Re: Port Fear (Custom TacMod Map)

**loyalguard** · 07-06-2006, 10:28 PM

Can't wait for this Shiner...looks and sounds awesome!

**Shiner** · 07-21-2006, 12:21 AM

Ok here it is Release Candidate 1... Duke and I have discussed the possibility of this map being included in the Tactical Mod Map Pack #2. I appreaciate any input you might have on the map to get it finalized in the next week or so. Thanks to everyone for their assistance in getting/pushing me to here.

Download Here: http://members.tacticalgamer.com/~sh...Shiner_RC1.rar

**loyalguard** · 07-21-2006, 04:53 AM

Originally Posted by Shiner

Ok here it is Release Candidate 1... Duke and I have discussed the possibility of this map being included in the Tactical Mod Map Pack #2. I appreaciate any input you might have on the map to get it finalized in the next week or so. Thanks to everyone for their assistance in getting/pushing me to here.

Download Here: http://members.tacticalgamer.com/~sh...Shiner_RC1.rar

Oh sure...release this the day I go on vacation for three weeks and won't have my PC.

I can't wait to try this map Shiner! Looks lie you've put ALOT of effort into this. Well done!

**Shiner** · 07-21-2006, 10:46 AM

One known bug from the build last night is that one bridge segment's lightmap is curropted. I think I need to re-run an entire fresh set of lightmaps on final after the RC testing is done so ignore that for now since the finals on this map can take 48 hours on my slow machine

.

Thanks loyal, have fun on your vacation.. 3 weeks sounds pretty nice.

**UnDeaD** · 07-21-2006, 12:04 PM

I played around with it, in vanilla though. Map looks cool, I enjoy the way the design is with the train tracks going up. Lots of colors, not bland at all.

**RocketPunch** · 07-21-2006, 02:06 PM

Originally Posted by Shiner

Ok here it is Release Candidate 1... Duke and I have discussed the possibility of this map being included in the Tactical Mod Map Pack #2. I appreaciate any input you might have on the map to get it finalized in the next week or so. Thanks to everyone for their assistance in getting/pushing me to here.

Download Here: http://members.tacticalgamer.com/~sh...Shiner_RC1.rar

Got to check it out!

**Kilrogg** · 07-21-2006, 03:04 PM

need screenshots

**SgtDuke** · 07-21-2006, 04:16 PM

I ran through the 64p map and I like what I see. It looks like there will be a good mix of urban and rural combat. I think the layout of the map and CPs and the supplied vehicles will make for good gameplay. My only criticism would be on some of the aesthetics. The patchy tall grass and bare terrain in areas looks a bit unnatural. But, as I understand it, going from that to something like the beautiful terrain of Inishail requires a massive amount of hand painting work and it's not something that I would expect anyone other than aspiring professionals, like Kilrogg, to do.

On to the things that I think are reasonable to do or will be done for the final release:

Are these the areas near the bridge where the lightmap is corrupted?

The lighting on some objects and buildings seems unnaturally dark. And inside one of the construction buildings it is almost pitch black. I think the whole map would look quite a bit better with more natural/lighter lighting. Will this be resolved when the final lightmaps are generated?

When viewing the round start/end camera, there's an area (circled) where the textures or lighting or something was flashing and it was a bit distracting. I have no idea why it was doing that, but it would be nice to have that "smoothed out" for the final release.

There's a typo in the map briefing. "Chineese" should be "Chinese", if we're both thinking of the same army.

USMC should probably be using their woodland camo in this lush environment. The default camo, which is designed for the desert, looks a bit awkward here. If it's not clear how to do this in the editor, in Init.con there's a section for "custom texture suffix", or something like that, and you set "woodland" as the value.

Final topic is the inclusion of both Middle Eastern and Chinese buildings. This is somewhat of an immersion killer, unless you can come up with a back-story where there's a large Chinese population in this Middle Eastern city and they developed the park area where the temple and gazebos are (I think that's the only area with Chinese buildings). This isn't a big deal, but it prompted me to think that maybe this map should be MEC vs. China. This would certainly be unique and there was even some talk about a map like this in these forums. The back-story could be something about a local uprising and China using that opportunity to invade and colonize the island.

Oh yeah, and I had fun driving along the elevated train tracks and bridges on the perimeter of the city. It was like a ride at Disneyland or something.

**Shiner** · 07-21-2006, 05:26 PM

Originally Posted by SgtDuke

I ran through the 64p map and I like what I see. It looks like there will be a good mix of urban and rural combat. I think the layout of the map and CPs and the supplied vehicles will make for good gameplay. My only criticism would be on some of the aesthetics. The patchy tall grass and bare terrain in areas looks a bit unnatural. But, as I understand it, going from that to something like the beautiful terrain of Inishail requires a massive amount of hand painting work and it's not something that I would expect anyone other than aspiring professionals, like Kilrogg, to do.

Unfortunately your correct in that Kilrogg's skills and time far surpassed mine. I'm not opposed to adding some additional "terrain" detail, but frankly I'm nearing what I'm capable of doing anyway (I'm a coder not an artist).

Originally Posted by SgtDuke

Are these the areas near the bridge where the lightmap is corrupted?

That is one area I need to improve.. The transition between surrounding and playing terrain is very uneven.

Originally Posted by SgtDuke

The lighting on some objects and buildings seems unnaturally dark.

And inside one of the construction buildings it is almost pitch black. I think the whole map would look quite a bit better with more natural/lighter lighting. Will this be resolved when the final lightmaps are generated?

