Terrain Tutorials (Please read before asking for help!)

[Gitlich]

=== Pitch and Roll ===

Information:

Examples:

Waterfalls:
A simple guide to the many ways water can be used.

Many people will say that it is best to start the terrain in shallow water and manually raise the terrain.
This is the best method for creating more natural river banks and shore lines.

Here is a simple map, starting all in shallow water.


The first thing you do is raise the land out of the water. In this instance, I'm making a coast line, so I raise half the land out and leave part for a lagoon.


Normally, to make a river, I'd use the apply cliff; shallow water tool, but as this terrain began in shallow water, the following happens:

The terrain cannot be lowered into water if it started with a set water level; all water on the map must now be at the original height.

Instead, we use waterfalls. Here is the basic outline of the waterfall part of the river. (The edges are untidy, but will be neatened up later.)


Now to make the river itself from waterfalls. Take the waterfall doodad, and in the object editor set the minimum scale to 0.01. Then place a waterfall, and make its z-value somewhere around 10-20. Here is the result:


Placing these flat waterfalls repeatedly will create a river. (Again, the edges are untidy, but will be fixed later.)


Now adjust the terrain around the edges so it fits the river slightly better, using the raise and lower tools.


Now use doodads to cover up the edges of the waterfalls. I chose rocks, but many different doodads could be used, from mushrooms to trees.


Finally, adding some trees just for effect.
.

Underlying Terrain Construction:

The following is only one way of constructing terrain, and it's also probably the longest method, but mimics nature more than most methods. But still, it's only one method, and many other ways of terraining exist.

The following also uses a size one brush, and ONLY a size one brush. Using larger brushes is just inaccurate, and while it saves time, it won't get the same naturally flowing effect.

Start with your basic map. (All thats been done here is a selected fog, and the camera and shadow bounds were moved to the edge of the map.)


Now to explain the basic principles. All naturally occurring terrain is made up of a series of hills and valleys. These hills and valleys can be small or large, shallow or steep, but all terrain is made from a series of naturally flowing changes in height. Nothing natural is flat. So if you wish to make a flat terrain, it should still be made of a series of very small and shallow hills and valleys. This step is to construct the first outline for these hills and valleys using the raise tool and the lower tool. (Tip: hold shift while using the Raise tool to lower the terrain instead.)

Raise one line of terrain above the rest, making sure to use the grid to see any spikes that need to be flattened down.



Now to raise the next line of terrain. As you can see, the terrain is lower on the new line, this will eventually be the side of a hill. go back and rework each point you've raised and lowered until it looks as smooth as possible. (Whatever you do, don't use the smooth tool, it has hardly any accuracy.)



Now continue using the same method all the way down to ground level.



Here is an example of a line that doesn't flow. To make sure a terrain flows, the lines should be roughly parallel with the lines around them; but not exactly parallel, as that would mean the whole terrain is completely flat.



And here is the same line corrected:



Here is the same method with both sides of a valley completed. As you can see, the lowest point of ground is still flat, but that will be fixed in the next step.



Now using the lower tool, fix the floor, making sure the lines still flow without being too spiky.



In the last stage, the lines were fixed to flow, but only on one axis. Now looking at the terrain from another angle, you can see that the lines in the other axis are still spiky. (A few points could still do with raising and lowering by one or two clicks.)



So after a bit of reworking, all spiky points are now removed.



The main part of the terrain is done. The next step is to expand using the same methods as before. So now add some construction lines around the existing terrain (demonstrated in the picture below) but using the plateau tool on the highest and lowest points of the edge of the existing terrain



Use the principle of hills and valleys again on each of these lines, as demonstrated in the picture below (using just the raise and lower tools)



Repeat this on all of the construction lines, making sure that they all look slightly different.



Using the plateau tool, add more construction lines in the other axis.



Use the hill and valley method on these lines as well.



Now use the plateau tool and drag backwards from the lines in the first axis you constructed. This is just to raise the terrain up to a workable height, and prevent hours being lost raising the terrain up to such high levels with the raise tool alone.



Fill in the gaps between the lines using the hill and valley method. Below is a partially finished example.



