posted 08 December 2004 00:30 AM EDT (US)
Hi all - and welcome to my guide. During this guide you will learn how to make really good realistic night scenes. Lets get started. For this part of the guide we will be working on creating a custom night time sky (without modding). Although we wont be modding we will end up with quite a master piece. In Age Of Mythology (TT) ES made a modely type for sfx and used a file to attach it to the unit. When you use tha Editors scale function only the unit scales down and leaves the sfx at standard size. This can be used as a great advantage, because by scaling a unit, say the relic down to an invisible size you will end up with a nice star like object. This works for many other units aswell. it should now look like this, try and get it to look somthing like this, It also works ggod with SkyStormy. WOW.... you have just made a great night scene that you can use in your cinematics
First place a selction of say 20 relics sapced apart from eachover. Then one by one scale them down untill all you will have left is the sfx - which looks like a star. For some anothe nice one try the Mirror tower which will give you a large star.
Ok now paint back arount the area that you placed the stars. Next make a hill slightly infront of the black are with the stars and paint it with a desired terrain. Now put the Sample Elevation brush to size 1 (extra small) and start rising the elevation under the stars so they arnt alll the same level in hight, You wont see the elevation because the whole thing will be black.
Now hit Alt- Shift-C on you keyboard and edit the pich and zoom to a nice angle.... (over 45 degrees). Also now set the light setting to night or somthing of the sort - If you have the New X editor you will be able to make some nice dark light settings. Then add a few units.
But now to make it extra special you should dress it up with some more objects, like some mist trees rocks ect.....
