A beginners' guide to making a map for TA Spring with L3DT

By Dead.Rabit

ok to get started, this is the reference page for this tutorial but to make a map in TA Spring you need 4 layers of a map

dimensions. as you may know the TAS client has a way of measuring dimensions less then 10×10 is a tiny map 16×16 - an average sized map suitable for 2v2 - 3v3's greater then 28×28 is a large map

• the numbers MUST be even

the first step: design map

heightmap - I find this the best thing to start off with, for the rest of the layers it acts as a kind of reference guide to where water is etc.

this is a grayscale image that denotes how high or low a position is

• white refers to a higher point
• black refers to a lower point

this file must be saved as a .bmp file format. its size is 1/8th the size of your texture map + 1

texture map - after making the heightmap I then go on to develop the texture map, I don't know why and I don't think it really matters, only that after seeing my texture map it will either encourage me to finish the map or make me want to quit this is a full resolution image of your map

• its in full colour
• can be saved as either .jpg or .bmp
• must be less then 600mb total size
• if you choose to save it as a .jpg file it must be a baseline image
• as always bit depth/quality dont matter

feature map - i do this after my texture map as it is the most depressing part of map making. the basics are it is a black map with different coloured pixels to represent where to put grass, rocks, trees or buildings.

• it is 1/8th the size of your texture map

metal map - this is what normally makes your map playable or not

• this is an image containing only red. the more red their is on a pixel then the more metal will be received from placing a metal patch over the point that that pixel refers to

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