The Ultimate Guide To Battle Realms Mapping

The Ultimate Guide To Battle Realms Mapping

Written by Buddy13 and [LoN]Kamikaze

Table of Contents
Foreword...............................................................................................................................................2
Walk through........................................................................................................................................3
Water Gather Points.............................................................................................................................7
Lighting................................................................................................................................................8
Sounds................................................................................................................................................10
Objects................................................................................................................................................11
Tagpoints............................................................................................................................................12
FAQ....................................................................................................................................................13

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Foreword
This guide is a collection of tips that were posted on the original Battle Realms
forums. The first collection was made by Buddy13. The original tips were
published by Buddy13 and [LoN]Kamikaze on the same forums. This edition was
put together by [LoN]Kamikaze from a web cache pointed out by Buddy13.
The methods listed here are by no means the only way to do things. They are
merely suggestions.
Be told that this is mostly a collection of quotes from a message board. That
means there have been no efforts to ensure proper grammar, spelling or
language, even though I took the freedom to replace some slang with English
words.
Many of that which is written here was found out through hours of careful trial
and error. Whoever wishes to make maps for the game Battle Realms, should read
this guide and be wiser for it.

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Walk through
Open WorldMaster and on the file menu, select "New", then choose the size and
tileset you want.
Begin by picturing in your head what you want.
First thing you do, no matter how slow your computer is, is turn on the "Display
Passability" option in the "Paths" tool menu (it is the button with an 'X' and a path
next to it).
The first step is elevation. Pick the "Raise Height" tool (the one with the pointy hill
on it). Now raise areas that you want raised. You must let go of the mouse button
for the passability to adjust to your changes.
Now, select the "Smooth Height" tool (the one with the rounded hill on it). Smooth
your high areas until they look natural. If you want units to be able to walk in
these areas, continue smoothing till the red disappears.
Click the "Paint Lakes" tool. In the left-hand column, set the Max Depth to 1 or 2
meters; This makes setting water points later a little easier. Usually the 9x9 tool is
good enough for this. Paint lakes on your map wherever you want. Remember,
You must keep lakes away from elevation changes, if you paint a lake on top
of a hill, then pass the edge, the water will drop down to the lower level and
you'll have a strange notch in your hill.
Now, you'll notice that the water you have painted has very unnatural-looking
edges.
Again click on the "Smooth Height" tool. Use the softest brush available (the one
with the most faded edges) and click and hold the mouse-button over the water.
Be careful not to accidentally smooth out any nearby hills. If you let go of the
mouse-button, the passability will recalculate. Once the lake is rounded enough
for your tastes, move on.
Now, move over to the "Paint Textures" tool (the one with the squares of different
textures on it.
First, paint stone on all areas which remain red. This gives a visual way to tell that
your units cannot go there.
Next, paint the Rice texture. Try to make sure that your rice is even for all players.
Some people like to line the bottom of lakes with this texture. You can use it
however you like.
NOTE: Painting rice does not mean that you have to have rice there.
Now, the Forest and Dirt (or wetlands or wastelands or whatever, depending on
which tileset you've chosen) textures can be placed anywhere you want. It's
entirely up to you.
The Paint Color tool. This one is completely optional. This can be used for many
purposes, but you don't need it.
Now is where you make a choice. Do you want to add trees to all of your forest
texture (if you painted any) or do you want to paint the trees in random areas. It

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looks best on the forest texture, but you can do it any way you wish.
Open the "Paint Trees" tool. If you want to put trees on all of the forest textures
that you painted, on the left, click on the button that says "Fill Forest Terrain".
Otherwise, Paint trees where you want them by using the brushes just like
textures or lakes or colours. You don't even have to paint them on a forest
texture.
Now, if you haven't painted rice texture under lakes, this part will be easy. Click
on the "Paint Rice" tool. On the left, click on the "Fill Rice Terrain" button. If you
have painted rice underwater, don't do that. Instead, paint the rice where you
want it with the brushes. You don't even have to paint rice on a rice texture.
NOTE: When painting rice, try to make sure that all intended players have roughly
equal amounts of rice.
Objects. The hardest thing for me to learn was to not overdo it with these fun
objects. There are many to choose from (but no ruins hint hint, liquid), but not
all have a good purpose.
If you click on the effects folder, you will see a new list of objects that you can
use. If you want to start simple, click on the "Butterfly.LFX" on the list. Now move
your cursor to the viewing window. Click over the rice or lake (or wherever else
you think you might see a butterfly). At first, you won't see anything. If you want
to see your butterfly, click on the farthest-right button (the one with the gears on
it). This will animate your world.
NOTE: Don't do this if you have a really slow computer. Continue to place objects
until you are satisfied.
NOTE: There is a limit to how many object you can place in the maps, so don't
overdo it.
Now, Click on the Objects folder. Here you will see even more things to play with.
Corpses and skeletons are good for setting up areas where you want to have a
messy slaughter. To rotate the objects (for a more natural, non-repetitive look),
left click the object (to select it), then hold the alt key while you left-click and hold
the mouse button. Move your mouse around till you are satisfied with it's
position.
NOTE: Make sure that when you "left-click", that you're doing it in the Viewer
section of the window, not the menu on the left.
NOTE: The object called "Boulder 1" is the boulder which your units can push
around. If you want Boulders on your map, this is where to get them
Still in the objects folder, Forest Alert. This object is not really an object at all.
This is how you make the birds startle when units run by. (it took me forever to
figure this out) Be sure you only place them in areas with trees. And don't use too
many of them on one map, they may slow down the gameplay.
Static Objects folder. This is where to get more, natural-looking rocks. Place and
rotate them the same way as you did with the corpses.
NOTE: The waterfall included with this version of WorldMaster is the wrong one.
Don't use it. Some people can get it to work, but it's difficult. If you must,

