Quote from Proper Terrain Height Part one
This is NOT a blending tutorial. It's simply to show the different between levels and to show how to maintain accurate 3d details. A lot of people have trouble with correct terrain leveling. You don't have to do it, but it helps if you don't want your terrain to be disfunctional.
We'll start off with a basic high dirt isom block:
You can see, it's higher than all the normal dirt around it. Well, you see, it's really all a visual trick, as it's just an assemblage of pixels, made up of three different elements, the front, the back, and the sides.
The front:
This is essentially what sets your height. It can be two, three, four, etc. cliffs high, and it shows that whatever terrain is on top of it is higher than what's below it.
The back:
If you look closely, you'll notice that the transition between the high dirt and the dirt is very sharp. This makes it stand out from the terrain behind it, and reinforces the idea that the high dirt is taller.
The sides:
These essentially wrap up the piece, and also give a final visual suggestion on the height of the piece. These are as tall as the cliffs, and their top tile links in with the back pieces.
With these ideas together, we see that the high dirt is obviously one cliff height taller than the dirt. This style is repeated ad nauseum throughout the various ISOM structures.
Now, with the front and side pieces, it's important that they're both as tall as each other. It's important that there are back pieces behind them, sealing them off from the surrounding terrain. After all, if a building is taller than you, you can't just go around the back and instantly be at the top.
Ramps fufill a special function, in that they're sloped, and allow units onto higher terrain. Backwards ramps are generally just blends from the top terrain type to the lower one (high dirt to low dirt, etc). These fail to maintain the same level, as the blends visually imply that the top terrain type is simply level with the terrain behind it. Most backwards ramps also fail to consider that the perspective in Starcraft is skewed, you're not looking straight down, you're looking at an angle so that you see depth. As a result, the "back" pieces are pretty sharp contrasted cut off, without much cliff material visible.
If a good backwards ramp is to be implemented, it must be shorter than a normal ramp, and imply a curve away from the player's perspective. This is pretty hard to do, so I'd suggest maybe staying away from these, at least if you're a beginner. There was a contest awhile ago, if anyone has any of the blends from it, perhaps you could just take those. Onto multi-level terrain.
This is a basic high dirt, low dirt combo. We can see by the cliff height on the dirt that it is one full cliff height higher than the water. The high dirt is higher still, at two heights! Well, if we didn't want any dirt surfaces, we could do alittle extended terraining (blends used in this tutorial will be supplied in a map.):
As you can see, the back has been changed to the high dirt, which was already higher than the water. The sides are essentially the biggest change, they've been moved over and merged in with the dirt's back, to make the structure essentially entirely two levels high. The same principle applies for stacked cliffs on dirt and of any level.
We'll start off with a basic high dirt isom block:
You can see, it's higher than all the normal dirt around it. Well, you see, it's really all a visual trick, as it's just an assemblage of pixels, made up of three different elements, the front, the back, and the sides.
The front:
This is essentially what sets your height. It can be two, three, four, etc. cliffs high, and it shows that whatever terrain is on top of it is higher than what's below it.
The back:
If you look closely, you'll notice that the transition between the high dirt and the dirt is very sharp. This makes it stand out from the terrain behind it, and reinforces the idea that the high dirt is taller.
The sides:
These essentially wrap up the piece, and also give a final visual suggestion on the height of the piece. These are as tall as the cliffs, and their top tile links in with the back pieces.
With these ideas together, we see that the high dirt is obviously one cliff height taller than the dirt. This style is repeated ad nauseum throughout the various ISOM structures.
Now, with the front and side pieces, it's important that they're both as tall as each other. It's important that there are back pieces behind them, sealing them off from the surrounding terrain. After all, if a building is taller than you, you can't just go around the back and instantly be at the top.
Ramps fufill a special function, in that they're sloped, and allow units onto higher terrain. Backwards ramps are generally just blends from the top terrain type to the lower one (high dirt to low dirt, etc). These fail to maintain the same level, as the blends visually imply that the top terrain type is simply level with the terrain behind it. Most backwards ramps also fail to consider that the perspective in Starcraft is skewed, you're not looking straight down, you're looking at an angle so that you see depth. As a result, the "back" pieces are pretty sharp contrasted cut off, without much cliff material visible.
If a good backwards ramp is to be implemented, it must be shorter than a normal ramp, and imply a curve away from the player's perspective. This is pretty hard to do, so I'd suggest maybe staying away from these, at least if you're a beginner. There was a contest awhile ago, if anyone has any of the blends from it, perhaps you could just take those. Onto multi-level terrain.
This is a basic high dirt, low dirt combo. We can see by the cliff height on the dirt that it is one full cliff height higher than the water. The high dirt is higher still, at two heights! Well, if we didn't want any dirt surfaces, we could do alittle extended terraining (blends used in this tutorial will be supplied in a map.):
As you can see, the back has been changed to the high dirt, which was already higher than the water. The sides are essentially the biggest change, they've been moved over and merged in with the dirt's back, to make the structure essentially entirely two levels high. The same principle applies for stacked cliffs on dirt and of any level.
