New map appreciation thread

[Mikey]

Thanks alot! the map is great alot of details and i like the mixed trees.

 

hopefully a summer map is being planned or worked on

[SCG_Neun]

Looking so darn good guys!  Thanks for all the hard work.

[No601_Swallow]

Ditto all. The map is brilliant.

 

I spent an hour or two yesterday reading for the first time about the battle of Velikiye Luki, so thank you also for "teaching" me something. The battle reads like an epic poem or a novel - thrilling, astonishing, devastating, tragic. 

 

From the little I read, the Germans had fortified the town very carefully, including a "citadel" in the west and the railway station. I'm amazed by all the wonderful new objects in the map, but can I ask if, when that part of the map is ready, if any of the fortifications (or modifications) of the town of Velikiye Luki will be visible from the air?

 

(I honestly don't know how visible these sorts of fortifications would have been from the air. Perhaps nothing would have been visible to low level pilots, but I thought I would ask!) 

Edited August 26, 2014 by No601_Swallow

[MarcoRossolini]

It's great.

 

I in particular love the woods and trees, such a nice change from Stalingrad.

 

Am I correct in guessing that there's more to come? I got that impression from the patch notes...

[zeus--]

From the little I read, the Germans had fortified the town very carefully, including a "citadel" in the west and the railway station. I'm amazed by all the wonderful new objects in the map, but can I ask if, when that part of the map is ready, if any of the fortifications (or modifications) of the town of Velikiye Luki will be visible from the air?

 

Velikie Luki in the work now. But yes, we have created a most of unique and large buildings and structures (all destroyable). Fortress, the city center, the main factories, railway station, locomotive depot, etc.

 

 

All screens are WiP.

 

Here is plan of VL city ingame:

 

And here is original german plan of city:

 

PS. And thanks for all this good reviews! It is very important to us and gives the much effort to go on

Edited August 26, 2014 by zeus--

[No601_Swallow]

 Fantastic work! A real "Labour of love".

[Talisman]

This just gets better and better )  Very much looking forward to the formal release of BoS.  Thanks for such a well managed early access programme.

[LLv34_Flanker]

S!

 

 Map is first class.

[PA-Sniv]

The test map is great! Can't wait to fly the full one!

Thumbs up Zeus and team!

[-=PHX=-Satch]

Any clue about next Project Zeus?

 

Really outstanding work team!

Edited August 26, 2014 by Satchenko

[zeus--]

Any clue about next Project Zeus?

 

I already hate white colour!!! But first of all we must finish the "Battle for Velikie Luki" map

[ACG_Flyby]

Please accept my thanks for your gameplay-expanding map-making efforts. So much more to explore in this rising sim.

Flyby out

[-=PHX=-Satch]

zeus--, on 26 Aug 2014 - 13:17, said:

I already hate white colour!!!

 

Yes yes yes... please Zeus! THIS SIM with a map free of snow... wow...

 

[PantsPilot]

Amazing attention to detail from the map-makers, thanks and keep up the good work.

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

Nevel looks kind of nice, where's the pub?

[HagarTheHorrible]

A couple of things, amongst many, that I like about the map are the trees and the trees.  Firstly, down low, they add a sense of speed, and secondly they make an engine out a real hazard, unlike say in RoF in particular where an engine faliure is of little consequence.  Here, on this map, a decision has to be made, should I stay or should I go  (Don't you just love The Clash ?) or you have to get really good at picking and fitting into an open space.

Edited August 26, 2014 by HagarTheHorrible

[SYN_Vander]

Great work guys!!!!

[Matt]

Despite the relatively small size, i actually prefer flying over it than the Stalingrad map. It just looks fantastic.

 

I think there's a lot of potential for community made maps in general for BoS, as long as their quality is as good as this.

[Rama]

I think there's a lot of potential for community made maps in general for BoS, as long as their quality is as good as this.

Potential is there..... but for dedicated design teams not afraid by an heavy work load on an extensive period.

Lone designers will not succeed.

[Pharoah]

I still would like a non-winter map. Russia is a beautiful country - not as 'patchworky' as say England with all the little fields, but big and beautiful....would love to see this in BOS.

[15[Span.]/JG51Costa]

[clayman]

What a sight. I am particularly hopeful this is a bit of what the future may hold. Again.... thanks a lot guys   

[Elbows]

Excellent map.  Like everyone I'll anxiously await the non-winter maps as well.  No rush though.  I was hoping the RoF "three seasons" option might show up here (winter, fall/autumn, and summer/spring).  The new map is a joy - also for smaller missions the smaller maps help with FPS and keeping everything tight and deadly.

 

Tough finding an airstrip in the trees though!

[Freycinet]

Zeus and team, thank you so much for the map! I haven't tried it due to holidays yet but from what I hear it is a crowd favourite.

