My entry for the 'Princess Burke' Mapping tournament Temple of the Marxon

MadMax

Prototyping

I like to start my mapping process by painting on the features I would like to have in my map, I then start to sculpt the height map to match what I have painted.

prototype 01.png
prototype 02.png
prototype 03.png
prototype 04.png

Exporting to World Machine

Then I export the heightmap to world machine and run it through an erosion

world machine experiments 1.png

I was happy with level of detail

world machine experiments 2.png

I moved on to trying to generate texture masks with world machine too

world machine experiments 3.png

I also used the normals generation from jip's post about it
https://forum.faforever.com/topic/785/about-decals-generating-a-map-wide-normal-texture

world machine experiments 5.png

This is the result of the above generation some parts I am happy with other bits need more work

world machine experiments 6 all on map.png

The Hard Decision

It was at this point that I decided to start over as I felt I could do better, I have still learnt from this prototype and I can expand my world machine generator from this start.

Starting Over

I'll skip the prototyping part, this is the height map I was happy to proceed with

my final model in world machine

world machine final.png

Outputs from World Machine

These are the outputs from world machine

Decals and erosion

amc-heightmap with decals.png

Textures

amc-textures 01.png

these textures are 90% where I want them I will finalise them by hand

Final Textures and decals

amc-finaal texture.png

Aeon Base

For the aeon base I looked through the campaign maps and took screen shots of layouts I liked

this layout is what i chose to work from

aeon base idea.png

my aeon base centred around an ancient seraphim structure

amc-base 03.png
amc-base 02.png

Markers and AI

resource and spawn points (mex placement credit to ftxcommando)

amc-marker layout.png
amc-base 01.png

AI markers

amc-marker layout path.png
amc-marker layout AI.png

nav ui

Conclusion

During this process I have learnt a lot about how to use world machine and the workflows surrounding it, I will defiantly be using some of the techniques I have learnt going forward, I would say the moral of this story is don't be afraid to start over with your work and learn from what you didn't like.

I'll leave you with some final screen shots from the map

Good luck and have fun out there commanders max out.

Saver

WOW

MadMax

oh whoops forgot to credit ftxcommando for advise regarding mex layout

IndexLibrorum

Detailed textures on the cliff are pretty nice!