[MrOblongo]

Truly Amazing work Texan! Cant wait to test this wonder!.

And if you ask me, cut the eastern part of the map (keeping Chiang Mai and Lashio in), that will make it load faster (i think).

[CzechTexan]

Best of luck with this chaps.
I did the rivers and water features on Ian Boys' original Burma map; I got well into the geography and history of the area. Truly fascinating.
I'll be looking forward to these maps, keep up the good work!

:cheers:

Well, it's only ONE map. I showed different regions to get a close up view of the airfield locations.
You're right about learning the geography. I feel like I know the country like the back of my hand now! Estimated time put into this effort (so far) is well over 100 hours so I feel like I've been living there for at least that long! Thanks for the encouragement!

MrOblongo...I wouldn't call it "amazing" haha! It's just the result of dedication + hours devoted to getting this done. I wanted this map but no one else wanted to make it so I figured I aughtta give it a try. The fruits of labor are forthcoming...

***Cutting off 1/4 of the east side is what I'd like to do but I need to know how to do this without affecting the WIP. Can anyone help me with this?

[CzechTexan]

The first beta version of BurmaLower is available to download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=11eb ... f6e8ebb871

I welcome any feedback, tips, and help for improvement. I have not done much playtesting. I'm waiting for 2 gigs of RAM to arrive so it will run more smoothly.
The zip file download is 42mb and regular size is 176mb. It requires a lot of memory but maybe there are ways to cut down on the size. any suggestions?
Enjoy!

[asheshouse]

Maps looking nice.

It may be worth telling folks that they should load the new objects from Fabianfreds Thailand map
In fact load his entire map if you dont have it. Its great.
viewtopic.php?p=99646#99646
This in turn needs LAL Rhones Hanger Mod and Canons Channel map objects.
Without all of those it may not load.

Got the map into FMB Mission Editor but couldn't save a mission. Maybe its just me.
Are there any bridges on the map? Without a few bridges saving missions doesn't work, for some reason.

I will enjoy flying this.

PS --- The missing bridges are the problem. I added one of each type to the actors.static and now the missions save ok.

[CzechTexan]

I only used files that came with the Unified Installer and FabianFred's files were included in there with his Thailand map. So you should be OK if you have the UI.
The bridges for the actors is kinda strange. Bridges will be included in a later version to be sure it loads.

Asheshouse is helping with the cropping to cut off some of the eastern side... His version is here too:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/ymrmbhtum ... erSmall.ip
and titled BurmaLowerSmall It is 28.8mb and 70% of the larger map. I have not looked at it yet but the smaller version will be the new WIP.

And, OOPS! I forgot to redo some of the fighter airfields in the Arakan and make them longer. Cox's, Ramu, Maungdaw, and some others. These were the first fields I made and then I got caught up in other fields and forgot to redo these. This is why testing is so important. But this release is just for testing purposes anyway.

[MrOblongo]

First impressions after just looking around the maps (Small and Full)...

Good idea in cutting the far east area of the map since it was useless for the main action in this place, no idea if it considerably helps in loading time anyway. Second, WOW! , u made a lot of airfields. But i must say some have very weird textures and (u mentioned that) are too short (specially in the Arakan area). Since theres not much decent info about this airfields, keeping them as simple dirt runways seems to do the job.

Now some issues, first the ed_m01 map dont seems to fit correctly (for like 10 kilometers) the actual position of stuff.

And the most important thing... textures really need to be fixed someway, the fields looks too repetitive and (personally) dont like the flat "jungle" texture, i rather have some real forests instead of that.

Dont take it wrong, im just saying all that comes to my mind, and considering its a Beta i think you should have some opinions.

Textures, textures, textures!

Ill do some testing with the forest and post some pics so see how it looks.

Goodjob so far!!!

[mandrill7]

CT,

Are those Fabian Fred's canal/ stream plates? How did you find using them? Are there any difficluties or tricks?

[CzechTexan]

Mandrill, yes, they are FF's river plates. They came with the UI.
I like them, especially the brown rivers but you have to flatten the surface of the map area in mapH for them to look good.

[CzechTexan]

MrOblongo, let me know how the trees experiment works out. I do need to add forests to the jungle areas. Will it affect file size much or slow frame rates any?

I've been spending time redoing some airfields. Lengthening, eliminating parts of some, and adding parts to others. I also changed Charinga to a north/south instead of east/west. I learned this was the actual direction from the book SILENTLY INTO THE MIDST OF THINGS about Beaufighters stationed there; has a photo too.

I just got the book but the Beaufighter is becoming one of my favorite planes now. Learning alot about its operations and tactics in this theater.

I know the fields are repetitive, especially in the central/southern region. I've tried experiments but I'll keep at it. If you discover something better then let me know OK.

