User Guide

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8. Create waterways. Next, create the bodies of water on your map. Left-click on the Water Tool in the
toolbar. Then, click and drag in the map to create the perimeter of the water polygon. Adjust the settings
in the Water Tool Options window to set the height of the water and the density of control points in it.
✯ When shaping a water polygon, you do not need to fit it exactly to the shape. In fact, you can shape a
water polygon around multiple lake beds or rivers. Create the polygon so that it merely encloses the area.
EA TIP: When possible, use the default water plane in your map. For more information, ➤
New on p. 12.
❍
To reshape your body of water, click and drag any control point.
❍
To create a lake, click CREATE WATER POLYGON. To identify the shape as a river, click RIVER. Then,
click in the area to begin the flow of the water texture.
✯ While lakes have tides, river water textures have flowing currents. For more information, ➤ How to Build a
River on p. 53.
9. Paint textures. Now that all of your terrain shapes have been created, you can paint textures on them to
create realistic map features. In the toolbar, select the Large Tile tool to begin. In the Terrain Material
Options window, you can select the texture and define your texture brush.
✯ Textures are organized in folders based on appearance and geographical connections. All textures in the
same folder should work well together.
❍
To select a texture from the map with which to paint, select the Eyedropper tool in the toolbar. Then,
click the texture to use. That texture can now be painted with the other texturing tools.
✯ You can also fill a defined area with a single texture. For more information, ➤ Terrain Tools on p. 22.
EA TIP: When you select a new texture to paint, place a single-tile swatch of it outside the
perimeter of your map. A texture palette simplifies the selection, tracking, and replacement of
textures on your map.
10.Refine and blend textures. After using the Large Tile and Flood Fill texturing tools to define the large
texture areas, you can use the Single Tile tool to tweak the textures of individual cells. Additionally, you
can blend textures together.
❍
To blend two textures together, click the Auto Edge Out texture tool in the toolbar. Then, select the
texture that you want to blend into the surrounding textures.
NOTE: You can add some three-way blends between textures, but be careful. Don’t have more
than 300 three-way blends on your map, or you may experience performance problems in the
game. For more information,
➤ Auto Edge Out on p. 24.
❍
To blend a single edge of a texture inward, use the Blend Single Edge tool. For more information,
➤ Blend Single Edge on p. 24.
✯ What about the funny textures on cliffs? When you apply textures to steep surfaces such as cliffs, the
textures are stretched to cover the area. The results can be ugly. To smooth a cliffside texture, select MAP
CLIFF TEXTURES from the Texture Sizing menu. Then, click the texture to map as a cliff. For more
information,
➤ Map Cliff Textures on p. 20.
11.Place combat and civilian objects. Now that you’re satisfied with the terrain and textures of your map,
you’re ready to place objects on the surface.
✯ Place only objects that exist at the beginning of the game. Objects that are appear during the course of
the game are created through scripts. For more information,
➤ Scripts on p. 61.
❍
To place an object on the map, click the Place Object tool in the toolbar. In the window, navigate the
object library tree to find the object to place. Change its properties as needed. Click in the map to place
the object.
❍
To move an object, click and drag it. To rotate it, click the edge of the icon and drag the object to a new
angle. To delete an object from the map, click it and press
y
.
EA TIP: For a multiplayer game, don’t have more than 100 objects per player on the screen,
or users may experience performance problems. For single-player missions, limit yourself to
1,800 total objects.