[Question] Map Idea?

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Hey guys Im thinking of designing a map. I keep being strangely drawn to an area Ive seen near Hong Kong ( other side of the airport island )

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Ive not put any time into it at this stage, but a basic idea is to have it set in the evening ( think archer sunset ) and to have the US main base has an FOB on Ling Chau and the Chinese base in the hills near Mui Wo. Mui Wo will be very built up ( at least as much as Ejod or sunset ) and rise steeply from sea level so that the city isnt on one level. Between Mui Wo and Ling Chau there would be a container ship giving some protection to the US FOB. My intention would be to have it with APC's and Light helicopters only. In some ways it would be similar to Al Burj. I have many other ideas for it but at this stage I have some questions.


I know the DEVs kind of have a roadmap and Ive seen other people design maps ( sometimes well recieved ) but then found "its not part of the plan"

How long would you say it would take to completly design and build a map? ( I dont care if it takes me a year, but how many hours approx )

How much coding is involved and if you have no experience of coding ( like me ) would it be unrealistic to attempt this

Are maps only being considered for certain teams? ( Rhino already does a fantastic job on the chinese maps )

[marcoelnk]

"How long would you say it would take to completly design and build a map? ( I dont care if it takes me a year, but how many hours approx ) "

Depends on what you do :
- citymaps: a good citymap takes ages, especially for lightmapping
- sth like kashan or fools road : if you use programs like terragen or L3dt combined with T-paint you can do maps without lots of statics pretty quick (although the new statics in kashan and fools road must have taken quite some time )

If its your first map you will probably fail... i didnt believe that myself but ive been working on my first map for 9 months, then started a new one for the German Forces in PR and recently took a look at my old one again and there is so much which i would have to redo to make it look good that im just frightened
But for normal maps with normal number of statics and stuff i would say about 2, 3 months

Also note that the biggest mapsize you can make for bf2 (afaik) is the size of kashan, which is pretty big.
From what i can see from your pic you would need a mapsize 20x bigger...

I suggest that you do some small test maps first so you will see on what it depends to make a map look good...

Here is a software which can turn google map pics into heightmaps (never tried it myself but i think it works ) Lorne's Online Portfolio
This is a program for creating random heightmaps : L3DT - Large 3D Terrain Generator
And this is a program which will auto-skin your map for a good basic texture-layout: BF2_TPaint - Terrain Painting Made Easy - Official BF Editor Forums

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Thanks marco thats a great help. I would intend to practice first with some smaller maps to get used to the software. Also the picture I used would not be to scale, but it would be a similar layout. I have lots of time on my hands and im a bit of a perfectionist so Im confident that once i started I woundnt stop till I had a quality map. Also I enjoy modelling so some new statics woundnt be a problem.
Main question is the coding ( setting up the flags etc - is it possible to do a map and get others to do that stuff? ) and also what is it that the Devs are looking for - or will new maps not be looked at as theres already to many? Also is it possible to take whole parts of citys from other maps and kind of transplant them onto new maps?

[marcoelnk]

to finsh you map for PR (AAS, flags....) this tut is great :https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f189-m ... audit.html
( im doing it right now for the first time for my map so i might be able to help you a bit once you have sth to show )
DEVs have high standards on new maps and stuff and are somtimes fussy(is that the right word ?) which isnt bad but can be annyoing

[Mora]

The biggest map size isn't kashan(4KM) but wake island remake(8KM) but you need to cover the 4KM with something like water, otherwise something bad will happen.. i belief it was texture stretching not sure tho.

Every square on map is one kilometer.

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to finsh you map for PR (AAS, flags....) this tut is great :https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f189-m ... audit.html
( im doing it right now for the first time for my map so i might be able to help you a bit once you have sth to show )
DEVs have high standards on new maps and stuff and are somtimes fussy(is that the right word ?) which isnt bad but can be annyoing

Well yeah I wouldnt think of doing anything but a top quality map but its
its the "fussyness" that concerns me - maybe they think theres too many beach assault maps or too many Chinese maps, or too many apc only maps - who knows. Ive not seen anything in the forums on how these desisions are made or even who makes them! Is it a case of the Devs being the only ones who make the maps, and if they like the look of a community map they let it in, or is it open to everyone?

As a side note, Im under no illusion of what it takes to make a great map, but for example I taught myself how to use 3d max and made a pretty good (imo) heli model in a week. It took me 60 hours - but still once I started there was no stopping me! I sure making a map would be no different even if it took me 1000 hrs!

[HughJass]

https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f66-co ... -pics.html

kinda simular :\ (go to see last page for my progress)

but whatever, it'll be still cool if you do it

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https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f66-co ... -pics.html

kinda simular :\ (go to see last page for my progress)

but whatever, it'll be still cool if you do it

Mmm yeah not seen this. Some similar ideas. Main thing I wanted was a bit of height, and a city going up a hillside.

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That is actually monaco but hope you get the idea ( obviously city would be much smaller than this! ) Also although theres beach landings I was thinking of concentrating the battle in the city, and having one of the flags set in a cave complex and another on a communications tower. The idea was to make it fairly easy for the US to land. Also the flags wwould be hard to get between them without using helis and the apcs would be limited in what they could do. I find most of the maps just use helis to get from main base and not between flags, and also the armour/AA shoots them down to easily. Ive loads of other ideas for it as well.

