Well assuming you check this terrain piece again, I shall clarify what I mean. I see 2-P has added some information. I would include screenshots, but WC3 is on my other computer, and I don't use it often since this is my new for-college laptop.
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Originally Posted by Pyrogasm
I guess I forgot to mention that there are no custom doodads. I think that's a problem, as I can't see much other terrain out there that doesn't use at least some custom ones. But aside from that, what types of doodads am I missing? People doodads, shrubbery doodads, more trees, general funky doodads like wheelbarrows?
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Alright, my first response was vague, and 2-P fleshed it out a bit more. Placement of doodads is akin to style, I should think. For me, on a "blank" setup like this, it's basically a hill in the midst of a fall plain, so I would concentrate more on rock clusters than goofy hay clusters and blankness. This is my personal style, but when I make a terrain, starting with a blank spot, I first lift it, as you did, but I place the doodads, and then I paint the texture...unless I'm making a hill, then I paint the hill before adding doodads.
Either way, I suggest as you place the doodads to place them in a concentrated, "meaningful" placement. This is not to say that the placement is not "random", but everyone knows, or should know, that nature in its randomness follows a backbone of order, and the order is what we aspire to think beautiful. To implicate this, I pick three or four models to use, vary their sizes, and place them in clusters according to the terrain. A patch of stones here, a patch of stones there, a stand of trees there, etc. I would then mix it up by adding wildlife, or shrubbery...or both. I find non-custom shrub models look the best when placed next to and around non-custom rock and wood models. If you want stand alone grass, download a custom model, or put grass tile underneath them (grass on dirt looks lame). I would venture to say the same thing for trees, but too many shrubs make them look ugly.
And since it's a fall setting, if you choose to use shrubs, tint them a little towards red and green, focusing more on red. There should be very little blue tint, and the result should be a shrub that looks more "dead". This is, of course, if you choose to not use custom models continuously.
If you go back to terraining something like this, allow me to define cluster as well. A lot of newb maps I've seen have clusters or blankness. Blankness is ugly, period. When you want a large path, heavily layer tile textures that look good together to make up for the lack of doodads. Anyway, for clusters, a lot of maps that have them tend to have them in too huge an amount. I select the patches because they look ugly, and I'm annoyed to find that they've placed 10-20 of these things in a two-three square area. Not only is it wasteful on the doodad count, but it does not look good. You have to place each doodad so it can be noticed, if only for a small amount. Some people stack 20 waterfall models in a gigantic waterfall, and all that is gained is a tiny bit of lag when the wc3 engine has to keep running through the motions of telling your graphics card to render pixels for particle emitters and animation. If you need something that looks that stacked for colors, you either need some rock patches below the waterfalls (because I agree, waterfalls don't add enough tint to normal tile) or a custom model to fill up below the waterfalls. But please, don't stack models within 16.0 warcraft pixel/points of each other. It's a waste. You haven't in this map, just warning if you intend to spice it up, to watch your step. To name some other poorly stacked doodads, I notice River Rushes and bubbles and sometimes rocks.
Yes, I realized I only addressed one terrain issue of yours, but I think this was the most important
Oh, but again, the bumpiness of the hill is bad and the pit near it. You need to smooth the area over again around the hill. Also, as said, the hill itself looks bad. I find myself, after I lift the terrain to make a hill, lowering or even plateauing parts of the hill. I don't know any hills with *stuff* on them (you have some fortification) that are that craggy. In the general scale of things, it's an unusually tiny hill that is unusually bumpy.
