature first, then played a little with the brightness and hue, since it was originally a silver plating so adjusting the hue first won't give you anything. But if you're editing something that already has color then that won't be the case. You probably already knew that part, but oh well  As far as what compression to use when you save your edited .dds, I've read that no compression is fine because the SC2 engine automatically compresses .dds files.
Once you're done it should look something like this -
+ Show Spoiler +
p.s. - if you've never used the import feature, make sure that you save after you import something. If you import then close the import window it just laughs and forgets that you imported anything. Also sometimes after you've updated a texture with a new .dds, you have to close the file and reopen it for the new version to show up.
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Yeah, i know alot about how to import and export stuff around the editor, i had a WoL version of Cloud Atlas that used HotS textures in it, so i already know all the basics about importing and exporting files the normal and stuff. Now that i read, did you maybe used Gimp for recoloring the textures? if so that may be the reason, i used photoshop with the nvidia DDS plugin to edit the dds's, and as you saw it didn't worked that well.... (but it is still a cool bug, so in the future i plan to create a map with a texture like that incredibly shiny one).
btw is not necesary to close and open the map file while using the editor, you just need to save the map again for the imported files to be readable in the data editor.
For the rush distances i have made a excel_file which has a considerable amount of distances and information from the most played maps, main Townhall to enemy main townhall distance, natural to enemy natural distance, and lower part of the main ramp to lower part of the main ramp, i don't have too much to talk about this atm nor make a thread about my measure method (i really want to), maybe somewhere in the next week i will make the thread (i have exams this week in uni so i really need to study now).
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2EF1RUQ.jpg) Point where i placed the start and end of the measure tool in main to main/natural to natural distances
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/1Q4w3eY.jpg) Point where i placed the start and end of the measure tool in main ramp to main ramp, in these positions the tool bugs out so don't take these measures too preciselly, since it has a margin of 3~7 units
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i like where you measure from. I think the "standard" is to do it from the nat choke, but honestly from the town hall makes 100x more sense because the nat choke's distance from the actual nat town hall or main ramp can vary wildly.
Yes I use gimp. I dont remember if I had to download a plugin to open .dds, but it's quite possible. Sorry if I gave more info than you needed on that stuff, I didn't know how much you knew. Anyway I hope gimp works for you 
oh and thanks for the excel file. I'll probably use that.
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I still can't get over how pretty the aesthetics are, and I've seen this map for a while now.
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