Map Preview - Straight of Hormuz
#1

Here are a few screen-shots of a new map that is just about finished. A few more days, maybe a week tops and it should be ready for posting.

It covers the area of the Straight of Hormuz, between the northern tip of the Arab Emirates, the Persian Gulf and the southern part of what used to be called Persia during WWII. Not especially noted for any specific actions on a grand scale, British troops did occupy the southern part of Persia during WWII, while to the north, Soviet forces did the same. There was little or no response on Persian side so this map is once again, mainly an alternate history map.

It is also a massively large and varied map. It is densely populated with objects - the actors.static file will be + 5.25mb - but aside from one fairly large city and harbor - Bandar Abbas - there is virtually no concentration of objects that significantly reduces frs. Objects are spread out throughout the vast landscape, which varies from sand and rock desert, dry, but fertile lowlands, scrub midlands and dry mountains and high plateau along with some marshes here and there. There are also several large oilfields and harbor cities.

Here are a few screen shots to give you an idea.

[img][Image: Hormuz-00FMB.jpg]

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[img][Image: Hormuz-24.jpg]

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[img][Image: Hormuz-23.jpg]

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[img][Image: Hormuz-29.jpg]

[/img][Image: Hormuz-09.jpg]

[img][Image: Hormuz-08.jpg]

[/img][Image: Hormuz-07.jpg]

[img][Image: Hormuz-10.jpg]

[/img][Image: Hormuz-20.jpg]

[img][Image: Hormuz-25.jpg]

[/img][Image: Hormuz-11.jpg]

[img][Image: Hormuz-05.jpg]

[/img][Image: Hormuz-01.jpg]

[img][Image: Hormuz-27.jpg][/img]
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#2

Pretty map. Don't know about the size of the actors.static though. Canon' s is 3.51 MB and his map takes as long to load as the game==about 3:45 min.
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#3

average actors static size of the 6 SLOT maps is about 287 KB (0.2 MB). For the 4 NGNB maps, it's about 300-400 KB. I can't image what you guys are putting in there. We only try to build what the audience will see, like a movie set. It lightens our maps and also gives the mission maker a "blanker" canvas to work on.

I look forward to flying it. Has it been tested for online play and spawn point collisions?
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#4

Fly! Wrote:Pretty map. Don't know about the size of the actors.static though. Canon' s is 3.51 MB and his map takes as long to load as the game==about 3:45 min.

Well, it's not a fast loading map, something around the time frame for Slovakia ... I didn't intend for it to be so large at first. But the villages and hamlets and other objects seemed to be swallowed up by a black hole.

I'd add 500k of objects on a relatively small area of land - Qushm Island for instance - start the map for a look around and it seemed empty and devoid of anything. The landscape is so vast - and I didn't really bother that much with the high mountains nor the plateau to the northeast - I kept on adding objects till it looked halfway decent and inhabited. Otherwise it would have been an empty landscape and nothing more.

Nice enough as a landscape, and varied too with many colorful variations according to location, but I think that standards and expectations for maps have evolved quite rapidly lately. A few houses dotting a landscape is not enough anymore.

I started this map about 5 months ago, but it was mainly by working with Kapteeni that I realized he had better ideas on how and to what degree to populate a map and knew some good techniques as well. For which many thanks.
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#5

Thrud Wrote:average actors static size of the 6 SLOT maps is about 287 KB (0.2 MB). For the 4 NGNB maps, it's about 300-400 KB. I can't image what you guys are putting in there. We only try to build what the audience will see, like a movie set. It lightens our maps and also gives the mission maker a "blanker" canvas to work on.

I look forward to flying it. Has it been tested for online play and spawn point collisions?


No testing has been done yet for online play nor for spawn point collisions. And in all honesty, I would not know how to do so ... I truly don't think I even know what a spawn point is. Or rather I suppose I do, but collisions? Aren't spawn point normally above existing airfields? And they surely aren't placed next to each other ...

As for the size of the actors - the oilfields alone have an actors of that size. Anything less and it would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack. I started out modestly with few objects, then take a flight around and it was as if nothing were there.

This map is mainly land as opposed to mainly ocean on the Slot maps. It gives one a perspective on the classic advice never to start a land war on the Asian continent ...
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#6

Very nice agracier, well worth the wait to load it IMHO.

