BlueHeron
District 13
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2012
- Messages
- 2,500
- Reaction score
- 2,777
Intro
After seeing many, many, MANY poorly terraformed maps, and clawing my eyes out at the ignorance at terraformings necessity in an SG map, I have decided to create this thread. Terraforming refers to the sniper-based custom terrain map creators use to create hills, lakes, rivers, valleys, cliffs, seas, islands, and basically any natural block structure you find on an SG map. More importanly, terraforming creates DIVERSITY within a SG map by adding landmarks, interesting terrain to pvp on, and more. This guide will be more of a tips 'n' tricks sort of guide, showing you some of my favorite commands and general tips whilst terraforming your SG map. Hopefully this will help you on your quest to make a map, and create many more well-terraformed maps to see this server! Thanks for reading
- BlueHeron, aka Orym
Note: I will mainly be referring to the popular terraforming server plugin, VoxelSniper, during this guide.
1. Voxeling.
Terraforming is a both a building destructive process. If not careful, it can wipe your beautiful buildings, which have taken up hours of your time. Terraforming is usually done in 4 stages, the first of being voxeling. Voxeling should be the first thing you do in making an SG map. Voxeling is placing the foundations of your terrain, layering spheres of stone that make up your mountain. My favorite brush to use for this is /b b + /b 8 + /v 1. This creates a nice sized ball of stone that fits for most mountain-terraforming needs. Remember, before voxeling get a rough layout in your head, because once you have those mountains voxeled, there's really no going back beside starting over. A popular layout is a valley, where you have mountains surrounding the edge of the map with a particularly flat center for buidlings, pvp, and what not, I am going to use this specific layout in reference for this thread. Once you have completed all your major terrain structures, continue to the next step, smoothing!
A size 8 stone voxel.
Voxeling a WIP Mountain.
Inside of the mountain, notice the pillar used to provide a reference for me.
2. Smoothing and Blending
Obviously, you can't leave terraforming like that, all rough. Your map will be shot down and you'll be scoffed at. The next step is smoothing the land you've voxeled up, or more precisely blending the voxels together. Blending is an art unto itself, needing the perfect combination of amount of blending. My favorite, and probably the best command for this is /b bb, using the arrow. If held to long on a section of rough land, the land becomes over-processed, giving it a very rigid and straight feel. If you don't blend it enough, you'll get a messy terrain, with random blocks left in random places from the voxeling. To prevent oversmoothing, or making oversmoothed land correct, make HORIZONTAL swipes of land, which is conviniently binded to your gunpowder. Using the gunpowder will lift the land just slightly, giving it some more variant, and then when smoothed again, the land will become more interesting and "natural." You might have to repeat this process a couple of times to achieve a good look.
Oversmoothed terrain, see how straight and processed it is?
Creating some land to make the terrain less oversmoothed.
Smoothing out the lifted land, see how much better it looks?
Smoothed out mountain in full.
3. Varied Terrain
One of the biggest problems in new maps these days, is a lack of general terrain, which gives the map an interesting PvP feel. Luckily for you, the solution for this is pretty simple. After (or before) finishing the mountains, layer the ground with small voxels. I'd recommend a size 5-8, it really depends on how high you want the ground to be in comparison to bedrock and the amount of afterwork you're willing to do. The bigger the voxel the easier it is to layer them, but you'll have more afterwork to do, which I'll explain now. Once you've finished layering the voxels, go over with a blend ball brush (/b bb), smoothing out all the kinks. What you'll end up with is a particularly flat but pretty varied terrain, giving players a nice ground for PvP and less chance of hour long chases. In some cases, the ground will dip way to much or a voxel will be placed much to high to look good. In that case, go over with a /b e lift or a /b e melt brush, and melt or lift the land as needed. Then re-smooth it over.
The layered voxels and them smoothed side-by-side
Smoothed land; not a final product
A depression in the land that didn't smooth-out correctly
Too high of a voxel makes random hills that look weird if you want flat-ish land.
Melting that awkward voxel!
4. Overlaying
In between steps 3 and 4, you should have built the map, or copied in before-hand built buildings you made. One of the most important things to remember while building the map, is to edit the land around you to fit the building. Just because you build on top of the land doesn't mean you are forced to stick buildings on top of the land, melt the land around builds to accommodate builds. Now onto the final step. Overlaying is the art of creating an interesting painting onto the dull grays of your stone mountains. Before overlaying, check all terraforming for correct smoothing, because once you overlay, it's hard to blend things. Really, this should be the last step in your map besides chest placement. For overlaying, the /b overlay and /b sover g[#] brushes are your best friend. Remember to create an overlay that compliments your theme, looks interesting, but not too crowded. Many like to have some grassy lands with a light splatter of gravel, to give some depth and texture to the seemingly endless sprawl of green. And voila! You're done!
Some basic mountain grass overlaying with gravel.
An icy mountain overlaying for Treacherous Heights.
Snow splotches overlaying for Treacherous Heights.
5. Sources and Helpful Links
Source: Rank 1 Terraformer for popular MCGamer build team Red Forest; has worked on 3 SG maps and many more terraforming projects.
