[Map] Darunta Dam (4km) [WIP]

[Hans Martin Slayer]

great job, looking good!

[Rudd]

nice work ghost this looks much better than the feat of engineering lunacy that sits on the coast of jabal

I keep telling you, the Americans airlifted the carrier in to a lake, its only LOGICAL!

Really impressive stuff mate

[Rhino]

looks good, your going to have to brake it up into many piaces in the export stages as its such a large object.

Also thous street lights look like the vBF2 ones, did you import them? they also look pretty odd being "side on" and having them on both sides. What I would do is remove them all then get the mapper to place each light by hand and also the single not double version, that way you use a consitant mesh and will be easier on the LOD and object detail, ie, overall better perfomance for the client.

[GhostDance101]

looks good, your going to have to brake it up into many piaces in the export stages as its such a large object.

Also thous street lights look like the vBF2 ones, did you import them? they also look pretty odd being "side on" and having them on both sides. What I would do is remove them all then get the mapper to place each light by hand and also the single not double version, that way you use a consitant mesh and will be easier on the LOD and object detail, ie, overall better perfomance for the client.

Yeah I just imported the stock bf2 lampposts. Tbh I just put those in for the preview pic... I was planing to place the lampposts in the editor like you said. Check the lampposts in these pictures . Notice how It looks just like the stock ones I used, also they are side on. But they are only on one side.

[GhostDance101]

Me and Terror Did some research into the sort of crops they grow in the Nangarhar region of Afghanistan.
Turns out they grow loads of opium poppy's and also a lot of marijuana.
As we have loads of farmland to fill I thought I'd make some custom undergrowth to make it more realistic and interesting. I was wondering if thats ok or maybe there is a strict no drug plant policy?
UN Opium survey

[Swe_Olsson]

Our troops will end up smokin instead of fightin..

[[T]blackflybro88]

ya then make it so if you throw a moltov cocktail in the middle of the field everybody screens get all blurry ROFL

[Terror_Terror_Terror]

YouTube - Huge Pot Field in Afghanistan

[space]

I have high hopes for the Afghan Army

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[Scot]

Saw that. Lucky fecker.

[Dr Rank]

better to get it made into overgrowth, but you can cross that bridge later textures look pretty cool

[Solid Knight]

How are you going to handle the water one one side being higher than the other?

[space]

How are you going to handle the water one one side being higher than the other?

Waterplanes

[Terror_Terror_Terror]

Hi there!

It's been a while since the last update which is largely my fault partly due to lack of time (if such a thing exists!), and starting the object placement from scratch post 0.8. A big thanks has to go to Rhino for helping me to sort out my staticobjects.con gremlins. Ghost has been busy making new objects (of varying usefulness ) many of which should feature in the map and he should be posting updates soon. So far our main focus has been terrain, colour maps, static objects and new objects. I guess there are still more questions than answers at this stage but we'll get there in the end!

A brief review of our map:

Name: Darunta Dam

Location: Afghanistan

Size: 4k

Factions: GB vs Ins

Game Mode: Scenario Mode (counter-attack cross with insurgency!)
So far the thinking runs thus: Brits start off with 3 flags. 1 home base far away in the NW corner and 2 control points on either side of the dam, 1 in the dam power base, the other in what was apparently a terrorist training camp! They start the game with trucks and land rovers at the home base and land rovers only at the other CPs. The Brits have to hold on to the 2 dam control points until the reinforcements arrive and they can mount a counter-attack and destroy the insurgent caches. One point in question is weather the Insurgents should have any control points to defend (i.e. a mix of control points and caches) or maybe "random" control points a la Operation Barracuda. As well as attacking the Brit Control Points the Insurgents will be able to disrupt and cut off main supply routes and the Brits will have to make sure the roads remain clear if they are make best use of their reinforcements.

The main topic of debate between myself and Ghost has been whether to downsize our map. Since we won't have jets most of the space will be of little use, and because the Insurgents aren't able to make rally points it could make team work very difficult for them. Personally I have been arguing for 4k because I think it will set the game in a more realistic context giving more significance to things like a flight in a transport chopper, the Brits would definitely need to manage their assets carefully and get the best out of them and make sure the long lonely roads are clear. But it seems trickier on the Insurgent side at this current point of thinking to justify 4k. It does make the Brits supply lines more vulnerable and it makes finding caches much much... much harder. Ghost's main point has been the scale of the terrain and how it will look in scale 2. We have some issues with the way the textures on the mountains draw, we largely reduced crawling mountains but the textures are still a bit flickery, does anyone know of any ways around this?

What do you think, should we downsize from 4k to 2k?

Here are some screen shots of the state of play. Obviously there's still a lot more to do.

[Rhino]

looking good so far.

I would keep it 4km, ye 2km has more detail in the terrain etc but for the most point, you do not need that detail, only when it comes to urban maps etc do you really need it for different levels of terrain in the city etc, for mostly open ground and village like this map, 4km is fine, you just need to watch out for the terrain LODs as they are the worst bit.

Gameplay wise of 4km with INS, you can focus the gameplay into areas, you can either do this with combat zones, or just focus objectives into areas of the map (best IMO). Think kinda like dragon valley, has all its objectives up the valley, you can do the same thing here more or less but not in the same cq wack a mole game mode and with just ammo caches in these areas, with maybe the very slight chance of a ammo cache being in the mountains or w/e to keep each round interesting
Providing there is transport choppers for the Brits, and lots of ground transport for the ins (techinals, cars etc), should be fine

as for your pics, your dam is starting to take shape but needs more detail, mainly texture detail, give it some dirt and crack textures will really spice up the texture and make it look less repetitive and more unique all over, with adding detail to the cranes etc, and maybe the odd bit of concrete chipped away will really refine it.

What I'm mostly concerned about is your villages, mostly because it looks like a cluster f*ck of statics from what I can see but also that 90% of thous objects are destructible, this meaning that if you have too many destructible objects on your map you will increase the chance of going over the netwrokable limit on the map and then result in the server running the map crashing all the time, think of Op Archer and Al Basrah in .7 or was it .75? Spread out your buildings, give them compounds, swap out the dest versions of the Afghan statics for my non dest Afghan statics that are in .8 and not only will you make it look overall nicer, you will increase the performance on your map since the more statics you have, the more meshes are loaded, the more texture memory is used and the more lightmaps are needed for them all which all in all result in lower performance. As IronTaxi always says, "less is more", aim for filling up areas with small props like pots, rugs, small rocks and bits of grass on the ground, this will add to the overall detail of the map and will make everything look so much nicer rather than filling up areas with just pure buildings.

Hope that helps, keep it up

[Scot]

Keep it up mate, looks extremely nice

[LtSoucy]

Great job, keep it up.

[Mora]

Sweet map!!

[Marmorkaka]

Lookin good

[Psyko]

good work.