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bushlurker

Carraigdubh, County Leitrim. - A 5x5km Geotypical Irish Terrain

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Lovely little terrain you got there!

Did some location scouting in a little bird and found some of the smaller hills to be very landing unfriendly. It appeared as though the skids would sink into the edge of hilltops, immediately damaging the chopper.

Here´s two places where it happened, i guess it´s the same for most of the other small hills aswell.

th_terraingridkillschopper1.jpg th_terraingridkillschopper2.jpg

th_terraingridkillschopper3.jpg th_terraingridkillschopper4.jpg

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Hi Guys!

Thanks for all the kind comments!

Firstly, apologies all round for... eeeh.... just how many things did I screw up?

Dodgy picture, dodgy link, dodgy mission, essential info missing from release post..... :o

My excuse is that I vastly underestimated "finishing off time" and of course ended up being awake for about 30 hours+ getting things together in time for St Paddy... by the time it came to writing the release thread I was functioning almost entirely on autopilot - never a good idea!

Oh well... on with the show!

Roadside Bollards...

Yeah - they're everywhere... I might thin them out a little for the final release.

The pub is shut!

.. and so are all the other shops!... Indeed! It's a simple "generic shopfront" model, really just designed to give the impression of a row of little shops... perhaps when I've expanded my modelling skills a little things will get more elaborate...

The shop textures are occasionally a little low-res, and in some cases pretty inappropriate too... A couple are merely placeholders, originally designed for my Scotland map, they're just filling the gaps until I source a few more decent hi-res pictures of proper Irish shops...

(The "mini market" is actually my little local shop here in Glasgow, the post office is actually an English one! - from Cranbourne in Dorset, the chipshop has wildly contradictory prices, etc etc)...

Most of the shop signs are currently missing too... I'll have those in place for the final version, of course - once I think of a few typical and/or amusing names.

In fact - if anybody reading is actually IN Ireland, has a halfway adequate digital camera and would like to help out with a few photographs - please feel free to PM me!

Will you be making the terrain larger/flatter/radically different?

Probably not... Mondkalb's forthcoming Celle 2 promises to be a tankies paradise with lots of level fields in the classic German style... that wasn't the purpose of this environment... quite the opposite in fact. This landscape is primarily geared towards footslogging grunts-type gameplay. The field systems with hedges and roadside walls effectively negate most of the advantages of long-range weapons, most of the time, while providing good cover and camouflage (woodland camo actually works! especially in a PvP situation!)...

The AI crash into walls and get stuck on narrow roads - so do I sometimes! Will you change that?

Again - probably not. These narrow singletrack roads with "drystane dykes" on either side are a distinctive feature of the realworld area. Cars and, in particular, tourist coaches often get stuck in corners (and provide a useful extra income during the summer months for local garage owners with tow-trucks!).

Most of these roads were laid down centuries ago, along with the field systems themselves. Again, this is a feature of the realworld area which has been incorporated in this simulated landscape... if you look closely, you'll see that the roads basically fall into two categories...

"Main" or modern roads often cut directly across field patterns - you'll see the "field shape" continue on the other side of these roads... in other words - the fields came first, and the newer roads disregard the original boundaries in their haste to get from A to B.

In contrast, the "older" and smaller roads tend to wind a lot, with quite a few twists and turns as they follow the boundaries of the fields...

In general, anything bigger than a standard civilian car or a landrover is going to have occasional bumps, especially on the singletrack roads... Generally speaking, they weren't designed for armoured vehicles...

So this is a Beta... will there be a Final Version?

Definitely! So far there's been no horrendous or game-breaking bugs reported - thankfully! If that continues to be the case, I'll probably skip an interim v0.9 and move directly to a final v1.0 some time in the relatively near future... I'd like to expand the smaller villages a little, add another small "town" the size of Ballybrian (with more shops & pubs of course), and add a few more outlying farms, sheepfolds, cowsheds, etc. Although this is primarily a pasture-based area with the emphasis on "animal farming", a few "planted" fields wouldn't go amiss either...

Will you be adding a.....

1: Border line on the map... Probably not - I'll leave that to missionmakers to decide I think...

2: a GAA pitch/club house... Maybe! Good Idea!.... Maybe near the new "town" when it's built....

I got error messages with startparameter -showScriptErrors in the island Intro

Yeah, noticed that error myself... I've been tinkering with Tupolov's random intro script while not really knowing what I was doing - as usual... :o

It's not a gamebreaking error so I let it go for now, though I'll of course attempt to tidy that for the final version...

Thanks for reporting it though!!! It's precisely these sort of reports that make releasing a Beta worthwhile!

Guess that's all for now..... more news when I have some additions to actually talk about!

*edit*

@ Mr Burns

Hmmm... that's weird!

I wonder what could be causing that? I'll have a little go myself...

Some of the little drumlins are a little angular here and there - despite the relatively small 5m grid size, they're tricky landdscape features to model on such a small scale...

I'll take a look and see if I can figure out what's going on... I must admit I didn't do much testing with aircraft on this one - footslogging and landrovers mostly...

B

Edited by Bushlurker

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@ Burns: In all honestly, that's a horrid place to land anyway, it's WAY too steep. ;)

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hrhr, it was the one place that drew me in to take a look on foot!

I´m sure people could live without landing on top of those drumlins (new word learned yay), point of my post rather was pointing out another funny in the arma engine than making a fuss about it :D

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Your "obsession with landscape & natural environment modelling" really pays dividends. IMHO ArmA 2's rendering of terrain at middle distances is one of its weakest points (tends to look like OFP) and the care you take over blending nearby clutter with middle distance textures and the satmap really helps negate that. Sexy map, makes me want to make missions again.