And the finished article, a more natural effect that can be achieved with the smooth tool.



The terrain viewed without the grid:

[Gitlich]

Download miscdata.txt here.

Miscdata.txt is a simple text document. Simply put it into the UI folder in your Warcraft III directory (if there is no UI folder, make a new one and name it UI). It allows you to have much higher terrain and steeper slopes. Below is an example of how it works.

Step one, raise the terrain to the height you want with the raise tool.


Step two, use the plateau tool to get the steep cliffs.


Step three, use the smooth tool so the cliffs don't look so perfectly straight with angled corners.


Step four, map out the area of the cliff you want and reapply the same techniques.


Step five, it's best to use dirt or rock to show what is cliff and what isn't.


Step six, some random height variation (mostly using the lower tool) makes the cliff seem more natural, and less level.


Step seven, some tile variation, to make it seem slightly more natural.


Step eight, two minutes of work spamming trees and the odd rock.


Download miscdata.txt here.

[PlasticAngel]

A slight warning, you might not succed on the first time but keep trying. Also this isn't origional nor very good terrain, it's just a tutorial to get you started.

First off, start by making a map that is 64-64, tileset ashenvale. Make sure that the inital water value is set to shallow water.





Now grab the raise tool on the largest setting and click 3 times.





Then grab the Plataeu tool and make the map that high.




Next take the lower tool and lower untill you hit some water.




Grab the Plataeu tool again and make a snaking river. Here is what I ended up with.




Now grab the Smooth tool and smooth the edges of the river.




Grab the grass tile and cover the map with it.Now for some terrain variation. I will be using the leaf and mossy grass tiles and a little of the vines tile, but you can use whatever suits you best. Use the second smallest circle and paint completely randomly over the map. I also added some Grassy dirt. Your terrain should be looking a little like this by now.




Now for some height variation. Grab the raise tool at the second largest circle and have some fun! Try holding the mouse button down instead of clicking lots. Be carefull not to raise the water!




Now grab the lower tool at the same settings and use it a little, be carefull not to lower too much as you'll hit the water. After that grab the smooth tool on the largest setting and go over the whole map.




Now our base terrain is done. Onto doodads. You will get the best looking doodads by downloading some good ones but the blizzard ones will do fine. I am using the large ashenvale trees by Nasrudin, they are available at www.fulgrim.com under the custom doodads section (you have to register). After you import restart the editor. Now varitaion is very important so set the maximum scale at 1.5 and the minimum to 0.80. Also edit the world tree doodad (cinimatic, ashenvale) to 0.4 scaling value.

Doodad Placement is very important, but there is nothing really I can tach you, it's all done by trying and feeling your way forward. Anyway place 3 or 4 world trees on your map. You'll probly need to lower them so they aren't floating. Just select them and press ctrl+page down. Now begin the placement of your normal trees. Also remeber sometimes, more is less. Now add some enviromental doodads, shrubs, bushes, anything you want.




Now add some fog and some weather. In this pic below you can see my end result, now I diddn't use many tree's so you could see between them.




Now you know how to make a very generic forest, add some origionality to it. Mabe a village or a waterfull, you mind is the limit. Post some of your results I would be glad to see them and give comments.

DEATHIFIED EDIT: Cropped images, hosted on imageshack, and made thumbnails.

[iNfraNe]

Here's a copy of an edited miscdata.txt, sadly I couldnt upload .txt files so I had to zip a 4kb file.

[Xeth-Ban]

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Fog Tutorial

Originally Posted by Beam

Fog can be explained in a graph. The X-axis is your distance from camera and the Y-axis is fog density. Linear fog is simply a curve with a slope of x, meaning that for every x unit away from the camera, your fog is 1 unit denser. exponential fog is a curve, like x^2 or x^3. you get way denser fog with this option.

Z-start and Z-end is basically how far away from the camera the fog starts and ends. So again, if your fog starts at say, 1000, then up until 1000 units away from the camera, your fog density will be 0. Then at 1000 units away, your fog density will start to increase until your Z-end. Now say your Z-end was at 5000. This means that at 5000 units away from the camera, your fog will be at its maximum density, and you can't see past it. Depending on how close or far your Z starts and ends are, the rate at which fog will increase will be faster or slower. If the Z start and end is far apart, like say, 100 to 5000, then you'll have a very gradual increase in fog density. If they're closer together, like 100 to 200, then you'll have a very sudden increase in fog density, with almost no inbetween values.

