maps, yknow?

[Primefusion]

There's a few things that stand out to me.

- Unless this is, like, an air battle map with pretty much just flying units on both sides, half of the map can't be traversed. If you can chop off a huge portion of the map and not much changes gameplay-wise, it's kind of a sign that you didn't need it :/

- The mountains are really uniform and follow a pattern. This is pretty non-standard as far as nature's concerned.

- Going to echo Toa and say the mountain shading transition is pretty sharp. There should be some other peak tiles that help soften the transition, kind of like anti-aliasing.

- The non-mountain part of the map is super cramped. There's hardly any breathing room for units, only choke-points.

[Leifinator]

- Unless this is, like, an air battle map with pretty much just flying units on both sides, half of the map can't be traversed. If you can chop off a huge portion of the map and not much changes gameplay-wise, it's kind of a sign that you didn't need it :/

- The non-mountain part of the map is super cramped. There's hardly any breathing room for units, only choke-points.

yeah. if this map was to be used in a hack I'd obviously redo it but for now I basically just make maps which look pretty. I made it super cramped on purpose to give it kind of an untouched/untamed nature feel, just an almost unpopulated area except for some woodcutters and villages to the north. also I wanted to experiment with making a valley "inside" a mountain range :)

seriously though, is there a tutorial on the mountain shading? I have no idea which tiles to use to make a smooth transition.

[Primefusion]

Well, there's this post I made a while back, but it's pretty hastily thrown together.

There's also this thing I whipped up really quick:

Though the more I look at it, the more I feel like the shading should hug the peaks pretty closely. Less is more or something along those lines. It also helps if you mountains are really large.

As far as what tiles will help you transition:

The three in the red box are my gotos. They come in light, medium, and dark varieties. Just play around with them until you get something smooth.

When in doubt, though, use references. FE8 10A and 12A are pretty solid.

[Leifinator]

I let the mountains be mountains for now and tried a swamp / river delta type of map. Heavily inspired by FE8 13b.

Maaaaybe I overdid it a bit with the river branches... also tree bridges. Why are these so uncommon?

Possible boss location: top left fortress. Longbow/Flying rescue drop cheese included.

[Leifinator]

indoor maps, yay

might have a height error in the first one until I figure out how to do one tile high vertical stairs

second one is more of a second half map honestly... maybe I will make a first or just bigger (including this) one later

Edited April 6, 2016 by Leifinator

[ghast]

those big pillars are pretty interesting!

[Leifinator]

a water shrine thing, because everyone LOVES FE6 14x :^)

two versions because tilechanges much

[47948201]

Ooh, pretty, it seems like it'd play something like that Stoneborn chapter in Birthright but with less stupid stuff.

[Leifinator]

some ruins with lots of traps and hidden paths to find

Edited April 4, 2016 by Leifinator

[Leifinator]

solved version. will probably use this to practice eventing when I get around to learning it.

Edited April 4, 2016 by Leifinator

[Toa]

[spoiler=critique]

Just noticed some oddities here. For the red circles it seems like the walls would work better as these solid walls then a pile of them next to each other. The blue circles are walls that are oddly not joined.

[Leifinator]

[spoiler=critique]

Just noticed some oddities here. For the red circles it seems like the walls would work better as these solid walls then a pile of them next to each other. The blue circles are walls that are oddly not joined.

all of these are completely intentional, after all there are hidden paths and traps all over the place so in some spots the characters could see gaps in the wall and assume there's something behind it. also this ancient civilisation apparently had some weird tastes in architecture and design... (I plan to make more maps like this in the same fashion)

I like having the walls like this in the red circles, I think it gives the ruins a bit of a maze like feeling (although the map is a bit too small for that) with potential paths opening up and closing around every corner.

[Leifinator]

did someone say pirate invasion from the south?

no but I still made a map for it

Edited April 5, 2016 by Leifinator

[Matt Snow]

You can't walk to the left Island but you can walk across the two (middle) beaches on the left. Water looks kinda blocky in some places (the top left especially) but it's good overall. Your paths are all kinda short as well, and they don't really connect with each other. The fortresses also look a bit spammy but that might just be me.

Also someone (Probably Prime) might have already said it but all your mountains go to the top left corner and never split into different peaks. If you made some of the peaks move left, or have 2 peaks on same mountains with different elevations you could have the mountain look more interesting by having more shadows instead of a line splitting light and dark.

Other than that doing great.

[Leifinator]

I think I figured out how to do towns. maybe.