Helpful Links: VoxelSniper Wiki, has more in depth info on brushes and how to use VoxelSniper itself - http://www.voxelwiki.com/minecraft/VoxelSniper
After seeing many, many, MANY poorly terraformed maps, and clawing my eyes out at the ignorance at terraformings necessity in an SG map, I have decided to create this thread. Terraforming refers to the sniper-based custom terrain map creators use to create hills, lakes, rivers, valleys, cliffs, seas, islands, and basically any natural block structure you find on an SG map. More importanly, terraforming creates DIVERSITY within a SG map by adding landmarks, interesting terrain to pvp on, and more. This guide will be more of a tips 'n' tricks sort of guide, showing you some of my favorite commands and general tips whilst terraforming your SG map. Hopefully this will help you on your quest to make a map, and create many more well-terraformed maps to see this server! Thanks for reading
- BlueHeron, aka Orym
Note: I will mainly be referring to the popular terraforming server plugin, VoxelSniper, during this guide.
1. Voxeling.
Terraforming is a both a building destructive process. If not careful, it can wipe your beautiful buildings, which have taken up hours of your time. Terraforming is usually done in 4 stages, the first of being voxeling. Voxeling should be the first thing you do in making an SG map. Voxeling is placing the foundations of your terrain, layering spheres of stone that make up your mountain. My favorite brush to use for this is /b b + /b 8 + /v 1. This creates a nice sized ball of stone that fits for most mountain-terraforming needs. Remember, before voxeling get a rough layout in your head, because once you have those mountains voxeled, there's really no going back beside starting over. A popular layout is a valley, where you have mountains surrounding the edge of the map with a particularly flat center for buidlings, pvp, and what not, I am going to use this specific layout in reference for this thread. Once you have completed all your major terrain structures, continue to the next step, smoothing!
A size 8 stone voxel.
Voxeling a WIP Mountain.
Inside of the mountain, notice the pillar used to provide a reference for me.
2. Smoothing and Blending
Obviously, you can't leave terraforming like that, all rough. Your map will be shot down and you'll be scoffed at. The next step is smoothing the land you've voxeled up, or more precisely blending the voxels together. Blending is an art unto itself, needing the perfect combination of amount of blending. My favorite, and probably the best command for this is /b bb, using the arrow. If held to long on a section of rough land, the land becomes over-processed, giving it a very rigid and straight feel. If you don't blend it enough, you'll get a messy terrain, with random blocks left in random places from the voxeling. To prevent oversmoothing, or making oversmoothed land correct, make HORIZONTAL swipes of land, which is conviniently binded to your gunpowder. Using the gunpowder will lift the land just slightly, giving it some more variant, and then when smoothed again, the land will become more interesting and "natural." You might have to repeat this process a couple of times to achieve a good look.
Oversmoothed terrain, see how straight and processed it is?
Creating some land to make the terrain less oversmoothed.
Smoothing out the lifted land, see how much better it looks?
Smoothed out mountain in full.
3. Varied Terrain
One of the biggest problems in new maps these days, is a lack of general terrain, which gives the map an interesting PvP feel. Luckily for you, the solution for this is pretty simple. After (or before) finishing the mountains, layer the ground with small voxels. I'd recommend a size 5-8, it really depends on how high you want the ground to be in comparison to bedrock and the amount of afterwork you're willing to do. The bigger the voxel the easier it is to layer them, but you'll have more afterwork to do, which I'll explain now. Once you've finished layering the voxels, go over with a blend ball brush (/b bb), smoothing out all the kinks. What you'll end up with is a particularly flat but pretty varied terrain, giving players a nice ground for PvP and less chance of hour long chases. In some cases, the ground will dip way to much or a voxel will be placed much to high to look good. In that case, go over with a /b e lift or a /b e melt brush, and melt or lift the land as needed. Then re-smooth it over.
The layered voxels and them smoothed side-by-side
Smoothed land; not a final product
A depression in the land that didn't smooth-out correctly
Too high of a voxel makes random hills that look weird if you want flat-ish land.
Melting that awkward voxel!
4. Overlaying
In between steps 3 and 4, you should have built the map, or copied in before-hand built buildings you made. One of the most important things to remember while building the map, is to edit the land around you to fit the building. Just because you build on top of the land doesn't mean you are forced to stick buildings on top of the land, melt the land around builds to accommodate builds. Now onto the final step. Overlaying is the art of creating an interesting painting onto the dull grays of your stone mountains. Before overlaying, check all terraforming for correct smoothing, because once you overlay, it's hard to blend things. Really, this should be the last step in your map besides chest placement. For overlaying, the /b overlay and /b sover g[#] brushes are your best friend. Remember to create an overlay that compliments your theme, looks interesting, but not too crowded. Many like to have some grassy lands with a light splatter of gravel, to give some depth and texture to the seemingly endless sprawl of green. And voila! You're done!
Some basic mountain grass overlaying with gravel.
An icy mountain overlaying for Treacherous Heights.
Snow splotches overlaying for Treacherous Heights.
5. Sources and Helpful Links
Source: Rank 1 Terraformer for popular MCGamer build team Red Forest; has worked on 3 SG maps and many more terraforming projects.
Helpful Links: VoxelSniper Wiki, has more in depth info on brushes and how to use VoxelSniper itself - http://www.voxelwiki.com/minecraft/VoxelSniper
