Project Reality Forums

CroCop_PR wrote:Hmm this makes me wonder... Would it be possible to make a "Community" map?

As in we got a team of mappers and one of them starts the map (ofc there would be some kind of voting for what kind of map) and has a period of time to work on it and then its being transfered to another mapper who has the same amount of time to work on it and he passes it over to the 3rd mapper (I think you figured out what im trying to say). This could create a interesting style of the map IMO

I've seen a group of mappers doing this for a HL2 and I found it to be very interesting.

Ye "Mapping Teams" can be done and have been done in many places but in general, most mappers believe that multiple people working on the same thing can spoil the end result, ie, too many ***** in the kitchen. I would only consider that kind of approach if the map was SOOO large that you need multiple people to work on it just to finish it any time soon, which some of you may want to consider if you decided to do a 4km map for example, but this would really only help if you where working on it more or less the same time, and then that will bring in many complications of files mismatching and being more or less impossible to integrate. Only simple way to work like this was to dedicate one guy to do only one type of task at one time, as such, one guy works only on statics for that day, anouther guy only works on Overgrowth and Undergrowth and anouther guy only works on sound. But the chances are, the guys working on both the Statics and Overgrowth and undergrowth will want to change the terrain slightly while working so there static can fit on the terrain nicly or there tree can go on a nice flat place or w/e, and if this happens then when you try and merge your terrain data, you will either loose one of the guys work from it being overwritten or you simply wont be able to merge it without a load of hand editing in photoshop, which if it was a big terrain edit wouldn't help. So as you can see, would get very complicated. Would advise on using a REPO/SVN system if any one was going to seriously consider this thou.

I do believe that you can benefit from having anouther mapper fix up parts of the map that anouther mapper simply can't do, or can't do as well. For example, IronTaxi after he has finished sculpting his terrain, he normally asks me if I can paint it for him and setup a base for his Overgrowth and Undergrowth to, to work from. This can take me only like 24 to 48hrs to do, depending if I need to make a climate ontop of it and can save Taxi months of work, like it has for Fools Road etc

vfn4i83 wrote:Don't get me wrong, but with we had a full year would be wonderful, but someday it has to end.
The length will determine a lot of the Level Design.

Ye, thou if we did have to end it after say 6 months or so and a mapper missed the deadline, there is no reason why he could not keep on working on the map until it was finished and then it still could go into the mod in a later stage

addaco wrote:I am interested in this comp.
I have done limited mapping (finish the EA Tuts, some BF editor tuts)
I just need to refine my skills

More importantly I agree with some others who have said it, this comp. needs a theme. A theme will in turn make better maps as there is a brief. Also there are many com. factions that dont have maps. Possible themes: Africa, Israel, Europe?, Japan.

azreal64 wrote:Personally I'm not in favor of a theme. If these maps are going to be used, it kinda goes back to what Rhino said about a modeling contest. Who would want 20+ desert maps. A little variety never hurt anyone.

Like I basically said before that azreal picked up on, there will not be one single theme of like say a "British vs MEC map in a mountain range based on this r/l location" as we would end up with 20 maps that where all pretty much the same with only slight differences. Although this would certainly be the best way to find out "who is the best mapper in the community" but really, that is of no real interest to us, the main thing we are interested in is having a bunch of new maps and encouraging more people to take up BF2 mapping and help contribute to the mod

What we will most likly do is give a bunch of themes to choose from, with also the option to completely ignore the themes if the mapper wishes to do some other idea they have or we will do a very general theme that could come out as anything.


Hope that helps, Cheers

i would be up for it, but it'll be almost impossible for me to actually compete, as i've got little mapping experience and i would only be able to do so when i'm home

it is an awesome idea and some of the outputs from it will be great and staging several of these would result in some quality maps for PR

[quote=""'[R-DEV"]Rhino;992812'] ie, too many ***** in the kitchen. [/quote]

Nice typo


[quote="Sars99""]i would be up for it, but it'll be almost impossible for me to actually compete, as i've got little mapping experience and i would only be able to do so when i'm home
[/quote]

Everyone starts somewhere. The majority of PR mappers, have only made maps for PR.

[R-CON]space wrote:Nice typo

hehe, think I'll leave it

bumpy, lots of people have voted so far but the more votes the better, cheers!

I'm up for it.

This might be interesting, though I have to learn everything
(I haven't downloaded the software needed either xD)

I don't know, but the sound of a "team" mapping competition sounds pretty appealing to me. I understand that it can easily get complicated but its doable, just with a lot of precaution.

If this contest was to happen, would you allow mapping team submissions as well as single mapper submissions?

ye, but I wouldn't advice mapping teams unless the map was very large AND all the mappers where pretty experienced.

In PR some of the mappers sometimes hand over maps to other mappers to do stuff on like Taxi normally hands his maps over to me after he's finished sculpting the terrain for me to make a climate and run it though L3DT so he can get a good base colour, detail and low detail textures, as well as a base undergrowth and overgrowth to work from but after I've done that, I just hand the map back to him.