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Warcraft Pathing

Originally Posted by Beam

A common question asked by newb and veteran terrainers alike is "Can I make units go under a bridge?" or something along those lines.

Well the answer is simple: NO YOU CAN'T.

The problem is that Warcraft only allows for one level of pathing, meaning that there is only one plane a unit can walk on. Adding invisible platforms will only change the height of the plane at the spot you placed the platform on. For example, I'm going to resort to text images.

Normal pathing plane (as seen from the side)
...................
____________

Invisible platforms added
....._______...
___...........__

So the periods are unwalkable areas and the underscore things is your pathing. As you can see, adding invisible platforms does not add another layer of pathing, so therefore, you can't make underpasses or overpasses without messing up the pathing of your map.

If you really REALLY want units to go under a bridge, you can try to trigger it. However, seeing as this is the terrain forum, it wouldn't do you any good to ask here. Go to the Trigger Haven and ask there.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pathing Technique

Originally Posted by Metal_Sonic64

Another technique I use sometimes is, when building walls, to use a dummy wall with pathing. We'll say I'm using low alls that I want to stack up, so I making the normal one with whatever pathing you want. Once it's all placed, remove the pathing from that doodad, and make a copy of the original one, with pathing. You can now continue to effortlessly stack up your walls, making a new doodad and un-pathing the old one.
The only problem you might encounter here is that they will overlap as you place them and raise them up (Ctrl + PageUp for the newbies), but this can be solved by tapping the numpad a few times in one direction, then move them back in the opposite direction when your done.

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[MaD[Lion]]

This is an explaination to how to do negative pitch and roll angles and using radian for these.

Pitch and roll angles are the angles a unit/doodad is allowed to have related to the ground it stands on.
Example trees have 0 max pitch and 0 max roll, which will make them stand straight (90 degree relative to the plane) no matter where u place them, but units instead if you place then by a cliff side they will lean a little toward the cliff, this is because they are allowed to lean (pitch and roll).
Pitch and roll are therefore how many angles a unit can lean toward, pitch represent the angle paralell to the unit/doodad's facing, and roll is the sideway.

In unit editor you can make a unit stand upsidedown by going to max pitch or roll angle, hold shift and then double click the field, you will now be able to assign negative values, if you type -180, the unit will stand upsidedown.

---------------------------------

Doodads does not use angles in degrees like units, they use radian, which is a more natural number. Because in math, all machines have to convert degree to radian. radian uses the number pi (3.1415...) as 180 in degrees.

So to make a doodad stand upsidedown u gotta set the max pitch or max roll to -3.1415.

How to convert degree to radian is simple: (degree/180)*pi
so if u wanna convert 90 degree to radian then its (90/180)*pi

Originally Posted by iNfraNe

there are 2 catches using this technique.

1: blizzard has usually perfectly set the min/max extents of the model, which do not turn with the model using pitch/roll angle, thus making the model disappear off the screen far too early.
2: Uneven ground below the doodad sometimes tends to turn around the model, making it even harder to get it into the correct position (not the case on upside down)

It is possible to make the model turn in any direction you want, however sometimes it is hard due to the orientation of the model itself (tables are hard for instance). Try with something that is easy to manouvre around first, like a statue.

[Blitzkreige]

I knew about the doodad portion of this semi-tutorial, but the unit editor part is a nice addition i never knew about. I believe Gitlich talked about negative pitch and roll angles and the effects they have on doodads before, but I could be wrong. All in all nice info to have avaliable.

Also, you might want to add some basic angles to help the lazy people.

Attached a degree/radian circle for reference :P {degree, radian}

EDIT: Ok, I took a look at the "Tutorials You Want" sticky and saw Gitlich's post. So just ignore my comment regarding him then. I know someone talked about this before though...

