Another thing I notice in newer maps is that these 'big rooms' are so large and so open you can see all the way to the end. Except, the end of the room doesn't even render. That takes me out of it, I don't need much immersion but, when I see a solid wall of blue sky at the end of a large room I'm just done. 16 chunks is far render distance. 8 chunks is normal. Most vanilla servers are set to 10-12 chunks (although OP can config for more or less.) To me, big rooms are great if done properly, gameplay wise, aesthetically and layout.
This is something I am incredibly guilty of with DsD, and I've only just recently realized it. The area I'm working on currently is massive, and while I do have some transition areas that allow the larger rooms to load in, they're still so large that they won't load in entirely. That's on 16 chunks render distance. :/ Thing is I really don't know how to fix this aside from changing the shape of the caverns, which would be a pain and not guaranteed to work. I can keep it in mind for future areas, but a lot of the design choices I made are irreversible now.
Since I haven't addressed it directly before, either here or anywhere for that matter, yes, I am creating an area for ProjectCTM #2: Titan's Revolt. Because of reasons, I was brought on board the project a very long time ago, but I've only recently begun creating my area for it. So far, I'm happy with how it's turning out. I won't be giving anything else away.
Back on the DsD side of things, I've mostly left that untouched for the past month or so, hopping in occasionally to tweak some things, make a few more caverns, etc. However, I just placed the Cyan wool today, despite focusing most of my efforts on my TR area. Once TR is out of the way, I can see myself being able to sink more time into DsD, with another contributing factor being the near-completion of a few key courses in my schoolwork. My time is slowly being freed up.
Because I'm feeling generous, here's a screenie (very WIP,) of one of the Cyan wool sections.
So I just came up with a cool little trick whilst working on my TR area that I think some of you might be interested in hearing. If you've got stone walls and want to keep them looking relatively like stone but don't like the look that just stone gives, you can try making the wall material 30% stone, 35% andestite, and 35% cobblestone. This gives three slightly different shades of stone; regular stone is medium, andestite is light, and cobble is dark. This way, you can have block variation without it being too noticeable, but still not so uniform that it looks boring.
Not sure how many of you are developing using the 1.8 spanshots but, even if you're not, you're eventually going to have this problem: Magenta/black checkerboard spawners. I have not been able to figure out the exact cause yet (I suspect old spawners have some sort of unseen damage value, or something else in converting old block ids to names.)
Anyways, here's how to fix them:
*snip*
I'm going to hope this issue is fixed before 1.8 is released in full (which, as we've been told, is going to be a while.) Does that filter work across large selections or do we have to do it spawner by spawner? >.< I sincerely hope it is the former... And does this happen randomly or just to any old spawner that was placed in a previous version?
The area will be done probably tomorrow! Btw I wont post so many screenshots for every wool. Its just because i want to show off the build process of this area, because you can see the whole area, and it's the first wool.
A few tips for you:
1. If you right-click the image you've uploaded to the imgur gallery and press "Copy Image URL", and then paste that into the [ img ][ /img ] brackets, the image will show up directly on the forums, and clicking on it here won't send us to the imgur gallery. I don't know how you've been doing it before, but the [ url= ] tags aren't needed for images like that.
2. Might be nice to see some screenies down from the player's perspective on the ground, as opposed to up in the air all the time. This helps both us and you see more clearly how the area is going to look whilst being played.
Aside from that, I think it looks nice. I was skeptical when you posted the first screenshots, considering it looked like you were taking inspiration from Vechs' "big brushes" tutorial video, since that method is honestly not the greatest, but now it's looking nice. I would like to see some more blending along the edges of the three block types you've got going, to get a more smooth transition from grass to sand to whatever the walls are made of.
I like that icicle method far more than the normal ice blocks that most people do, and the structures you've got going look pretty nice as well. The main thing I'd suggest is to not be using vanilla trees; the big 2x2 spruce ones in particular look atrocious to me, not just in this setting but in general. Check out the cone trees in MCedit, or my personal favorite, the pine trees from Worldpainter. If you want to use those, just create a flat world, hop in Worldpainter, and spam the pine tree brush, then grab 10-20 good looking ones and copy them into your world.
I have not posted in this thread for ages, but I kinda wanted to point something out.