If a mapping team was going to happen they would need to be really strict about what each person worked on, would really need a SVN system setup and would all know which areas they where going to work on at what times. Its not a simple process of integrating 2 staticobjects.con files if 2 mappers have both changed that file, and even if you have say 1 mapper working on roads, and one mapper working on statics, both mappers at some point will most likly need to alter the terrain so there road / static fits onto it niceley, then you get a huge conflict as its much easer to merge code differences than it is to merge heightmap differences...

The best setup would be to agree never to have more than 1 mapper work on the map at the same time, and always update the SVN after every little bit of work they have done. So really, if you had 2 ppl in 2 totally different time zones (ie, one guy from the UK and the other in Aus) then that could work, but as both would hardly be on at the same time you wouldn't be able to talk much about what you wanted to do...

You would run into soo many complications, I personally wouldn't bother, you will also get conflicts of intrest where one mapper wants something done, and another dose not. Then you really need a "head guy" to have the final word, and then that really dose not inspire the other guy to work much...

i guess what I meant by map team is that 1 guy maps and the other guy evaluates and occasionally maps. I always find my self questioning on how to make certain areas. It is always great to have someone there to ask those questions.

First i gotta know the "Rules" for PR mapping, then we can talk.

torenico wrote:First i gotta know the "Rules" for PR mapping, then we can talk.

https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f354-c ... lines.html

go

HughJass wrote:i guess what I meant by map team is that 1 guy maps and the other guy evaluates and occasionally maps. I always find my self questioning on how to make certain areas. It is always great to have someone there to ask those questions.

well that's more asking for advice from another mapper, its the kinda thing that Ranky and KillPirate, aswell as Taxi and Okita do

torenico wrote:First i gotta know the "Rules" for PR mapping, then we can talk.

hehe, all in good time, gotta lotta planning first but looks like something I'm going to have to do with over 80 people interested in this

What I would recommend at this point if you are looking to take part in this and you have not mapped before or been some time since you last map, to simply make a small, 256x2 test map where you just run though all the tutorials out there and get to learn the editor as much as you can before the contest begins

[R-DEV]Rhino wrote:

hehe, all in good time, gotta lotta planning first but looks like something I'm going to have to do with over 80 people interested in this

What I would recommend at this point if you are looking to take part in this and you have not mapped before or been some time since you last map, to simply make a small, 256x2 test map where you just run though all the tutorials out there and get to learn the editor as much as you can before the contest begins

I have mapped before.. im making a FH2 map

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[spoiler]http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/8272/wip25.png[/spoiler]


Sadly.. when map comes to crash.. i cant do anything. I dont know how to fix Init.con or something. I usually have problems whit the Water (Not moving ), Fog and the Sun .


But im running into a big trouble.. i did not had this whit FH2, but whit PR, cant spawn Tanks or cars.. object spawner list is Empty. But lets not turn this into a Q&A.. if u wanna answer me.. PM

^^^
Awesome map man.
Yah follow some of PR's tutorials on starting it up or ask the FH2 Devs

torenico wrote: Sadly.. when map comes to crash.. i cant do anything. I dont know how to fix Init.con or something. I usually have problems whit the Water (Not moving ), Fog and the Sun .


But im running into a big trouble.. i did not had this whit FH2, but whit PR, cant spawn Tanks or cars.. object spawner list is Empty. But lets not turn this into a Q&A.. if u wanna answer me.. PM

Fog, sun and water works the same way in FH2 as it does in PR. All their settings are under the level tweaker settings.

To place PR object spawners, you need the PR object spawner file. Ive got a recent one, but its still WIP apparently. Im sure Rhino will post up a link, if the new one is available. ( if you read the tut about setting up the editor for PR, there is a file to download called PR_EDIT - Im pretty sure it automatically installs the object spawner file, but iirc, the present version is only for PR 0.8 )

Would this mean i could enter my map that i started about two weeks back or will it be all starting new maps from when/if it starts?

I wouldnt mind creating a few statics for people if they would like to use them. I have a few good ideas for maps aswell but my fortae lies within 3d modeling and 2d work, so I may have to watch from the sidelines for this one.

But as I say, I wouldnt mind in helping to create a few statics.

Just a small update for thous who are interested in this, I'm still looking into this but as of yet dunno if I will have the time in the future to run this so ye, unsure if this will go ahead or not yet. Cheers

Squaddie09 wrote:I wouldnt mind creating a few statics for people if they would like to use them. I have a few good ideas for maps aswell but my fortae lies within 3d modeling and 2d work, so I may have to watch from the sidelines for this one.

But as I say, I wouldnt mind in helping to create a few statics.

Have you ever completed any statics fully for BF2 (ie, fully modelled, UVed, exported and coded them) and do you understand BF2's texture pallets and how to use them? If not, I would suggest you do before you offer to make any statics

I have modeled, textured, animated and uved stuff, but never exported for use in bf2. I have only ever created works for Total war games and for stuff at college and personal use. I will pick it up easily though (hopefully) as I already have a good grasp with 3ds max and photoshop and several techniques when it comes to coding and scripting.