[PlasticAngel]

This will be my last thing I will do to help you guys out. I have resigned as a moderator and expect you all to not pm terrain requests to me anymore -.-

Ok time for a Jungle/temple theme, start off by making a map with water just like in the ashenvale tutorial. First of all we need to work on the basic layout so raise some land and stuff :P I made an island looking thing. Anyway raise it and run it over with the smooth tool.

Now to fix up the ground a little by adding some varyation. Ok there we go, you will also notice that I lowered the water so it looked a little deeper.

Now to add some ground level doodads. I added shrubs, ferns and other random plants. Along the beach I added some shells. I also added a few rocks.

Now it's tree time! I used Nasrudins palm trees, place them all over the island except for the middle. Leave ample space for a temple in the middle.


Ok now we have a pretty good looking islad, time to add a temple. Take the archway doodad in the object editor and change it's pathing texture to none. Now grab the biggest brush and the plateu tool and make a flat area in the middle. Delete any doodads that were there.

Grab the smooth tool and smooth those horrible edges. There we go, much better.

Now take the archway doodad and place one in the middle of the flat area. And the keep clicking on the same spot untill you get somthing looking like this. ( I lowered mine a little) Now we have a very simple temple structure.

I added some different tiles around it and some extra doodads. Then I added some weather and took some final screenshots, hope you like them ;)




Have fun.

[[Death]]

You can update this thread with tips you have.

Tips provided by: vykyng, [niro], Gitlich, Moose Patrol, x0rcist, Draco, Zarniwoop, Shadow_Strike, Mr.Safety, Kelna2, desty, Jarin, bur, Wazza, Crunksta, MadBagOfHorses, Beam, Mycklern

Cities

• Plan your city on paper before you make it.
• Don't use random angles on buildings, make sure you control which way buildings face.
• Make sure roads actually go somewhere and don't make rows of houses that someone couldn't reach.
• The Village cobble tile is probably the best tile for a road.
• If you play around a little you'll see that you can make excellent cities from just about any kind of tileset. A few of the tiles in Icecrown are great for making cities, especially ones set at night.
• Place lots of plants and make sure to have parks, it livens up the city a lot.
• Make use of walls, you can't make a city without walls. Like when I make walls, I make them have no pathing and stack some plain walls on top each other then when they're high enough, put their pathing back on and make the walls in sections by splitting them with support beams, or little sections like this:
  /\____/\_____/\_____/\_t('.'t)_/\```````/\______/\_____/\_____/\
  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -|======|- - - - - - - - - - - - - -|
  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -|...........|- - - - - - - - - - - - - -|
  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -|...._......|- - - - - - - - - - - - - -|
  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -|....| |....|- - - - - - - - - - - - - -|
  Lastly, do the door, and it doesn't have to be like one of the ones like Dungeon Gate or Lordaeron or Demon Gate; you can make one out of doodads and make it just as good.
• Make some doodads (not destructibles) that look like normal buildings from the different races (the Orc campaign in TFT, there are examples of this EVERYWHERE in Ogrimmar). When you do this, you can easily rotate normal buildings to make them fit in places better and you can put things like goldmines halfway in a cave entrance to make it REALLY look like a goldmine.

General Tips:

