Terrain

Hey, How do you terrain good!? I try so hard, and my terrain never comes out good! When YOU do a map, how do u go about making the terrain? Do u follow a process?

Ok, here's some basic steps I follow when starting a map.

1) Pick the tileset carefully, you don't want to have thigns that clash, such as lava, snow, summer grass etc. Use Zepir's editor to get 16 tiles.
2) Plan out what you want to have in your map.
3) Start small, and work big, only completely finishing parts at a time.
4) Raise/Lower terrain, not cliffs, the actual terrain "lifter" so the ground isn't so flat.
5) Carefully place doodads, sure sometimes lots of doodads looks good, but you can make it look even better by re-arranging them and using less.
6) Use doodads everywhere, even the little things, you should use them.
7) If you are going for perfection, look at a real life picture of scenery.

That's basically how I do mine.

I have no idea. For me, I just start placing things and avoid straight edges and reqular shapes (on any tileset except the cityscape ones). Then doodads help a lot too. Detail is very important. Try looking at this thread:

baby_batchoy's screenshots

This is terrain that I've made and maybe you can try stuff like that.

be sure to mix the tiles often, dont have just the same grass or dirt over a large area. Using zeps editor to hit the actual cap on the the different tiles is a very good idea because it gives alot more variaty to the textures.

after using raise and lower, reposition the camera view in WE so you can see the terrain from like a side view, make sure your new raised / lowered terrain doesnt have sharp edges (using smooth or just manualy using lower can fix this) Also be sure not to have steep ditches that are not very wide, people go nuts with the raise lower sometimes making huge ditches or hills that arnt big enough to have more than maybe 2 units on it, looks dumb and unrealistic.

remember you can use CTRL + the arrows on the keypad to move doodads to colide with each other (ignoring thier pathing maps) just make sure doodads dont interfear with preplaced unit buildings (this will cause a crash on map load in wc3).

Another good trick is to make a huge shallow or deep water area, then raise the terrain until it is able to be traveled on (push P in the editor to see pathing map, pink areas cannot be walked on) this creates realistic looking shorelines. This can also be achielved by turning off the "enforce water high limits" then just lowering a cliff 1 level so it is the same as the shalow water, but the new lowered cliff will not have water.

Also make sure any map uses Game fog. and you do set a sky. even the slightest of fog creates a nice effect.

Wow thanks, and yea, I do that water thing often, I just make the whole map water, so a simple lowering makes water, and raising makes land But... what is game fog?? R u talking about the region fog? Or is there another way to add fog??

when i map i find it best to just go postal on the terrain level...make the map a mess and then work around/over/through it, vietnam RPG (i made) is my best terrain work without a doubt and thats how i did it...u can check it out in my other thread about the cinema help, looks pretty pimp

BTW...hes refering o fog of war i do believe...didn't read what he wrote but i'd guess thats what hes talking about...fog of war is where u cant see the map except for what u have explored...helpfull in RPG's

lol, I know what fog of war is, Im no Noob, I just suck at terraining, here, look at this picture, I wotn tell u my intentions, u gotta guess, I want my point to be clear right away with out having to explain...

not fog of war, not region fog but this:

Environment - Fog

use the R G B values to create a color that fits your map the z start is how soon does the fog start appearing, and the z endis how far before it becomes really dense and unable to see past it.
and the density is how dense is the fog in the normal visable areas.

ok um...first off...ur pathing "looks kinda weak" first u need more room for units to move around...2nd u need more options for pathing...dont just make one path to where they're supposed to go...make it a regular maze, its more interesting...and i think somebody already said it but "doodads make the terrain"