Homeworld Maps
Maps in Homeworld are true three dimensional affairs:
great volumes of open space with only asteroids, clouds of space dust and
space wreckage to liven things up. As a result, there aren't any tilesets
or notable features to differentiate between them, save for the a different
space backdrop and lighting. Maps sites have already sprung up, and there
seems to be two types of downloadable on the Net. The actual maps themselves,
and separate background images that can be used as backdrops in map making.
Essentially, all there is in a Homeworld game environment and a collection
of free floating asteroids, tubes of space dust and other stellar flotsam,
and some strategically placed starting points. Homeworld maps aren't actually
a single map file or a 3D model per se; they're complex directory structures,
with lots of settings files and sub-folders in them to accommodate all the
different skirmish options that are available in the multiplayer or skirmish
AI games. You install these maps into the Homeworld/Multiplayer
subfolder.
Mission Man is the map editor that ships with
the game. It looks and feels just like a cut down 3D package, and is used
to arrange polygon models, game elements, starting positions for each
player and global settings for each map or level you create. There doesn't
appear to be any way to preview the maps you make from within the editor,
and unless you're familiar with 3D packages, I'm sure Mission Man will
bamboozle most people. Many of the serious custom mappers out their seem
to prefer a good text editor for their creations, preferably one that
can handle lots of open text files all at once. A good first stop would
be to check out the tutorials at the Mission
Man Help Archive.
Given the minimalism of these environments, most of the custom mods and
total conversions revolve around designing new ship models or tweaking
existing ship attributes and global game settings. See the RTSC
Homeworld Custom Mods section.
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Homeworld Mapping Links
There aren't
that many. Outer space doesn't seem to lend itself to huge mapping
efforts. |
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The
Drunken Pirates are a Homeworld armada who have created
their own extensive range of Homeworld multiplayer maps,
as well as
being responsible for the rather wild Homeworld:
Battleship mod, using real naval shipping and aircraft
rather than spaceships in outer space. |
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Free
Collective |
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The
Free Collective is a Homeworld clan that also plays other
multiplayer games. Their downloads
section contains a long list of maps,
some game recordings, screengrabs
and the 1.05 patch for the Homeworld. |
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Fulcrum
4's website |
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A collection of stylish
web pages dedicated to the Homeworld games. You'll find a nice
selection of Homeworld
maps, (fulcrum4's Homeworld map directory) which shows Sensor
Manager screengrabs of the maps so you can at last see what's
in them. Its a little incomplete, though, and hasn't seen much
action lately. |
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For an excellent starting
point on editing your own Homeworld maps, background skies and
lighting (or any mods for that matter), try The
Map Makers' Archive. However, it hasn't seen much action
since 2002. |
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JST-Online
acts as a sort of mod preservation service. safe haven for any
custom Homeworld mods and downloads rescued from disappearing
hosts as interest wanes over the long years. For maps, there's
its collection of all-in-one
map archives that should pretty much satisfy most of your
multiplayer needs for the entire series. |
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MacHomeworld is
an online project to port the Homeworld series across to the Macintosh, thanks
to the game's original source code being released by Relic.
Included in that source code package was the Electronic
Boutique multiplayer maps archive, hosted at MacHomeworld. |
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Ugruk's
Homeworld
Resource Page |
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Exactly
as it's name implies, this is a single fan's own Homeworld resource
page. It contains a very nice selection of multiplayer maps,
some by Ugruk himself, as well as
a few of his own mapping utilities,
custom backgrounds, some vital hints
and tips on building them, and a MissionMan
Guide to help in making Homeworld maps. While it may
not have seen any updates since 2002, this is still an excellent
resource for any budding Homeworld mappers out there. |
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Homeworld Overview
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