Hi people. I'm designing a format for a map in my game. I want it to have cliff and ramp, just like WC3. Thing is, I don't know how they make it work. At first I thought WC3 map was just a simple textured heightmap, but then it can have cliffs, ramps, which breaks the rules of standard heightmap. I guessed it was just a simple heightmap underneath, with "procedural" rendering for each tiles (I could see the heightmap layout in wireframe mode in the editor, thus I thought they just render each tile "differently").
Can anyone give me a hint on how to do that? I think I just got a few ideas, but somehow I feel not confident enough. I need the opinions of others. Thank you guys!
This is what I mean by cliff:
and this is what I mean by "ramp" (basically it's a passable passage that connects higher tile to lower tile):