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After v0.8's release, [R-DEV]Dr Rank wanted me to make some new fields for Sangin and other maps. Well instead of just doing reskins for the old, flawed Overgrowth Fields I decided to look into new concepts due to flaws in the old fields, such as mappers are very limited in how they can use them since they are huge blocks, bad LODs and lots of other small issues like that.


Old PR Overgrowth Rice Field



I spent a few days working out a few basic concepts, came up with quite a few, many simply did not work out and had the same kinda flaws as the old fields.

Eventually one of my ideas did start to look a little promising, with the basic the concept of this idea was to make a basic small patch that you would then put loads of them together using the overgrowth tool to place them and then mix them with undergrowth for extra up close detail.











We got this into testing with a bunch of testers and found that these do indeed conceal players extremely well and we could also surprisingly not see any performance difference between the original qwai without them. Thou there is a small problem with this concept, is that it is very hard to setup these fields on your map as a mapper, thou you the player do not have to worry about that.

The main advantage of these new fields over the old ones from a mappers point of view is that you are not limited to square fields, like you can see above, the fields can be all kind of shapes and for the most part you can fill them with these new overgrowth fields. They also do not have to be placed on 100% flat terrain, they can get away with being placed on slight gradients and slopes thou if any extreme changes in terrain happens these can float like at the edge of the fields.

Due to the size of Qwai it would take a lot of time to clean up all the large fields that are in the map, so although I used the map for orignal ingame testing of these, Qwai will NOT have these fields in it for v0.85

Instead I'm piloting this concept on the new map, West Fallujah where I've made new "Wild Grass" fields for this map.



Some of you have already noticed these fields in the screens I've released on Fallujah in anouther Dev Journal on the map itself but encase you have not, here they are with some extras.







Providing everything goes well on Fallujah in v0.85 with these fields we will look at making many more types of these fields and putting them on many other maps where ever its feasibly possible, like Qwai, Al Basrah etc.

For future types of fields we are looking at many types and there [R-DEV]Pride has been also hard at work making some new field textures for this purpose. One of these that some of you had noticed one of my less scuttle hints has been my avatar that I put up for Remembrance Day (which I've not got round to changing yet) which has been poppy fields. Pride has made 6 types of poppy textures that I have setup ingame and we hope to use in some future Afghanistan and other themed maps

We hope these fields will add a new dimension to realistic gameplay as well as making our maps look and feel more realistic.

Excellent work Rhino, bring back Mao Vallay

Looks awesome!

Finally no more game play issues with undergrowth fields \o/

I do think that maybe a smaller version of the grass patch would be useful, in those Qwai screenshots you can notice that it's actually a bunch of round grass fields stuck together

The word "Ambush" suddenly comes to mind.

Awesome,this can replace fastropes anyday
And yeah,ambushing will be awesome now

[R-COM]Outlawz wrote:I do think that maybe a smaller version of the grass patch would be useful, in those Qwai screenshots you can notice that it's actually a bunch of round grass fields stuck together

a smaller version would mean you would notice the "honey cone" effect even more. We feel that its a very little thing compared to how many advantages this gives and all in all, gives it colour variation which at most levels looks good, just when your look from high up down looks a little odd but still, fine for the most part.

That wild grass looks awsome!

and this works out to long range??

Hitperson wrote:and this works out to long range??

upto 600m at least but I think I can get it higher.

great job, rhino!

this will add a lot!

Being static poppy fields, I guess they render at long range. Or are they undergrowth? (doubt it)

Ah ye the poppies, let me just edit my main post a sec

looks way better than the old ones, cant w8...

poppies added to first post, almost forgot to credit Pride's hard work there

very nice, now I can crawl through the grass instead of peggin it across like a madman

Rhino, are these things the same size as the old ones? As in, replacing these in an existing maps is much easier then, also for the community. If they're a different size, existing maps (ground) may need to be altered (raised/lowered/re-painted) and re-lightmapped.

Awsome!!! I've always hated the current fields as they would disappear after a very short distance... You guys rock!!!

[R-DEV]AfterDune wrote:Rhino, are these things the same size as the old ones? As in, replacing these in an existing maps is much easier then, also for the community. If they're a different size, existing maps (ground) may need to be altered (raised/lowered/re-painted) and re-lightmapped.

no AD they are not the same size, they are much smaller... the maps do not need to be altered much apart from its undergrowth settings and no new lightmaps need to happen as overgrowth dont use lightmaps and these fields do not cast ligthmaps on the terrain.

Rog, cheers .

I know the fields don't need to be lightmapped, but if the size was bigger for example, this may result in mappers needing to change the terrain, which may result a new lightmap of the terrain, etc . I know it's a long shot, but still, hehe. Good to hear anyways. Will put it in my map as well..