Hello. I don't know anything about making or coding maps, but I thought I would share what I know with you.
The background is called the "shellmap" and the RA shellmap is known as the "desert-shellmap." You can explore the files at OpenRA>mods>ra>maps>desert-shellmap. You'll need a special text editor though, like Notepad++.
Maybe that will give you an idea about what goes in to making the shellmap. Hope this little bit of information helps!
Basically you can have every map as shellmap (and also more than one shellmap, the game auto chooses one of the available ones).
You need to define "Visibility: Shellmap" in "map.yaml" (the default is "Visibility: Lobby").
Aaron_Lloyd wrote: What ever happened to the temperate shellmap? I miss having a bit of variety going on in the background while I waited in the lobby. :p
Nothing wrong with variety but it was decided that it wasn't actually very good so it was removed.
Scott_NZ wrote: Nothing wrong with variety but it was decided that it wasn't actually very good so it was removed.
Oh you mean the Artillery fire + tank fire + exploding buildings + cruiser fire + chrono + triple nuke, all happening in the time-span of about 5 seconds? LOL good old times - "Time to play some OpenRA. Better turn down the volume a bit."