 

It would be great if there were more teams than just yours to turn out user maps. Can you tell us something about the 'barriers to entry'? Would a talented team just have to contact 777 Studios or was it necessary to know them personally beforehand? What programming knowledge and what programs would a team need?

 

Another question: is it very hard to transform one of the present winter maps into a spring/summer/autumn map? Or should it be doable for much less work than a completely new map?

 

Thank you again Zeus, and thanks for the beautiful map, a true Athena born from your forehead :-)

[Rama]

Zeus asked my to give you some answers, so I'll try

It would be great if there were more teams than just yours to turn out user maps. Can you tell us something about the 'barriers to entry'? Would a talented team just have to contact 777 Studios or was it necessary to know them personally beforehand? What programming knowledge and what programs would a team need?

To finalize a map work, a talented team has to contact 1CGS , since in order to test the map in game, the height map should be on the main server and the team members authorised to use the map.

But a team may before that do some map work and viualize it with the RoF editor (and/or with the BoS editor when it will be available). It could be usefull to show something.

I don't know what more should be needed to get 1CGS Ok.

The Tools to be used are various. A GIS with some image processing capabilities could be a great help for the base maps (height, water, forest, roads and railroars, etc...), even if Photoshop can do the work (but with more dificulties and time). Photoshop is really needed for textures creation and texture placement. A 3D editor software is needed to create the buildings and other 3D objects (and 3DS Max 8 has to be used at least to convert the buildings/objects in game format with the 3D Object SDK plugin). Some extra Tools have also to be used like Ankor85's map editor and the mission editor. Other tools can be used as well at the team convenience.

The first thing is probably to understand the file formats and structure of a map. It can be done with existing RoF maps (BoS maps are a bit different, but the overall structure is the same), with the help of peoples that have worked with them (for exemple the peoples that developped RoF maps or RoF map mods, or the zeus's team).

 

So I would say that a talented team would have first to spend some time modding an existing RoF map in order to learn the process, At the same time they should gather all information they could get on the map structure, and on the map they want to create (retreiving height datas and historical topomaps, pictures of historical 3D buildings and objects, etc...). Then they could build a project and contact 1CGS.

 

Another question: is it very hard to transform one of the present winter maps into a spring/summer/autumn map? Or should it be doable for much less work than a completely new map?

It's certainly less work than a completely new map. It's still a lot of work (all texture to redo, including map and buildings/3D objects textures. A new set of trees should also be created).

[zeus--]

 

 

Zeus asked my to give you some answers, so I'll try

 

Thanks a lot

[FlatSpinMan]

Well that sounds easy enough, Rama. Think I'll make all of Burma tomorrow for a Flying Tigers add on.

But seriously, there's tons of smart map makers amongst the community, so organise and get on it!!!

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

FlatSpinMan, I beliebe this is a place to start:

 

http://riseofflight.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=348&t=40233&sid=2445c354637552d89eb39ad549c89e7b

[RDW]

I already hate white colour!!! But first of all we must finish the "Battle for Velikie Luki" map

 

SUMMER MAP! FIST PUMP!

[Freycinet]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply.

[FuriousMeow]

Bit of a bump - hopefully Zeus notices this, I'm not sure where to report bugs with his map since he made it and there isn't a topic in bug reports for the other map. Here's a screenshot from the Novo map around the Nasva airfield. A Pe-2 crashed into a forest, and when moving the mouse around I saw some strange blurring. It looked like the effect around the fires. There is other blurring from the intended blur effect, but this is something not intended to be there. It only is visible when moving the mouse. It doesn't even look like that when moving the mouse in game, it's more solid and less repeating - but all I had at the time were screenshots. Hopefully it helps, and if there is a place for this map to have bugs reported that zeus will see please let me know.

 

Here's one screenshot, I have more.

 

It's like one of those horror movies where certain things are blurred out in a video and if you see them, bad stuff is about to happen.

 

Edited September 9, 2014 by FuriousMeow

[zeus--]

I have never seen this effect Seems like not bug in map exactly, but I will try check it Tnx!

[EAF_Paf]

Rama summed it up pretty nicely.

Also for a new map there are various factors that can multiply the workload by much:

How big is the map?

How densely populated is the region you want to map?

How much use of generic cities/villages and costum made ones? (This includes extra textures, treelayout...)

Do you need new 3d objects?

Do you need new landscape textures or do you plan to reuse the ingame ones? (This alone is quite a big task!)

 

I started to add just little villages and airfields to the ROF Mainmap 2 years ago, and this alone took me much time :D

Though I think there should be much more talented and experienced modders out here .

[Juri_JS]

.....A GIS with some image processing capabilities could be a great help for the base maps (height, water, forest, roads and railroars, etc...),....

Is there any GIS you would recommend?

[Rama]

Is there any GIS you would recommend?

QGIS (with GRASS pluggin) works... and has the nice feature to be free....