Apparently, our good Ser Vaks has edited out the note from the forum moderators saying that he was on a hiatus. Now, what we can gather from this fact is obvious; he's returning to mapmaking, as shown by recent videos and tweets. However, the second part of that message said that he wasn't replying to messages here anymore, which was helpful to have up there; if you remember correctly the number of people who would come into the thread and say, "OMG VECH love ur maps whens canopy carnage 2???!/??" Unless he's also planning on responding to us in this thread again...
Alright, hi guys. I've been trying to map recently, and I just can't really find any inspiration. I don't really know what to do about this, do any of you have any ideas about what to do to get me back into mapping?
Need inspiration? Google "fantasy landscape wallpapers".
Hi there! We've got a big collection of CTM map reviews in the CTMCommunity thread, feel free to look through them and pick out the ones that interest you. Based on you liking Animosity, I'd suggest maps like From Ashes/Flames, Emerald Dream 3: Keystone, Rugged Horizons, Lands of Desire II, Monstrosity, Skyward Ascent, To Greener Pastures, Uncharted Territory 2/3 (1 is a little outdated, 3 is widely considered the best,) or my own map Dreadsky Isles. I would not suggest Vechs' maps quite as much, as most of them are outdated, and his most recent map Inferno Mines isn't considered by many to be very good in the gameplay department.
I like this snapshot update, and the mob eggs are a really nice addition. However, I feel that the "sheep eat grass to regain wool" is a bit overpowered. I'm not complaining, I use wool for carpeting a lot, but it seems kinda unrealistic for the sheep to regain their wool so easily. It might work better to have them eat the wheat grass to regain their wool, and only after a timer of like five minutes. Still, nice snapshot. :smile.gif:
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Yeah.
Since I haven't addressed it directly before, either here or anywhere for that matter, yes, I am creating an area for ProjectCTM #2: Titan's Revolt. Because of reasons, I was brought on board the project a very long time ago, but I've only recently begun creating my area for it. So far, I'm happy with how it's turning out. I won't be giving anything else away.
Back on the DsD side of things, I've mostly left that untouched for the past month or so, hopping in occasionally to tweak some things, make a few more caverns, etc. However, I just placed the Cyan wool today, despite focusing most of my efforts on my TR area. Once TR is out of the way, I can see myself being able to sink more time into DsD, with another contributing factor being the near-completion of a few key courses in my schoolwork. My time is slowly being freed up.
Because I'm feeling generous, here's a screenie (very WIP,) of one of the Cyan wool sections.
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Oh btw mods I like CTM maps huehue
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1. If you right-click the image you've uploaded to the imgur gallery and press "Copy Image URL", and then paste that into the [ img ][ /img ] brackets, the image will show up directly on the forums, and clicking on it here won't send us to the imgur gallery. I don't know how you've been doing it before, but the [ url= ] tags aren't needed for images like that.
2. Might be nice to see some screenies down from the player's perspective on the ground, as opposed to up in the air all the time. This helps both us and you see more clearly how the area is going to look whilst being played.
Aside from that, I think it looks nice. I was skeptical when you posted the first screenshots, considering it looked like you were taking inspiration from Vechs' "big brushes" tutorial video, since that method is honestly not the greatest, but now it's looking nice. I would like to see some more blending along the edges of the three block types you've got going, to get a more smooth transition from grass to sand to whatever the walls are made of.
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I didn't before but I do now.
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I like that icicle method far more than the normal ice blocks that most people do, and the structures you've got going look pretty nice as well. The main thing I'd suggest is to not be using vanilla trees; the big 2x2 spruce ones in particular look atrocious to me, not just in this setting but in general. Check out the cone trees in MCedit, or my personal favorite, the pine trees from Worldpainter. If you want to use those, just create a flat world, hop in Worldpainter, and spam the pine tree brush, then grab 10-20 good looking ones and copy them into your world.
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Dangit Fang, now no matter what I do for my black wool, it won't warrant that reaction. >:(
(Also totes using this picture as my reaction to anything cool-looking around here now.)
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Apparently, our good Ser Vaks has edited out the note from the forum moderators saying that he was on a hiatus. Now, what we can gather from this fact is obvious; he's returning to mapmaking, as shown by recent videos and tweets. However, the second part of that message said that he wasn't replying to messages here anymore, which was helpful to have up there; if you remember correctly the number of people who would come into the thread and say, "OMG VECH love ur maps whens canopy carnage 2???!/??" Unless he's also planning on responding to us in this thread again...
So yeah, just pointing that out.
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gg
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