They definately don't look that dark on my screen. My computer is fairly low-end so it could be my settings make it look different then it actually is. The lighting as well as final lightmaps are great items on my todo list to finish this map. I will reset the lights much brighter and see what I get.

Originally Posted by SgtDuke

When viewing the round start/end camera, there's an area (circled) where the textures or lighting or something was flashing and it was a bit distracting. I have no idea why it was doing that, but it would be nice to have that "smoothed out" for the final release.

That is a temporarily issue along with the bridge and track issues I noticed this morning that should be fixed in a full re-run of final lightmaps

Originally Posted by SgtDuke

There's a typo in the map briefing. "Chineese" should be "Chinese", if we're both thinking of the same army.

Gotcha :P

Originally Posted by SgtDuke

USMC should probably be using their woodland camo in this lush environment. The default camo, which is designed for the desert, looks a bit awkward here. If it's not clear how to do this in the editor, in Init.con there's a section for "custom texture suffix", or something like that, and you set "woodland" as the value.

Perfect I didn't know how to change this and agree it looks funny.

Originally Posted by SgtDuke

Final topic is the inclusion of both Middle Eastern and Chinese buildings. This is somewhat of an immersion killer, unless you can come up with a back-story where there's a large Chinese population in this Middle Eastern city and they developed the park area where the temple and gazebos are (I think that's the only area with Chinese buildings). This isn't a big deal, but it prompted me to think that maybe this map should be MEC vs. China. This would certainly be unique and there was even some talk about a map like this in these forums. The back-story could be something about a local uprising and China using that opportunity to invade and colonize the island.

I like that idea alot and in addition I might attempt adding some of the SF buildings instead. Depends on how long we have until the map pack is due.

Originally Posted by SgtDuke

Oh yeah, and I had fun driving along the elevated train tracks and bridges on the perimeter of the city. It was like a ride at Disneyland or something.

That's my favorite part.. It dissapoints me I couldn't get the tracks lined up much better, but the objects are very thin and hard to place. I had considered swapping the elevated rail bridges to the EF railbridges if I can figure out how.

Thanks for the testing duke. I think increasing the light, redoing the shadows and changing the teams will bring this map much close rto playable. The wife is working on Saturday so outside the scrim I should get lots of stuff done.

**SgtDuke** · 07-21-2006, 05:42 PM

Originally Posted by Shiner

They definately don't look that dark on my screen. My computer is fairly low-end so it could be my settings make it look different then it actually is.

For what it's worth, I'm using medium lighting and low dynamic shadows/lighting.

Originally Posted by Shiner

I like that idea alot and in addition I might attempt adding some of the SF buildings instead. Depends on how long we have until the map pack is due.

You'll have at least until the end of the month, maybe a day or two after depending on how the other maps are coming.

**Shiner** · 07-23-2006, 07:23 PM

Ok Duke I think I've addressed all your issues although final lightmaps have still not been run so there may be some continuing dark issues on some objects.

The "water" issues you identified appear to be an issue in the surrounding terrain that aren't easily fixed. I've decided to just add land over the areas that are the most obvious versus "starting over" as one of the forums suggested.

The buildings should be much lighter now. Let me know if they are still too dark or light on your machine.

Minimaps, commander maps, spawn maps have NOT been regenerated yet so ignore them for now.

Thanks for your help!

Download Here:
http://members.tacticalgamer.com/~sh...Shiner_RC2.rar

**Kilrogg** · 07-23-2006, 09:25 PM

water in surrouding terrain looks fine if you render lightmaps for surrouding terrain. In lightmaps generation make sure to enable "secondary" (surrouding terrain) as well as "primary" (main, playable terrain) when rendering lightmaps.

**SgtDuke** · 07-24-2006, 07:45 PM

Originally Posted by Shiner

Ok Duke I think I've addressed all your issues although final lightmaps have still not been run so there may be some continuing dark issues on some objects.

The lighting is much better now.

Remember to redo the loading screen map. Right now it shows a USMC flag.

I tested 64p and the only issue I noticed was that at the heliport an Mi-28 (Havoc) spawns for China instead of a Z-10 and the opposite for MEC at beach outpost. I didn't check the 16p or 32p sizes or little things like mounted machine guns, AA, TOWs, etc, so you might want to go through all of the object spawns on the different map sizes to make sure that they are spawning the right object for the different teams.

**Shiner** · 07-24-2006, 07:50 PM

Originally Posted by SgtDuke

I tested 64p and the only issue I noticed was that at the heliport an Mi-28 (Havoc) spawns for China instead of a Z-10 and the opposite for MEC at beach outpost.

Opps I had had them mixed up in my head as I had just flipped those two

There are very few vehicles spawns besides jeeps in the 32p and none in the 16p so those should be correct.

I should have some time this week to cleanup the maps etc and will release a Final before I leave for vacation on Sunday.

**Shiner** · 07-24-2006, 08:08 PM

Ok 11th hour brainstorm. I'm going to go home and see if I can even get this to work... but would you consider this a desireable feature?

Picture:
http://members.tacticalgamer.com/~shiner/share/idea.png

Idea:
Each side (ignore USMC this is off old screenshot) has a CP which is nuetral and a non-spawn flag. As long as this flag remains nuetral it doesn't count as anything. The "China Cache" CP or "MEC Cache CP" are relatively near the friendly UCB and can ONLY be captured by the opfor. Once captured it cannot become nuetral. The flag when capped generates additional bonus points to establish bleed.

Theorictically I'm trying to similute the idea that "destroying" the enemies cache supply is worth some bonus points.. I need to think through the calculations but do you like the general idea that this complication may cause a commander? Or is this something that will frustrate the players more than it will add a layer of strategy to the map?

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