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download the patch which changes the Waterfall 1 into the correct waterfall. I
don't know where to get this patch, so if anyone knows, post a link in this thread.
Thanks.
Tag Points. This is the button with the little flag on it. First thing's first. You must
place "Team Start Points". To do this, select that from the menu on the left. Now,
place as many start points as you want onto your map. (e.g. if you want a four-
player map, place four start points).
Creature Spawn Points. Select this from the menu and place at least one. Right-
click on it, either in the viewer portion of the window, or the list at the lower left
area of the menu, and edit it. You must have at least one horse spawn point on
the map before it can be saved. After you have placed the horses, you can place
any animals you want. The only animals which affect gameplay are Wolves and
Horses. Any animals other than this are unnecessary, so don't place too many. I
like to place some fish in the water, and some frogs sometimes... And, if you
want, place a lily-pad spawn point nearby (in the water) so the frogs have
something to sit on, and believe me, they will sit on the lily pads.
NOTE: The creatures called "reserve_..." (i can't read the whole thing, the drop-
down menu is too narrow) all seem to me to be rats. Some may not be but I
haven't seen any. Perhaps liquid could tell us what they are?
Okay, now you can place "water gather points" You may do this one of two ways.
You may place them manually or automatically. If you want to do it manually, stay
in the same menu. If you don't want to do it manually, go to the paragraph after
next.
On the "tag points" menu, click the radio button (the circle-dot thing) for water
gather points. When you place these, they won't appear on the list unless you
want them to. (click on the checkbox at the bottom to make them appear on the
list). Now, no matter where you place them, they will go to the nearest valid spot.
You can see this by placing one on land, it has a white line going to the nearest
water, and a smaller blue sphere in the water. This is your water gather point.
Place as many as you want, but make sure that all players get at least one. If you
have a lake that you don't want people getting water from (purely for aesthetics),
then don't put any gather points in it.
To set water gather points manually open the menu for "Paint Lakes" again. At the
lower area of this menu, you will notice some Water Gather point info. Click the
button which says "Generate Water Points" and blue spheres will appear in all the
water on your map. Those are your water points. If there are not enough, change
the slider on the menu to a higher density (all the way to the left) and hit the
same button again. If you have a lake that you don't want people gathering water
form (purely for aesthetics), then go back to the "Tag Point" menu, and click
"Water Gather Points". Now left click any of the blue spheres in the lake you don't
want them in. Hit delete. Repeat until all the water points are gone from this lake.
NOTE: There is an easier way to delete them. Go to the upper-left corner of the
lake, left-click and hold the mouse button, now drag your mouse to the lower-
right. This will select all the Water Points in that area. Now just hit delete.
Now you're done with water.

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The following steps are optional.

The "Adjust Clouds" tool. This tool is only for aesthetic purposes as it has no
effect on gameplay (I guess the rain kinda does).
You can adjust the speed and direction of the clouds, by using the circle thing,
and the first slider.
You can adjust humidity. I like rain, so I set mine high. If you don't want rain, or
you want it to rain all the time, adjust the humidity accordingly.
NOTE: 80 percent humidity makes it rain.
Sounds (the button with the ear). These are optional, but will add to your map's
feel. There are many sounds to choose from. Choose ones that fit in with what
you have created, like birds, crickets, wind, etc.
NOTE: Keep your sounds volume to around 50 (to adjust this, right-click on the
sound, either in the list or on the map), so as not to be really annoying.
Lighting. (the one with a sphere and a light) You can set your map's light to one of
four different preset lighting conditions, such as "Morning" or "Night". The default
is Daytime, and if this is what you want, then you don't need to do anything.
Click on "Load Preset" to pick one of the presets. I don't know if there is a way to
customize these, but they are good enough.
Go to the Edit menu, then click on "Level Settings..." Now you can change the
color of the Fog of War (FOW). Save your map. Give it a clever name.
If you noticed, when creating my maps, I go from left to right along the toolbar.
This helps me to not leave out anything. I only go out of order when certain
things are needed before other things.
Now, as [LoN]Kamikaze said, placing water gather points manually, you can avoid
the visual problems which occur when peasants gather water from the same point
at the same time.

