[Map] Ursa Initiative (2km) [WIP]

[rangedReCon]

Awesome looking map. Interesting mix of trees and I really like the undergrowth.

[Rhino]

looks pretty cool, but ye, you really need to post .jpgs I spent about 10mins loading all the PNGs on my 1mb DSL....

First your storyline with militia in Canada seems kinda odd, I've never heard of anything like it? Your map looks pretty generic and as such you could easily call it a map based arounds Russia and still have the Canadians or w/e taking out the militia there

Really need a minimap how ever bad it may look right now to give full comments onto its layout etc

Onto your undergrowth, you have done some nice things with it BUT at the same time, you have overdone it quite a bit. First of all, did you make custom undergrowth meshes / textures? looks like you have and its made your undergrowth stand out quite a bit from other bf2 maps, which can only be good
The main problem is your density, the height and you have mixed too many types of undergrowth into the same patches.

Biggest problems as a result for this will be gameplay, and performance. Due to the density of your undergrowth it will most likley lag most users to **** without super good PCs and as a result, the only way to get around that will be either to lower the density or lower the draw distance of the undergrowth. I would advice you lower the density as undergrowth already only draws upto around 50m so any less and it would look really, really ****, which will also effect gameplay which brings me onto my next point. At the moment, it looks like if you went prone in your undergrowth, even crouched in some cases you would get the impression you are "concealed" by it, and can't be seen by it and you have an advantage over the enemy because of this. That would be true in real life but this is BF2, where undergrowth only draws to 50m or so and as as such, past 50m all the enemy see is a guy sitting prone on some empty ground.
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x305 ... een028.png
That image is probably the best example, there there is loads where you can see past 50m and in that pic, you can even see where the undergrowth has stopped drawing. Now there is almost certainly undergrowth all the way round that bank, and if a guy was prone in it, even thou to him he looks deep in the undergrowth, all you would see is him sitting on open ground like you see ahead of you, which really flips the real life advantages on its head as now, the player who is meant to be concealed, can't see you but you can see him (and shoot him) perfectly. This is really bad for gameplay and as such, undergrowth should NEVER be made high or dense enough to be used as a concealment element as it simply dose not work. As such, you should only use undergrowth as a decorative tool and not much more. For concealment tools you should use overgrowth bushes, fields etc that draw for long distances.

Also in that pic I just posted above, you have undergrowth grass growing under your water, you might want to fix that

anyways that's all the feedback I've got for you right now, keep it up

[Scot]

Really nice map mate

[marcoelnk]

Nice progress mate.
Listen to Rhino's words

[Khidr]

Desertfox:
I created a heightmap back in Feb but wanted it to take place around the Kyber pass in Afghanistan. I quickly saw that the terrain was not suitable and gave up. Then at the end of march after playing my current favorite map too much(Kozelsk), I decided to map a forest map for PR. So besides the heightmap(which takes maybe 1 hour with L3DT), this map was probably started around March 30ish. I will note that I have put many hours into this map at the cost of really frustrating my lady. I also play PR much less than I used to


Rhino:
-jpegs from now on.

- Undergrowth/Gameplay Issue.
These are known and fully understood. I am trusting technology will allow us to continuously push these limitations. If this is not possible then I slash and burn the countryside until it works. But I am currently obsessed with making this work.

Also, what you see in those pics is the absolute maximum amount that is going to be on the map. I have done very little "human development" on the map so far and when I do even more overgrowth will be cut down.

I am tired, but I will try to explain the formula of why this might work in the next day or two.


- Minimap

- So my problem is that the lower half does not render in the editor. If I remove the overgrowth than I can get a full minimap(last time I tried).

- Remember this is both major WIP and my learning map. Ignore the colormaps as I'm going to redo them in the final stages. The "striped lines" you see are actually the vertical rock face of the mountains.

[Priby]

I really like the look of it.
But forget about militia.
Make a russian invasion

[Khidr]

Make a russian invasion

That starts in episode #4

[Kapt. Kroon]

Wow, really good! +1

[MaxBooZe]

ArmA2 anyone? It looks awesome keep up the good work!

[General_J0k3r]

it looks pretty awesome i have to say. i'm really looking forward to fighting there

[AnRK]

Nice to know you have a little series planned man, really really pretty map, shame about the undergrowth concessions your gonna have to make though. Such a pretty map I'm gonna almost feel bad shooting at people on it...

[Adetter]

Nice wood map!
Good work!

[sakils2]

Like for example Mestia's in Georgia yet supposedly it's in Chechnya...

Don't forget about the chechens in Russia seizing a rocket launching site.

I'm talking about Kozelsk.

[SocketMan]

I did not mention Chechnya anywhere in my post so I do not understand your question.

This Canadian militia will be loosely based on either the First Nations bands or Western/Quebec Separatists. These groups will provide the manpower whilst Russia secretly arms them...

They already speak English so it's not really a big deal. They're also wearing toques

I plan to swap out the AKs with FN-FALs if possible.

Anyways who cares, these details come absolutely last. Lets get the terrain itself completed before we go there.

I know their middle man!!! The ultimate goal is to separate the west of Canada to
weaken the NATO alliance in the North American region. -
Before proceeding with the ultimate goal of returning Alaska to it's rightful place under the 2 headed eagle

Lag wise -atm the maps that lag the most (for me anyway) are the city ones:
F.west and Ramiel these 2 have very little vegetation and lots and lots of buildings.
The GPU's are barely utilized (40%) - both maps are CPU bound (lag is cased by CPU,not gpu) so not seeing too many buildings/statics makes me optimistic about
this particular map.Rest assured it will be properly tested when the time comes,
for now let's keep our fingers crossed about Canadian Forces -maing it's debut
hopefully sometime soon.Lovely plants and vegetation btw - but desert will always be my "home";
I believe.
Like Marco says listen to Rhino (but don't cut the vegetation:razz .

[RedAlertSF]

Looks like heaven...so beautiful!

[Raniak]

I don't see violent Canadian militia as so far fetched. Hell, there are tons of communism/russian graffiti everywhere and we got a Revolutionary Communist Party. I know that they are not violent in real life, but it's not so far fetched to see Russia smuggling weapons in Canada and creating small militia before an invasion.

PCR Canada | RCP Canada | Parti communiste révolutionnaire | Revolutionary Communist Party
Le drapeau rouge | Révolution, la seule solution!
etc.

[fuzzhead]

Khidr, map looks great! keep it up, Im digging the minimap, good spacing of objectives / areas of detail, this has some great potential keep fleshing it out!

Remember - terrain deviation is your friend! small ditches and micro gradient changes especially in the dense wooded areas is what makes infantry combat so interesting I think in the woodlands.

Check Road to Kyongan Ni's forest for inspiration on these micro gradients.

[WallyJas]

Really interesting stuff ..... I like it.

I am wondering why Canadia would not send the police to take on the militia, would they really involve the army?