Any good terrain artists out there?

Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/Any good terrain artists out there?

Ok, I'm needing to start looking for some people to do "maps" for my game project. Though it's a first person shooter, the action is all outdoors (except a few enterable scenery objects that can be added later). Anyway, here's the specifics of how the game is set up:

1 Blitz Unit = 1 Foot
Each Map Playable = 5280 Blitz Units/Feet
Each Map Total = 6280 or 7280 Blitz Units/Feet

So each map is a square mile, with up to 1000 units/feet on each side which the player can see but not walk on (an invisible bounding box will warn the player that they are attempting to leave charted territory). I'm currently planning on having the terrain maps be meshes, and there are three different environment types planned: Badlands (desert), Frozen Wastes (arctic), and Ashlands (volcanic).

The maps will NOT have any object placement data (that will be handled internally), they will just be meshes using high rez DXT1 textures (2048x2048 is the current resolution of my test).

I'm assuming that since there are so many terrain editors for Blitz and other engines, there must be a good deal of people who are experienced at this sort of thing. I currently use Geoscape3D for making my test maps, but sadly I have neither the skill nor time to do any serious mapping (I'm too busy writing the actual game code). So, what I need is some people to create the maps, which I can then create object placement layouts for. If anyone is interested, contact me for additional details.

Oh yes, there will be money involved by the way.

I'd contact RifRaf. He's the best IMO.

www.empowergames.com I think

Thanks, I'll look into that, but I think I might need more than one artist, since I'm planning on quite a few maps. The game will be set up like this:

Tutorial/Demo Mission (Badlands 0)
Badlands 1
Badlands 2
Badlands Boss 1
Badlands 3
Badlands 4
Badlands Boss 2
Frozen Wastes 1
Frozen Wastes 2
Frozen Wastes Boss 1
Frozen Wastes 3
Frozen Wastes 4
Frozen Wastes Boss 2
Ashlands 1
Ashlands 2
Ashlands Boss 1
Ashlands 3
Ashlands 4
Ashlands Boss 2
Finale (Ashlands 5)

Of course it won't be too bad, since I'll handle all object placement, including the static scenery objects my own artist is creating. Basically I'll just need blank maps with good layouts and a nice visual flare, the rest will be my job.

bryce? can't that produce height maps and textures ?

I think bryce is mainly for prerendered terrain stuff. Something simpler like Geoscape3D would seem more feasible. Regardless, I can't do well with either...but I'm sure there are many who can.

I could do those in pretty much any format you like. Large colormap and detailmap on a mesh terrain, or alpha blended layers for more crisp textures at the cost of overall poly detail. You can contact me

on MSN messenger Gamemaker04, or
just straight email GameMaker04@....

I dont like to talk business on forums so ill leave it at that. We could talk more if you contact me with one of the above methods.

Sounds good, adding you to my MSN list.

(Edit: Gamemaker04 doesn't seem to work on MSN)