[Map] Hormuz Straits (4km) [scrapped]

[162eRI]

Yep, it's look promising! Keep up the good work and it's gonna be really nice.

[[R-CON]AnimalMother]

Originally Posted by MaxBoZ

Fighting In Build Up Areas, I think he meant training area, but It isn't I think..

yeh, thats what i meant. i wasn't sure if that village was placed intended to be a training area or just to be a normal village.

sorry for the confusion

[[R-DEV]Outlawz7]

Originally Posted by [R-CON]marcoelnk

Far better start than last time but still i think the sea area is too big... alot of wasted space.

I know, on the other hand I don't want the Jabal's 'carrier in a lake' feel or MEC setting up AA a stone throw away from the carrier.

I am considering however extending the land on the west side of the map (the carrier is on the SE corner) or maybe putting some islands like in the first one, if that's a good idea.

Also the terrain height is 250m instead of the default 163m, makes the hills feel really huge
Current view distance is 1000m, but I'll increase it.

[Mora]

Awesome!

What you need to do with this map the "flat hills in the distance fix" because otherwise those nice looking hills will not look like they look up close. Take a look at this picture for example:

http://www.themonkeysfist.ca/maps/fix.jpg

And this thread: Terrain Lods, A Possible Fix? - Official BF Editor Forums

Good luck!

[[R-DEV]Outlawz7]

If only bfeditor.org didn't take ages to load...thanks for the link though.

[Jonny]

So its a large military complex to protect a whole load of sand? How is that a good idea?

You really should cut back on the number of military outposts, you should have just 1 in the centre really, the MEC main. With hanger bunkers and the ability for the US to surround it, you will avoid baseraping of assets AND finally have a realistic assault of a military base.

This:
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...5-18-54-57.jpg
Is totally out of place on its own. There should be many, many more if you want to make it feel interesting. You will probably want to go about making your own, too. More caves are better, but you also have to keep some variation about it.

Random villages without much variation DONT work. Especially when you have nothing around them. Remove this one, and do a proper little seaside town with multiple kinds of buildings (rhino's afghan statics and some reskinned appartment blocks will look better than just the afghan buildings), and put a little river through it. Then you have something interesting.

Assuming you have a river through the town, you are in a great position to justify some nice overgrowth grass all the way up the riverbed. Some good concealment, looks good if you fly over it, adds something to the map. Can put a couple of fields around the town/village if you find you have room (DONT go out of your way to make it though, it will never look as good) and you can alse make the river quite deep, to make it an obstacle with several choke points along it.

Please dont put hesco in nice square configurations. It looks crap. It should be used to circle the base, not to mark out what appears to be several large pixels on the surface. Look at the central thing on kashan, and notice how its not all in 2 directions, it curves in an interesting way.

Your minimap looks like you got a decent terrain set up, then you went and attacked it with a huge smoothing tool all along the pre-determined roads. Go back to the unsmoothed version, mark out a promising military base. Mark out a promising seaside town, and a possible village if you want to add one (I advise you do). Smooth these areas out a little (not too much) and LEAVE THE ROADS ALONE FOR NOW. Put it in the editor, move your base to use the terrain to the defenders advantage. Place a couple statics in the town and village, and look for flatish areas nearby to place fields. When it comes to roads, smooth by hand in the editor. You dont want to go too far from the road, or else it will look crap.

In the military base, if you have any steep enough slopes inside, you can use the tunnel statics from OGT and a hanger door to have a closed off enterance to an underground complex. Along with most of the missile silo and the hanger bunkers, that should look quite good. Importantly, it should be more interesting than marking out a few pixels in an otherwise barren desert. Do not just rely on hesco for defense, use the terrain to your advantage and try to get some earthworks in. You can even mark out a minefield along a vulnerable enterance if you have enough destroyable objects for it, by having a load of signs which explode when run over. You probably want to avoid the flimsy hangers you have the big concrete ones. You can use them for some shade over some spare-part storage areas, but dont go putting anything expensive under them.

Avoid overusing large radio antennas, it looks terrible when you have several in such a small area.

ps.
dont extend the land, its fine as it is. Any armour you use will have to be amphibious, so its not 'lost' terrain at all, just different terrain.

[[R-DEV]Outlawz7]

Here we go...

