Two ponds and some questions

And here's another happy little rock, and a happy little shrub. I think I'm satisfied with this for the moment... Oh, heyo, I'm Spectre Incarnate, wife and mom cat, and I'm new to making maps. I am going to attempt to make a campaign about an animal saga, and this pond is the place the snake character is from and it's where it all begins.


I would like to know what elements you like and don't like about these two maps of the snake's secluded pond.


This was the first try and more of a let's-see-what-this-button-does! I like that little rocky area in the back: a mushroom patch slightly hidden off in the trees. I want to redo it for the second pond, eh?


This is a work-in-progress. I only focused on one area, so I am aware that the rest of the landscape is lacking. After practicing with waterfalls from a tutorial, I dared make these twin falls from pure imagination. I wasn't sure if it would work at all, but I think I'm in love! (How many layers of water do you usually use for something like this?)


Thank you for looking!


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You should add a fog. I think that'd help loads.

Also I think the water would be a tad higher for a waterfall like that. It's not really something that just ends up in a little pond.

You can make another fog? How is that done and where do you suggest I put it?

I'm assuming you mean the water in the pool? I tried deeper water with the green tint and it looked like toxic sludge, so I'd rather not. LOL Also, I would like for the garter to wade in the pool. At the moment he skirts the edge, so is there a way to fix that?


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In some cases your waterfalls look like they are floating, and you can see the rock behind it. Also the water it empties into doesn't match the waterfalls at all.

If you would please, I'd like to hear some *balanced* critique. I spent several days reading and learning how to map with the various tutorials and questions around the site. Do you have anything positive to say at all?


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I know at times the people here sound harsh, but they only mean to help you become better. Don't take it personally, but use it to reflect on your work(s) and improve.

As for my thoughts, the first one isn't actually that bad. I have nothing truly horrible to say about it. Although it would be pointless to do it for this terrain, I would get in the habit of not using the blizzard cliffs and instead use the miscdata.txt "hack" to create steep cliffs. They look better in the end and they pay off.

The second one is really empty and doesn't have much going for it. Add some doodads along the cliffs and spruce it up a bit. As stated before, the waterfall needs some work, making it flow rather than stick out. The contrasting water colours would be the biggest downfall of this particular terrain.

Keep at it though, and remember no one is perfect the first time, well except for maybe chuck norris.

Some hopefully balanced comments on the first piece:
The pond itself I like, but it looks a little sparse down the left bottom. That depends on what else is the region though, which isn't visible from the shot.

It's a bit hard to comment on an unfinished piece, but:
I like the basic structure of the waterfall, and the rock in the middle, but I think the gap in the water looks too big to be natural. I know the whole point was a split waterfall, but I think it would have been better done using a long, flatter rock. Maybe you could use negative values in Max Roll/Max Pitch to rotate the current rock you have 90*.

I like the hill in the background, and the fact that you're using raise/lower terrain to supplement the cliffs, but it would be better if you didn't use blizzards cliffs at all. (blizzard cliffs = ugly).

The poollooks way to shallow and I can barely tell it's there because of the way it merges with the grass (wouldn't a pond filled with sludge have dying, yellow grass around it?). The bubbles and stuff at the bottom of the waterfall is also way out of proportion to the hieght of the waterfall/depth of the pool.

If you haven't stumbled across any tutorials by 2P, look for them on www.thehelper.net. They're full of awesome terraining tricks.

Edit: As I posted, Ammorth did too. Listen to him, except the bit after the last comma.

Sorry, but no thank you. I've heard all of that before. If improving my work is not personal, what else would you call it? Fact is, ever since a certain event in my life happened, I don't listen to critique that is not both positive and negative, gentle and encouraging.

Picture this: Someone you love repeatedly poking at you and pointing things out that you've done wrong without saying anything you've done that's right or helpful. And, even if you do the things that they say to fix, or you do things on your own that they might like, they'll find something to nitpick or complain about. Imagine not getting any encouragement or praise from this person and being verbally abused for three years. Been there, done that, not ever doing it again. Please, don't make me.

Now, to you and Jazradel, however, I thank you both very much for taking the time to write me something worth reading and considering. Let me now go over the points.

