Part1 – Terrain
Starting of with a large brush I rough in the terrain getting a general shape into the land. Then with a smaller brush, start to add details to the land, peaks/lakes etc.
When happy with the lay of the land, start going over with a combination of painting, smooth, noise and platform to required shape.
Rough in the texture layers, rock/steep, snow/flat, ice/lake bottom and gravel lake bottom. Apply enough to tell the difference between walls and floor and leave there.
Add sunlight and in a separate volume create your fake backdrop sky. Build map and test for shadow casting from terrain.
Part2 – Large scale blockout
Place a large couple of BSP brushes down in the areas where my building are going to go (cut into terrain for the moment). Re-position and adjust height/scale of blocks to suit.
Part3 – Add buildings
I have chosen a couple of static meshes from Rahnem Glacier package, large futuristic base buildings and although they are supposed to clip together into their own models I have just borrowed a few building parts and sunk the unwanted parts into the terrain, hidden from player view.
Part3 – Add walkways
Here we are linking up the buildings and solid ground with walkways to give the map a 3d feel, instead of just walking around on the terrain. This adds a vertical aspect to the game, where attacks can come from above and below instead of coming from just your elevation.
I have also supplied down ramps on to the ice so access can easily be gained to all sections of the map with ease.
Part5 – Adjust and paint terrain
Now we have the rough shape of the major parts to the map and finalised a position for the static meshes, I’ll go back and adjust the terrain to blend in with the brushes and meshes. I have picked a winter scenario to help with this, where snow drifts into corners and builds up. Adjustments can then be made to the terrain to act like a snow drift hiding the blend between terrain and brush out of view. This makes the area a bit more pleasing to the eye.
Adding more layers to the terrain helps to ease the transition from gravel floor to rock to snow. I have used 6 layers (so far) on this terrain, 2 snow,2 rock and 2 gravel mix textures.
They have then been blended together so as try and hide the tile-able textures. Sticking to rules as gravel under water only and snow over water and having the transition at the waters edge adds to the effect of the buildings actually being in the terrain and not just dumped there.