Now, I know that SEN is not the best place to look for nonconformist thinking in map-making, but I'd just like to put a thread up here for discussion of other effort-involving approaches to terrain besides the blended, realist, wants-to-be-3D style that is popular on this forum. Don't get me wrong, I'm not "against blending" or anything like that; it's just that whatever its virtues might be, it is one style, and I believe there are interesting effects to be achieved with other styles as well. After all, terrain has two purposes: to affect gameplay, and to create an atmosphere (the aesthetic purpose). With regards to affecting gameplay, "extended terrain" as done on SEN is not inherently superior to all forms of terrain; on the contrary, extended terrain often obscures height relationships, confuses unit pathing, and leads to peculiar blockages (extended buildings are particularly bad at this; intuitively, it feels like you should be able to walk behind them, but you can't. I'm pretty sure this is a direct result of the blended style's 3D aspirations).

The aesthetic purpose requires a bit more discussion. It is true that extended terrain is often very good-looking; but it hardly follows from that that it deserves to be the only style of terrain. Look at art; realistic depiction of pretty scenes is hardly the only type of art, and there is plenty of art that aspires neither to realism nor prettiness. It's the same way with computer game graphics; old-computer-raping fancy 3D graphics might be all the rage these days, but there are plenty of highly atmospheric games that are non-3D or lower-tech. What possible sense could there be in saying that "fancy" graphics that do not succeed in creating the desired atmosphere are better than old-style graphics that do succeed? Are they better because they make the game use more system resources? Because they are newer? No; such reasons are utterly ridiculous. Look at Yume Nikki as an example; the graphics are completely low-tech, but also successful.

So I think that there is a lot of potential in alternative terrain styles waiting to be explored. Right now, the blended style may be responsible for the most atmospheric maps; but that style has also had the most "research" done on it. Very little if any work has been done on non-blended but effortful styles; sure, there are a lot of maps with isometrical, rectangular, or blocky terrain, but typically, such styles are used only because the map's creator doesn't want to put the effort into making something blended. If one is making a map with extended terrain, there are plenty of compilations and other resources to help; on the other hand, non-conforming terrain is often dismissed without people giving it much thought. Of course, there's lots of terrain that is genuinely bad, and I'm not trying to endorse it; it's just that there's bad-because-it-fails-at-its-purposes and bad-because-it-doesn't-conform-to-SEN's-dominant-style, and I don't regard the latter as bad at all.

Anyhow, I was wondering if anyone else here had done anything towards developing alternative terrain styles. I have a few that I have been working on; they're not anywhere near fully developed, and it will probably take a lot more work before their techniques are able to produce things that are as good as the best extended terrain. Even when they are fully developed, alternative styles would not be "better" than blending, but not worse, either, just different. Maybe having a thread like this to discuss alternative terrain styles will help them grow. But before I share anything of mine, I'd like to know what others have done in terms of exploring other possibilities in the terrain field. Only serious attempts, please; the fact that something is bad at the blended style does not thereby make it a good example of a viable alternative style.

Square terrain?
I've used tiles that don't match in order to imitate a tiled floor.

So when you say "blended", you mean "pseudo-3D"? Because technically speaking, any non-standard terrain that "fits" together is "blended". You might say that if the tiles blend, it makes a blend.

I'm using "blended" to refer to the general style that has evolved based on blends, which I mean in the same way you do: making tiles meld into one another to create a smooth image of something. Often, that winds up creating something pseudo-3D, but not always. I'm more interested in its realist aspirations than its 3D aspirations, and in the potential for something that is non-realist.

Here's the sort of thing that I'm thinking about. If you ask someone who uses the blended style to depict, say, a house, they'll look at ways to blend tiles together to make something that can look like a house. But a house can be represented by things other than an image of a house, for instance, in a roguelike game, by a letter, or in alternative SC terraining, by a few suggestively placed, specially selected tiles on a background of null. Sure, the depiction of the house is the most "realistic", but any of these techniques can be used to create certain impressions, just as there are styles of art other than realism. So why not explore forms of terraining that don't depend on fitting tiles together smoothly?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 6 2010, 4:12 am by FoxWolf1.