• Changing the pathing texture to Mushroom will allow a doodad to be placed anywhere without restriction.
• Use fogs and weather effects often, don't forget to set a sky (note: Fog and sky and weather can be done in triggers, under Enviroment).
• Terrain usually looks better using a circle brush instead of a square one - it just comes out more natural.
• Sized up abilty and buff models as doodads make awesome effects. Try it out.
• Shiny things always look great: if you're making something orcish - use glowing torches; if you're doing something Night Elven or Human - use lanterns.
• The more fire, glowing lights, or just generaly moving bits the more it distracts veiwers from the small flaws.
• The numbers on the number pad move selceted objects, as in 7 moves it northwest, 2 moves it down, etc. Be sure that Num Lock is on, otherwise it just moves the camera, like arrow keys.
• Never paint a doodad. Painting = random strokes. It creates unnatural clutters of things - you won't see 30 rocks clumped together, then 50 flowers, then 20 trees in real life. Spread them out.
• Always put in odd numbers. Insead of 2, have 3, instead of 6, have 7.
• Never be afraid to edit a doodad. Tint, size, path, model, etc.
• Noise does not look good, even when coupled with Smooth. Manually raise and lower your terrain, instead. Sure, it takes longer, but the end result is much better.
• Smooth is a good tool to... well, smooth your terrain.
• Get feedback on your map from other people! Don't think on a one minded track, it won't come out as good as it could. On the other hand, NEVER DO EVERYTHING SOMEONE TELLS YOU! You can judge what they say is good or bad yourself.
• Don't let bad feedback get you down. just take a small break and get back at it
• If you have a forest near you or if you live in a village, look around for everything, nothing looks nicer than realism.
• Terraining is an art, not a science. Just try to let yourself go for a while, as if you had a paintbrush, and see what it gives.
• Try to stay away from using Blizzard's cliff tools. They look unprofessional, except when used in water. Rather, use the miscdata.txt to get 85 degree cliffs (see Tutorials section - Terrain Height and and non-Blizz Cliffs (Miscdata.text) Tutorial).
• Making doodads larger or stretched out of their original shape can produce very nice effects. For example, stretching the Z of a custom doodad Barrel can make a nice wall piece.
• Just try things out and see what they look like. Using things other than for their intended purposes often turns out very nice.
• Weather and lighting (not lightning) is great (but lightning's also great if you have sounds for it)! Dungeon lighting gives everything a red glow, like there's fire all over. Lordaeron Summer reallys brightens up the map. And use weather effects on any map unless it's a sunny day or a straight desert with nothing but dunes.
• It's usually best to place doodads individually.
• Don't be limited to the bridges already in WE. You can custom-make bridges using various objects, most common being: Tables, support columns or double archways. Though it does take alot more time, the end result is much better. You also have to have a little experience with pathing terrain.

Raising/Manipulating Doodads
Related words: Pg up, pg down, raise, lower, floating doodads, flying doodads, tilting doodads, black triangle

• Page Up: Stretches doodads on the Z-axis (stretches up).
• Page Down: Shrinks doodads on the Z-axis (stretches down).
• Home: Stretches doodads on the X- and Y-axis (stretches sideways, forward, and backward).
• Ctrl + Page Up: Raises doodads up.
• Ctrl + Page Down: Lowers doodads.
  (note: If you move a doodad it instantly returns to its normal level, but this dosnt happen if you just rotate them; however, there is a way around this. Simply uncheck "Reset Fixed Object Height" in the Advanced menu. This should make it so that your doodads will not go back to ground level when you move them!)
• Ctrl + Shift + Up Arrow/Down Arrow: Changes the FarZ/Far Clipping.
• Crtl + Mouse wheel: Changes the FarZ/Far Clipping faster.
  (note: If you have a black triangle on your sky, it means you need to adjust your FarZ. Making it bigger will make the triangle disappear.
• Click on a doodad. Once you have clicked on the doodad or unit, hold Crtl and click somewhere. The doodad will face that way.
• For those who don't know how to make doodads tilt with the terrain, go to the doodad and change the max roll angle and max pitch angle to anything over 90.

Natural Terrain
Related words: Forests, trees, plants, nature

• Use different tilesets and make them blend well together. Don't just put in a square patch of dirt then another square area of grass next to it.
• If there is a lot of empty space, put 1-3 trees there to make it look nice. If you look outside into someone's backyard you will probably see a group of trees and then maybe a pine tree or something in the middle.
• Most of the time with forests you will usually want to use the doodads from Ashenvale. For Undead places, you will usually want to use use Felwood.
• DON'T use all of one variation of a tree, use lots of different ones, at least 3 if not more, but make sure they go together.
• Use lots of enviromental doodads such as shrubs and flowers.
• Plan your forest out differing on type of gameplay, (for large battles, make large clearings; for small battles, small clearings)
• Trees don't cover every inch of a forest, space trees out and don't place to much of one variation in one spot.
• Use the terrain pallet a lot! Different tiles can really make a forest look nice (rocks, dirt, grass, short grass, rough dirt, etc...) Don't forget to raise and lower terrain!!
• If you're going to make a forest with undergrowth, NEVER EVER make the undergrowth last. In all maps with multiple levels, don't put the top level down first, as it just gets in the way.
• Here is a tutorial by Zarniwoop that swaps tree skins around. This is very cool.