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Water Gather Points

Many people have trouble with placing water gather points, so here is a post I
made regarding that problem:
Always turn "Show passability" on. No matter how slow your comp is. (even if you
only use it while changing terrain and water)
First, when you use the "Paint Lakes" tool, the default depth is 32 meters. That's
way too damn deep. Set to less than 10 (even that is deep). If you want it to be
really easy, set it to 1.
Now, paint your lakes where you want them.
Now, if your lake is only one meter deep, smoothing is easy. Just smooth the
edges until they look good and natural. If your lake is deeper than that, smooth it
until you see at least a little passability (no red) at the shoreline.
Now, go back to the "Paint Lakes" tool. At the bottom, you will notice a slider and
a couple of buttons. Slide the slider all the way to the right. Now hit the button
that says "Generate Water Points".
This is the easy way to get water points.
(if you've set the water depth to 1 and you don't want troops to walk through the
water in a particular area, go to passability, and "edit passability". Paint where you
don't want them to walk.)
Compare those two images:

The first one has generated WPs the other one manually placed WPs. The manual
WPs make sure that peasants always walk to the closest source of water.
Generated WPs are placed everywhere including useless places, but too distant
from each other.
All Liquid maps have manually placed WPs. I think they added the generate WPs
button to make the editor more simple for beginners and lead to quick results.
However you should take the time and delete all WPs and place them manually
like in the first picture when your map is ready for release.

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Lighting
Here is a list of all the lighting options. Everything in this post is based on my
own experiences and tests. For better orientation I'll give every light a number.
[-] Lights In Scene
[D] Directional Light (I)
[A] Ambient Light (II)
[-] Terrain
[D] Directional Light (III)
[D] Directional Light (IV)
Light I and light II only affect objects like units, trees, buildings and so on. Light
III and IV affect the terrain.

Light I
[Diffuse Color]
Colour of the light applied to all objects, dependent from visibility and angle of
the polys.
[Ambient Color]
A colour which is applied onto all objects, dependent from the angle, independent
from the visibility.
[Directional Light Position]
Direction of the light source for all objects. Imagine the light source as sun or
moon.
TIP You can use the [Diffuse Color] setting and the [Ambient Color] setting for
light fading effects. For example an evening setting would look good with [Diffuse
Color] set to yellow and [Ambient Color] set to blue.

Light II
[Diffuse Color]
No effect.
[Ambient Color]
A colour which is applied to all objects, independent from angle and visibility.
[Directional Light Position]
No effect.
[Range]
Default is 0.25. Values above 1 don't differ from 1. This is the strength of the
ambient light.

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TIP This is a constant light. It is applied on every poly of every object. Think of it
as the minimum light applied to all objects. [Range] values close to 1 should be
avoided. They give the map a sterile feel.
Light III
[Diffuse Color]
Colour of the shadows on the terrain.
[Ambient Color]
No effect.
[Directional Light Position]
No effect.
TIP Don't apply light colours to [Diffuse Color]. Maps without shadows look sterile
and it makes orientation for the player difficult.

Light IV
[Diffuse Color]
Colour of the light, which shines on the terrain. Dependent from angle and
visibility.
[Ambient Color]
No effect.
[Directional Light Position]
Direction of the light source for the terrain.
TIP I recommend to play with [Directional Light Position] to get used to the effect.
The angle strongly influences the daytime.
Never forget to press l after changing a light setting and don't forget to update
the tree shadows. Also don't forget that the weather influences the light, too.

