Beach With Forest - Feedback Wanted

Hello. I'm starting to work on the terrain for my map (hopefully will become a campaign) and I was looking for some feedback. This is going to be the starting map to a series of explorable areas.

The only thing I don't like are the cliffs, but I'm not sure what to do with them. I tried different rock textures and I found the village rock texture most pleasing, but the cliffs are still lacking. I was thinking of rock doodads, but they don't seem to be right.

Suggestions, criticism, and feedback is welcome!

Custom Models:
Plants Pack by xXm0rpH3usXx
Plants by Nasrudin

I strongly dislike the placements of the shells and bubbles, and the sand seems every monotonous and boring. It detracts from the entire scene, so I would recommend a bit more color, as it all is about the same tone of brownish tan. As in the same color, i mean the entire scene, the trees and the sand are too close to the same color to make it interesting, a bit more grass and dirt segue into the sand would also add to the realism of the scene.

Thanks for the feedback. The shells and bubbles are there just to try decrease the boringness of the sand. Maybe using a custom sand texture, that has a larger variance in color?

I used these trees because they are more realistic than the original trees. I personally like the color, but I was hoping for some variance that didn't clash. Sadly I couldn't find anything (custom and in-game).

I was thinking along the same lines as the terrain variance through the sand, but with doodads (the rocks in screen 1 are an example).

About cliff you did not try to work in Zepir Map Editor, or do it in WE with imported MiscData? (Or you and did?)
And add some details... More details...
But I think tree can not stand on rock.

Yes, I have the custom MiscData in my wc3 folder.
Details as in more terrain/doodads?
Trees are on rock faces where I live, but they are usually smaller. They also require crevices to attach to.
Thanks again for feedback.

hopefully later today (when I get back) I'll try some other stuff and the suggestions and then post new pictures.

you can make lots of variations with my trees if you look into the object editor and set the variance to a higher level...
you can set the RGB colours for every variation, not using a new custom model, but an other tinting colour...

also set the height variance from 1 to 2 so that they arent about the same size!

good to see someone uses them in his project! keep it up...

I really like the forest and it's place on the map (might want to increase the variance as Morpheus suggests--I think darker trees next to lighter ones would give the forest even more depth). However, I think you should either get a more detailed sand terrain -or- speckle very tiny pathless rocks all over it. That's what I do sometimes, and it can up the detail and appeal.

Oh, and remove the bubbles. Completely out of place. If you want, you can make some sandbars out of floating rocks; I try to do that every now and then.

Oh, last of all, I think you should place some grassy patches of terrain on the sand and put some nice custom grass tufts. Specifically next to big rocks on the sands. If done correctly, it should look great and detailed.

xXMorpheusXx - Good idea on the tinting! I totally over-looked that! I'll change the height variance too. The trees are beautiful! I'll go rep em now :P

Rinpun - I don't really like path-less doodads, but if they are small enough, it might work. Ya, the bubbles look horrible today (don't know what I was thinking yesterday :P). sandbars out of floating rocks? You'll have to explain more. Grass around the rocks (and even a few smaller trees) would be nice. Thanks for the suggestions!

I would replace the brown-looking tiles with the Grassy Dirt you have on the map; they look extremely out of place and not very good.

The trees, as said before, are too plain, but the people before me already told you how to fix that. I would also add a very tiny Art - Max Roll and Art - Max Pitch value to the trees - let's say about 0.03-0.05.

Also, you might want to fix perspective. Everything, especially the rocks, is huge in comparison to the tiny trees.

Edit the number of variations for the River Rushes to one less than it is currently (I think it's 4 currently? So put that to 3, if it is), to get rid of that last variation, with the ugly brown cattail.

I can't think up of anything to get rid of the monotony of the sand, except for some Neutral Passive crabs to wander around.

Hope I helped.

Brown-looking tiles? Do you mean the dirt tiles? The tiles I'm using are:

• Lordaeron Dirt
• Lordaeron Rough Dirt
• Lordaeron Grassy Dirt
• Lordaeron Grass
• Sunken Ruins Sand
• Village Rocks
• Sunken Ruins Grass Dirty

Didn't like the pitch/roll. The trees became too powerful, leaning into the water (even at a really small amount).

The trees are now larger, so the rocks are smaller.

There will be creatures added later (part of my spawning system).

All suggestions help [Death].

Edit: Uploaded some new screens. Keep in mind, this is still in-progress. Half the map still has to be terrained.

Note: There are some floating planks/boards in the water. Those are going to be part of the campaign, so they stay. Screen 2 had some problems with the sky, but I liked the angle, so I kept it. I speckled little rocks along the sand, in hopes to spruce it up.

Feedback please

In your new one- I like that there are more living things (grass, shrubs, etc) but the rocks dont look like they are sticking out of the sand but like they are resting on the surface. Use ctrl pagedown in the map editor to push the rocks down.
The floating stuff in image 3 looks a bit unreal, you should put some washed up on the beach.
I like the way the trees look as they fade into the distance though I liked the slightly blue haze better.

Well, all rocks don't have flat bottoms. I do have some (rocks on slopes) that are pushed down because these rocks do have flat bottoms.

I added more floating garbage further up in shore, and it does look better. The story is going to be a boat that crashed.

Well, I like the white fog better, but the fog is just for screen shots (and white is more realistic). In the map, I don't plan on any huge camera angles (the amount of custom doodads may destroy the player's computer if I did that) so the fog isn't really required.

And with that said... New pictures! These will be the last of the pictures (at least for now, time for the scripting). People can still comment about them and leave suggestions. I'm still going to change some stuff before I release anything.

Thanks again for the comments and suggestions.

the floating garbage looks kinda random, it would be crowded due to the floating of the river...

if you'd use some other trees aswell you would have more variarion, there is/was one in the ultimate terraining map, it looked good, used the same texture as mine and yet was different!

Yes, I think Death meant the Lordaeron Dirt, it looks ugly and out of place. Use Sunken Ruins grass and dirt instead.
A little bit more tile variation in the shallow water part wouldn't hurt either. :)

Yeah, I meant those Lordaeron Dirt tiles.


Are you sure that you used the correct values? I don't know what could be causing it to go at such an impossible angle.

And, xXm0rpH3usXx - Is this the tree you were referring to?