- IX MA3LS7ROM XI
- |
- Exalted Member
A very, and I mean VERY, simple terrain editor. Raise, lower, and smooth. Changable brush sizes. We just choose Custom from the map selecting menu, choose a theme (like snow, desert, etc.) and boom, it just drops you onto a Flat cirlce the size of the sky-bubble on Sandbox.
Maybe just a very simple built in feature so if your hill gets past, say, a 45 degree angle (maybe higher, I don't know) It changes to a rockier texture. That way, we don't have the ability to paint on half a million textures, just to keep things simple.
After you are done and satisfied with your terrain, let the game go through about, say, a five to ten minute process of encoding and optomizing of the terrain, so it takes up less space, and makes it able to be played by others without the map in customs.
FOR ALL YOU LESS TECHNOLOGY OR MODDING COMFORTABLE PEOPLE, DON'T READ THESE NEXT 2 PARAGRAPHS, BUT CONTINUE ON AFTER THE WORD " END "
The way the terrain would be optomized, is that the game would create a Height map. (wiki it if you want to really go into details about what it is, but I will briefly describe it here.) A height map is basically a sinlge picture taken from an absolute top-down view of your terrain. Higher areas are given a lighter shade, and the lower areas given a darker shade. All the game would have to do is just recognize this height map, and any hill given a higher slope than 45 degrees is assigned that rock texture.
Every player in the customs party without the map would be sent this height-map, and the game would preload the terrain and objects (the objects the same way that Halo 3 works now) and they would be ready to go. This might take longer that what we have now, but I'm willing to sacrifice for what may be made with this kind of feature.
END END END
Then, you bring up your terrain in the normal forge mode and proceed to Place your objects how you like. But here is the real kicker, there is an object called a terrain-cutter (those of you who have modded games that use a mix of terrain and objects from say 3DS MAX, you know what I am talking about.) and what this terrain cutter does is simple.
It cuts terrain. You size it and position it like you want and press, say, B. And holy -blam-, it cuts a little portion out of the terrain, enabling you to make tunnles! but the bad thing about this is, you will have to go to great lengths to make none of the under-terrain visible, to negate any effects like say, the hall-of-mirrors. (again, PC game modders, you know what I am talking about.)
Maybe a little feature that raises the water level. you just press one button, and about ten feet off of the default ground level, you have water, that can be walked through. (you would have to take the liberty of placing death or regular map barriers.
Another thing that would be awesome, would be multiple custom power-ups of different colors. Each can be given thier own set of traits. This would be able to make class based maps a huge amount better.
These things alone would make options of making maps very unlimited, but still kepping things simple for those that don't want to spend weeks on their maps.
whew , that was tiring to type out!
Sorry if I confused any of those who may have been ambitious enough to read the Tech paragraphs, but I have years of modding experience in many different games like Quake, Star Wars Battlefront, and Unreal Tournament.