Regards,

GJE52
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#7

sweet

I want

good work man
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#8

agracier Wrote:No testing has been done yet for online play nor for spawn point collisions. And in all honesty, I would not know how to do so ... I truly don't think I even know what a spawn point is. Or rather I suppose I do, but collisions? Aren't spawn point normally above existing airfields? And they surely aren't placed next to each other ...


this comment worries me. if i understand you correctly, and parodon my analogy, you've built a beautiful house that comes with no plumbing, no wiring, no HVAC.

more info on how to fix up the house :wink:
viewtopic.php?t=10599
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#9

Thrud Wrote:this comment worries me. if i understand you correctly, and parodon my analogy, you've built a beautiful house that comes with no plumbing, no wiring, no HVAC.
more info on how to fix up the house :wink:
viewtopic.php?t=10599

HVAC ? The world is awash in acronyms and abbreviations and they come and go with alarming speed.

I never play online and from what I seem understand of those who do, they usually prefer to remain in the main theaters of war anyway, the main staples of WWII - Battle of Britain, Eastern Front. The places where the big action took place.

That's not really my area of interest, I like out of the way places, on the fringes - you know, the sideshow of a sideshow sort of place.

For what it's worth - never had a comment on any maps I've made and incompatibility for online playing. And if it's any help, I never make airfields of my own (I know my limitations), but copy/paste them from standard maps and then add objects to make them look better.
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#10

Thrud Wrote:
agracier Wrote:No testing has been done yet for online play nor for spawn point collisions. And in all honesty, I would not know how to do so ... I truly don't think I even know what a spawn point is. Or rather I suppose I do, but collisions? Aren't spawn point normally above existing airfields? And they surely aren't placed next to each other ...


this comment worries me. if i understand you correctly, and parodon my analogy, you've built a beautiful house that comes with no plumbing, no wiring, no HVAC.

more info on how to fix up the house :wink:
viewtopic.php?t=10599
Mr. Agraciers maps airfields are copied from templates and they are very basic. (like my airfileds as well) And airfields ar PITA to do from scratch. And he basicly makes the maps alone. So if somebody with good knowledge about online maps would gives him a helping hand, im sure that all the onliners can have that map adapted soon to servers. I would love to do it myself, but i'm pure offliner. So i don't have the skills tot do that. Too many kids and p-47 and FW 190 won teh war dudes with swearing and all that jazz at online dogfights. I love to fly well planned coop, but mapmaking is takin all my 1l2 time now...
BTW i haven't seen any good tutorial about making working onlinemap. Maybe somebody, someday will do that....
kapteeni
EDIT: You were faster agracier.lol
And thank you Thrud for the link. It seems that i have forgotten that. I beliewe that agraciers airfields are online capable already.
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#11

And one thing more. It is quite easy to get that objects..more objects madness. I believe that it is best to concnetrate to the main battlefield areas and leave the rest little less populated. 5.3 mb sounds really lot. But the area is really huge.
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#12

kapteeni Wrote:And one thing more. It is quite easy to get that objects..more objects madness. I believe that it is best to concnetrate to the main battlefield areas and leave the rest little less populated. 5.3 mb sounds really lot. But the area is really huge.

Tell me all about it. There is always one more thing you just have to include ... and no one will probably ever notice it anyway ... ha ha.

I did just check on the Slovakia map though, to compare sizes and objects density - Slovakia offline actors size is 5.54mb and the t map area is 1120x680 pixels.

This one for Hormuz is now 5.29 actors size, and the map area is 1984x1376 pixels ... that's almost double the dimensions and therefor four times the surface area. Subtract +- 20% area for sea on Hormuz and it still has a lesser density of objects than Slovakia ... which is obvious when flying around ...

Slovakia should be something like 30 464 km/2 and Hormuz is 108 900 km/2 (-20%) = 87 120 km/2.

That's almost 3 times the surface area and therefor 3 times less objects density.

Granted the map is large in surface area, that's a personal choice I suppose.
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#13

Hi agracier, I didn't mean 2 sound negative. Just to hope that I can play on this gr8t lookin map.

Best regards, Big Grin
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#14

Fly! Wrote:Hi agracier, I didn't mean 2 sound negative. Just to hope that I can play on this gr8t lookin map.

Best regards, Big Grin

I hope so too. But since it is no larger than the benchmark Slovakia map, if you can load and play on that map, this map should not give problems - as long as the correct objects have been installed.

This will be dlv_Egypt Houses (a favorite), Canons Channel Objects and the other objects that are standard with the Unified Installer.
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#15

WOW!

Bandar El Abbas....

I was there in 1986....
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