Water

• For some nice moving water, use Waterfalls with the minimum scaling value to .01 and the maximum to whatever is needed. Then place the waterfalls down and make their height 1. The waterfall is now flat and is acting like moving water. This can be used to make some rapids.
• If you're unable to use normal water in a small patch, then there is a water model in WE under the abilities section called "replenish mana and life <effect>" (the moon well water).
• Turn off "Enforce Water Height Limits" under Advanced in the WE. Then draw some water on your terrain. Use the "same level" tool to remove the water again. Then use "lower terrain" on the place where the water was. If you lower it enough, the water will appear (again).
  When you used same level, the water actually stayed where it was.

Originally Posted by [Death

]When using the Raise or Lower tool, you can hold SHIFT and click. It will do the opposite of what the tool does. Ex: You have the Raise tool selected. You hold SHIFT and attempt to manipulate a piece of terrain. It will lower, not raise. Let it go, and it will raise again. This is a very useful tip, one that I've been using for the longest time. After telling Gitlich, he says it's saved him hours.

When dealing with River Rushes, don't you wish you could get rid of the ugly cattail in one of the variations? Good thing it's the last variation, then. Change the Art - Variations from 4 to 3. You'll never see it again. Even in already placed River Rushes with that variation.

Originally Posted by Belphegor666

*When making playable forest for RPGs use very large scale for your trees (if you want the trees to be realsized), set their pathing to something small, like the ones canopy have, and place them so they form some sort of path (through which heroes and units can pass through). If you are making your forest pathable place the trees so there is lots of space between them, this way their tree tops won't obstruct the sight of your units ( otherway you can't see where your units are going). Placing neat prises in such forest to reward the exploring players. Where you don't want your units to go place the trees more thicker, or use trees with larger pathing.

*Ruins columns can be enlarged to quite extent while keeping their visual appeal

Originally Posted by SeruK

To add to Belphs thing there, if you're making a playable map with normal tree scaling sizes give them the barrel pathing, it'll look far better and make only the trunk immovable.

[[Death]]

If someone is determined to learn terraining, they should check the WC3C Tutorials as well.

[ghenjis]

I think I'll put a little tidbit here.

Creating perfect ramps
Introduction
Tired of making plateus and trying to smoothen them out to make perfect ramps for cities and such? Now make ramps just right. (What is this? Paid programming)

Step 1: Creating the top
First, we start by making a hill up to the height that you want the top of your ramp to be.

Step 2: Plateu your ramp
Plateu up to however long you want the width of your ramp to be, then continue to make the length anything you want (give yourself some distance)

Step 3: Start your decrease
In the corner on the first tile, you lower it a certain amount, and remember this number. I, for instance, clicked the lower button ten times.

Step 4: Plateu what you lowered
Plateu all of your ramp except the part before it starting with the lowered part.

Step 5: Continue
Go to the next flat square, and go down the same amount as you did before. Because I clicked the lower button ten times, I will do so again on the next.

Step 6: Plateu once more
Plateu as done before.

Step 7: Same and finish
Continue this process until you finish your ramp.



With your new abilities to make very neat, unsloppy ramps. The ladies will be all over you. Look at me! After you make your ramp, you have ghenjis' guarantee that you will have at least almost eight internet girlfriends.. And that's almost braggable.

[Archian]

I just made this little simple tutorial. It's not much, but it could be useful to those unfamiliar with this.
I made it in 8 minutes.. Something i've missed which should be included?
I'll write something else up later..

Texture Tileset
By Archian

Have you ever wanted a extra tileset texture for your terrian?
Perhaps the unbuildable Dungeon "Brick" added to the Lordaeron Summer texture tilesets.
Well it's quite easy, just go to the uper menu and click on "Advanced", then "Modify Tileset".


Check the box "Use Custom Tileset".
There you will notice diffrent textures for diffrent tilesets which you can add, remove, move or replace.

Each texture tileset has a texture space (1-2).

The total texture space allowed is 13.
You'll might have to remove some texture tilesets in order to make room for another.

