Creative background choices

[mothwentbad]

Unfortunately, this is something that can't be shared because of bandwidth and having to upload pictures and stuff, but have you ever thought of reconceptualizing the context of the game and making a map appropriately? Say, a rather craggy sort of background, red creep, and a volcano and some fissures at the emitters. Or if you really want to go nuts, you could have an open wound being repaired by nanotechnology or something silly like that, and bloody red creep. I mentioned in another thread that you could be trying to destroy the tree of life or something, in which case the creep would be green, like a sentient forest trying to repel you, or something. Or maybe even a photo of an anthill, with black or red creep... Or an overhead photograph of someone's basement, with a busted pipe spraying water everywhere. Pretty much anything in an overhead view with significant height differences could be made into a map, and then you don't even have to invent anything for the elevations.

[djcian]

there is already an option to put custom backgrounds and there are some maps with custom backgrounds if you dig deep enough.  i have never used it but i think you just go to "terrain" in the map editor and hit the custom image button and download an image

[mothwentbad]

Yes, I've done it and it works. I meant that the thumbnails on the downloads page all use the same default background. I haven't tried uploading a map yet, but I assume maybe wrongly that you're not allowed to use a different background for the upload.

[knucracker]

You can use custom backgrounds for any of the uploaded maps but few people do.  You can look at the maps from Apocalypstic to see some of the most obvious examples.  There are some other custom backgrounds but they are subtle and hard to pick out from the thumbnails.  YOu can also look at "The Incident" map (filter on Virgil).  This background is a mars nasa image.

Now I can say that using custom backgrounds is a lot harder than you first think.  Too much detail makes the map difficult to see.  I had wanted to do a map where I designed the terrain first, then created the background specifically for the terrain... but I've not had time to get to it yet.

For the most part the easier custom backgrounds to use are simple textures with most of the contrast taken out.  Basically, take a picture of a painted wall or some carpet and contrast down, brightness up the image and it will sorta work. 

I like some of your ideas....  They would go good with the idea of designing the terrain first, the making a custom jpg to go behind that terrain (especially the open wound idea).

[mothwentbad]

Interesting, I was thinking just the opposite - Google up some images, and then make the heights match roughly what you see. Then see what kind of challenge you end up with, and adjust creep strength accordingly. Some more artistic types might have more fun going the other way around, though.

[Aurzel]

hey you forgot mine, one of the first :P
mr. flibble
in the red dwarf episode quarantine where that pic is taken from the hex vision that rimmer aquires is represented by the emitters on his and mr. flibble's eyes ;)

[mothwentbad]

Hee, I have no idea what you're talking about, Aurzel, but I'll have to download it now.

I uploaded Mt. St. Helens to the list. Maybe it's on there now. I don't know.

[mothwentbad]

I tried Mr. Flibble, and I couldn't win. I can't believe this is only a medium to you! Maybe some of the maps in the game are too easy...

I tweaked energy management, and got three drones and a blaster up and running, but it still wasn't enough, and the creep came in on the right side before I could make any permanent headway. I'd say it's a hard map.

[Argent009]

I uploaded a map today that uses a custom background but the map doesn't really follow any of the contours of the background, however I'm working on something that will. My problem is, what is the right size to start with when making a background so that it's going to fit the parameters of the map? For instance if I want to have say, a rooftop be in the lower right and raise that part of the map accordingly, I will need to have the overall image be X by Y pixels, anyone know what you need to us to make that work properly?

[Aurzel]

i put it as medium because after the first two tries i found it rather easy, i just needed to watch the creeper the first time and make sure i put my starting blasters in the right place afterwards, you need one to guard the joint bit of raised land on the bottom between flibble and rimmer and 2 should protect the creeper coming from rimmer's eyes, after that you should concentrate on overoming rimmer's eyes first before flibble's

[Mrmcdeath]

Has Virgil though of putting triangles in the game for parts of a map? So you could have a diamond and it's edges are straight not squared.

[Aurzel]

would mean more coding wouldnt it?
besides i like the square look, it's vintage lol

[Mrmcdeath]

Ya but it would look better if they had corner pieces. I like the square look but sometimes I just want those corners...

[TheBuilder]

By teh way, Aurzel seems to not only be post-master, (person with most posts) but also the uber CW player, (person that plays the game on double down like it be mission one).

[Aurzel]

actually i havent unlocked double down, i'm too lazy to move the save data to my new laptop v.v
and where did that come from anyway?