[marcoelnk]

"kinda simular :\"
not similar at all

[OkitaMakoto]

A city map... if its your first, will take ages. Im going on just over a year and mine's just now getting to a stage where I feel good about it. Well, not good... Ive seen it crash in the editor so much I freakin' hate it now

Even if itsd not your first, mapping a city takes tons of time. You need all the statics, all the buildings, streets, planning, etc. But its worth it. I love maps like Qin Ling, but trees for me are just... blegh, A huge city map to me just seems so appealing.... too bad mine is so nooby

My advice is to just get on it asap. If DEVs have suggestions theyll let you know. Til then, just plug away at it. Most of all, dont give up. TOo many people start maps and then stop because they get tired or bored. WIth that attitude NO DEV will want to help you.

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A city map... if its your first, will take ages. Im going on just over a year and mine's just now getting to a stage where I feel good about it. Well, not good... Ive seen it crash in the editor so much I freakin' hate it now

Even if itsd not your first, mapping a city takes tons of time. You need all the statics, all the buildings, streets, planning, etc. But its worth it. I love maps like Qin Ling, but trees for me are just... blegh, A huge city map to me just seems so appealing.... too bad mine is so nooby

My advice is to just get on it asap. If DEVs have suggestions theyll let you know. Til then, just plug away at it. Most of all, dont give up. TOo many people start maps and then stop because they get tired or bored. WIth that attitude NO DEV will want to help you.

OK thanks - Ill flesh out the idea a bit more and hopefully when Ive done that, a DEV would comment on weather or not its suitable. I dont mind spending the time, and I dont give up, but its important to know that it would be considered. Obviously if it ended up being a **** map (irrelevent of what me or others thought ) then I would totally expect it to be disregarded!

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Well thats my basic idea for the map layout, it will be 4x4 The map will be very infantry focused with plenty of light helis, I want to encourage use of boats and helis ( I might make a new boat model )
It will be hard for APC's to get around, but ill make sure they have something to do. Low ground will have heavy vegetation with the higher ground ( which will take up alot of the map ) being fairly bare.

Flags:

Pipeline would only be accessable by infantry and heli for the chinese, and would have TOWs overlooking the water, but not the flag. very basic

Missile testing site perimeter will be large ( almost 1/4 of map ) but main area, similar in size to bunker complex on kashan, with various new missile statics and creative use standard statics.

Village very basic - size of fishing village on fools rd (think its that map? )

Container ship would just be the standard static

City - as large as I can make it but from what others have said, probably not too large

Silver Mines - not sure how much to develop this and may be linked in some way to missle site.

Any feedback?

[HughJass]

wow, that would be one HELL of a map. If anything, I'll help you.

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wow, that would be one HELL of a map. If anything, I'll help you.

Thanks HighJass - might take you up on that. At least one person out of the whole PR "community" has some interest in it! It may be a week or two before I can get started, as Im away for a few days and Ive got a heli model to finish. Plus Ill need to set up my spare computer with all the software and fit a spare graphics card. My main comp runs vista so im not even gonna try on this. can anyone answr my question about lifting large areas of towns from other maps, and transplanting them onto my map? This would save me a massive amount of time, but I presume its not possible.

[marcoelnk]

i suppose its not possible...
and if you need further help you can also ask me

still i think your area on the screen would require a much larger map than possible in bf2...
just start with a 1024x4 map (biggest mapsize) and make some hills, statics etc. just to see how big you can do it.
Note: if you want to make it 1024x4 then you have to do a little tweak to you terrain.con ( How To Make A Scale 4 Map - Official BF Editor Forums )

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i suppose its not possible...
and if you need further help you can also ask me

still i think your area on the screen would require a much larger map than possible in bf2...
just start with a 1024x4 map (biggest mapsize) and make some hills, statics etc. just to see how big you can do it.
Note: if you want to make it 1024x4 then you have to do a little tweak to you terrain.con ( How To Make A Scale 4 Map - Official BF Editor Forums )

thanks marco very much appriciated. It will take me a while just to get my hardware set up and all the software on my other comp. What additional software would you recommend - Im going to get terragen and L3DT and Ive already got photoshop and 3ds max. For the map size it will be full size, and the coastline will be as per the picture, but it might not be based on the same place for the mountains etc - I will have to have a play next week and see what I think.

[marcoelnk]

if you have terragen free version you wont be able to make 1024x4 map cause i think the max is 1024x2 for the trial version...
I use L3dt and i like it...do some testings until you get the result you want (PM me for any questions)
To get a good basic texture for your map use t-paint : BF2_TPaint - Terrain Painting Made Easy - Official BF Editor Forums
also if you want to recreate this area on your screen exactly use the program for real heightmaps on the first page . Havent tested myself but i heared from some other guys that it works pretty good.
you only need 3dsmax if you want to include custom statics in your map which i dont know anything about...
photoshop is always useful although im a newbie in that too

[Pride]

Here are some good tutorials:

Importing real world heightmaps into the BF2 Editor:
Lorne's Online Portfolio

Importing images into BF2 Editor as colour map (useful for using google earth pics as reference, or importing L3DT or Terragen Colourmaps:
https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f189-m ... rmaps.html

Great L3DT Tutorial, shows you how to create Heightmap, Colourmap, Detailmap and under/overgrowth files all in L3DT:
L3dt Video Tutorial - Official BF Editor Forums

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Just a small question on what the vehicle layout will be for both sides? will the U.S. have a more ground based amphibious assault or more of a air assault? and do you plan on putting aircraft like the Harrier or A-10 in?