Layers
There are diffrent layers of the texture tilesets, one above another.
Usually when adding a new texture, it comes above the current ones already used.
However this can be edited, you can for example use "Shift Left" or "Shit Right" to adjust the layers between the textures.

Replace Tiles:

Oh, darn! I wanted it to be the other instead of this.

You can replace it easily, just go to the uper menu and choose "Advanced" then "Replace Tiles".
Notice, you're only able to replace a texture with another already available for the current texture tileset you're useing.


- Check the box "Swap Both Tiles".

- The same goes for cliffs.

Tileset Texture Combination
You'll notice that some tileset textures from diffrent tilesets fits quite well with eachother; makes the terrian look better and more smooth "fade-over".

Try for instance to create a map useing the Ashenvale tilesets.
Then add the Dirt texture from tileset Cityscape, replace the unbuildable ashenvale Rocks with the Village unbuildable Rocks.


Here's how it looks like:

[HernanG]

ELVEN FOREST TUTORIAL

This tutorial will show u how to create nice forests, manipulating dodds and height/tile variation.
I suggest u 2 starting things:
-Use WEU, only because it lets u to make the great 85° cliffs :)
-Read the other tutorials. All of them.
-Start with the UTM (Ultimate Terraining Map) by DungeonM
Link: http://www.wc3campaigns.net/attachme...7&d=1154713663

STEP 1 – TILE AND HEIGHT VARIATION

Ok, lets start with a new map, in Ashenvale tileset.
I will explain a few things u should know to go ahead with this tut:
-Rocks arent flat, so if u use the Rock tile, raise the terrain.
-Flatness sucks
-I love Grassy Dirt (Ashenvale) I use it in almost every forest map i make, reason: Gives a smooth/ed transition between grass and dirt.
-When making a forest, Its always a good idea to use 2 or 3 different grass tiles, i will use:

Thick grass (village)
Grass (Ashenvale)
Lumpy Grass (Ashenvale)

(Read Archian tutorial if u dont know how to modify a tileset.

Look at these images, they can work like examples:





Notice the height variation
lower ----- dirt
normal ---- grass
raised ----- mountains

Notice the Vines and Leaves (Ashenvale), they give a nice realistic touch to the landscape

After a short time raising terrain, using tile variation...



Good! we have a beautiful non-flat terrain with a nice tile variation!
Our next step its the doodad placement.

STEP 2 – DOODADS

Hints:
-Set all rocks, shrubs, mushrooms, flowers, etc, etc (tiny dodds) pitch and roll angle to 0 (Read Gitlich tutorial for more information)
-Set ALL doods Pathing Texture to -None-

And look carefully at this image, those are normal foresty scenes,
-Rocks with Shrubs, Mushrooms, Trees with rocks, flowers

Remember: Big doods (Trees, Rocks) with mass small doods around (Shrubs, Grass, Mushrooms, Flowers), always works ;)



Apply doods in that way in the landscape we made (with tile and height variation)....




Yeah yeah, this is looking so good..... Im sure yours is looking better, we are ready for our next step: Atmosphere

STEP 3 – ATMOSPHERE

This step is when ur terrain gets life, using fog, lighting and weather.

Ok, lets think about fog, A dark green fog? A teal fog? A dark blue fog? A dark grey fog? Its ur choice, the set the fog values
I suggest:
Z start: between 500 and 1000
Z end: between 3000 and 7000
Density: 0.15 – 0.50

Lighting, Ashenvale, it wont affect so much our landscape,
Weather, ur choice, Ashenvale rain, Lordaeron rain, Moonlight Rays,

About a Sky, u can use Felwood sky, if ur forest is a bit darky, Generic sky, Fogged sky, etc, its ur choice.

My choices, Teal fog, Ashenvale Lighting:, Lordaeron light Rain
Look:



========= Final Result: ===============




We are ready... And this looks veeeery nice...
I hope u learned a few things i found useful at terraining time, if u think i miss something, just PM me. I apologize for any grammar error in this tutorial, im learning english.
Feel free to give comments, positive or not :)

Good luck terrainers ;)

[ghenjis]

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