Battle of Britain 'Online' Map WIP - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: Battle of Britain 'Online' Map WIP (/showthread.php?tid=52113)

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- Jaypack44 - 19.02.2008

I had one thought about the dover cliffs: why not use the "crimea rock" (or whatever it's called) object, maybe scaled to fit the cliffs, though I guess you'd have to figure out how to make it go into the land and not sit and levitate on the slope. just a thought...

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- canonuk - 19.02.2008

I'll post a few pics of places around the map. The view from height isn't great because I'm still working on map_f.tga

Maraz - thanks for that. Plenty to go then before I have to worry

A little question about groundplates. Nearly all the airfields I'm building didn't have defined strips, and were simply grassy areas where the aircraft took off. So, I'm not using those crappy green groundplates. I've placed invisible ground plates along the main takeoff path, but of course that means you can't deviate from it without bumps (AI handles non-groundplate land perfectly)

So, I've got two options. Firstly, I could indicate the safe landing zones with white strips, but not only is that a little unrealistic but I don't think it looks that good either. My second option is to cover the entire area with invisble ground plates, but I'm worried what sort of impact that would have on FPS.

I'm not placing groundplates for taxi routes, however. My taxi routes are very complex, the AI can handle them fine without groundplates, and if you're slow enough, so can you

Anyway, any comments/suggestions very welcome

Joe

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- Neil Lowe - 19.02.2008

Quote:I'm not placing groundplates for taxi routes, however. My taxi routes are very complex, the AI can handle them fine without groundplates, and if you're slow enough, so can you

That sounds fine, as too many invisible ground plates are a hit on FPS. A double row of blank plates is more than enough for a safe landing.

Cheers, Neil

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- fabianfred - 19.02.2008

I agree about not using the default grass plates....and that AI can take-off no problem with bumps...just humans cannot without nosing-in...

seen what i did with the desert sand plates......how about something similar with just a few streaks to be able to see where the plate is...?

Of course in real life they had ground crew sit on the wings or tail to help...lol


these are half&half because I have only converted the 512 and 256 tgas...I'll do the other two later






what ya think?

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- Neil Lowe - 19.02.2008

Not bad at all Fred, great idea

Cheers, Neil

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- canonuk - 20.02.2008

I had the same idea the other day, fred. I wasn't a fan of how the groundplate texture looked close up - the ground plate doesn't sit nicely against the ground.

Joe

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- fabianfred - 20.02.2008

Yes...it is far from perfect.... but i personally prefer it to the neatly combed look of the default

a real grass field would have the grass flattened by use and the odd muddy patch too...especially in sunny england....lol

perhaps I'll have a go at making the 512tga look like muddy wheel tracks in the grass.......but we are stuck with a pattern anyway because the plates are so small and therefore very repetitious

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- canonuk - 20.02.2008

Yes, I definitely am not a fan of the default grass groundplates. I've made a landing strip texture (as an actual map_t type texture) so I'm happy to just cover them in enough invisible ground plates.

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- FA_Cheech - 20.02.2008

6S.Maraz Wrote:

canonuk Wrote:A little question about actors.static. What's considered a big file? Should I be worried when I get near 100kb? 200kb?

From my experience, up to 350Kb it will load fine, even on a low-end machine

Maraz

On The Slot we are starting to have memory issues in the map editor version of the FMB. Our actors.static is currently at 267kb, and I am getting consistent memory errors when I try to save.

I think this is not necessarily based on the size of the actors.static, but on what types of objects populate the map file. Based on my experimentation Airdrome points and airfield plates appear to be large "memory hogs". This issue is not causing any great problems with completing The Slot, it just means we had to break the map down into its separate release versions a little earlier (we had originally planned to build every airfield on our working copy of the map, and then create the appropriate historial timeframes from the master).

I just mention this for those who are contemplating creation of very large maps, with high object density...there is a limit guys, so keep that in your mind when you decide what to build.

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- fly_zo - 20.02.2008

thanks for the info m8 , much appreciated

any way you guys make the Slot .... its bound to be the biggest hit no doubt about it . and when our systems grow stronger there will be updated version ...i hope

thanks again,
Z

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- FA_Cheech - 20.02.2008

fly_zo Wrote:thanks for the info m8 , much appreciated

any way you guys make the Slot .... its bound to be the biggest hit no doubt about it . and when our systems grow stronger there will be updated version ...i hope

thanks again,
Z

~S~Zoo, thanks for the kind words...as for the Slot, there is no problem with creating fully populated '42, and selected '43 versions of the The Slot, the only issue is the '44 version. If the '44 version is completely modeled, you basically have to have every field in the Solomons, which is where you get the memory issues. By the time the invasion at Cape Torikina was completed (which allowed the large fields to be built at Piva), Guadalcanal was pretty far from the scene of action.

I think the best way to handle the '44 version is to simply remove all the fields at Guadalcanal, to avoid memory issues, but leave all the rest of the fields used during the ANZAC campaign on the map. Besides, most players are not too keen on flying recon planes or bombers, from Guad, all the way to Bougainville, and back...but that's a discussion for The Slot forum...sry canon, didn't mean to hijack the thread...just wanted to answer your question. 8)

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- Alien_12 - 20.02.2008

can't download a file. where is it???

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- canonuk - 20.02.2008

Cheech: No problem

That's interesting to know about the groundplates and airdrome routes being the big memory hogs. I'll bear that in mind. How many airfields do you have in your map?

Alien - it's still a WIP so no download yet

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- FA_Cheech - 20.02.2008

canonuk Wrote:Cheech: No problem
That's interesting to know about the groundplates and airdrome routes being the big memory hogs. I'll bear that in mind. How many airfields do you have in your map?

By my count, there are a total of 28 airfields built in the combat area covered by The Slot. When we were originally planning to work from a single master file, we actually built about 23, and populated about 90 percent of all objects on the map, before we started running into memory issues.

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- JAMF - 20.02.2008

It might be an idea to create (if possible) dark brown teardrop shaped textures* at the beginning and end of the runway, since these are earth and grass airstrips. If an airfield has many TO and landings, these would appear IMHO. Especially in wet times. It would make a clearly defined beginning and end of the runway AND the rest of the runway doesn't need to contrast so strongly as in the first image FabianFred posted above, but more like the second image. Just MHO.


*Dunno if a single teardrop shape is desired, but it's not likely that aircraft would all touch down on the center line, thereby creating a pair of teardrop shapes.

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