Hmm, in another thread about the campaign idea itself, someone said roughly the same thing. Is the simpler version of the pool more appealing overall? Was I perhaps overdoing it with the second version?

I knew the cliffs would be mentioned, as I see it's a topic of heated debate here. So, my answer is thank you, but no. I like the Zelda cliffs as I like to call them, and I also like games to look like games. Lots of people here strive for complete realism, which is fine, but I don't choose to do that. I know what I can and can't handle at my current level of ability. Perhaps later when I'm feeling more confident and adventurous (and accepted?), I'll bother delving into other, more complicated terraining. I have other aspects of the campaign to focus on, rather than some silly cliffs.

I already said that.

Still unsure of what is being referred to here. As I mentioned, the static picture doesn't show the flow very well. What is sticking out that is such an eyesore though? I thought I had made it look like it's bouncing off the lower rocks as it splashes into the pool. Maybe a couple different shots would help?

I don't know about it being a downfall, but clean water falling into a pond of algae and lichen *is* contrasting.

Thank you! You're the first person here that has said anything in that regard. I know I'm not perfect, but I was beginning to wonder if I should even continue the map.

There was the start of a hill there. I was going to make a small path that leads in that direction, toward the little burrowing game that we talked about earlier, but I didn't get that far before starting on the new version.

I wanted a smaller rock, but the water above it went right through it. And then I had trouble finding a rock that didn't have section of the base with little doohickies all around it's edges.

OMG, I didn't realize I forgot to turn the waves back on when I took the shot! I had them off to place tiles of dirt without the distraction. LOL The pool is bigger now too. I would still like units to traverse it though, if I ever figure that out, so it's still shallow.

It's not sludge. I never said it was. I said it looked like toxic sludge when I made the water deeper. I didn't like it that way so I put it back to shallow.

I can't even see the tiny bubbles in that screenshot... But yeah, they come out of the water and pop. I do not see a steam doodad without bubbles in the palette anywhere?

Okay, I'll check them out laters. Thanks!


Hugs and kisses to you both! I will definitely try to work on this some more!


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Found the exact link to 2-P's tutorial: http://www.thehelper.net/forums/showthread.php?t=32561

That's what I get for skim reading.

Update!




Third try! This version was done differently, with a water method that isn't used very often because it seems to be fairly unknown. Everyone insists on making a new map starting with all water and then raising the land and then lowering the land to carve the water, but one person had a much better solution to my problem (albeit more difficult):

Put shallow water where you want it and then raise the land and carve the water. This makes it so you can put it on different heights of land! It's definitely more time consuming and you have to make sure you know where you want your water to be and you have to make it larger than you need it, but I liked it. I didn't have to deal with a stream made of numerous flattened waterfalls this time! You can still put waterfalls over the water if you want it to look like it's rushing, but I wanted a series of pools that gently spill over.

Oh, yes, another big change. The pond is now man-made in front of a house, instead of in the middle of the wilderness. In the story, Snake loses the pond (his property) to a con artist and wants to get it back, but ironically he has always shared the property with the humans, whether he knows it or not. It's not important to the story, just an amusing perspective for the viewer to ponder.

I know the terrain around it is quite bland like in the second version, but I am taking a break from this pool. Time to make test maps for the events and abilities I want to perform. I need to see how much room I need before continuing with more of the landscape.


Cheerios!


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Very nice indeed! Love the waterfalls and the pools (never knew you could do the multiple levels). My only issue is the colour of the rock terrain tiles don't match the colour of the rocks. You don't have to change it as the terrain isn't complete yet (as you said) and you may end up tying it into something else.

A job well done!

Looks very nice now!

You may want to change the rocks around the waterfall, they look a bit strange, or try blend them into the scenery buy using plants and stuff.

Very nice!!!

Ohhh, it looks good.

The rock tiles are sandy colored but there's a lot of silver and gray in them. The waterfall rocks themselves are a bit too pinkish in the far off shots, but they're not that bad up close.*shrugs*


Wow, I found a picture of a real falls that resembles mine by a whole lot! Uncanny!


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