The terrain during non-monsoon months is very dry almost like desert conditions. Some rivers even dry up. This was the time period when most of the fighting was done. Monsoon months brought operations to a halt, mostly....

I have been debating on how to do this with this map. Should I put dryer textures or leave it lush and green? Green is prettier :wink: but maybe not realistic for operations :?
Could possibly do two maps; one dry, one green. I'll experiment with dry textures.

I'll also be adding buildings to towns around airfields so that will keep me busy.

[MrOblongo]

Texan, for some reason i cant open the map_t with the GIMP...i get an error of tga.exe :?: ...

Just would need to click the texture and fill it with the RGB 25 and see how it works. And right now the load ini uses the Italy woods textures wich dont fit quite well (conifers?). Ill try with some other textures and manually add in some areas...

[CzechTexan]

OK. Do what you can. I appreciate the help as I don't know anything about trees. All that is now is what FabianFred had with the original map. Different kind of trees would be nice.

[MrOblongo]

Changed the wood textures in the load.ini to the following:

Code:

[WOOD]
;Wood0 = forest/summer/sk_Wood0.tga
;Wood1 = forest/summer/sk_Wood1.tga
;Wood2 = forest/summer/sk_Wood2.tga
;Wood3 = forest/summer/sk_Wood3.tga
;Wood4 = forest/summer/sk_Wood4.tga
Wood0 = Italy_DF/forest/summer/itawood0.tga
Wood1 = Italy_DF/forest/summer/itawood1.tga
Wood2 = Italy_DF/forest/summer/itawood2.tga
Wood3 = Italy_DF/forest/summer/itawood3.tga
Wood4 = Italy_DF/forest/summer/itawood4.tga

WoodMask2  = forest/summer/JForestMask.tga
WoodMask3  = forest/summer/JForestMask2.tga
WoodMiniMasks = forest/summer/MiniMask.tga
SideWood = forest/summer/ForestSide.tga

Yes, as in The Slot map...looking nice as jungle. Then replaced some textures in the map_t.tga and got this result. Still have that texture motling but not have some real forests or jungle all around. Some pics.





LINK to new map_t.tga
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=5ea7 ... b9a8902bda

[mandrill7]

Thanks for the new map. I flew around it a bit. I think the textures need to be redone. The initial textures don't look like dense, dark jungle at all. And I've never liked the stock Asian farmland tiles.

The bright blue rivers look alien and not right at all. There must be a mod-genius somewhere who can come up with a way to make rivers all brown. Failing that, you might consider going to the grey water colour.

Where are the canal tiles? I looked for them but couldn't find any.

[CzechTexan]

The canal tiles are not used on this map. FF's brown river plates are at the north end at Kalemyo/Thazi and north of Yenanguang.

you're right about the blue water. I wish someone could come up with a replacement for the blue rivers. Will try to change the color to more grayish like you mentioned. But of course, then the ocean will be the same color.

There's still a lot more that needs to be done to this map. Getting the textures right is difficult and not my specialty. Anyone else is welcome to jump in and add something if you like.

THANK YOU Asheshouse for trimming the map down to a smaller size. And THANKS MrOblongo for your help and of course, thank you FabianFred for getting this all started! And thanks to everyone else for their help and input. This is not just my effort alone. This is being done with help from many others in this great online community we have here.

[CzechTexan]

Changed the water to that grayish color and it looks decent.
MrOblongo the trees now look nice in the forested jungle area, thanks. I don't know of any other type of "forest" that will be different or look better than the dark Italian conifers. Isn't that what was used in the SLOT? Looks OK as is.

Don't want to put too much forest down in the valleys where fields and shrub land is.
It's good that you didn't put trees on top of the mountains. One book mentions that the people used slash and burn on hilltops to grow crops there and photos are similar to the mountains now. Good job!

I'm still playing with the different fields. If I change something in the central region then it messes up something in the Arakan region. It's a balancing act.

I've finished new airfields at Agartala and Feni (northwest corner). These were major bases for bombers and beaufighters; and other fighters throughout the campaign. Re-did Cox's Bazar to north-south layout.

Retextured and changed height at Taukkyan (north-central). This was a small emergency type airfield used by Japanese. It was mentioned in a book because of it's beautiful scenery with hills on three sides. One can imagine the pleasing atmosphere enjoyed by the Japanese during their "vacation" stay here.

Also re-textured a couple of the airfields in central region south of Meiktila and near Prome. The dark green grass just didn't look right. And, I fixed a couple fields which didn't have the invisible runway plates. These must not have "saved" after one of my work sessions. That has happened a few times. :x

I might post some pics of the airfields later. I'm leaving them with only a few objects, maybe a couple hangars etc. Mission builders can add more to their liking later. Some taxiways have been covered with invisible plates but most have not been so taxi with care. I might cover most of the taxiways in fields used by allies later.

Still have to populate villages, especially Mandalay. So much to do, so little time.