Terrain Placement Basics

From AgeofWiki

Welcome to the Terrain Placement Guide. This section, will introduce you to laying down the terrains, making cliffs and mountains and other stuff possible.

Brush Settings

We will start by looking at the different Brush Settings offered by the AoE3 editor. The Brush setting can be accessed by selecting the option under the terrain menu. The editor offers two shapes of brushes - circle and square. Then, there are varying sizes for the brush, smallest to largest. They can be changed from the Brush Settings menu, or the sizes small-medium can be changed using the number keys on the keyboard. 1 stands for the smallest, then 2,3 to 8,9,0 where 0 stands for medium size. It is important to keep these sizes in mind, especially when you go into terrain mixing or laying down forests.

Placing Terrains

AoE3 offers many types of terrains to design your map. For a full list of terrains available click here (http://AoE3.heavengames.com/scendesign/basics/xterrains.jpg).

The terrains are organized into various groups like Grass, Sand, Ice, Forest, etc. Each group contains the terrain which suits them. Usually a good map is obtained by mixing the various terrains available in these groups for a more eye-appealing effect.

In Age of Empires 3, terrain types are organized by geographic region or map type. For instance, a map set in Texas uses a set of predefined terrains showing grass, scrub, dirt, and rimrocks. All of the possible terrains used on the Texas random map can be found in the Paint Terrain menu under the Texas palette.

A few predesigned Terrain Mixes are available which blend areas of two compatible terrains together in a random way. For instance, a dry, brown dirt terrain is mixed with a grassy terrain from the same geographic category to create one or more transitional terrains, one favoring the grassland type, and the other favoring the dry dirt; these are labeled Texas_grass and Texas_dirt, respectively.

TIP : Just laying down one type of terrain doesn't look good. be sure to mix terrain types in a map for a more realistic effect.

TIP : To quickly switch between terrains, right click on a prior used one to make it active again.

Placing Water :

The water tool found in the terrain menu allows you to place down water bodies on the map. The water bodies are divided into three categories - rivers, lakes and oceans. You just need to select the type of water body you want to place and click on the map to place it. Water bodies will be only placed for Brush sizes medium to large when the brush settings are accesed through the terain menu.

In Age of Empires 3, the River Tool is a separate tool and places the river along a predetermined path. You place the river path waypoints on the map in the direction of river flow. Tool options include river width and terrain type.

TIP : Although the beautify tool is a great way to make water bodies look nice, adding eye candy manually is the best and will be discussed later.

Canyons/Cliffs

The canyon/cliff tool can be accesed through the Terrain menu, or from the tool bar allows you to either place a cliff (above sea-level ground) or canyons (below sea-level ground) on the map. Various types of default terrain cliffs/canyons are available, and you can choose the one you want from the list-box which appears. The height setting will determine if it becomes a cliff or a canyon. The default height on a new map is 4. Anything below 4 will be a canyon and anything above will be a cliff. If you forget what height your cliff/canyon is, right clicking anywhere on a current cliff/canyon will change the height setting to that cliff/canyon's height.

Forest Placement

The Forest tool, accesed through the Terrain menu is used to lay down a tree, clump of trees or an entire forest on the map. Various kinds of forest types such as Oak, Pine, Palm, Autumn Oaks, etc are available to be placed on the map. Different brush sizes lay down different number of trees on the map.

In Age of Empires 3, Forests are designed to complement a variety of geographical regions and climates: New England broadleafs, Texas scrub pine, Carolina marsh cypress, and Rockies Snow conifers are some examples. Each Forest type contains a nice variety of tree forms and an assortment of species. Options include Density, Clumpiness, and Underbrush.

TIP : It is always a good idea to mix the type of trees you are laying down than laying down just one kind of tree type.

That was a basic overview of the tools available through the terrain menu. When combined together these tools contribute towards making a beautiful map.