Quote from Proper Terrain Height Part two
Inproper top blending:
When you change the terrain on top of cliffs, it must remain taller than the terrain surrounding it. Even if you're changing the high dirt cliff tops to dirt, it's still higher than the terrain it's on
Here, the back has been removed. The front and sides tell us visually that the piece is higher than the dirt it's on, but the back is level with it. Weird.
Anyways, here's part 2:
Inproper top blending:
When you change the terrain on top of cliffs, it must remain taller than the terrain surrounding it. Even if you're changing the high dirt cliff tops to dirt, it's still higher than the terrain it's on
Here, the back has been removed. The front and sides tell us visually that the piece is higher than the dirt it's on, but the back is level with it. Weird.
Here a new back has been placed. It reestablishes that the terrain is indeed higher than the dirt around it, even if it's top is dirt. Yeah, the blends aren't perfect, but it's an example.
Improper sides:
This is one of the most common errors in multi-level terraining. the cliffs give the visual impression that the piece is two levels high, the back pieces always imply that a piece is taller, but the sides show that the first layer of cliffs is apparently level with the dirt.
Using advanced Paint technology, we can pinpoint the exact place of error in the terrain. There are two possible solutions, we can establish a new terrain layer, higher than the dirt but still lower than the high dirt, or we can alter the sides accordingly, so that they are closed off from the surrounding terrain.
Adding a new layer:
Closing off the sides:
Now we (hopefully) know about levels, and what's higher than what. There are some other level blends I need to address, but first we need to learn about placing terrain "behind" other terrain.
Here we see terrain that has been placed "behind" another. In these cases, the top of the sides (and the back pieces) show that one piece is behind the other, though there are visual clues that they're of equal height.
In the first piece, the "v" pieces, which have the shape of greater than and less than signs, show that while the it is indeed in front of it, it is all one level and is connected. These function similiar to side pieces in that they show that everything that is on the top level is indeed the same height.
In this, the back pieces show that it is infront of the first piece. Because they have both have single height cliffs, there is no issue. They are obviously the same height, even if one is behind the other.
Lets move on to height issues with these elements
Here, the v pieces, combined with the sides, show that the isom in front is equal to that behind it. However, it is only one layer high, while the other is two. There's a level issue, with two ways of resolution, make the isom behind shorter, the one in front taller. The quicker way is to make the front piece taller.
When you change the terrain on top of cliffs, it must remain taller than the terrain surrounding it. Even if you're changing the high dirt cliff tops to dirt, it's still higher than the terrain it's on
Here, the back has been removed. The front and sides tell us visually that the piece is higher than the dirt it's on, but the back is level with it. Weird.
Anyways, here's part 2:
Inproper top blending:
When you change the terrain on top of cliffs, it must remain taller than the terrain surrounding it. Even if you're changing the high dirt cliff tops to dirt, it's still higher than the terrain it's on
Here, the back has been removed. The front and sides tell us visually that the piece is higher than the dirt it's on, but the back is level with it. Weird.
Here a new back has been placed. It reestablishes that the terrain is indeed higher than the dirt around it, even if it's top is dirt. Yeah, the blends aren't perfect, but it's an example.
Improper sides:
This is one of the most common errors in multi-level terraining. the cliffs give the visual impression that the piece is two levels high, the back pieces always imply that a piece is taller, but the sides show that the first layer of cliffs is apparently level with the dirt.
Using advanced Paint technology, we can pinpoint the exact place of error in the terrain. There are two possible solutions, we can establish a new terrain layer, higher than the dirt but still lower than the high dirt, or we can alter the sides accordingly, so that they are closed off from the surrounding terrain.
Adding a new layer:
Closing off the sides:
Now we (hopefully) know about levels, and what's higher than what. There are some other level blends I need to address, but first we need to learn about placing terrain "behind" other terrain.
Here we see terrain that has been placed "behind" another. In these cases, the top of the sides (and the back pieces) show that one piece is behind the other, though there are visual clues that they're of equal height.
In the first piece, the "v" pieces, which have the shape of greater than and less than signs, show that while the it is indeed in front of it, it is all one level and is connected. These function similiar to side pieces in that they show that everything that is on the top level is indeed the same height.
In this, the back pieces show that it is infront of the first piece. Because they have both have single height cliffs, there is no issue. They are obviously the same height, even if one is behind the other.
Lets move on to height issues with these elements
Here, the v pieces, combined with the sides, show that the isom in front is equal to that behind it. However, it is only one layer high, while the other is two. There's a level issue, with two ways of resolution, make the isom behind shorter, the one in front taller. The quicker way is to make the front piece taller.
Sticky this for the purpose of helping terrainers?
Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Apr 6 2008, 3:32 pm by lil-Inferno.