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Sounds
First of all, sounds add to the feel and atmosphere of a map. Whether you want it
to be an eerie, dismal map or a bright, sunny map, sounds can help or hinder you.
The first thing I consider when making a map is the ambient sound, that is, the
sound I want people to hear always. Sometimes this can be some wind, a swamp
loop, or just some crickets.
The first thing I do is choose what sound I want everyone to hear. Click the button
at the top with an ear on it to go to the sounds menu.
Click the sound you want, then click on the map somewhere (it doesn't matter
where for now).
If you placed the sound somewhere near the centre of your view, you should be
able to hear it.
Right-click the sound.
First, set the radii (min dist, and max dist) to 100 (the highest they will go). Now,
zoom out so you can see your whole map (if you get half of the map going grey
before you can see the whole map, you need to set the far clip plane to it's max.
Do this by pushing Alt+P). Centre the sound to the middle of the map.
Now put similar sounds around the map wherever you can see a gap. Remember,
you don't need 100% coverage.
Now, either on the map itself or the list to the lower left, right click each ambient
sound and turn the volume down to somewhere between 30-45. Ambient sounds
should always be quieter than main sounds.
Now, do you have a river or a forest?
Select some sounds that you feel are appropriate to the environment you created
and place them near these areas. Each time you place a sound, adjust it's volume
to around 50, this will prevent the sounds from being obnoxious.
You don't really need to adjust the distance for these sounds, but you can if you
want a greater area to hear the sounds.
After you have placed your sounds, you are almost done.
TIP: I never make the volume higher than 60%. Higher volumes disturb the player.

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Objects

Note: All objects can be scaled to different effect. Experiment with them to find
out what is good.
Listing all objects has now become impractical as not all people are guaranteed to
have the same list. And doing a list of the NEW objects would take forever.
So, I will just tell you this: Play with the objects to see what they are and what
ones you like.

To scale an object
Right-click the object. Most have three dimensions of scalability ( <x,y,z> ) but
some only have a universal variable. X is left-right, Y is forward-backward, Z is up-
down. (I'm used to z being forward-backward... so this confused me for a while...)
Most trees, to give the appearance of variation, should be rotated and scaled. Do
not scale trees outside of this range: 0.75-1.5*z (you may go up to 1.75 if you
have to) This is for realism. Most trees will look weird if they are outside of this
range.

To rotate an object
Hold the ALT button while LEFT-CLICKING on the object. Wherever you drag your
mouse is where the front of the object will face. Some objects (stone head and
stone man, specifically) are facing away from you when you place them and must
be rotated to be seen properly.

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Tagpoints

Team Start Point

This should be obvious. Place these wherever you want players to start from. Place
them relatively close to water and rice. Unfortunately, AI calculates path data
towards the nearest rice or water gather point, not the shortest route. In other
words, they will go to the nearest water, passing any other water on the way to it.
Kinda dumb, but whatever. Just be careful.

Creature Spawn Point

This is how you place animals on your maps. Horses are mandatory, the rest are
optional. If you have high terrain, avoid using birds.
Choose your animal from the list. I'm not sure what the "Reserve..." creatures are,
I can't read the full name, but they seem to all be rats... Try 'em out to see.

Defensive Objective Point

These are for AI only. You don't really need them (especially if you never play with
AI), but they make the AI play better by telling the AI which locations are
strategically important (such as high ground, choke points, etc.)

Water Gather Point

This is where your peasants will walk to to gather water. The denser they are the
better. This makes water gathering more efficient and realistic; peasants are less
likely to pass through each other while gathering from the same point. The closer
you place these points to the shore, the shorter the peasants' trips will be.

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FAQ

Can you rotate effects as well as objects?

I'm making a river go through my map, and I want to put some ripples in here,
but whenever I try, they are perpendicular to the river...
Yes, ALT+Left-click them, and drag the mouse around.
Also, with underwater things, it's helpful to right click them, deactivate "Always on
ground" and set the "height above ground" to 1.
The water effect you see in game is created by moving the ground underneath the
water, so some objects get obstructed when the ground moves.

I'm having trouble with my waterfall.

I'm trying to make a river go through a base then off a hill, and then have the
waterfall and then the river flow through the rest of the map. Whenever I try to
put the waterfall on there, it's all out of place. I try to raise the land under it to
make it look like it's on the ground but it raises too. Is there any good
techniques to make a river? When I'm making a river, I click and click and click
and it looks good but then I click again and the whole thing changes.....and
makes it really really deep. If I hit ctrl Z(undo), it doesn't fix it. It stays deep but
takes off the last segment of the river I just added. Any suggestions?
The waterfall, right-click it, and deactivate "Always on ground" and then, in the
box marked "height above ground" change it to -1 or -0.5 or whatever looks good.
And the river thing, sometimes water will change its depth to adapt to a new
height. You have to be careful to put your rivers on level ground, or they will force
a new level...
And, slap down a couple start points, some rice, some water points, and a horse
spawn point, just so you can save.

Tell what fast way is there to make massively tall mountains.

It takes me and my friends ages on a Pentium 3 - 600 MHz.
Use the "Flatten Height" tool as Kamikaze said. But you really don't want
massively tall mountains. Too high and the camera will look like it's having a
spaz-attack.

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