I'm a fan of RTS (real time stragy) game, and i'm working for a rts game myself!

I can produce a simple terrain map from triangle/quad. with texture tile/ blending... Now I want to move to a new level. Currently i'm using only lighting shader, with Phong shading I think with specular,diffuse color... very basic shading!

And the result is not bad, but still cant compare to current game today (like starcraft2, civilization V, shogun 2 campaing map....). For example the terrain in starcraft 2 look very shining, rich color, sharp, and cool. It doesnt need to look reality in this kind of game. It just look nice, beautiful!

For example : https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-zNtnsUV02wc/UkxFLpKmJJI/AAAAAAAAAEE/USuWhYK8JfE/w1049-h831-no/Terrain+001.jpg

http://i.stack.imgur.com/0Wb2j.jpg

So I know that just sampler (linear/point...) the texture is not enough (even the how nice the texture). There must be some high technique behind for current game. Like Bloom, HDR, directx 11 lighting, Bump Mapping...

Cause I'm quite new to 3d, so I'm not sure what technique is to be used. Just give me the keyword, I can search google for it (doc,source code...). Thanks!

Today I just extract the texture of starcraft2 (use MPQEditor), they use texture of size 1024x1024 dds file (format D3DFMT_DXT5) and a bump normal image file of same resolution. I tried to test the texture in my game, but it's quite dark, of couse it need pixel shader to make it look nice !

And the result is not bad, but still cant compare to current game today (like starcraft2, civilization V, shogun 2 campaing map....).

You will never be able to compare. To do so, you first need an artist and you probably need a budget, counting at least 4 digits.

What I'm trying to say is that you don't make a game using technical feats alone. You need artwork, you need a aesthetic vision, a look and feel. Those concepts are not currently present in this thread, and that's terrible. It's not just a matter of doing HDR or bloom (strange, it's part of HDR) or DX11 lighting (whatever this is supposed to be) or bumps.

Yeah I know, behind a good graphic, there will always be an artist. Cause I'm a programmer, so all I want to know is the technique behind something excellent! When you want to learn something new, and if no-one teach u, it's best to try to emulate other work with existing material (u can extract things from other work for study and practice).

Oh I know Bloom and HDR have something in common, just never try them before! I'm quite new to shader anyway, in the old time I used to work with Pipe line more!

Blizzard & AMD published a whitepaper that covers many graphical aspects of Starcraft II:
http://developer.amd.com/wordpress/media/2012/10/S2008-Filion-McNaughton-StarCraftII.pdf