Is this a converted stock Crysis map? Early on, I tried converting a few and didn't have much luck.
Oh, definately not lol.. once u have a chance to have a look around the map you'll see all my nasty coverups/unfinsihed messes lol
I used GeoControl2 to generate the heightmap semi-randomly, and then opened it up with the sandbox2 tools, flattened areas, raised/lowered mountains etc.
It does look a little "stock crysis" though I agree, as I took their multiplayer "Beach" map's colour palette.. its only in the colours really... I dont think it's very "crysis-ish" myself though in anything beyond basic colour pallette. Lots of wide open areas for mech battles as opposed to little closed off "people only" play areas, though there are a few areas where BA's will excel(done deliberately). I deliberately arranged the terrain to try and minimize the current "lets all take missile boats" playstyle aswell(its quite prevelant on public servers to narc/arrow barrage for a whole game)though there are plenty of places where long-range combat can take place, there are also plenty of places to jump to avoid the lrm barrages and arrowIV's.
I hoping that as work progresses on this map it will look less and less "crysis-like" and more like a lightly forrested mountain range with industrial areas dotting it.
Are the trees placed as brushes or are you using the Crysis/MWLL destructible assets?
No, I have a mixture of different trees in there for performance reasons.. forests usually are performance killers I agree. I did think about having destructible trees in there, but the number of physics objects required would have just been unfeasable for this map. I may still add a few into select areas of the map, but its unlikely that there will be many.
Also, first let me say that I get no performance issues at all anywhere on the map from the foliage or (limited)particles or ambient sounds, I ran around the whole thing with my client's settings all on high(6xAA) and it had playable framerates, never under 30 (my system is at the low end of being able to run crysis on all max settings).. I also jumped in a tank to make sure it could get up most of the inclines on the map.
The majority of the trees are in 2 flavours.. what I have called "background trees" and "detail trees".. The background trees have no collision/physics, mechs can run right thru em and they dont hamper movement at all, just visibility. The detail trees are more what we see in other mwll maps, they are the trees that have collision and stop projectiles, annoy tank drivers etc etc.. lol
Most of the trees on the map are of the background variety, these trees become sprites quicker and have a longer view distance and are much less performance hungry. Detail trees have a much shorter viewing distance, though they also look alot nicer, cast shadows etc. I have used the detail trees to edge other areas of forrestry and in places where by design I wanted the foliage to hamper players movement(very few, but they are there.. along rivers, islands, around buildings(where mechs get stuck anyway lol) and along some edges of background trees to remove the "tiled/copy pasted" look the background foliage has if u get close to it.
It looks great, any chance of an above screen shot of the whole map
Unfortunately, I did try to get a whole map screeny, or even a partial map screeny, but with the forestry, I cannot have the vegetation's view distance being so far for performance reason, along with detail textures on the terrain and brush view distances... basically what it means is that if I did take a whole map screeny, all you would see would be colour textures on the terrain, which looks funny(zoom the minimap to see what I mean).. no detail texture, no brushes, no vegetation, no water or anything. Its kind of deceiving as alot of the brushes on this map add to the layout and look of it.
You can see the limitations of the foliage that I'm referring to in the current screenies. Those screenshots were reduced slightly from their original size, its just not polite to post 20+mb each HD images in a forum lol, so the background detail wont be quite as sharp as it originally was. If you have a look at the background portions of those screenies, you will be able to notice that the foliage detail begins to disappear after a fairly short distance. The IS oupost shot is a good example as it also shows decals disappearing to the same effect. All you can see of that outpost in the screenshot is the LOD mechhanger, a couple of low-LOD brushes and distance colour textures(the vertex colour basically, no detail textures). If you actually spawn into and drive a mech out of that hanger, it's ALOT more detailed, with decals breaking up the ground textures and more "ground vegetation" foliage surrounding it, along with grasses and some animals..
If you really want to have a look at the layout.. the DDS file called "minimap.dds" in the SA_StarLeagueCache folder should give you a fairly good idea of the basic layout.
Speaking of the layout, I do believe the terrain around the bases may need to be tweaked a little further, to prevent it being either too easy or to hard too take out the turrets and assault/camp the bases themselves. I know of a couple of locations that present attackers with an "iffy" advantage to snipe into bases(being addressed and balanced), though the hangers themselves are well protected.. there should be no issues of being missile barrage locked into your bases due to the number and placement of the lams. A single catapault or vulture lrm boat will not be able to land a single missile, lams will take them all out, though groups of missile throwers can get a few through the lams cover if they are coordinated about it. Sniping into bases may be a small issue(mainly for the clan main base), but can be resolved with a few terrain tweaks and some extra brush placement for cover.
[EDIT - Here are some screenshot's with Mechs for scale judging purposes.. sorry forgot 'em before]
Screenshots with Mechs for Scaling Purposes(ignore the slightly patchy look, its from sandbox taking screenshots at high zoom levels)
ATLAS in Industrial complex
LOKI on the IS Main Base
AWESOME enjoying the peace and quiet....
MADCAT framed in the tunnel exit
