Introduction

This guide will show you how to make a map that is vault ready and legal, I will focus on terrain, textures and markers.

Getting started

The first thing we need to do is familiarize ourselves with the vault rules if we want to upload our finished map to the vault,
https://docs.google.com/document/d/19runtFHiJ-XdYy1jVPbBMQIUsMwRPmhdZ5aXj4SzMyc/edit?usp=sharing ,
we can then download some map editing software,
https://github.com/ozonexo3/FAForeverMapEditor/releases
once installed open the program and create a new map - file/new map

This will open up a window where you can name your map !!think carefully!! About this as changing it later can cause errors, certain naming conventions are against the rules (rule 10). Then you can give it a description now or you can do that later. Don't worry about the texture set leave it empty, the next option is type, leave it set to skirmish, then you can choose how many players you want to have, we can then move on to choosing our map size for your first map I would recommend either a 5 x 5 km map or a 10 x 10 km map, the next option allows us to set the initial height of the map I generally go for 100 as it allows space to move terrain down, you can't go into minus numbers for height, the next 4 options deal with water we will skip those for now as these can be edited later. We now have our blank canvas.

Terrain Tab

Sub tab terrain

When you click on the terrain tab you will see this

Size - change the size of your brush
Strength - change the strength of your brush
Deform - four options for how to deform the terrain *
Target Height - is the target height your brush will achieve
Min Height - minimum height for your brush
Max Height - maximum height for your brush
Rotation - the rotation of your brush this is in degrees
Brushes - are your brushes (custom ones can be added [link to guide todo])
Set Terrain Height - set terrain height will set all the terrain to that height (blank canvas)
Add Height - will add height to the terrain but preserve any editing you have done
The last 3 deal with exporting and importing height maps (not covered by this guide)

*Standard – Will take the terrain to the height set in the target height
Flatten – Will take the average height under the brush and deform the terrain to that
Blur – Will smooth out the terrain under your brush
Sharpen – Is the opposite of blur

Sub tab water

We will only look at the first 4 options in this guide ;

Water - water on or off
Water depth - the height of the water
Depth Elevation - depth elevation unused function
Abyss Elevation - abyss elevation the height at which the water will turn dark

More information on water settings can be found here https://forum.faforever.com/topic/59/about-water-introduction

Symmetry

If you are wanting any symmetry now it the time to choose it via the symmetry settings here are some examples

X symmetry

Z symmetry

X+Z symmetry

Diagonal symmetry top left - bottom right

Diagonal symmetry Bottom left - top right

Diagonal +diagonal

Center by angle

We can now start to create our terrain by using the options above, the only advise I will give is not to set your brush strength to high, and use ctrl g to switch to slope view which will show you where units can and can't path to and if ground is flat enough to build a base.

Texture Tab

Here we can choose our textures and paint them you have 9 layers total you can use lower and layer 1 – 8, this is where a lot of new mappers fall foul of vault rules [rule15], Your map should have the lower, upper and 3 layers filled. Make sure you have tterainxp shader on in the sub tab settings.

Sub tab layer

Here you can assign textures to each layer just click on the texture image to open the resource browser, here you can select your texture and normals just drag it to the image. You can also change biomes with the type drop down menu, once you have chosen your texture and normal you can change the scale of them with the slider underneath, repeat for all the layers you are going to use.

sub tab paint

Brush size - Size of the brush that we want to paint with.
Brush strength - Strength with witch brush changes are applied to layer mask.
Target value - Target opacity, that brush will change mask into when painting, values can be from 0 to 1
Slope min - Minimum terrain slope value for painting, allow for excluding flat surfaces from paint
Slope max- Maximum terrain slope value for painting, allow for excluding cliffs from paint
Scattering- Randomize brush position. It's great for blending textures and adding noisy details to flat terrain.
Linear brush is an improved brush behaviour. Supcom terrain shader is not blending layer directly by mask, but it's converting it to be more contrasted. Selecting brush to be linear will compensate for that change, allow painting to be more smooth.

sub tab settings

Here you can move your layers up and down, you also have options to import and export stratum masks, settings and templates, Make sure you have tterainxp shader on.

With these settings we can now paint our terrain in detail, for more information here are some links to more specific guides on texture painting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzTnDc2vKU4&t=3s
https://forums.faforever.com/viewtopic.php?f=53&t=18647&p=181228&hilit=texture+guide#p181228

Markers Tab

For this guide we only need to concern ourselves with 3 marker types the spawn markers, Mex and hydro markers, the spawn markers will already be placed on the map, However you will have to add the mex and hydro markers to your taste by simply placing them.

link to map editor wiki https://wiki.faforever.com/index.php?title=FA_Forever_Map_Editor#Introduction
link to maps and mods discord https://discord.gg/gN4SdPb![z smy.png]

tmm is coming robustness i believe they are in the final stages of testing atm

I would like to submit my map Perrote glacier, the original ta map is called etorrep glacier

Original

My remake

@FemtoZetta said in 2020 M&M Election Part 2:

Congrats to biass for winning this open election!

zulul.... although in all seriousness i can't think of any one that could compete with biass for this or is as qualified for the position

mapping tournaments happen maybe twice a year, been doing some last minute tweaking today, good luck my fellow competitors

thanks for sharing im in the process of reviewing the guides and tutorials available for mapping i think you just got yourself on the list

looks like a straight to dvd film box cover

@Tagada said in Unit Creation Tourney #1 (October of 2020):

Could you show how the visuals of the unit change with the change of players color?

yeah sure here you go

join the promotions discord they have access to lots of data and a specific channel for it
too https://discordapp.com/channels/197033481883222026/433140724276527109/682654791058325592

most likely although it's quite easy to import into blender and move stuff about then export again

@Jip said in Spaceship to ship question:

It may be in the model itself, e.g., that it floats slightly above the y = 0 plane.

i'll second that check where the origin of the mesh is relative to position 0,0,0 and where the main parent bone is located

Good luck to my fellow competitors may the best unit win and the rest be blown to pieces

ah i see might wanna add in info pop up or something to help explain that or is that already on the cards

whats the difference between casual and tournament?

@Tagada said in Unit Creation Tourney #1 (October of 2020):

Could you show how the visuals of the unit change with the change of players color?

yeah sure here you go

This adds a T3 spider assault bot to the Cybran line up,
The idea was to make a spider unit that could attack anywhere, So it has the ability to climb up any cliff or mountain and it's amphibious to,
Balance wise it is positioned between a loyalist and brick for damage, health and build costs,

Unit Lore Arachne

Dr Brackman in his quest to create the Monkeylord and Megalith, started by first making smaller spider tanks this unit was one of his early experiments,
it had long been buried in a secret abandoned research facility on Procyon. After the infinite war the Cybrans recolonised Procyon and discovered the facility,
along with the buried and forgotten Arachne unit, the settlers quickly realising what they had found, informed the Cybran commanders of their discovery,
the commanders saw potential in the old unit, and with a few modifications and updates, it was decided to add it to the tier 3 unit line up,
what else was buried in that facility maybe more units will turn up the deeper we go.

[Edit] i forgot to mention that blocking terrain type will still block this unit

I'd like to submit my mod Madmax's unit mod for the tourney

in the drop down menu in game

check the game log most likely found in programdata/faforever/logs