Project Reality Forums

I know that the Dev team are planning on publicising the mapping guidelines after V0.5 is released, but it would be cool to have some discussion here first, to see if our ideas tally with theirs. So here are a few points I think a good map should have.

1) Lack of clutter, I think the VBF2 maps are generally well designed, clutter-wise. Sensible cover is good, but too much clutter looks 'deliberate' and detracts from both realism and gameplay.

2) Textures, if possible use the existing professional textures from BF2, since they look great.

3) Scale, dont be tempted to make the maps too big.

4) Routes, dont make 'mazes', make areas in the maps easily navigable.

5) Chokepoints, these are areas at which that most firefights will take place, good to have them, but ensure at least one alternative route is available.

6) Linearity, make the cap points follow a sensible trajectory through the map - perhaps along a geographical feature.

7) Vehicles, these are due to become much tougher and central to the game in V0.5 think carefull about how and where they will be used.

Open areas, mid range firefights are great fun, dont cramp people up too much.

9) Realism, maps should look like real-world environments, and such environments have an internal logic.

10) Fairness, don't make one side have to run a mile to get to the first flag while the other side rides in a fleet of limos.

all what you have stated to be honest is just common seance for a mapper hehe.

Our Guidelines we will be posting are more about settings etc and is about 5 pages long

'[R-DEV wrote:Rhino']all what you have stated to be honest is just common seance for a mapper hehe.

Our Guidelines we will be posting are more about settings etc and is about 5 pages long

??:

5 pages ? heh bring on the sleepless nights and constant overgrowth adjustments lol

seriously cant wait for them though, it would make my life much easier following the guideline than doing it blind folded

Cheers - Sky

Darth.Skyline wrote: ??:

5 pages ? heh bring on the sleepless nights and constant overgrowth adjustments lol

seriously cant wait for them though, it would make my life much easier following the guideline than doing it blind folded

Cheers - Sky

its more about spawn times and gameplay settings to make the maps more to the gameplay that we want in our mod. not about how to do low detail textures, how to use the overgrowth tool etc. Thats all tuts that are the same for BF2 maps.

EDIT: for exsample here is a very small bit of it with the values removed.

Decay Timers and Distances
Decay timers are used for vehicles to stay around after a player has jumped out of them and walked away, they will stay around for a period of time and that time is set on the value you put into the decay timer. The timer will only start if the player is out of the Decay distance which is a radius around the object set by the mapper.
These values should be set to:

Land Vehicles (Jeeps, Tanks, etc)
TimeToLive (Decay Timer): **** (****mins)
Distance (Decay Distance): **** (meters)

AirVehicles (Jets, Choppers, etc)
TimeToLive (Decay Timer): **** (****mins)
Distance (Decay Distance): **** (meters)

Oh sweet ^^ btw i said constant overgrwoth adjustments cause thats what im doing right now

Cant wait though! Did you write the guidlines ? (i know you got help from duckhunt and the other PR Mappers out there )

Darth.Skyline wrote:Oh sweet ^^ btw i said constant overgrwoth adjustments cause thats what im doing right now

Cant wait though! Did you write the guidlines ? (i know you got help from duckhunt and the other PR Mappers out there )

egg did most of the work then i tweaked it and added to it.

EDIT: put it this way we have a 145 posts in the topic about it.

@ Rhino,
Look forward to it,

Cheers!
PMED

Really looking forward to it. Appreciate the hard work and I'm sure it will encourage more people to make some more awesome maps.

with the overgrowth, is that the grass?!

Is it possible to make the grass visible from a distance without any performance issues?

OVergrowth is the Trees and stuff,

Undergrowth is the grass and plants etc.

Im not sure you can ^^^ it would cause alot of lag to render under/overgrowth at a very long distance.

Not entirely sure so wait till Rhino answers this one (or duckhunt )

DrMcCleod wrote:2) Textures, if possible use the existing professional textures from BF2, since they look great.

I think making custom textures is great. This differentiates the mod from vBF2. Of course they need to look good but making the attempt is worth it.

3) Scale, dont be tempted to make the maps too small.

Fixed it for you.

Clypp wrote:

3) Scale, dont be tempted to make the maps too small.

Fixed it for you.

agreed man. We need larger maps, not smaller ones.

'[R-DEV wrote:duckhunt']agreed man. We need larger maps, not smaller ones.

Triply agreed! Large maps are far better - it allows for serious stealth (pointmen running ahead), tactics (such as proper flanking), multiple chokepoints etc.

Think AlBasrah, if the UMSC are allowed to leave the base, then no 2 battles follow the same path. I have played with serious fire fights in streets off the main track to the construction yards and suburbs. It also provides more oppertunities for alternatives (grappling hooks, insertion/evac points by chopper - which we all know is impossible to pull off properly in a small map, you'll just get RPGed when noticed by 20 odd people etc)

Lothrian wrote:Triply agreed! Large maps are far better - it allows for serious stealth (pointmen running ahead), tactics (such as proper flanking), multiple chokepoints etc.

Think AlBasrah, if the UMSC are allowed to leave the base, then no 2 battles follow the same path. I have played with serious fire fights in streets off the main track to the construction yards and suburbs. It also provides more oppertunities for alternatives (grappling hooks, insertion/evac points by chopper - which we all know is impossible to pull off properly in a small map, you'll just get RPGed when noticed by 20 odd people etc)

oh youll all get your fix of that in v5!


What I mean by larger maps, is the some devs, eggman, dbzao, dizzy, etc (sorry if i forget :S) have made AMAZING improvements to the heavier vehicles, tanks, choppers, APC's, etc.
So it will be really fun to have all out armour battles now as suppose to too vanilla. Sure, everyone can make Strike at Karkand copy #15 but il be the same old turn corner bang bang. Larger open maps open up the tactics like you say, and there is way more possiblities.

'[R-DEV wrote:duckhunt']oh youll all get your fix of that in v5!


What I mean by larger maps, is the some devs, eggman, dbzao, dizzy, etc (sorry if i forget :S) have made AMAZING improvements to the heavier vehicles, tanks, choppers, APC's, etc.
So it will be really fun to have all out armour battles now as suppose to too vanilla. Sure, everyone can make Strike at Karkand copy #15 but il be the same old turn corner bang bang. Larger open maps open up the tactics like you say, and there is way more possiblities.

I agree... Most maps in rotation remind me of the old game "lemmings"! or they become very predictable!

Cheers,
PMED

Yea, I would say if your thinking about making a map. Dont think Jalalalabad/Karkand. Think El Alamein. The way PR is going in the future will be much better played out on larger maps.

Of course if your new to mapping its hard, dont worry practice on something smaller, but If you feel confident with the editor Id say go big!

yep, we are working on it.... slowly but surely... got a nice preview video over at the DVB forums...

Cheers,
PMED

DVB-PARAMEDIC.CA wrote:yep, we are woirking on it.... slowly but surely... got a nice preview video over at the DVB forums...

Cheers,
PMED

oh, seen it and loved it mate.

WOW!! Now that I am excited about! The great thing about larger maps is that it really pushes everyone to think! Its one thing to do a CounterStrike, duck and shoot game, but another to predict your enemy, try to out manouvre them, and then remove the threat and scarper before units in the surrounding roads here the gun shots and come to investigate.

Actually, there is another fantastic benifit to larger maps. (Albasrah as an example) Its silent if one skirmish takes place at the airbase and then you hear louder gunshots from a few streets away as you patrol the city centre.

Ahhh, the benifits of using intelligence, cunningness and teamwork - it makes any win or defeat satisfying, whatever the result, knowing you have been playing against a truely thoughtful and skilled group of human oppenents.