You mean like you could drive your Battlecruiser on over to your friend's pad under the crescent moon for a fireside cup of joe?


(Please forgive the shoddiness. I put this together very quickly because I'm not quite sure what it is what you're getting at, but this is what came to mind.)

P.S. DavidJCobb your avatar is epic. Student driver hahahaha!

All the problems you described wih extended terrain DO NOT exist if you made them well. My terrain hardly ever has height/vision/pathing problems, and neither do most blends made by decent terrainers. Maybe you are playing on crappy maps.

Do you have any examples of threads where people dismiss this "non-conformist" terrain? Most of the time I see criticism is when people try to blend but do it poorly. Admittedly, I don't pay as much attention to this subforum as I used to, but the claim that the people here are conformists who reject things that don't fit the accepted ways seems specious at best. I don't buy the claim that people would refuse to recognize good terrain just because it's different.

On the matter blending and what you call "pseudo-3D," I do find myself agreeing with you to an extent. I've never been a fan of skyscrapers or that sort of thing because, as you said, you can't actually walk behind or between them, so it's mostly just for show. A point I would like to make is that blending is a separate skill that is not solely employed for the creation of this pseudo-3d terrain. I would say that creating pseudo-3d terrain involves the use of blending, but blending can be done in other circumstances as well. In my contest map, I didn't use pseudo-3d or isometrical spaces, but I still tried to find tiles that blend into each other for a nice clean appearance.

You might as well post examples of what you're talking about because clearly people are unsure of what it is you're trying to say.

@qPK: You're going to have to wait a little while for an example, unfortunately. I'm working on something at the moment that has a very "different" sort of terrain; I'm putting a decent bit of work into the appearance, but it doesn't use tiles that blend into each other. I'd rather just show that off when it comes out than put a few minutes into what would inevitably be a very poor demonstrator...I am kind of low on time at the moment, after all. Regarding the state of the community, I'm sure if you look around a bit, you can see it; I mean, it might take a little bit of looking, since very few people even try other forms of "high-end" terrain, but there's definitely a built-in expectation that terrain work will be based on blending tiles together.

@Aristocrat: That's fine. As I said, I'm not against extended terrain...I just want to see what can be done with terrain forms that focus more on working with SC's tile-based nature than against it, that tend more towards 2D imagery and abstractness instead of 3D and realism. The problem is that most non-blended terrain is very plain and thoughtless; it's usually done as a time-saver and not with aesthetics in mind. I just don't think it has to be that way.

Interesting thoughts. I would think a prime example of some non-blended terrain that looks good is lil-inferno's Skirmish! map. He uses rec tiling for everything and the entire thing is pure blockyness, although it doesn't look bad.

I've also seen a couple RPGs made with rec tiles that look pretty darn good, one being Mneox's room to room "Zelda style" map, and the other being Azala's 90kb RPG. Both use rec tiling and both look just fine, actually Mneox's looked really good.

I think I know what you're talking about. It was vital that the terrain wasn't isometric so some of the gameplay systems would work properly and I felt like not caring much whether or not it blended, so I made this a while back. Now normally I wouldnt have posted this because its nothing special but I just want to see if I understood you.


How's that for a different style.

This doesn't, to me, look like what FoxWolf is talking about. To me, it still looks like you're trying to hide the tiles, while I think he is saying that's unnecessary. I think what you did was more of qPK's style of 'blending' where it doesn't necessarily have to be isometric, but it still tries to cover up the blocky nature of StarCraft.

I find actually really good for a rectangular'd terrain. Seriously not that blocky at all (except the induced blocks from rectangular style).

Look at Resident Evil One. If that isn't what you mean, than I don't really understand.

D'ya mean something like these?



P.S. The Jungle one has near-perfect walkability. It looks like you can walk from the Jungle to the Raised Jungle on the sides, but a thin sliver of unwalkability makes this impossible. Only flaw is the bottom of the lower-right square in the middle section.

Kudo on that, David! =)

The first picture looks intentionally blocky.

I dont think there is an alternate way.

Unless there is something waiting to be discovered...

... What do you think blending is about?