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Fantastic map and I agree with Defunkt absolutely wonderful graphics :)

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thanks for the reply bush :)

would love to see a GAA pitch :D as for the roads they are pretty real...many hours spend on those type of roads(and some hairy moments)

had a good firefight with IDF against IRA in the fields, its really tricky to see them through the bushes(not for the AI though)

i think the tech the IDF had made the difference :D

cant stop playing this map, i love it

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Do the bushes actually have no viewblock?

Edit: For the record, I have only found one shrub without viewblock, and it's a scraggly, transparent things anyways. AI seems to behave honestly in those awesome hedgerows. As with many usermade bushes, there are likely to be some inaccuracies, but so long as you stick to thickest area, you should be fine.

I will say, beware prone AI. They are likely to stick their barrels through those thin little branches. This is only likely to be unfair at longer ranges.

This is looking like a perfect all-around map. Great for infantry, tanks, even sneaky choppers perhaps. I44 should use this map, as its hedgerows are far better than theirs.

Edited by maturin

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All trees and bushes are standard (retextured) Arma 2 models - except for the higher moorland "gorse bush" which is from OA... Contrary to popular belief, they DO all have the full set of LODS, including viewblock...

However - in most cases, the View Geometry is a bit simpler than the full model geometry we players see... I'm pretty sure that's a Engine compromise - if the AI "vision" had to process the same complexity we humans do the game would slow to a crawl...

Generally speaking, the centre of the bush is "dense" - you can't walk through it, you can't see through it, and though you can shoot through it, a "penetration factor" IS involved - that's the View Geo and the Fire Geo LODS at work, and they apply to the AI too...

Where it's different for humans and AI however is at the "outer fringes" of the bush... you CAN walk through it, you CAN shoot through it, but you still CAN'T see through it - you're seeing the "Visible LOD". Whereas the AI are only really seeing that denser "core" bush "ViewGeo" LOD - they can see you thru the edges sometimes - particularly if you move..

B

Edited by Bushlurker

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With the ArmA foliage, even the less dense outer fringes can block AI vision at times, and the viewblock models are surprisingly complex. And this map is proof that it works. It's one of those environments that's going to practically guarantee you the best gameplay the series has to offer. The simplest firefight is just great in those hedgerows. They even make the AI look smarter than they really are.

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Was just reading your plans and the same thing was exactly on my mind. Stick in a few barns an stuff and outlying farms. Nothing massive like, but it adds to mission scope vastly.

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very beautiful map Bushlurker, thank you! :D

even with missions! :yay: thx Wolle, thats a big plus!

however ur godlike seeding hands gave life to a bush on the road in grid 038026, please have mercy with the herbal soul and move it to a save place. some nasty russian tanks, or drunken arma players, or to fast-driving, halfblind grannies, or arma players in a hurry might drive over it ;)

Edited by RunForrest

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Juat to fire it in I know its Down south but have you thought about a bessbroke mill type spot for op in the area and a few golf and romeo towers about the place ? As I said I realise that this is down south and not Norn Iron like, but it would fit into the environment.

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First off absolutely stunning work. Finally a island maker who actually addresses the weakness of the virtual reality engine and does things to help smooth the corners of the ARMA experience. As a mission maker I can tell you my heart soared as I explored the map and found nearly every square meter readily available for making great missions. Your focus on realism and terrain is evident and does so much to make the map more useful and enjoyable. In particular your use of clutter objects and trees/bushes instead of grass to add detail is something that I have rarely seen yet makes such a huge difference in the final product combined with the micro terrain it makes the lowlands particularly playable. In addition your towns are by far the best I have ever seen in an ARMA island Ballybrian is pretty much perfect ARMA town the detail in the small gardens and other objects around the shops makes it infinitely more usable and enjoyable if the block of one story houses on the south were enterable it would be perfect.

As far as things to improve personally I would get rid of one or two of the large hills and add in more bocage with another Ballybrain sized town or two ;) . A more realistic suggestion... the NE corner of the map is a little sparse I think adding in some hedgerows and another Ballybrain sized town up there would be nice. Also the bushes with the white flowers you use on the hills render very strangely at range they turn into white blocks you might want to consider using a different bush model. Other than that looking great!

Hi Guys!

Roadside Bollards...

Yeah - they're everywhere... I might thin them out a little for the final release.

For the love of god don't! These must stay they are integral to what makes this map so good.

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Hi m8

Fantastic map - spent a few mins flying over in a Wildcat and it reminded me of the original Ghost Recon maps. It really captured the sense of the emerald isle and looks realistic - took me back to time in both the North and South.

I actually thought one of the castles is ripe for conversion to a base in bandit country with it's commanding views over the map and would be perfect for some challenging IRA style missions. That and eating sausige and chips in the Ballybrain cafe.

Great work, well done.

cj

Edited by cjph

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Some odd characters living in that house by the lake! Down with this sort of thing!

shotscreen01.th.jpg

Edited by PELHAM

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Hi, is anyone else having problems with the server keys? I am assuming they are V2, but it's failing the key check when I try and join my dedi with this island.

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Could well be my fault Jedra...

The final stages were all a bit rushed to get things ready for St Paddys...

I suspect the .bisign files may be V1 whereas the ServerKey is definitely V2...

Please check your PM box for a test set of ServerKey (same as current one), and a pair of .bisign files (freshly generated and definitely V2)... if these work then I screwed up the signing, rather than the serverkey, which doesn't change from addon to addon...

Please let me know how you get on with those files... if it solves your problem I'll amend and apologise in the first post...

B

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Sent you a PM mate - keys are good now! No apologies necessary - I'm buggered if I can ever remember where I put my private key!

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Good job Bushlurker. Tested the map out and it plays nicely. I see that you used a grass that doesn't cause any massive slowdowns ;)

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