You really should cut back on the number of military outposts, you should have just 1 in the centre really, the MEC main. With hanger bunkers and the ability for the US to surround it, you will avoid baseraping of assets AND finally have a realistic assault of a military base.

So the entire map should be about attacking one flag which also happens to be the MEC base?
What's wrong with having military outposts backed up by one huge base? Op Barracuda has loads of bunkers and trenches all over the map for example.

Random villages without much variation DONT work. Especially when you have nothing around them.

It's a damn WIP map, I didn't say that that's the whole thing and I'm not going to add anything more to the village. :/

Avoid overusing large radio antennas, it looks terrible when you have several in such a small area.

There's like 2-3 antennas in the whole map and they're not close together or the same size.

Also I'm not adding any rivers in the middle of the desert based on an area that doesn't have any rivers spilling into the sea for hundreds of kilometers around.

then you went and attacked it with a huge smoothing tool

Well considering that I used the random tool beforehand I'm not really a fan of huge pointy terrain that looks stupid and renders into a smooth blob at distance anyway.

along the pre-determined roads.

I design all my maps with "pre-determined roads", particularly due having enormous issues with the "apply spline" tool corrupting my entire terrain mesh, like this - or it doesn't smooth the terrain properly and I get level patches with "steps" for a road base.

you can use the tunnel statics from OGT

They're colored green and gray which immensely blends in with a desert map.
And even if I use the interior statics, what will I cover them with?

dont extend the land, its fine as it is. Any armour you use will have to be amphibious, so its not 'lost' terrain at all, just different terrain.

"carrier and ground based USMC". Meaning that USMC will also start on land along with the carrier due the fact that I need a spot where the vehicle depot will be with the logistics trucks and while I don't know about you, I am not really that sadistic to make players drive a stupid APC across the sea for 2 Km at like 3 Kmph just to reach the land.

[$pyker]

the same thing happened to me i just save, close , load the editor back up and it was all fine

[[R-DEV]Outlawz7]

I did that once and the terrain where the spline was was completely flat and set to the default height of 25 IIRC.

I somehow manage to avoid it by saving before I apply the spline, but that doesn't prevent the other issue.

[Jonny]

Originally Posted by Outlawz

So the entire map should be about attacking one flag which also happens to be the MEC base?

No, attacking several flags. Some of which are in the MEC main base. None of which involve the camping of spawn points, which should be protected by a dome-of-death and have access to a large covered trench system. Not totally different from the kashan bunker complex.

Originally Posted by Outlawz

What's wrong with having military outposts backed up by one huge base? Op Barracuda has loads of bunkers and trenches all over the map for example.

The whole island counts as one 'base' there, they are part of the same system of defences. Lots of little independant military outposts look very game-like.

Originally Posted by Outlawz

It's a damn WIP map, I didn't say that that's the whole thing and I'm not going to add anything more to the village. :/

Why post it if not for criticism and suggestions? WIP things will always be criticised, if you dont like it then dont announce you are making a map.

Originally Posted by Outlawz

There's like 2-3 antennas in the whole map and they're not close together or the same size.

And what range do they have? It should be of the order of hundreds of km, 2-3 in 8 km^2 is really dense.

Originally Posted by Outlawz

Also I'm not adding any rivers in the middle of the desert based on an area that doesn't have any rivers spilling into the sea for hundreds of kilometers around.

Moist area leading inland then? Some parts have to be closer to the watertable than others, letting more plants grow there.

Originally Posted by Outlawz

Well considering that I used the random tool beforehand I'm not really a fan of huge pointy terrain that looks stupid and renders into a smooth blob at distance anyway.

Go closer with the random tool. It still looks dodgy, no matter how you actually made it.

Originally Posted by Outlawz

I design all my maps with "pre-determined roads", particularly due having enormous issues with the "apply spline" tool corrupting my entire terrain mesh, like this - or it doesn't smooth the terrain properly and I get level patches with "steps" for a road base.

Smooth tool on a smallish setting?

Originally Posted by Outlawz

They're colored green and gray which immensely blends in with a desert map. And even if I use the interior statics, what will I cover them with?

Reskin them to blend in. The cave statics look like they blend relatively well, so you dont even have to go and make your own texture for it. Problem solved, another load of statics you can use on the map.