Looking for a Deserted Map

[Horner]

Title says it, I'm looking for a map, a project if you will, that you have deserted. Or given up on. I would like to make a really nice map with custom buildings, etc. but I've always had troubles with the terrain making and with the satellite images and such. So I'm looking for a map that someone has started but you aren't going to finish. I'm not picky, any map will do really. I will give you COMPLETE credit for the map source. Thanks ahead of time

[Bushlurker]

Hi Horner...

You do realise that in order to work on any terrain, even one scrounged off someone else, you're probably gonna have to bite the bullet and learn a little terrain-stuff anyway? Plus you're going to have to install and set up the tools suite and at least nominally get to grips with Visitor....?

Assuming you're prepared to do that, then a good place to start might be This Tutorial...

Sure, the mask and sat making aspect is a little tricky, but there's other things involved as well.... clutter and surface textures, config files... you'll need to know at least the basics - where the files go, roughly what they do, and what minimum bits you need to change to make a terrain - even a ready-made one, your own "personal project"...

That tutorial covers precisely that!
It should hopefully ease you past the tools install, and then there's a complete Arrowhead-compatible "Afghan-style" terrain project to play with...

The tutorial takes the approach of walking you through all the files associated with that project - renaming or repathing the stuff that needs renamed or repathed.....

At the end - you should have a completely personalised and renamed Afghan terrain of your own...

With any "2nd hand project", you'd need to do this process anyway...

Problem is - at the end of the tutorial, you'll have your own terrain allright, but it'll be just the same as everybody elses "renamed Afghan Valley"...

At this point, since you want a unique terrain, you could pull a simple trick to make your "Afghan Valley" completely different from everyone elses....

Assuming you have an art package like Gimp or Photoshop, etc.....

*Find the Sat_lco.png file
*Load it into the graphics package
*"Flip horizontal"
*Flip Vertical"

...save the file (not "save as" - just "save" - that should keep things in the same and correct format).

Do the same with the "Mask_lco.png" AND the "AfghanValley.png" in the source\terrain folder

Then go back to your Visitor project and

*reimport heightmap
*reimport sat & mask

That should give you a fully working, but completely different terrain...
It's a cheap trick, but works pretty well...

If in the future you decide to have a proper go at something a little more unique, you could pick one of These Free Heightmaps

They're designed to be "plug-n-play" with the tutorial project files - the only other files you'd need would be those tricky Sat & Mask files

Of course, by then you'd be much more confident about grabbing a free 3 month demo of L3DT Pro, feeding it your choice of heightmap, picking a "climate" and autogenerating a basic working Sat & Mask set.....

Grab the tutorial anyway - if nothing else it's handy as a "where the hell does this file go?" lookup guide...


Have fun!



B

[Horner]

I was afraid you were going to say that haha. I've been sticking strictly to scripting for like the past year. And about a couple months ago started to model for oxygen and was just gonna work off something someone was about to give up on just so it wouldn't go to waste. Thanks for all the helpful info and hopefully I can get the hang of it lol. I've used wilbur before but never really got a chance to get good with it. All the tutorials I found online seemed difficult for me to follow, but I'll give it a shot. Thanks again!

[[APS]Gnat]

... All the tutorials I found online seemed difficult for me to follow ....

LOL sorry, thats a funny statement when made in the Terrain makers sub-forum ..... !
There is little to nothing thats more difficult and sooo time consuming than a terrain ......
Maybe visiting the in-laws .....

But don't let that put you off, plenty of people have turned it into a real Art.

[Robster]

try something tiny, beautiful and detailed ... I suggest 4x4 kms max... if you can handle that, perhaps you can do more with less... anyways, there are plenty of empty maps to start with already... and try to come with something similar to none...
it's not bad if you put some passion on it, and then you may get some remarkable stuff

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/61945206/ar...0-28-58-43.jpg

This desert map is an alpha version intended to be an ArmA: Project Reality PVP Map

saludos!